Easter in Fargo

Our Easter festivities started with a family dinner on Good Friday to celebrate Grandma Banana and Papa Pizza's 40th wedding anniversary.  It was not a "huge" celebration, but a fun family gathering at a local Fargo restaurant. Everyone had something they liked, and we got a few pictures of  EVERYONE together :-)

Saturday, Easter activities kicked in to high gear.  The day started with coloring Easter eggs.  All the kids helped lay out the papers, and the "big" kids helped mix the colors and put the eggs on the table.  The grown-ups got in on the fun, too... Papa never misses a chance to create an egg or two!

Aunt Angie taught us how to put wrappers on the eggs, then she "cooked" them to make them stick.

After the eggs were done, we got dressed in our winter gear.  Uncle Tony made a GIANT pile of snow for us in the back alley.  We loved climbing on it, and started to dig our own tunnel through it.  We got a little tired, so Daddy and Papa stepped in to help us.

Then, Papa decided to teach us a new trick to make lunch.  We were having a hot dog roast on his fire pit... a Guggisberg holiday tradition :-)  You cannot eat ham or turkey ALL the time!  The wood got a little wet, so Papa tried a few of his "tricks" to get the fire going.  He had us back up, and ... well... the fire finally got started, but the hot dogs tasted a bit oily.  So, Mommy put them in the microwave - they seemed to cook a little faster that way, too!

Before we went inside, we had to plant our magic jelly beans.  All five of us found a snow bank where we could plant our beans, dug some holes, and buried them!  We hoped the Easter Bunny would find them in the snow - last year, it was sunny and warm, so we planted them in the dirt.

Then, it was time for a road trip.  Papa piled us in Grandma's new car, and took us all to Fleet Farm.  After Fleet Farm, we all had ice cream.  When we got back to Grandma's, the Easter Bunny made an early appearance.  He left all kinds of eggs at Grandma's!

These eggs were the plastic kind - filled with money, candy, art supplies... and they were EVERYWHERE!

Our afternoon snack (after the ice cream) was chocolate frosting and graham crackers.  Brooke had a little too much fun with the frosting - putting it on her instead of on the crackers!

After dinner, we celebrated Uncle Tony's birthday before we headed to bed.  We all enjoyed his ice cream cake, helping him blow out the candles, and especially licking off the topping with our fingers :-)

In the morning, we did not know if the Easter Bunny would be back... but, we were surprised to see he had MORE eggs!  These were the eggs we dyed, and we had to look for our Easter baskets, too.

Brooke found her basket right away, but it took Kylie and Neela quite a while - and a LOT of teamwork - to find both of our baskets!  Neela found almost everyone else's (including Papa Pizza's) before she found her's in the pantry under the stairs!!

Remember those magic jelly beans?  They GREW into RAINBOW lollipops!! Check it out!  Neela put her boots on to pick them for everyone, but a few of us ran outside barefoot to see them before she could pick them.

Then, it was time to get dressed for church!  We all had fancy new dresses - Kylie picked her dress in the store, but Neela tried it on first.  It's a good thing they had two in the same size!  Then Brooke wanted a "princess" dress.  With the snow, the cute white sandals needed tights and the short sleeve dresses needed white sweaters - but we survived!  We got a little tired of posing for pictures, but we had a pretty amazing looking crew :-)

After church, we had sandwiches and dessert at Grandma and Papa's before hitting the road.

On the way home, Neela enjoyed her magic jelly bean lollipop -- and Mom was glad we still had wet wipes left in the car!