Our First Annual Easter Crawfish Boil

We had our very first annual Easter crawfish boil at Marshall and Shannon's. I have to say right here in the beginning of this blog post...I totally dislike crawfish. Watching those things moving around in the water in the big tub, the kids picking them up and playing with them, watching them be thrown into a very large pot of boiling water, people peeling them to get a small piece of meat burning their fingers and lips from the spices, and some people even sucking out the heads for the juice...I will just put it this way, my barbecued chicken and potatoes were delicious. Here are a bunch of pictures from our fun day.

The pictures are backwards but this is what they

looked like after they were boiled (all 60 pounds of them)

This is what they looked like before they were thrown
in the big pot of boiling water

Our cute as a bug "little" Kyle

Meigan and Isabella and all dressed in green

I think Maren is thinking "where's my crawfish"

Our cute, chubby Holland

This picture of Holland reminds me of Kyle when

he was little, or should I say chubby?

Isabella loves to snack especially on chips

For Marshall, this picture of Kyle is a blast from the past (Shannon has a great butter picture of Marshall which I saved to give her the day before their wedding..I had saved it since he was about 3 years old)

Hayes and Mark finally talked Braydon into holding

one of the crawfish. He was so excited.

Hayes played with these crawfish forever until

they were thrown into the glorious crawfish pot

How can these ugly crawfish moving along in this tub

of water keep the kids so mesmerized?

Two peas in a pod

"Daddy, this water is too cold"

Hayes probably picked up every one of these things

Emma loves Isabella

The crawfish are finally ready and Emma and Syd are

enjoying peeling theirs and eating their first helpings

Holli loves her crawfish, too.

"I'm a Pepper, you're a Pepper, come on Braydon

please share"

These two are always together..so glad these cousins

can grow up together

Maren and Chad enjoying the peeling and eating

Marshall loves being a daddy and loves this little boy

Crawfish everywhere for Hayes, Emma and Mark

Look at all of those crawfish

The new way of eating corn on the cob. Holli took

the pinchers of one of the big crawfish and stuck each

into the ends of the corn.

Here come the troops

l

Eggs, eggs everywhere

Holland starring as the one and only "Linus"

Mark and Meigan hanging out after the egg hunt

Isn't this the best looking cake ever? It is a sunflower made out of yellow peeps, chocolate frosting and chocolate chips topped on yellow cake. It was GREAT!! (Thanks Meigan)

At the end of the evening, there must have been 20 lbs. of crawfish left over. Ryan, Maren, Chad and Meigan peeled the rest of it so Ryan could later make some crawfish gumbo. Carolyn, who belongs to Nick and Erin who are friends of the famil,y helped Maren scoop out the last of the crawfish.

Kyle ended the night by sitting on the ground and

eating the ice that was dumped out of the cooler.

He was in heaven.

And our son Kyle stole the show with his rendition

of a Cajun song and dance that their neighbor used

to sing every year on his daughter's birthday.

We had a great time with everybody, we laughed, we ate, we took part as the Easter bunny and watched grandchildren loving every minute of being together.