It’s been a long two weeks. It all started Thursday night (Maundy Thursday – who knew?!) with a work-related ladies poker party. Once we got someone from the Audit Department in there, the rules were official…and then I started to lose. But completely fun nonetheless.

We moved immediately into Good Friday Pizza Night with a visit from Grandma and our Duxbury Guilfoiles.

Then onto, of course, The Block’s Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday.

Here they come.

And there they go.

Remember that scene in the movie Parenthood where Rick Moranis’ kid knows French and Steve Martin’s kid is all “he likes to hit things with his head” with a bucket on his head?  Yeah, well, welcome to my world.

Easter was a lot of the same food as seen in past Easter posts.

Hint: Pasta Blanco is just plain butter noodles but thanks to Uncle Tom I learned how to class the joint up a bit. But there was the addition of this Crunchy Spring Salad from The Kitchn.

Super bright and springy. I added thinly sliced carrots too for color.  Of course, we busted out some new desserts. Well, there were three planned, and two more showed up. As it shall be. I mean really, there are 30 people, you need at least 5 desserts right?

If you need something simple, this Chocolate Toffee Trifle from Or So She Says is super easy as you used boxed cake mix and Heath pieces.

Bunny Garden Pudding (bottom right) is just bunny Peeps in Smitten Kitchen’s Best Chocolate Pudding Ever in graham cracker tart shells.  Some of the bunnies fainted from the deliciousness.

And lest we forget a new cocktail!  Grapefruit Daiquiris from How Sweet It Is are delicious, not too sweet and would be fantastic if the weather here ever warms up (to quote my friend Laura T. with respect to this weather – “Mother Nature, I think you are drunk”).

Table favors were teeny, tiny succulents from Mountain Crest Gardens in bunnies.

And my new purple highball (yep, I said highball) glasses from Crate and Barrel.

And then, of course, our own McNamara/Guilfoile/Kuhn Easter Egg Hunt with these fabulous ladies.

Egg won’t fit.

But D don’t care.

And all the cousins in a selfie taking process (which makes for a better picture when they don’t know we’re watching).

I don’t mean to bring the post down, but we ended on a sad note Monday when my step-father Jim passed away.  What can you say about a guy that has five daughters and marries my mom who has four more?

Only that he was a strong, strong man who loved us all very much.  We will miss you Jim.

And so we don’t end that way, and now this.

And this is picture of me trying to write this blog post tonight with “help”.

We’re going to a trivia contest fundraiser this weekend that involves TV related costumes (which was NOT disclosed to me in advance of me writing the check).  So you have those pictures to look forward to.

Have a great rest of the week.