Resurrection Celebration

We were forced to stay home this year on Easter, instead of getting to spend it with Mimi and the cousins, on account of the chickenpox. It was surprisingly restful and especially worshipful and we finally got to have our Resurrection Celebration that I'd only dreamed about the last few years.



Charlie and I stayed up WAY too late getting everything set up in the backyard so that it would be all ready when we'd wake the kids at sunrise. But, this day! Oh, this day is worth celebrating!! It's the day we'll be celebrating forever.



We kept it pretty simple using decor I already had from throwing showers, my fancy dishes, and flowers. While I worked on a table arrangement the evening before, Charlie did most of the food prep for our Resurrection Celebration: Green Eggs & Ham, YWF link-sausage, sweet potato hash, and fruit salad.

As we were getting ready to celebrate on Easter morning, things just needed to either be popped in the oven or cooked on the stovetop. (We forgot ALL about our Resurrection Cookies that we'd made the night before, though, when we were pre-heating the oven. Oops!!) We woke up the kids as we busted into their rooms telling them, "He is Risen! Jesus is alive!! The women saw an angel instead of Jesus who told them that Jesus would meet them in Galilee, just as He had promised." (Mark 16)

While breakfast was warming, the kids searched for their Easter baskets hidden in the house. This was the first time we'd hidden them and they loved the thrill of the hunt.

We were not surprised at all that McKlayne adored all the flowers and the "fancy" table. She and Asher both loved the chocolate crosses. (I searched all over town and finally found them at Walgreens...well worth the search.)

Since it was so early, we let the babies continue to sleep while we celebrated the resurrection over breakfast.  Asher and McKlayne enjoyed the "double date" and Charlie and I really enjoyed getting to focus and really be engaged in conversation with them without any distractions.

After breakfast and signing a few hymns, Charlie retold the Easter story as the kids ate their chocolate crosses. They listened intently and asked insightful questions as they tried to process the story of salvation.

Then Charlie explained how early Christians adopted an ancient tradition from the Persians that we now know as "Easter eggs".  The Persians celebrated with eggs in their Spring Festival. They used the hard shell of the egg, as it is broken open so that new life can emerge, to symbolize the rebirth of nature through Spring.  In the same way, Christians adapted this symbol a bit and began to use eggs to symbolize the rock-hewn tomb of Jesus, which was broken open when he rose from the dead on the third day, to symbolize the rebirth of mankind through Jesus.  

And with that, they were off to hunt Easter Eggs.

As they emptied their coin-filled eggs, Charlie told them about how we'd decided to put money in them to remind them of  Jesus as valuable "treasure". He went on to tell them a story that Jesus told about the kingdom being like Hidden Treasure (Matthew13). I pray that these symbols of truth are planted deep in their hearts and that the Spirit would grow them in understanding and faith, and one day soon, they'd take all that they have and trade it for that treasure, Jesus.

And, because I'm from South Texas, confetti eggs will always be a part of our celebration:

After a long nap, we went on an Easter Story Treasure Hunt, as a family.  The kids enjoyed this, too.(Maybe, I'll share that with you next year.)

As much as we were bummed to not get to spend the weekend with family, I was reminded of, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul."

A whole day to celebrate....really celebrate new life we've been given through the resurrection power of Jesus. It was activity-packed, yet full of meaning and rest as we were able to really reflect on the freedom and newness that Jesus freely extends to all who believe...even those "religious ones" who think they'd "always believed"-like me. Thank you, Jesus, for the gift of new, rich life that you extended to me, nine years ago.

²

Summer of Celebrations (Part IV): Ashley's Wedding Shower

My sweet sister-in-law, Ashley, got married this summer. So, at the end of June, we threw a wedding shower for her at Chelsea's house. (Ash, do you have the pics of all us from your shower? If so, bring them next week!) Chelsea and I only took pics before the guests arrived, after that, we were too busy visiting with people...so, all I have for now are these of the details:

Her wedding colors were black and white and she'd have damask on most of her wedding decor, so we continued on with that theme for the "black and white" dessert bar and damask details.

I made this wreath using this tutorial with her soon-to-be new last initial! (I could not find the plates anywhere, but then found out they were from a craft store in Utah.) I used this damask one instead from Hobby Lobby. And, instead of using vinyl, I just printed out the "H" on white paper and modge-podged it to the plate.

I wish we had a closer shot of the fabric flowers because they turned out super cute. This tutorial was our inspiration. The smaller flowers were from the "twisted flowers". We used this tutorial for the large flower.

On to the food.

I appointed Chelsea to make the Oreo balls and Chocolate Covered Strawberries. I said that frosting anything was a gift,remember? And I don't have that gift.

