Hello Friends!

How are all of you doing this fine Easter Sunday afternoon? I just finished the funnest, biggest, and busiest Easter Weekend Ever! I’ll tell you all about it.

Friday afternoon (4pm) our two oldest grandchildren came to sleep over, they are seven and six. We took them to A Wrinkle in Time (which btw, is a super boring movie….boring at the beginning and hard to understand, boring and odd, boring, and then terribly horrifying (our granddaughter was cowering in her seat and I could hear other children in the theatre crying-we almost left) and then it was odd/weird boring ending??? I wished we had taken them to something else.

We recovered the joy of the evening by painting 36 eggs that I had boiled previous to the disastrous movie event (we had paint and eggs and all kinds of crazy in my kitchen!) I made quite a few funny videos and will post a couple, they just crack me up. So by the time we were done painting eggs, it was (i’m sorry to say about 10pm) and the kiddies were still wired (it must have been the 28 oz slurpee we bought them at the theatre?? Let me tell you, that sugar lasts foreverrrrrr…..

It was somewhat difficult to get them to switch gears to sleep but eventually they did around midnight and up again at 7am! (I don’t have nearly that much energy, wish I did) LOL

Then we spent the early part of the day playing and listening to General Conference. Sometimes the children listened and sometimes they played, that’s normal 😉

At four pm, the rest of my children and grandchildren (the two- three year olds-missing the children and grandchildren out of state) came over for my two youngest children’s March birthday celebrations. Their birthdays are so close together, now that they’re adults we combine the celebration (they’ve said they don’t mind). I had made a chocolate cheesecake that morning to top it all off. We had a great time talking and laughing. The grandchildren enjoyed the great weather on Saturday, seriously a beautiful day.

FUDGE TRUFFLE CHEESECAKE (from Hershey’s recipe book)

CHOCOLATE CRUMB CRUST (RECIPE FOLLOWS)

2 cups (12 oz package) Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips

3 packages cream cheese, softened (8 oz each)

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

4 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Prepare chocolate crumb crust. Heat oven to 300
2. Place chocolate chips in microwave safe bow. Microwave at high (100%) 1 1/2 minutes; stir. If necessary, microwave at high an additional 15 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating just until chips are melted when stirred. 
3. Beat cream cheese in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually beat in sweetened condensed milk until smooth. Add melted chips, eggs, and vanilla; mix well Pour into prepared crust.
4. Bake 1 hour and 5 minutes or until center is set. Remove from oven to wire rack. With knife, loosen cake from side of pan. Cool completely; remove side of pan. Refrigerate several hours before serving. Cover; refrigerate leftover cheesecake. (makes 10 to 12 servings).

Chocolate Crumb Crust: Stir together 1 1/2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1/3 cup cocoa, 1/3 cup melted butter in bowl. Press firmly onto bottom of 9 inch springform pan. 

Then today everyone came over again and we had Easter/General Conference brunch (we always make a big breakfast with specialty hash browns, tons of bacon, monkey bread -Rhodes rolls in a bundt pan with special carmely sauce- fried or scrambled eggs and juice) and sit down and watch conference. When everyone is done eating, we commence playing Bingo (laminated bingo boards with gospel ideas on each square-playing pieces are M&M’s) and when each person gets a Bingo, I’ve purchased dollar store prizes to promote listening to the speakers.

I’ve done this Bingo since my children were young, they always seemed to love it (I think the best prize we ever got was “Fart Putty” that we found in the dollar section of Target-it’s this silly putty type of stuff in a little plastic toilet and when a person sticks their finger in, it makes a farty sound)! You’ve never seen adults laugh so hard for so long. I’ve never found anything yet that was a bigger hit. A couple of years ago, I thought everyone was too old for Bingo and tried to do away with it, you’d think I cancelled Christmas there was such a protest! I guess it’s one of those family traditions that everyone has come to love.

During sessions of conference today we played a game my son owns, it’s called “Sequence” and is super fun. Our family loves to play games together, we are pretty competitive and the outcomes are usually hilarious especially with spoons, UNO, and Phase 10. We’ve always played games from the time they were little until now including the grandchildren; the 7 and 6 year old are great UNO players 😉

It was somewhat unusual to have the birthday dinner, grandchildren sleep over, General Conference Bingo and Easter all in one weekend but that’s how it happened and I think everyone had such a fun time. I’ll share some pictures below, I hope all of you had a wonderful Easter weekend. For me, it’s all about family  (LOVE)