Easter Weekend 2013

How is it that we've just barely started April and Easter Sunday has already happened? So crazy! We did have a lovely weekend though!
Good Friday's supposed to be a somber day, but Jeff arrived home on Friday after (yet another) business trip, so I was a happy camper. We had the $2.95 Friday lunch catfish sandwich special at Cedar Landing (a restaurant by our house on Lake Houston). Yep, it's really $2.95. 

We live in a Houston suburb. So do our parents. This means we get to see everyone for every holiday (which is awesome), but it also means that we have very busy holidays. We had plans to spend all day Saturday and Sunday morning with my family at my parents' lake property (about an hour away), and we also had plans to host Easter dinner for Jeff's family Sunday evening. So I spent Friday doing everything for Sunday evening dinner that I could possibly do ahead of time. I've never been so prepared for a dinner in my life! 

Those doilies were made by my great grandmother, and my grandmother gave them to me when I woke up on the morning of our wedding. So they're pretty special. :)
Pretty flowers! The white flowers are called "stock," and they're one of my favorite flowers. Horrible name, but beautiful blooms! I paired them with a giant bunch of some sort of purpley wildflower thing. 
Little Easter baskets at each place setting!
A little reminder of the real meaning of Easter!
I had the dining room table set and ready over 48 hours in advance, and I was so proud of myself! Haha. I totally felt like a model housewife from the pages of Southern Living for a couple minutes until I dropped a Corningware dish and it shattered all over the just-vaccuumed kitchen. Pride = swallowed.
Friday dinner was Skinnytaste's spinach lasagna rolls for Jeff and me. I have no idea what you're all raving about. We thought it was bland and blah and I don't care what you say, but fat free ricotta IS NOT THE SAME. 
We got up bright and early on Saturday and drove out to the lake to meet my parents, grandparents, and sisters. We spent Saturday just relaxing and talking and hanging out on the boat, outside, etc. It was a beautiful day! 
On the Boat
Gran-Mom and Gran-Dad
Strolling around with glasses of wine. Perfection!
I got to spend lots of time with my sisters, which is always a blast. :)

Three generations!
We went to church Sunday morning at a church by the lake. The church has an older priest, and I guess he was confused because the Mass was all out of order. We sang two hymns (plus the Alleluia) between the second reading and the Gospel reading. At one point the cantor looked at the priest and said "aren't you going to do the incense?" and he just stared at her (and didn't do the incense... ). Oh, and we sang the same hymn three different times during the Mass (I guess that's all the organist knew how to play?) - very, very slowly all three times. Jeeee suuuus Chriiiiiiist isssss riseennnnnn tooooodaaaaayyyyyyyy, Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh leeeyyyyy luuuuuuuu iaaaaaaaaaa. Anyway, it was nice to be at church all of us together, but it just wasn't very triumphant and rejoicing like it's supposed to be! Don't worry though, Jeff and my sisters and I belted out our own upbeat version of "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" in the car on the way home.
After church, we started preparing Easter lunch!

(Boys - not preparing lunch! Haha)
Jeff, Dad, and Gran-Dad
But then my dad told us to go outside, and we found Easter baskets and Easter eggs hidden all over the lake property! 

Jeff and I share a basket since we're married and stuff. :)
It's hard to see, but there are Easter eggs everywhere!
Of course, we had to get a couple official Easter photos of Jeff and me:

Jeff, Karoline, Kristen, and I had to run around to get the eggs, and a few of the eggs had numbers in them that corresponded to numbered bags of surprises! Jeff and I went home with gift cards to Chick-fil-A and Sonic, a kitchen towel, and some coffee. 

Just for funsies, I'm linking up with Grace's Easter outfit linkup.

We were at the lake, so I tried to go casual-ish for Easter. The eyelet lace dress is from Old Navy (I saw it on a TV commercial like four days before Easter and it was on sale, I decided I wanted it, I drove to Old Navy, I bought it in a slightly-too-big size S because they were out of XS, and I wore it for Easter - complete with belt to semi-fix the slightly-too-big-ness). Cardigan = Gap Outlet; shoes = Steve Madden via TJ Maxx; Belt & necklace = Target clearance. 
Our Easter baskets had confetti eggs in them. I kind of hate confetti eggs. There's something about all the tiny little pieces getting in my hair that makes my not-quite-OCD-but-almost self a little crazy. So when Kristen smashed one on my head, a giant egg-smashing battle ensued, ending with Kristen on the ground covered in confetti. 

And then, like good sisters, we helped each other get all the confetti out of our hair.

We had a big Easter lunch with my family at the lake (finishing with a birthday cake for my Gran-Dad, whose birthday was on Easter this year!). 
Easter table!

After a quick family photo, we were headed back to Humble for another Easter celebration!
I finished up the dinner preparations Sunday afternoon, and we had Jeff's family (along with our friend Thomas, who might as well be family) over for Easter dinner. Jeff's mom is living in South Carolina right now to oversee the building of Jeff's parents retirement lakehouse, and she didn't come home for Easter, but we enjoyed having everyone else! 
I only have this one horrible photo from my phone, but it's better than nothing, right?
I made pork tenderloin with dijon marsala sauce, roasted carrots, lemon & garlic green beans, rosemary bread, garlic & herb red potatoes (all recipes I've been meaning to put on the blog... I guess I've been holding out on you guys! Oops!), and lemon berry trifle. 

We put the trifle in the dishes from Aunt Lucy. :)
We finished dinner and then watched the season finale of The Walking Dead, which we all agreed was somewhat fitting and somewhat ironic to be aired on Easter Sunday. I guess there's nothing like zombies rising from the dead to celebrate Jesus rising from the dead?
So it was a busy, fun-filled weekend! Lots of quality family time celebrating Jesus' resurrection!
What did y'all do for Easter? Did you make a big dinner too? Did you watch zombies at the end of the day? Haha. Do you still do Easter egg hunts?