an Easter Birthday

With a day off from school on Friday, Easter/birthday weekend started early!

Jake celebrated with his friends on Thursday night with a "sleepover", pizza, pop, ice cream cake, shinny hockey, movies, video games...

A fun tradition we started in our family years ago is to let the birthday person choose a special dinner, either going out or one cooked at home.

Because Jake's birthday was on Easter this year, we celebrated his birthday dinner a day early and he chose take-out from Buffalo Wild Wings.

This year we were lucky enough to host Easter dinner at our house.

I spent much of the weekend in my kitchen cooking and baking (and channelling the Pioneer Woman wearing my PW t-shirt). I made some little bunny cakes that turned out pretty cute. I haven't done too much cake decorating in the past few years, so it was kind of fun to pull out my decorating supplies and do some creating.

Easter morning the boys were up at the crack of...10am. And that was only because the birthday boy had set his alarm. (And yes, the bunny still brings baskets to my big boys! :)

Making the Gruyere-fennel potatoes.

And a birthday cake.

{Jake's request was his favorite 'Jello Poke Cake'.}

Easter dinner buffet: ham, potatoes, asparagus, green bean casserole, salad, raspberry jello salad and rolls.

A birthday song and cake.

Me and my sister's kids: ages 19 all the way down to 3 months old. :)

A family Easter picture.

One of my favorite Easter memories from childhood is watching Wizard of Oz. This movie was only on once a year- on Easter. (And this was the time before DVR or DVD or even VHS, so if you missed the movie you would have to wait an entire year for the chance to watch it again.) 

Our whole family would settle in front of the TV with our Easter baskets and watch the movie.

I remember looking forward to this for weeks, so I was so excited to see that it was on this year on Easter!
(And yes, I even got a surprise basket this year which had some great treats in it like an Itunes gift card, a Starbucks gift card, and my favorite Cadbury eggs!)

It was a great Easter and a very special Easter 16th birthday for my Jake!