A raw-potato Easter

I attempted to cook my first ham. It was ok -- nothing special. I wasn't overly impressed, but it was edible. A combination of Tyler Florence and Emeril Lagasse recipes helped get me through it, but I'm not sure if I'd do it again. I'm just not really a ham person.

The best part of the dinner was the fact that my potato gratin dish (again, a la Tyler Florence) was totally undercooked. There's nothing quite like serving raw potatoes to your guests! And then my wonderful father, God bless him, kept making excuses for me like, "That's easy to do. I've done it many times myself." Sweet, sweet man.

Our little one was old enough to walk this year, so the concept of an Easter egg hunt actually meant something. He even "helped" color the eggs, despite the rantings of his stressed-out father who was more concerned about spilling egg dye on the counter than obtaining the perfect shade of orange. This was the first year since our son was born that my husband hasn't been deployed on Easter. I believe the fantasy of the "perfect family Easter" wasn't quite what I'd envisioned, but it was still nice to have us all together.

The egg hunt itself was rather priceless, in a chaotic sort of way. After finding his first few eggs and getting the hang of it, Aidan begant to enthusiastically throw each egg he found into his basket, one on top of the other. There was nothing "careful" about how he did it. So rather quickly, eggs began to break, which in turn had our two dogs hot on his little trail. Of course a few broken eggs found their way back into the grass, and dogs devoured them, shell and all. Which encouraged them to push at the Easter basket. Which then encouraged my bossy two-year-old to shout at the dogs. It was quite the scene.