Easter

A little late, but here are this year's Easter photos!  

Abby's Easter basket this year had a chocolate cross, chocolate bunny, bubble wand, Reese's pieces "carrot", a Big Book of Berenstain Bear's stories, and a grocery shopping cart with food.

I made sure to wake up early to capture her face when she saw her basket. I think this perfectly sums up what Abby looks like when she wakes up early. :-)

Then she saw her basket and it brightened her up a little bit.

My original plan was to have Abby open up her Easter basket, then feed everyone breakfast, head off to church, and then upon arriving back home have the Easter egg hunt. Instead, Abby opened up the curtains to see if the sun was "sparkling", saw the eggs, and for the second year in a row our Easter morning saw Nate and I still in our bathrobes while Abby raced around the yard in her pajamas.

Racing to find her eggs.

She found the ones laying on the ground lickity-split.

Showing off her stash.

But the ones I tried to "hide" took more prompting. "Abby where do you swing from the rocks", "Abby what's at the bottom of the slide", etc. Even with help she had fun finding them!

Nate showing Abby all the wonderful chocolate and jelly beans hiding inside her eggs. 

After hunting eggs I tried to make a Pinterest Easter Bunny Cinnamon rolls recipe that failed. :-) I have no idea how they unrolled the Pillsbury cinnamon rolls as mine were one big circle of dough! But Nate and I did agree that we weren't really a fan of them so next year I'll either try making the bunnies using the Orange Rolls (which we know we like and I confirmed they actually are 'rolls') or, horror of horrors, actually make home-made cinnamon rolls. Eek!

I do want to give props for how awesome Abby was during the 1.5 hour mass. She happily played in the pew at our feet, or sat beside us while coloring. A few times we had to remind her to use her inside voice, but as she was talking about something she was seeing I didn't mind too much. And she LOVED it when we were all singing. Plus, she was in panties the entire time and we didn't have a single accident!!! We were "" this close to making it through the entire mass when, about five minutes before closing prayer, she suddenly announced she needed to go potty. Nate took her out, but when she was finished that was the end of mass for her as she decided she was done churching and ready for playing. The two of them spent the next few minutes getting the wiggles out, then when most everyone was gone we went up to the altar to get a family photo. I think next year we might try photos before mass starts. :-) We're all tired, hungry, and moving in to cranky but we did it!

Happy Easter!

Our Easter church picture!

Dying Easter Eggs with "The Girls"

The girls in the family got together for some super fun Easter egg dying and I've decided I need to figure out a LOT of recipes that use hard-boiled eggs because the 24 eggs we had weren't enough. :-) I've also decided that I will spend the extra $.50 to $1.00 on the cups with the dye pad instead of just the dye tablets because the color of the eggs dyed in the cups were so much more vibrant than the tablet eggs. Note to self for next year!

Notice how high Abby's hand is from the glass of dye? I was amazed that NO eggs cracked from this high altitude method of egg dying. 

I am also SUPER thankful we dyed eggs outside because this is Abby reaching for the egg in the blue dye. She learned a bit of water displacement theory as she stuck her whole hand in the dye cup and LOTS of blue dye sloshed out onto the patio. But since we were outside I just laughed, wiped her hand off, and helped her get her egg out. 

All the girls! Abby, Haylee, Aunt Katie, and Grandma Akers.

After the eggs were dry Abby decided she wanted to add stickers for decoration. One egg was dropped and had minor war wounds but was still yummy the next day. :-) 

I had to add this one. Grandma was trying to get a picture of Haylee who was hiding her face and not cooperating for picture taking. Grandma put her camera down and Haylee stopped hiding her face so I popped my camera up and snagged this shot. Haylee's frown let me know of her displeasure!

We only spent about an hour or so dying eggs but it was a really fun hour. After all the eggs were dyed the girls played in the sandbox while Mom, Katie, and I chatted about nothing and everything. You notice there are no pictures of Nate? That's because he was doing the 'manly' thing and hiding in the office working. :-) He did come out and admire Abby's eggs and join us in conversation for a bit, but then it was back to work. He's a great provider and hard worker so I don't give him too hard of a time for working on a weekend. Mostly. :-)

Resurrection Rolls

I found a neat link on Pinterest for an activity called Resurrection Rolls. The idea is that you and your child put these rolls together and talk about Jesus' death and resurrection and the hands on activity helps to make a connection between what happened after Jesus died (he was anointed, clothed, and buried in a tomb) and then his resurrection (his body no longer in the tomb). I figured that, Abby being 3, we'd spend a fun hour together, she'd hear about Jesus and why we were celebrating Easter, and if she retained even an ounce I'd call it good.

