April Fools, General Conference, and Easter Oh My!

April started out with a bang, combining three of my favorites into one weekend. Easter is one of my favorite holidays, and to prepare we did our standard Easter sugar cookie decorating.

I love the spring shapes and the bright colors you get to use.

Kendrick mostly just spread a bit of frosting, dumped sprinkles on and then ate cookie after cookie.

And I just let him.

Lydia and Ammon really got into the decorating and I had to scale them back on how much they could put on each cookie.

What cookie artists! I love decorating as well, and I was left with a million to finish after the kids were sent off to bed. But Lydia insisted on a couple pictures of me with some of my creations first.

Besides finishing cookies once the kids were off to bed, I worked on some projects of my own. If you know me at all, you know that I love April Fools. Preparation beforehand is key, and this year I was thrilled to do an Easter theme since Easter happened to be April first!

These ranch-seasoned chickpeas suddenly became what appears to be delicious chocolatey treats.

These chocolate crunch eggs suddenly became wrapped grapes instead.

And some of the crunch eggs became totally fake eggs instead. I also super-glued some plastic eggs shut.

And these were just my prepare-ahead-of-time tricks. But we'll come back to April Fools later.

General Conference happened to be the same weekend as Easter and we watched our two sessions of Conference -or at least some of us did...

Ammon slept through his session-

and then we went over to my parent's house to color Easter eggs with my Aunt Sandy.

Lydia and Ammon enjoyed the shrink wraps, and Kendrick made some of the most beautiful eggs by just stirring the same egg in the dye for the longest time. He created some vibrant eggs!

We like to try new egg coloring techniques each year, and this year we tried out the "spit" method as we called it. Basically, some dye was inserted into a tube and then we blew on the other end and speckled the dye onto the eggs. This new method turned out to be a winner, and we had some pretty speckled eggs at the end.

Sunday morning brought Easter!

Boy was the Easter Bunny good to the kids this year!

Baskets and hunting for hidden Easter eggs started our morning out right.

Lydia and Ammon found over sixty eggs pretty quickly and without help this year.

I treated the family to homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

Once the Easter excitement died down, it was time for more General Conference sessions. I was also ready for the April Fools jokes to begin...or be discovered!

Brigham is not a fan of Easter grass; he hates it. So I took the time to make sure that everywhere he turned he would find more of it. I put it inside his towel hanging over the shower rack, and in his pillowcase.

I shoved it in his underwear drawer, in his shoes, and more. I couldn't help giggling hysterically when I would hear, "WOMAN!" and "HOW MANY PLACES DID YOU PUT THIS STUFF?!" Oh, how can you not love this day.

I also managed to sneak grass in my kid's, parent's, and sister's beds as well.

General Conference started and the kids pulled out their bingo sheets they use every year. Usually, they use cheerios for markers and get to eat them once they get a bingo, but this year I had a "special" treat for them to use.

Do you recognize the special treat? It was the ranch seasoned garbanzo beans. Lydia was grossed out when she first ate hers, but Ammon just kept popping them like candy. He even told me that he liked them. I swear, cover anything in chocolate and Ammon will like it.

Their prizes for bingos were the chocolate crunch eggs...except...

Nope, it was grapes instead! I loved capturing Ammons face at the perfect moment when he figured it out! Classic!

I managed to shove some more Easter grass into Brigham's life when I handed him his special jelly-belly Easter eggs.

The only heat that ever was too much for Brigham was some ghost-pepper chili served at a ward function. So when I saw some ghost pepper potato chips, I knew that I had to use them for April Fools. Brigham thought he was getting regular Lays, but really ghost pepper chips were on his plate. They were hot, and he was surprised, but they weren't quite as hot as I had hoped. Still made for a fun lunch!

Kendrick in his new Easter hat, looking so dapper.

General Conference was uplifting and Easter was wonderful, with some fun April Fools thrown in, as well.

I loved hearing messages of Christ on Easter Sunday. He is risen, He lives. My life and my family is so blessed by this. What a wonderful weekend honoring new life, Christ overcoming death, and laughter and love.