Easter Sunday 2012

Easter morning at our house is a little less chaotic than it was when we had three little kids awaiting the bunny's arrival before Church.  Now we have a deal with the "bunny" and the Easter Baskets await the kids on the fireplace with presents from the parents and then the eggs are scattered in the yard with candy while we are at church.  After checking out their stash, we enjoyed our traditional Resurrection Roll breakfast and got ready in our new Easter clothes for church.

It's a great compromise.  Miss A gets a chance to experience all the fun while the big kids get to be of the action, too.  Thankfully, Miss M is more than willing to hunt eggs with A.  After coming home from a wonderful service celebrating our Risen Savior, it was a mad rush to gather as many eggs as possible.

Lunch at Nana and Papa's meant not only a great brunch, of which I only had to provide Fruit Salad , but an afternoon of Master's watching, bingo games, balloon races in the backyard, and a little bit of dress up. 

Who knew that Miss M could get more hairy!  Miss A thought the Bunny Ears really added to her bright pink twirly dress and Mr C enjoyed not only "critiquing" the golfers on the 2nd hole, but also some putting on papa's putting green.  Honestly, I think the kids just enjoy getting a chance to hang with their cousins.  Seems we don't see enough of them in the winter months!

We finished our evening with a fabulous dinner of pork tenderloin, Girl Scout potatoes and asparagus.  I heard rave reviews for the meal.  In fact, Mr C might have said it was two great dinners in a row!!

Miss A told me it was her favorite Easter ever.  With all her "years" of experience to draw from, I'm surprised she can choose. 

Happy Easter!

Valentine Cookies and Homemade Cards

The girls and I got to create a little bit of Valentine's fun.

On Sunday, Miss A and I finished her little valentine's cards for friends.  We'd looked everywhere for Pop Rocks to give away, but settled on a homemade shovel with "I dig you!" and a packet of Fun Dip.  By the end of writing her name all 22 times, she said she was exhausted.  Next year, maybe we'll have to "stamp" her name on the card. Hate to think she's got writers cramp at seven!

Monday night as a way to escape going to the Skating Party (it's cold and flu season, yuck), we made homemade sugar cookie cutouts.   I'll be the first to admit I'm not really a baker, but I think I've finally found a cut out recipe that I like for sugar cookies.  Again, it was the blogoshere to my rescue.  Nonly have I found a great new recipe, but a great resource for all things cooking/baking!

As the cookies were baking in the oven at one temperature, Pioneer Woman's Perfect Pot Roast was cooking away at a different temperature thanks to my new oven!  The aromas of the Roast and the Sugar Cookies made the kitchen smell wonderful.  The cookies were perfect for all the frosting and sugar crystals the girls put on them.  I mean "all."

Thankfully, we have some great neighbors who received a delivered plate of cookies.  That way the sugar overload could be spread around.  Next time, we are going to try dipping some Easter Cookies into melted chocolate on the end just like they do on Pioneer Woman's Food Network show.  At least, that's what two girls in our house think we should do (the boys would probably definitely agree)

The pot roast was perfect and was paired with the best mashed potatoes ever.  It was a pre-Valentine's dinner that made all the boys in the house fall in love with me again. I'm just saying!

Finally on Tuesday, Miss A had her Valentine's Day party at school and she loved it.  We had some great games, an easy craft, and more cookies to decorate. She has the sweetest little girl friends. First grade is the best!