Here Abby is helping separate the crescent rolls. I talked about how this activity was going to help us see what happened after Jesus died and why we celebrate Easter.

I talked about how the marshmallow was like Jesus and after he was buried he was anointed with oils (melted butter).

Then his body was covered in spices (cinnamon and sugar mixed together).

Afterwards his body was wrapped in cloth (the crescent roll dough).

As we kept repeating these steps I kept talking about what was happening to Jesus at each step. After a few balls I heard Abby say "cover him up, cover him up" as she was rolling the marshmallow in the cinnamon/sugar. If what she took out of this is that Jesus was covered up I figure it's a step in the right direction!

Abby noticed her hands were sticky and dirty so she wanted to wash them off. So while I put the rolls in the tomb (oven) so that we could wait three days (or 10 minutes) she ran to get a kitchen chair to wash up at the sink.

She'd been washing up for a while, while I was picking up around the house, when I noticed this sight. Apparently she'd gotten some "yuckies" in her hair as well and wanted to wash them out. :-) Well, in for a goose in for a gander so I laughed and told her to have fun.

When three days (10 minutes) had passed I pulled the rolls out of the oven and talked to Abby for a bit about how Jesus died but then after three days when people went to go see his body in the tomb they found his body gone! At this point the story was at its climax and the rolls were cool enough to eat. I opened one up and immediately Abby said "Where's the marshmallow?". Yes! The connection between the marshmallow and Jesus might not have been fully cemented but she definitely got that the marshmallow was gone. After that we snacked on our rolls (next time I would totally put down aluminum foil on my cookie sheet as the melted marshmallow was like dried cement when I went to clean the pan off just thirty minutes later) and had a great time watching Curious George.

A Wonderful Women's Retreat

I had one of the best weekends in a long, long time at a women's retreat and I almost didn't go! A few months ago I heard about an upcoming women's retreat sponsored by the church where I attend a Bible study. After looking at the calendar I realized I would be out of town the weekend the event was held, frowned a bit over what I'd be missing out on, then promptly put it out of my mind. Well, months later circumstances changed and I found myself having to cancel my out of town trip. But since I'd long ago responded "No" to the retreat I didn't even think about the fact that I could now go. It wasn't until one of my good friends, who attends the Bible study with me, mentioned that they had an available bed in their room should I still want to go. So there I was on a Tuesday when the retreat began that Friday. Registration for the retreat had closed and I hadn't discussed anything with Nate. But with a bit of soul searching I decided that I'd give it my best shot and if God wanted me to go to the retreat he'd line things up for me. :-)

Shelly and Linda right before Shelly's talk on where we place our identity (In Christ or in money/appearances/health/successes/etc).

First up...talk to Nate. When he got home from work that Tuesday night I mentioned the retreat, the cost, and my desire to go. His response was the worst kind...indecision! A firm yes or no would have ended the discussion right there, but with an "I don't know how this would work" I couldn't move forward on going or backward on staying. I finally asked that he think about it and let me know by the time we went to sleep so that I could work on seeing if they'd open up registration for me the following day. As the hours ticked by I figured my lack of an answer was an answer of no. Imagination my surprise when right as we were saying good-night to each other he turned and said that if I really wanted to go then I should go! Yay!!!

Amanda talking about what our ultimate identity is: A Child of the One True King.

The following day was a mad flurry of activity as I contacted the contact person, got their approval to register (way) late, went by the church to register and pay for the retreat, and find a babysitter for Abby (as the carpool of gals I was going to the retreat with were leaving at lunchtime while Nate wasn't able to get off work until later). But with an awesome neighbor down the street who happily agreed to watch Abby at the last minute all my ducks were lined up and I was all set for retreat time!

One of the breakout sessions. There were so many people that we quickly overfilled the available chairs and were sitting on the ground, against the walls, etc. 

The car ride was what you'd imagine when six ladies get together for three plus hours of chatting right before a women's only (no men or babies!) get together. While I knew most of the women in the van (one gal I had met briefly previously, but basically just knew her name) it was great getting to know them outside of Bible study or park playdates. Being a Stay at Home Mom means you get to know women's Stay at Home Mom personality, but before we were Mom's we were ourselves and that tends to come through best when you're not stopping the conversation every 30 seconds to "Mom" your child.

Our view from the lodge.

As we walked into the opening session I had big plans for taking tons of pictures and scrapbooking about my experience. The theme of the retreat was Rooted: Your Identity in Christ and I figured that this would make a great addition to the memories of my family. Well, my intent was great. My execution...not so much. :-) I think I took less than ten pictures the whole weekend. But truly, the session topics were so awesome that I spent most of my time engrossed in what was being said that I wasn't wanting to get out of that head space to take a photo. And during free time I was having too much fun doing the DIY projects (homemade exfoliating soap and a crocheted face scrubby) to take pictures of it. I do have to mention that the face scrubby was my first time ever crocheting. It took me the time of the crochet session and the entire movie watching later that night to finish what is essentially a three inch round scrubby. But I did it!

