Our Easter Sunday

Would you like ham and scalloped potatoes? I asked my husband a few days prior to Easter Sunday.

Ham? Asking with his nose a little turned up.

Then I suggested Or we could do roast chicken and scalloped potatoes, what do you think? 

Well, ham is fine I guess. Most indecisive husband award goes to…

Walking-AlfieAnd so Easter Sunday rolled around. We were feeling a little lazy. I headed out on my walk with Alfie, Nicole (my 10 month pregnant neighbour!) and her pooch, who Alfie hates. We talked about what our Easter traditions were, and had a little chat. It was getting quite warm out so after the walk instead of going on my weekly run together with my husband, I decided to run 1.79 miles on the treadmill while he snoozed on the couch for a bit.

When I came back home, I noticed he was awake asking me when we’re going to head out for our run together. You know when you’re just in the mood to run and you need to get out there otherwise it probably wouldn’t happen later? That’s what I did. He asked me if I’d like to go again, and to be honest – I really didn’t want to. But as soon as he said he wanted company for half of his run, I decided to get off my butt and go for another run.

My husband and I prefer to run right before the sun sets, so it’s cooler outside. And before that had to happen, we needed to get some groceries for our Easter dinner. I’m surprised the stores were open, then again my husband didn’t get Good Friday, nor Easter Monday off work.

GroceriesWe went to the grocery store and seriously could not pass up the pre-cooked rotisserie chicken fr $4.94. In Canada, I swear they’re at least nine bucks. So that was our easter dinner plan. Clearly I enjoyed taking photos of my shoes/pants on Sunday. I’m obsessed with these black sneakers, they’re from Target by the way!

In the afternoon, I’m not entirely sure how – but we ran out of time and things got a bit hectic. As per usual. I don’t let that bother me any more. But, we took Alfie out and went on a 6km run together. It was probably one of the best runs of my year so far. I didn’t feel winded, nor did anything hurt. I blame it on the warm-up that I did on the treadmill a few hours prior. Guess that was pretty good for me!

Baskin-Robbins-bunny-cakeOnce we came home, I had to head over to Baskin Robbins because I placed a telephone order for a bunny ice cream cake a couple of hours prior, and it was ready for pick-up. Baskin Robbins seriously does the cutest cakes for any occasion. We picked it up just in the nick of time to have for our Easter dessert.

Easter-Sunday-Dinner

Easter-DinnerAfter everything got settled away, I made the veggies to go with the roast chicken we picked up prior. I love feasting on special occasions, so I did not disappoint delivering a full plate of food to the table. Check out all the yummy goodness I made! I like to pat myself on the back. I picked up a dark chocolate Lindt bunny for my husband, and a milk chocolate one for myself. World Market was having a crazy good sale a couple of weeks ago leading up to Easter and some of the stuff was 50% off! I refrained on buying all the cute bunny items, and only bought two chocolate ones for ourselves.

Easter-dessert

Bunny-Roll-Cake

Bunnyroll-ice-cream-cakeOf course, we dug into the cake immediately after. My husband was such a stindge cutting the cake. Half a piece for the both of us? You gotta be kiddin’ me! Slice another piece off for us b’y. With the Baskin Robbins bunny roll cake, you could choose from 3 different flavours of ice cream in the middle: vanilla,mint chocolate chip, or chocolate chip. I chose the latter — it was pretty amazing. Technically this cake serves 6-8 people, but we aren’t sharing!

However I will share something else with you guys. You can enter to win a Baskin Robbins gift card too valued at $31, enough for you to buy a bunny roll ice cream cake too! Yay, what a surprise! Just enter using the rafflecopter form below. Giveaway is only open to US residents. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Although my post is a little late going up since Easter was a few days ago, I still hope you had a wonderful Easter with your family!

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An ice cream cake tradition

Tissue-paper-garlandI love celebrating other people’s birthdays, and making them feel extra special on their day. Over the course of a few days I spent some time thinking of what I could do, to make The Guy’s birthday a little different.

Party-Favors-and-BeerI ended up decorating our house with inexpensive ideas: Beer, snacks, tissue paper, balloons and confetti. What more could a guy ask for?

Looking-down-at-table

snacks

Kitchen-table-snacks

Kitchen-TableIt may not be pinterest-worthy but I thought it was cute. It took a lot of work to individually cut that tissue paper garland and put it together, man. You know I love you when I blow up balloons for you. It’s a little fear of mine, because I don’t want to blow them up too much and have them bursting in my face. It’s a scary thing.

