Easter 2011

Fun Girls Day ... Turned Sad Girl Day

For the last week, Camryn and I have been planning a fun girls day. We started our day with this:

I told Camryn she could pick any recipe from her cookbook, and we would make it. She chose the Fairy Godmother Wands (aka french toast sticks). Man, does she love to create things in the kitchen!

They were really, really good!

After that we got dressed to head out. How cute is she?!?

First stop - the library. Camryn always considers it a treat going to the library, because she loooovves to read.

And that's just what she did the whole way to lunch.

We went to one of her favorites - McAlister's

Where she decided to order a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (crazy kid ... we could have stayed home for that!)

Then I introduced her to one of my favorites ...

Oh. my.

Of course, we had to get the one with pink icing

After that, we came home to do whatever she wanted to do ... which was play restaurant in the playroom.

I think it was around McAlister's that I wiped her eye, because I noticed something yucky in it. Before we left, I had to wipe her eye again. By the third round of wiping, I knew what was coming. Yep. Girls day ended with a full blown case of pink eye. Camryn ended up confined to one little spot on the loveseat faaaaaar away from Ella. She cried once because she said her eyes hurt. She cried a second time because she didn't want to go to the doctor. And then she cried a third time because I had to break the news to her that she wouldn't get to go to school today and have her Easter egg hunt. That's a pretty tough pill for a 5 year old to swallow. I think we'll have to have a girls day redo sometime soon. Besides, it will give us another reason to go back to SAS!

P.S. Please excuse the crazy spacing. I decided to let Blogger win tonight.

And the Winner Is ... Well, Sorta!

Yeah, yeah ... I know that the men's college basketball tournament has been over for quite a while now, but I forgot to post who won the 2011 Burley Bracket Battle's coveted trophy! But first, a few facts:

1. Camryn has filled out a bracket every year since she was one year old. We read her the mascots, and she picks the one she likes best. This year was a not a good year for her. Maybe next year we need to have a discussion that a #16 seed will probably never beat a #1 seed no matter how cute their mascot may be.

2. Jason was still watching basketball at 12:30 am the first day of the tournament. The ESPN announcers said that after the first day, out of over 5 million brackets filled out, there were roughly 300 perfect brackets and only 5 brackets that didn't get a single pick correct. One of those 5 brackets without a single correct pick happened to be my mother-in-law's! (I can post this because she had a good laugh about it, too!) In her defense, she did have a few other really good brackets that had a shot of winning it all for our group!

3. Before the tournament, I read an article about the Vegas odds on certain upsets and favorites. I was so serious about filling out a good bracket, I let this guide some of my choices. Did no good. Moral of the story: Making your picks based on cute mascots is probably a better strategy than following lame articles about Vegas odds.

So who was the final winner? Let's just say the Burley Bracket Battle did not end without its share of controversy this year. I filled out a total of 4 brackets. When the tournament began on Thursday, I realized my #3 bracket somehow did not make it into our group. I thought, "Oh well, no big deal. I picked too many upsets in that one anyway." WRONG! That bracket ended up being the WINNING bracket although no one could see it because I didn't get it into the group! Out of the entries that actually were in the group, Jason's was the "winner" but overall had less points than my bracket that no one could see. So, for the rest of the year, Jason and I get to fight about who the real winner is! Either way the trophy stays at our house for a year. Now to decide which closet I can stuff that trophy into until next year's tournament challenge ...

Ella's First Zoo Trip

We decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and headed to the zoo today. This was Ella's first zoo trip!

Not a great picture, but the only picture of Mommy (the photographer) and her girls