My carpool buddies! Becky, Jessica, Me, Evgenia, Sara, and Alicia.

The retreat did have one downfall and that was major lack of sleep. My roomies and I stayed up until after midnight both nights and then I slept terribly both days. Getting up at 1am, 4am, 6am, and finally 7am meant for a very short night of sleep. Add in a full day's worth of activities, many of them mentally taxing, and by the time we left on Sunday I was ready to go home just to get a good night's sleep! I'm not cut out for this partying lifestyle anymore. :-)

This wonderful weekend was all possible because of Jessica!

But truly. The weekend was fantastic. I got to hear some great speakers on some fantastic topics (one of which I'd actually had on my heart for quite a while but just wasn't doing anything about it. Hearing truths about that topics was what I needed to get moving on making some changes in my life.), got some quality time with some of my Bible study gals, learned a new craft (of which I've decided is something I can mark off and not worry about doing again for a long, long time), and, most importantly, learned more about God and how to better center my life in Him.

On our drive home we were all discussing what we would come back to with husbands carrying for kids by themselves all weekend long. For some women in our car this was a nervous question as they hadn't left their kids with their husband for this long of time before. As for me...I figured I'd either come home to a disaster of a house because Nate had been playing with Abby all weekend (perfectly fine by me) or a super clean house as he'd made a list of projects and had Abby help him with those or play independently (also perfectly fine by me). What I didn't expect was that Nate and Abby not only kept the house clean but they also purposefully went out and bought plants I'd been desiring to make my homecoming special. Imagine my surprise when Abby grabbed my hand yelling "Come see, come see!" and running towards the back yard when I came into the house. Upon opening up the sliding glass door I saw that I now had a hanging basket, a box of strawberry plants for Abby to help garden, and a Clematis plant to hopefully grow up our pergola to help shade the setting sun.

My new petunia hanging basket and box of strawberries.

Grow, baby, grow! Shade that sun!

As I look back upon my time at the retreat I am so thankful that the stars aligned in such a way for me to attend this wonderful event. I not only got some "me" time out of the house, but I did it in a setting with great friends, a heartfelt message, and some personal growth. I can't wait for the next retreat!

Picture with the Easter Bunny

An Easter Bunny photo opp success! It was a hectic adventure getting this one little picture as well. I'd received a two-for-the-price-of-one photo coupon that expired half-way through the bunny's visit so I really wanted to get Abby in for her picture during that time frame as I'm cheap that way. But with being out of town for part of that time period and then having crazy, busy days most of the other days of the cheap bunny visit I found myself on the last day of the coupon trying to squeeze pictures in between Preschool and nap on the same day that I left for a weekend Women's Retreat. I almost called it quits after picking Abby up from school and realizing they must have painted that day as she had blue spots on her forehead, cheek, and hands. After a few seconds of pondering I decided I'd rather save money than have a spot-free face. :-)

Upon arriving at the mall I got in line with only three people in front of me. I figured this would take between 5-10 minutes of waiting and it'd be our turn. I did NOT expect the person in the front of the line to take TEN FULL MINUTES getting the "perfect" snapshot of their one-ish year old child. I'm not kidding when I say it took ten minutes either. I watched the clock! :-) They'd have the picture taker take five or so pictures, review the pictures, and then ask for just a few more because Mom and Aunt were just so sure they could get him to smile a better/bigger/cuter/etc smile than the ones they were seeing. It was right about the point where I was frustrated enough that I was going to ask that they kindly get in line again if they weren't settled on purchasing a picture that they FINALLY purchased one. Another ten minutes of waiting for the next two people in front of us to go and we finally stepped up to get our picture taken at noon. Half an hour after Abby normally eats lunch and well past our time limit for a restroom break. After handing Abby to the bunny I walked back to the picture taker, asked Abby to smile with teeth, and okay'd the picture. Three minutes total from sitting on lap to walking away with paid pictures. That's how you do it! I'll end with saying that I'm loving the fact that she seems to enjoy these visits, as she waves, smiles, laughs, and tries to talk to Santa or the Easter Bunny instead of shrieking with terror. :-)

Abby and the Easter Bunny.

Our Super Yummy Dinner!

