easter eve

today is "easter eve".  i'm spending the day doing what i do the day before almost any major holiday...cleaning, preparing, organizing, list-writing, cooking, etc.  just readying our family for the chaos that can come with holidays.  i feel like everyone is much happier going from place to place and missing naps if we are ready and organized ahead of time.  if i attend to all of the details the day before, then i don't have to worry about them in the morning or while running out the door to our first event, or in the car on the way to our second event.  now that i have successfully marked off so many items from the to-do list today, tomorrow morning we can move at a more relaxed pace, savor the moments together while the kids search for eggs, have a leisurely quiet breakfast, and leave the house in a calm, cool and collected manner instead of racing around like chickens with our heads cut off.  thanks to a good long dry spell this morning before the monsoons hit this afternoon, i was able to send the kids outside while michael worked in the garage and the baby napped.  so i had a couple of hours to really tackle the to-do list.  i'm not usually so productive in one morning, but having no children under foot really helped me to stay focused and get stuff accomplished.
here's what i've been up to:
- cooking for easter parties: french onion dip, green bean casserole (recipe to come soon!), sausage & rice casserole, and later i'll put together this super easy pull apart coffee cake from paula deen
- cleaning: i enlisted the help of the children when they came in from playing, and they did a fantastic job picking up around the house
- going through old pictures from easters past (see below)
- making a few notecards (a few of my aunties want to make purchases tomorrow, so i want to be ready!)
- setting out all of the outfits for easter (even ironing a few)
- doing a bit of blogging and cleaning up the photo storage on the computer
and later we will have baths, read books about easter and then bed for the munchkins.  then it will be a quiet evening for mama and dada - filling eggs and watching the king's speech.  heading into easter in a calm and peaceful way.  and tomorrow we will spend the day surrounded by family, hunting for eggs, noshing on delicious grub, and being thankful for all of our blessings.  how will you spend your easter sunday?

happy easter to you and yours!