What do hollowed out eggs and cinnamon bread have in common?

(left to right blue bird, bunny rabbit, and chick)

Saturday Easter festivities for our family involve all of the what I lovingly refer to as the "silly" side of Easter. I personally think that all the bunny and candy should be a part of a celebration of spring and let Easter be for the Atonement and Resurrection, but peeps have more of a say in this matter then I do. Luckily, I do have a say about what and when we celebrate as a family. Upon perusing the Martha Stewart website, I saw my Spring Celebration craft (Easter for everyone else). I am personally not the biggest fan of boiled eggs making this project ideal. The eggs had to loose their middles before dyeing. The egg innards couldn't just be wasted. Solution: Berry-Yogurt Stuffed French Toast. While the French toast cooked, the kids and I dyed our eggs. With 8 total, I reserved the three you see in the picture for my craft fun and let the kids go to town on the rest. Delicious and rewarding in more ways then one.

Homemade Love

Scrapbooking and I have a love hate relationship. I love to buy the various products but hate making the executive decisions with the all powerful tacky glue. I have even purchased a book that lays out various options to maximize the paper's power for cuteness and historical remembrance. And yet, a large Tupperware container stays unnoticed under my bed until I have to store away more products.
There comes those moments in my life that inspire me to greater heights or at least I get ambitious enough to fiddle with the paper. Easter cards for my family brought the inspiration this time. The finished product is below. I want you to notice the intricate pattern combination (in other words that wasn't a mistake to have so many different busy body patterns) and the central location of the brad to keep the ribbon in place.

Upon sliding the little "Friendship" card out of it's amazingly manufactured envelope, the recipient enjoys this picture. Hopefully it will help you feel a little fuzzier this Easter season.

Happy St. Patricks Day

(You can't have St Patrick's Day without green food coloring added to some edible object. . .pancakes were our choice since I had creative license to thematically shape them.)


This weekend brought some great opportunities to celebrate this strange holiday. Saturday was gorgeous outside. Fernando and the kids went to a little parade. They unfortunately missed most of the bagpipes and festivities due to an over ambitious police officer preventing people from parking in unmarked VIP parking. Just imagine how much time it would take unloading kids, being told to move, so you reload your kids, and then are stopped by the same police officer who decided it would be ok if you stayed in that particular space. They did get to see the remnants of the festivities including a random/spontaneous group of Indians singing some chant down the parade path and a guy on stilts.
Later that afternoon, we went to the library to enjoy some Irish singing and dancing complete with soft shoes and the hard shoe Riverdance-ish performance. Mind you, the girls were in training and lacked all the flair found in the Lord of the Dance. Fernando was convinced that I could join in seeing as how I took an Irish dancing class at BYU. As fun as it sounded, I just don't think leaping around with my 37 week pregnant self was a good idea.
To celebrate on the official day, we attended Brookside Gardens annual St. Patrick's Day Walk. They described it as follows: "Join in the fun festivities and activities while following the trail of "Lively the Leprechaun" who, when captured, leads you to the treasure of healthiness. A St. Paddy's Day craft, scavenger hunt, and healthy snack add to the celebration."

Translation: We decorated cute little cups, followed 'Lucky' the Leprechaun around the gardens and into the Green House full of beautiful plants and flowers to the pot of gold/Yukon Gold Potatoes and left with a bag of fun including a granny smith apple.

For dinner, I had hoped to make a recipe of Corned Beef and Cabbage. If you haven't ever tried it. . .you are missing out. The price per pound led me to a cheaper Irish dish of Shepherd's pie. To jazz it up, we made a giant meatball base and cheesy garlic mashed potatoes to cover it up. After it came out of the oven, I topped it with green onions, tomatoes, and bacon.
For dessert, we had homemade mint brownies with ice cream on top shaped like a potato. You know the Irish and their potatoes. To make potato ice cream, scoop out the vanilla ice cream onto a sheet of plastic wrap that has been sprinkled generously with cinnamon and sugar. roll it up and use the heat of your hands to shape it into a potato.
We luckily got to share these festivities with my brother and sister-in-law who came in to town from NYC.

How Much Do You Like Strawberries?

I love the transition from winter to spring. Even though it is unpredictable, the weather is better and hope for more outside time in moderate temperatures is enough to make anyone happy. A side bonus for this time of year is strawberry season. I love going to the store and purchasing strawberries at ridiculously low prices. Those low prices haven't hit yet, but I still couldn't resist grabbing two containers the other day at the store. Those lasted all of about 12 hours and from this video you can see why.