Oreo balls

1 pkg. of Oreo cookies, crushed

8 oz. cream cheese

1 pkg. white chocolate/chocolate

Mix crushed oreos and cream cheese. Roll into balls. Chill for 1 hour. Melt chocolate, dip ball in chocolate. Let cool on wax paper. (It takes about 15 minutes for chocolate to harden.) I put some chocolate (opposite of what I dipped them in) in a plastic bag and cut off the corner to drizzle over the top when they were all done. (optional)

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Dirt Cake

8oz. cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup margarine, softened

2 small pkg. of vanilla pudding

3 1/2 cups of milk

12 oz. Cool Whip, thawed

20 oz. package of Oreo cookies

Mix cream cheese, margarine, and powdered sugar. Set aside. In another bowl mix pudding and milk, set aside 5 minutes, add cool whip and cream cheese mixture.

Put Oreo cookies in the food processor and mix until crumbs are fine. (save a few sprinkles for the top)

Layer in bowl: oreo, pudding, oreo, pudding (I usually just look and see how much instead of measuring). If you want you can save some cool whip for the top. Either way sprinkle some Oreo crumbs on top.

Cool before serving.

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White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies (here)

Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies

2 cups flour

3/4 cup baking Cocoa

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon of salt

2 sticks of softened butter

2/3 cup of brown sugar

2/3 cups of sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

1 3/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in medium bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chunks. Drop onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for about 10 minutes or until centers are set but still soft at 350°.

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Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

1 box yellow cake mix

1 small pkg. vanilla pudding

1 small pkg. chocolate pudding

1 1/4 c. water

1/2 c. oil

(plus the next 3 ingredients.)

Mix together the above ingredients. Add 4 eggs, then 1 1/2 c. chocolate chips, and 8 oz. sour cream.

Heat oven to 350°. Pour all into a greased bunt pan. Cook 50-60 minutes.

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(Not pictured but so yummy. SO. YUMMY. that I made two and debated about whether to eat one whole pie by myself before the shower. I seriously thought of excuses about how I could have showed up with just one pie. I was totally ready to blame it on the pregnancy "cravings" since they were real this time, then I remembered that I didn't want to gain 50 lbs like I did with Asher, so I resisted and brought the second pie...uneaten.)

Aunt Susan's Famous French Silk Chocolate Pie

Ingredients for a 10-inch pan:

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 sticks butter

2 tsp. vanilla

4 eggs

3 squares unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

9-inch pan:

3/4 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

3 eggs

3 squares unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

PLUS

1 (9- or 10-inch) pie crust, baked and cooled

whipped cream

Cream butters and sugar until light and fluffy. Add cooled chocolate and vanilla. Mix well. Add eggs one at a time. Beat 5 minutes after each egg. Put in any crust you like. Chill well. Store in refrigerator.

Summer of Celebrations (Part III): Milk & Cookies Shower

Back to what we actually did this summer. 

Incase you missed Chelsea and Heather's posts about this baby shower, (who actually blog about events shortly after they occur) I introduce to you a Milk & Cookies shower...

(Isn't Chelsea beautiful at 8 months pregnant?)

I had seen several Milk & Cookies showers/parties on...what else but blogs? (here and here)...and thought it would be so easy (and unique) to pull off. And it was!

Each of the sweet hostesses baked several dozen cookies.

We had Chocolate Mint Cookies, Sugar Cookies, Ranger Cookies, Shortbread, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Chunk, Molasses, Snickerdoodle, and White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies.

Charlie made our cute labels, of course.  And we used fabric (VERY, starched fabric...nothing else would work) to line the inside of the cookies jars. Some of cookies had to be stacked on bowls to make the cookies seem higher so they weren't too low in the jar.  Presentation is everything.

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup butter, melted

1 cup packed light brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1½ cups chopped macadamia nuts

2 cups white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt and set aside.

Beat together the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the egg, then beat in the egg yolk, then beat in the vanilla.

Gradually add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture until just moistened. Stir in the macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips by hand with a rubber spatula.

Roll into balls or drop by heaping tablespoons onto baking sheets, and press down on the cookies with your palm a bit to flatten (not too much!).

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the edges look golden brown and the middles don’t look quite set. Allow to finish cooling on the baking sheet. 

Snickerdoodles

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, plus 4 tablespoons for coating

1 1/2 cups Sugar

2 eggs

2 3/4 cups flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons Cinnamon

Preaheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar for 3-4 minutes, until light. Add eggs one at a time, mixing completely after each.

Stir together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. Beat the dry ingredients into the butter-and-sugar mixture until well-blended. Refrigerate dough for about 20 minutes, or until firm enough to roll into balls.

Combine the cinammon and remaining sugar (you may need more of either of these if you're running out--I just kind of eyeball it)

For each cookie, pinch off enough dough to roll into a wallnut-size ball; roll into c&s mixture and place on cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

(Makes about 4 dozen cookies.)

Sandi's Shortbread Cookies

2 cups butter

1 cup sugar

4 cups flour

1 tsp. vanilla

(This recipe does NOT contain eggs...I always wonder if it was left out by accident on the directions...but, nope, the buttery goodness does not allow for them! ;) Mix butter sugar. Add vanilla. Add one cup of flour at a time. Roll into balls and drop on cookie sheet. Sprinkle top with sugar. Bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes.  (Thanks for this divine recipe, Mrs. Sandi!) 

