Easter Breakfast

Katelyn and Matt's (Pinterest inspired) Easter Breakfast. 

Easter Traditions

One tradition my family has had as long as I can remember is an annual family picnic, held the Saturday before Easter. As far as I know, it started with my grandpa Smith. Grandpa worked for Utah Power and Light, so part of his job included maintaining and working on power substations in southern Utah and the surrounding area. Because of his travels on the job, grandpa was good at scouting out remote picnic spots for his family.

The very first picnic I remember was when we went to Beaver Dam (AZ) and had our picnic in a field next to an abandoned motel. Teresa (my sister) and I had a grand time playing in and out of the deserted building as well as in the old, empty swimming pool. It was at that picnic spot where I saw my grandpa eat a raw hamburger patty. Nasty. It’s funny, but I don’t remember the family grilling burgers after that year. Somewhere along the line, each family started bringing their own chicken to the Easter picnic, along with a side dish and/or dessert to share.

Another activity that was added to the picnic tradition when I was a teenager was a treasure hunt, with each family bringing a bag of candy to contribute to the treasure buckets/bags for the kids. My aunt Karen, who’s always been a good sport, would take all of the kids and teenagers on a hike after lunch, while the Easter Bunny prepared clues and a treasure.

One more reason the Easter picnic tradition is important to me is, in 1982, Don and I took advantage of having the entire family together to announce our engagement to be married. 

Here are a few photos from yesterdays festivities...

How to Make THE Best Deviled Eggs

There are a couple of different occasions when our family enjoys eating deviled eggs. The obvious one is Easter and the other, maybe not so obvious, is when sloppy joes are on the menu for dinner. Like peanut butter and jelly, chips and dip or cake and ice cream, deviled eggs and sloppy joes are just two foods that Cody (my son with autism) insists go hand in hand.

There are two key ingredients in my deviled eggs that make them "the best"...

#1- Miracle Whip (along with Mayo) 

You may use any brand of mayonnaise that you'd like, but do not substitute
salad dressing for Miracle Whip. It will not taste as good. Trust me on this.

#2- Sweet Pickle Juice

Any brand of sweet pickles will do. Remember, you are only using the juice.

Deviled Eggs   

14 eggs- hard boiled, cooled and shelled 

1/3 cup Miracle Whip

1/3 cup Mayonnaise

1/2 teaspoon mustard

2 Tablespoons Sweet Pickle juice

1/2 teaspoon salt (no more or they will be too salty)

pepper- dash

yellow food coloring- optional

paprika- for garnish

Remove yolks from hard boiled eggs and place in food processor with all ingredients except paprika. Mix until smooth and fluffy. 

Discard the whites of two eggs, but fill remaining 24 egg halves with  mixture. Garnish with paprika and keep refrigerated. 

I spooned the yolk mixture into the egg whites for quick eating.
However, if you would like to make the eggs look prettier, use your
favorite icing tool and pipe the yolk mixture into the egg whites.

Yields: 2 dozen 

Easter Crack

Remember my recipe for Gooey Chex Mix, i.e. Christmas Crack? (You can find it here.) I decided to jazz up the recipe for Easter by adding some pretty pastel Sixlets...

After cooling, I gently spooned the mix into individual treat bags, using free tags from Smilebox.

I think they turned out kinda cute. 

Happy Easter!

Never a Better Hero

Happy Easter Everyone!

Could It Be That God Loves Broken Things?

Happy Easter.

I Must Confess...I Like to Steal

...ideas, that is.

Look what I made after blog browsing.

The best part is it's perfectly legitimate to copy. Just go to the following link and check out the free printables:

 http://www.lilluna.com/2011/04/holiday-101-thursday-10-awesome-easter.html

Egg Hunt for Visually Impaired Children

When we lived in Oregon years ago, Pacific Northwest Bell use to organize and provide special beeping egg hunts like the one in this video. Cody loved to participate.

Ah...the good old days. I kind of miss them.