I thought our dinner was so amazing tonight I had to share the recipes! As we ate dinner I just kept commenting on how delicious the food was, how easy it was to prepare, and how fantastic I am because I prepared it. :-) Without further adieu I present.....our dinner. (Note: Actual recipes are at the end of the post so you don't miss the greatness that is both of the recipes.)

For the main course we had Thai Chicken Skewers with Peanut Sauce (original recipe in link courtesy of Emily at EmilyBites.com. I did modify the recipe a little bit for our taste preferences but the original intent is definitely still there. Basically we eliminated the cilantro from the marinade as Nate and I aren't huge cilantro fans, used Jif Natural Peanut Butter for the peanut sauce instead of powdered peanut butter and water, and added a bit more than double the brown sugar to the peanut sauce than what it called for as 1) I didn't want to buy powdered peanut butter and 2) we wanted a sweeter sauce than what we originally tasted. The taste of the sauce originally was still YUM but we wanted the "spicy sweet" kick and before we added in extra brown sugar it was a "spicy with a hint of sweet" kick. We also added chunky blue cheese dressing as a second dipping sauce because blue cheese makes everything better! Now, the recipe looks like it might be complicated because you make the marinade and the peanut sauce from scratch but really it was super easy. Just measure, dump, and mix. And as I'm NOT a superfabulous cook but rather a decent one who prefers simple meals to complicated ones, when I say this is super easy it really is!

For our side dish I decided to try Bacon Wrapped Caramelized Sesame Asparagus (original recipe in link courtesy of Jessica at HowSweetEats.com. This time I followed the directions exactly, but would do just a teeny tiny modification for next time. Instead of wrapping the bacon around the middle of the asparagus bundles (as seen in the 'Done' picture on the original link) I would wrap the bacon around as much of the asparagus bundles as possible. The bacon was DELISH with the asparagus so you definitely want to make sure that there's a bit of bacon in every asparagus bite and I found that the tops and bottoms of the asparagus didn't get the bacon love that the middle of the bundles did.

And with that you now have a night's dinner all planned out for you. I also served cottage cheese and pineapple because I wanted to be able to cut down on the spicy zing in my mouth if necessary, but I think a fruit salad would have also gone over just as well. Throwing in my two cents! I hope you give these recipes a try and enjoy them just as much as our family did!

Thai Chicken Skewers with Peanut Sauce

yield: 4 (1 SKEWER + 1 TABLESPOON SAUCE) SERVINGS

INGREDIENTS:

Chicken & Marinade Ingredients:

·         3 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce

·         2 tablespoons honey

·         1 tablespoon sesame oil

·         Juice from one lime

·         2 garlic cloves, minced

·         1 teaspoon Sriracha (Asian chili sauce)

·         1/8 teaspoon of red pepper flakes

·         1 ½ pounds (24 oz) raw boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized chunks

·         9” skewers –soak wooden skewers in water for about 30 minutes before use

Peanut Sauce Ingredients:

·         2 tablespoons peanut butter

·         1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce

·         1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

·         ¼ teaspoon black pepper

·         1/8 teaspoon Sriracha

·         1 tablespoon brown sugar

·         1/8 teaspoon sesame oil

DIRECTIONS:

1.      To create the marinade, combine the soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, lime juice, garlic, sriracha, and red pepper flakes from the first set of ingredients and mix thoroughly. Pour marinade into a gallon Ziploc bag and add chicken. Seal bag and shake to coat chicken in the marinade. Place the bag in the refrigerator so that the chicken is covered in the marinade and refrigerate for at least 3-4 hours (but can marinate longer – i.e. all day, overnight, etc).

2.      Pre-heat the grill until hot. Divide the chicken evenly onto the four skewers. Place the skewers on the grill over low heat. Cook for about 5-6 minutes and then flip them and continue to cook until chicken is cooked through.

3.      To make the sauce, place all sauce ingredients in a bowl and whisk together until combined. Serve each chicken skewer with about a tablespoon of peanut sauce for dipping. 

Bacon Wrapped Caramelized Sesame Asparagus

1 bunch of asparagus, about 20-25 spears, stems removed

6 or so slices thick-cut bacon (1 slice bacon per bundle of asparagus)

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

1 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar

1 garlic clove, minced or pressed

1/2 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a roasting pan with aluminum foil and place the rack on top. Spray the rack with nonstick spray. In a small bowl, whisk together oils, brown sugar and garlic. Set aside.

Bunch together 5-6 asparagus spears and tightly wrap a piece of bacon around the bundle. Place on the rack seam-side down and repeat. Using a pastry brush, brush the spears thoroughly with the oil/sugar mixture. Give each bundle a hefty sprinkle of sesame seeds. Roast for 35-40 minutes, or until bacon is crispy. Serve warm.