Easter Traditions

Happy Good Friday! I wish I could say I have the day off work but I don't. That's ok though because I'm just jazzed it's Friday. I hope the day flies by! I'm so very ready for the Easter weekend. We're looking forward to dying Easter eggs with our boys (OUTSIDE) and hunting for eggs as well. It will be exciting now that Baby Boy is bigger and is walking.

First things first! We had a very loud and wild storm breeze through this morning. Power was briefly lost and thank goodness it came back on because I hate jacking with the circuit breakers. We are also out of fruit and vegetables - a serious grocery store trip is on the agenda for the weekend. I had no clue what to make for breakfast so I stared at the open fridge and cabinets for quite some time. Then inspiration struck! I've heard of baked oatmeal but I decided to put the Retta Spin on it.

Baked Pumpkin Cranberry Crunch Oatmeal was born!

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup oatmeal
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup non-fat plain yogurt
• pumpkin pie spice
• cinnamon
• 2t brown sugar
• vanilla cranberry almond clusters

Pre-heat oven to 350 - 375 degrees. Prepare oatmeal according to package directions. Remove from heat. Add pumpkin puree, yogurt, pumpkin pie spice, brown sugar, cinnamon & crushed almond clusters. Mix well. Lightly spray a small casserole dish with cooking spray. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes. Mixture will seem too moist at first. Trust me, it will be awesome! I even sprinkled some dry oats on top for a little flair. Deeeelish! Next time, I think I will try just plain dried cranberries and chopped almonds. Another view:

I wish I had a lid for my casserole dish for better travel to work but I just used foil and a pot holder. It's taken me 2 hours to eat this while I've been working. It's a good size serving - probably 1.5?

Moving on (from the yummy that is in my tummy), I'm really looking forward to this Easter holiday! I mentioned earlier that the boys are older and will really enjoy coloring and hunting for eggs. FUN! I also look forward to making my annual Lamb Cake! It's not what you think. When we were kids, my mom had a cake pan in the shape of a lamb. She would bake the cake every Easter. After icing the cake, she would use shredded coconut for the "wool" and color the coconut for "grass".  Over the years, the cake pan was lost.

I told my mother-in-law about the tradition and she surprised me with a lamb cake pan of my very own! (Insert collective "awwwwww" here) I've made my version of the lamb cake for 4 or 5 - maybe 6? - years now. I love doing it even more now that we have children of our own. It's cheesy but that's how I roll.

This was last year's:

It's kind of creepy in the face but it's tasty! I still need to work on my decorating skills haha. I love family traditions!

Do you have Easter family traditions you'd like to share? We typically do separate dinners my side and The Lover's side but we're just doing one this weekend. My side is postponed until next weekend.