Easter at our house

Let me start out by mentioning that I do not give my mother enough credit. She has been the only one to host every Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas for as long as I can remember. She's one of four children, but for some reason my Uncles and Aunt are well....ummm......lazy, so she does it all. Andre decided that since we have the house now that we should host Easter this year. The only problem being that he works every Sunday (regardless of Stat holiday) so he wasn't home to help. So with the help of my mom I hosted my very first holiday.

My mom was a trooper, so she decided that she would cook and carve the turkey at her house and then just bring the casserole dishes over when everything was cooked. She said it was because she has more counter space, but I secretly think that she didn't want to give up complete control over the dinner. (At least I come by my control issues honestly!) My uncle, aunt and her three children bailed on dinner so we had a smaller group, so instead of paper plates I used my good china. I was so happy to have an excuse to use everything. I loved being able to set the table for everyone. Here's a picture of how everything looked before the madness started:

Since Andre couldn't be there for dinner I snapped this shot of everyone gathered around the table before we said grace:

There were many times over the last couple months that I didn't think we'd actually have the main floor ready to host a gathering like this, but we were. Before and after dinner they guys had the tv on so they could watch the Masters, and Hailey had a great time going around and getting everyone's "order" after dinner for their coffee and tea. I gave her a pad of paper and a pencil and she'd come running into the kitchen yelling "another order up!". A totally exhausting day, but worth it.