do you believe in the easter bunny?!

Yep.  I'm that cheesey.  I'm gonna blog about our first holiday together as man and wifey.

It was EASTER!! 

Big surprise, I know.  Anyway...  John does NOT believe in the Easter Bunny.  I was very upset when I learned that.  It almost made me rethink this whole eternity thing - KIDDING! 

But I was really bummed out.  Easter has always been really fun at my house.  Thanks to my mom and her killer basket-hiding skills [that year with the string? genius!]  So I wanted to do something special for John to get him into the whole Pagan-y side of the holiday.  It only kind-of worked.  I'm not as awesome as my mom is - YET! 

I pretty much forgot it was Easter until Saturday, and then I was too lazy to go to Walmart during the day [and I didn't want John to come with me so it would all be a surprise] so I went after he left for work.  BAD IDEA.  Living in a town with one Walmart and waiting to do holiday shopping until 10pm the night before is not a good recipe.  There were people everywhere and the shelves were ridiculously bare  :(  But I managed to find a few tasty treats and a small basket to fill up for John. 

Then! the Easter Bunny showed up and gave me a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to add to the basket and told me that John could have a new pair of brown dress shoes too, but we'd have to go shopping for them ourselves since he was so busy that night, what with all the egg hiding and basket delivering and posing for chocolate sculptures...

Anyway - John got home before I could finish the basket and I tried to hold him off until morning but how was I supposed to say "No, you cannot come into the living room and snuggle with me after a long night of work because I am busy creating a treat for you that you can't have for another six hours"??!  I just couldn't do it.  So he immediately tore into all the candy and treats and I finished making a little banner for the wall and then we went to bed before the sugar coma could get us.

that's the banner - nothing special.  just to make John believe!

It was a really nice time, but it would have been better if I'd finished before John got home so I could have hidden the basket and put all the decorations up while he was sleeping so it really looked like the Easter Bunny came during the night to do everything instead of just stopping by like he did...

When we woke up on Sunday morning we had to get ready for our first day in our new ward.  It was really exciting - until we got there and it was 10 minutes early and we couldn't figure out where to go.  Apparently there are 4 wards in our building that meet at the same time and nothing is really marked of where you should go, so we wandered around and then I finally asked some people with a cute baby and they were in our ward so we just followed them.  And then I found five dollars.

Church was really nice.  We went to the new member's class to meet all the other new people in the ward and some of the important figures [Bishop, Exec. Secretary, RS Pres. etc]  and there are a lot of really neat couples in the ward so we're really excited!  There was a special musical program during Sacrament and it was really beautiful and spiritually moving and a great way to remember that Easter isn't ALL about candy and bunnies.  I also colored a picture.

After church we came home and took a nap  :)  Then it was time for me to get dinner started.  We had ribs and corn on the cob.  I'd marinated the ribs the night before - it was SO GROSS cutting them up and squishing them in the barbecue juice...

blec.

 

 

They started to look a little tastier as they cooked...

this is about 20 min. before they were done.  so juicy and delicious!

i don't have a beautiful platter for meaty things... but this is Easter dinner!

I'm not a professional-enough chef to make more than two things at each meal - and we're lucky if I get both of them done at the same time!  We had to microwave the corn because it had cooled down too much by the time the ribs were ready...  I really should have taken the ribs out sooner because they were just a little dry.  I cut the recipe in half, so I think next time I make these I'll make more marinade and cook them a little less...  if we die of food poisoning you'll know why!

For dessert I made SHMEEPS!!  They're smores.  With peeps!!!  I love peeps.  They're my absolute FAVORITE way to eat sugar.  Think about it... they're basically sticky whipped sugar covered in sparkly PINK sugar shaped like snuggly chicks and bunnies.  What could be more delicious?!!?!?!

they start out life like this...

and then you SMOOSH them and gobble it up!!  i ate 3.

That pretty much sums-up our Easter.  We read the Easter story - skipping around the different accounts to read our favorite parts - and watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  It was a really great first holiday together and now that I've got John's foot in the door on this whole Easter Bunny/Santa Claus/unicorns thing the next few Pagan holidays should be a blast!!