It's only April 2nd and Easter has already come and gone. We will be celebrating Easter the entire month of April in this house because I've only had the decorations up for 9 days and I did not put all that effort in to only look at them for less than 2 weeks.
We hosted Easter dinner this year for the extended family and this week I kept so busy figuring out what to cook and going to the store and trying to make the house look somewhat acceptable. I got it in my head that I was going to make this lemon bar cheesecake. I saw it on the front cover of Southern Living and I just had to have it.
So the day before Easter we were busy boiling eggs and cleaning up and I started making this cheesecake. My goodness, it was such an ordeal. It had like 3 million steps. You needed the zest of 6 lemons and 2 cups of fresh squeezed lemon juice. Eveything needed to "chill". You roll the dough, chill for an hour. Make the curd, chill for an hour. The kids were helping but then they were like, "This is taking too long."
We had a huge shrimp scampi dinner and dyed Easter eggs and got the baskets ready. At 9 they were fast asleep. It was finally time to put the cheesecake in the oven. My husband was cubing cheese, I was doing dishes. We were working our buns off. We stuffed the baskets and I asked my husband to hide them. He was putting them under tables, places out in the open. "Honey, you have got to do better than that. Make them work for it a little." He was annoyed, "Why do you want to torture the kids on Easter morning?" "I don't want to torture the kids, it will be fun. We can give them tips. Besides, they torture us all the time." So I took over. I hid one on top of the fridge and I hung one on a hanger in the closet and covered it with a coat. I am a ninja at hiding Easter baskets. It was now 11 pm and I found myself outside digging up dirt so I could make some bunny prints in the house. I was so tired, I had no shoes on and still I was digging in the dirt and I thought to myself, "How long will we have to keep up this charade?"
Both my kids are super intelligent. Surely they cannot possibly still believe in the Easter bunny. They have to know that it is completely illogical for a giant bunny to come into the house in the middle of the night with candy to hide baskets and eggs. I don't care, as long as they pretend like they still believe, I will pretend to be the Easter bunny. They'll be home from college and wake up to bunny prints by the front door.
I chewed up some carrots and left them around for good measure. At midnight, the damn cheesecake came out of the oven. Approximately 9 hours after I started making it. It needed to cool on a wire rack for 1 hour and then be wrapped immediately and put into the fridge. I made margaritas for my husband and I and we watched some stand up comedy. It was awesome. I wrapped the cheesecake and then we climbed up to bed close to one. I was exhausted.
I drift into sleep and am awoken at what feels like a minute later, "Mom, mom - wake up it's Easter." I opened one eye, "What time is it?" My 8 year old said, "It's 5:30, it's Easter time." I groaned, "It's not Easter yet, wait until your little sister wakes up." Half an hour later they both were standing at the edge of the bed, staring at us with crazy candy-seeking eyes. I nudged my husband, "Get up, it's Easter time."
The kids hunted for baskets, we made them work for it but they found them and dug right into the candy. They each got new jump ropes and proceeded to jump rope in the kitchen while we made breakfast. The rest of the day was a whirlwind. We went to church, came home and prepared more food. Guests came and went. We had an Easter egg hunt. We ate and ate and ate.
Afterwards, I cleaned the kitchen. My husband fell asleep on the couch and the kids watched a movie. We went upstairs and the kids climbed into bed with me. We all stared at the ceiling in a food coma. "Did you guys have a good Easter?" They nodded. "What was your favorite part?" My oldest said, "Going to church." My youngest snuggled close and said, "Just being with my family." And all was right with the world.
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