I had two surprises for him, one I will reveal and share with you next week. The other gift I wanted him to look away  while I got it ready. Our town house is an open concept so he probably knew what he was getting as his second surprise once I opened the freezer. Singing the Happy Birthday song to him, he made his wish and blew out the candles. He had questions about where the cake came from because we usually go for the Dairy Queen cakes.

Baskin-Robbins-icecream-cakIt’s been a tradition in my family for years to give the birthday-person an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. But this year when I went to BlogHer, I interacted with the Baskin Robbins folks and asked if I could potentially work with them in the future. I received a $30 gift card to go online to place my customized order on Baskin Robbins website.

Since I was given a gift card to purchase the cake I didn’t want to go online to do it because I wanted a bigger cake for him that ended up costing $49.98. I placed the order over the phone and picked it up the next day. Except when I went to pick it up, the woman charged me a $5 cake decoration fee, which wasn’t mentioned on the website nor did I ask for anything different on the cake. So I was a little muff’ed at that.

How does Baskin Robbins and Dairy Queen differ?

It’s clearly obvious the Baskin Robbins cakes are far more expensive than Dairy Queen, and I suppose that’s all due to the fact that you can do so much more with a BK cake than DQ, all the custom options, the shapes, and different flavours you can put into your personalized cake. Then again, I’m not sure how often we’ll be giving each other Baskin Robbins 9″ cakes for that price. It may have stung a little.

Did you know Baskin Robbins cakes are made differently than Dairy Queen? Clearly I didn’t because I was confused when the sales associates were telling me their cakes are half regular cake, and half ice cream cake. Luckily I was informed they had a fudge crunch cake (much like a Dairy Queen cake with chocolate on the bottom, fudgey gooy centre and vanilla on top). I went with their basic 9″ round cake that serves way more people than the two of us in the house. Perfectly okay with us :)

Baskin Robbins is more customizable with their orders. Their go-to cakes are mostly half ice cream cake, and half regular cake, but I went the full nine yards and asked for ALL the ice cream in his. Isn’t that the best? Then again, I never did have the other option so I wouldn’t know. I assume it would be good, who doesn’t like cake? I wasn’t daring enough to go for a customized option, even though cookies ‘n cream top would be incredible. There were so many options to choose from, but I went with ol’ faithful.

TheGuys-IcecreamcakeNow the most important part, the fudge crunch in the middle, absolutely divine. Best part of the entire cake, so fudgey and crunchy. The Guy and I agreed this was incredible. The vanilla ice cream on the cake tasted more like vanilla bean rather than a regular ol’ vanilla — it was a nice change. As for the frosting on top, it was pure sugar, and hard. As a candy and sweets lover, it was far too sweet for me, even. I prefer Dairy Queen’s creamy and soft icing.

I can’t wait to show you the second part of his birthday! For those of you who are interested in Baskin Robbins icecream and cakes, here’s a bit more information regarding up and coming cakes this season.

Some of their fun seasonal cakes include:

  • Pumpkin Patch Cake – This is one jack-o-lantern you will not want to leave on your doorstep. This creative dessert, decorated as a smiling pumpkin, will trick your guests and make a fun sweet treat at the same time with your choice of ice cream and cake flavors.
  • Fall Harvest Roll Cake – Delight in the season with a fudge frosted roll cake, finished with a festive decoration of leaves and pumpkins.

They’ll also be announcing two new mini-cakes available for $12.99. These serve 2-4 people — perfect for small gatherings — and cakes include:

  • Celebration Mini Roll Cake – This streamer and confetti-topped cake is the perfect sweet and colorful addition to any birthday celebration!
  • Rosette Mini Roll Cake – This trendy ombre cake design features rosettes in vibrant shades of purple.

Additionally, Baskin-Robbins is celebrating with guests across the globe on Twitter with its “31 Cakes in 31 Days Sweepstakes.” The brand will be giving away 31 Baskin-Robbins gift cards for valued at $31 throughout the month. and Anyone can participate in the giveaway simply by following @BaskinRobbins on Twitter and sharing how they celebrate life’s occasions with ice cream cakes using #BRCakeSweeps.

Do you have any birthday traditions?

Do you prefer icecream cake, regular cake, or something else?

When is YOUR birthday?

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