Easter Fun

We had a nice Easter yesterday. Actually, let me back up a minute. I volunteered to bring a cheesecake and a coconut cake to my parents' house yesterday for Easter, so I spent a lot of time baking on Saturday. My mil came over Saturday morning to drop off some cinnamon rolls. It's a tradition. She brings us rolls every Easter and Christmas. Anyway, I rolled my lazy butt out of bed at 11:00 (thank you for letting me sleep in, Joe!), walked out of my room and saw my mil. Now, in all fairness, I'd been up until after 3:00 am, so the whole 'sleeping until 11:00' really wasn't all that bad. 

Hello there, dear mil.  Good morning.  Yes, I know it's 11:00.  What can I say, your son married a total derelict.

Anyway, my kids couldn't eat the rolls that she brought because they had Splenda and colored sprinkles on them.  Clay was so upset that he couldn't have any and it broke my heart, so stupidhead that I am, I told him I'd make some cinnamon rolls that he could eat.  So, I'm just getting up at 11:00, I have to run to the store and get about a thousand eggs, come home, boil them, and make assorted baked goods.  Good plan, Dawn.

After running errands and getting all the groceries I needed (well, all the groceries I needed minus all the ones I forgot and had to send Joe for...) I came home and boiled the eggs.  I only boiled 48 this year; enough for each kid to dye 8.  (impressive math skills, no?)  I mixed up the cheesecake and popped it in the oven.  Now, if you've never made a cheesecake, it's important to let it cool gradually to help prevent big cracks in the surface of the cake.  When the cheesecake was almost done baking, I asked Austin to turn the oven off for me.  I generally let the cake sit in the oven that's beginning to cool down for about 10 minutes.  Then I open the oven a crack and let it sit there for another 10 minutes before removing it so there isn't a drastic change in temperature.  Anyway, I asked Austin to turn the oven off for me and he obliged.  A few minutes later, I got up to crack the door open and realized that Austin hadn't turned the oven off, but instead had turned the dial the wrong way, so I quickly turned the dial to "off".  About 10 minutes later, Joe walked by the oven, peeked in, and told me that my cake was burnt.

"Whaaat?"  It can't be burnt!  I turned the oven off 10 minutes ago!"

I jumped up to look and sure enough, it was getting burnt.  Austin had turned the oven off just fine and apparently, culinary artist and brilliant scholar that I am, I had turned it on to broil.  So much for that.  I quickly washed the pan and mixed up a second cheesecake.  As that was baking, I made some cinnamon roll dough and set it aside to rise.  A couple hours later, I was mixing up my coconut cake.  Now, I've never made a coconut cake before.  In fact, I'd just pulled the recipe off my computer and had never made a cake quite like this before.  Naturally, I felt the need to try it out, not for just my family, but for everyone on Easter Sunday.  What better time to experiment with a new recipe?

This recipe was so complicated, it was ridiculous.  I mean, I had to grate fresh coconuts for this recipe!  Actually, I gave Savannah the job of grating the coconut.  Unfortunately, she also grated 4 fingers and 2 nails into the mix.  It doesn't matter though because no one ended up eating that cake.  It turned out flat, dense, dry, and well, about as appetizing as a rock.  It tasted like air and had the consistency of 4 month old corn bread.  I tossed the cakes and decided I'd have to make new ones after church on Sunday because I still had cinnamon rolls to make, eggs to dye with the kids, eggs to hide and I wanted to get to bed at least 15 minutes before the kids got up to see if the Easter bunny had come.

At least my caramel pecan cinnamon rolls turned out good...

This is about the time that Brooklyn threw up all over herself and the couch.  Yeah, I know you only wish you lived such an exciting life.  Try not to be too jealous.  I cleaned up that mess.  Just kidding.  I just threw that in there to make sure you were paying attention.  Joe, my hero, cleaned up the mess, of course.  Actually, for the first time ever, Joe helped the Easter bunny hide eggs too.  I think he had more fun doing it than I ever have.

Easter morning, the kids found their eggs and to answer your questions, no, I most definitely don't hide real eggs.  I hide 15 plastic eggs for each kid: blue ones for Austin, purple for Savannah, green for Jax, etc.  They each have their own color to look for so everyone gets to find the same number of eggs with the same goodies inside.  Joe stayed home with Brooklyn, who was running a little fever, and I took the other kids to church.  If anyone tells you that I forgot about Clay until I got out to the parking lot and had to go back for him, they're lying. 

After church, I made a new coconut cake, using a different recipe and then we all (including a fever-free Brooklyn) went out to my parents' house for dinner where I ate entirely too much.  Although, other than yesterday, I've been doing really well sticking to weight watchers and doing an exercise tape every night.  In fact, thanks to this exercise tape, I have pain in muscles I never knew I had.  My eyelashes hurt these days.  Ugh.  Whose idea was this 3 week challenge anyway?!