 

I got this cute mason jar spigot from a garage sale but I've seen them at Hobby Lobby.

Of course, we needed several different varieties of milk in cute glass pitchers that used to hold HEB brand organic Apple Juice.

And mason jars...milk always tastes better in mason jars...these were from garage sales, too.

We always elect Kendra to create her precious prayer cards for our prayer showers and she was generous enough to share them here!

Extra cookies were sent home in a brown bag with the baby's initials...Chandler Owen Groves.  Don't you love that name?

And here is the precious little guy:



The Summer of Celebrations (part II)

Next up on the list...showers.


After the two weddings in early June, I helped host two showers at the end of June...a baby shower and a wedding shower.

The first one I want to tell you about is Chelsea's Baby Shower, but before I do that I wanted to highlight her Gender Party Reveal that we helped with in March.  (Heather blogged about it here, but some people have been asking me to put it on my blog so they could find it easier.)

My sister, Kyle, first told me about Gender Parties.  She'd seen several blogs about them...and how they were the new way to celebrate and reveal the gender of your baby to family and friends.

Instead of finding out the gender at their appointment, Cody and Chelsea decided to have the sonographer write it down on a piece of paper and put in an envelope.  After the appointment, they brought the envelope over to my house.  I was oh, so honored to be trusted with the big surprise!  (I didn’t even tell Charlie, though he tried to get it out of me…and then pretended like he didn’t want to know, anyway, after I refused…I was reveling in all the power I possessed for the few hours that day.)

I made the actual cake balls a few days before and doubled this recipe.  To half of the batch, I added red food coloring to the crumbled cake and frosting mixture until it was a bright pink and to the other I added blue.  My friend, Lindsay, helped me ice the cake balls on the afternoon of the party…okay, I’ll just be honest and say that I tried to ice several and they looked so sloppy...I think icing cake or cake balls is a gift and is definitely not one I possess…so I just let Lindsay ice the rest.  As she was icing them, I pulled two blue cake balls and two pink cake balls aside and labeled the plates they were sitting on, since we iced these before "the envelope" was dropped off.  I was so afraid I was going to get them confused and ruin the whole evening. 

As guests arrived, they gave baby name suggestions for both genders. (And this baby was actually named with one of the suggestions given by Heather! How neat is that?)

Guests were instructed to wear BLUE... 

or PINK according to what they thought this baby's gender was.

The pink and blue fare included:

I'm unashamedly copying the recipes directly from Heather's post.

Coffee Punch (dyed blue)
3 cups strong coffee

2 cups sugar

1 pint cream or half and half

1 quart milk

2 t. vanilla

Dissolve sugar in hot coffee. Cool. Add other ingredients. Freeze. Remove from freezer about 30 minutes before party. Mix and serve very icy.  (I've mentioned this recipe before.)

Raspberry Limeade

1 can of raspberry lemonade concentrate

1 bottle of cold, carbonated lime water

1 bottle of cold, carbonated raspberry water

Mix those ingredients and enjoy!

(This Limeade is Aaron's specialty, except he uses all lime everything instead of raspberry...but Chels needed a pink drink so she substituted, accordingly.  This was my beverage of choice when I was pregnant with Asher and it was responsible for 28 lbs of the 50 lbs that I gained with him.  Thank you, Aaron.)

You can see how the inside of the blue cake calls were kind of oozing out, Lindsay triple-dipped the cake balls that  Chelsea and Cody would be biting into, so they'd have no idea until they bit into them.  These were just for all the guests to eat so we weren't as particular.  (Recipe at the beginning of this post.)

Jello Squares

3 small boxes of Jello

(3 watermelon for pink, 3 blue raspberry for blue)

3 Knox Gelatin envelopes

heavy whipping cream

Mix the Jello and the Knox Gelatin together (this will be dry). Add 3.5 cups hot water. Add 1/2 pint heavy whipping cream. Stir. Pour in a 9x13 pan. Refrigerate. The cream will separate and go to the top. Cut and serve.  (To say that these were a HUGE hit with the kids would be quite an understatement. Chelsea's carpet can attest.)

Pink Party Salad

1 can strawberry pie filling

1 (8 0z.) cool whip

1 small can crushed pineapple (drain)

1 can eagle brand milk

1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Mix all of that together and refrigerate a couple hours before you serve it.

Blueberry Dump Cake

2 cans of blueberry

small can of crushed pineapple

1 yellow cake mix

butter

Pour the blueberries and pineapple in the bottom of a pan, then pour a yellow cake mix on top of that mixture. Melt 1 stick of butter and pour on top of the cake mix. Don't stir. Bake at 350 for about an hour.

Chelsea bought the pink and blue packages of white chocolate chips from Hobby Lobby to coat the pretzel rods.

Then...the moment everyone was waiting for...after all the guests arrived, I handed Cody and Chelsea the appropriately colored cake balls as everyone gathered for the big reveal!

And it was...

This was McKlayne's favorite part of the party.

And my favorite part:

(Oh, how I miss moments like this with that one on the right...)

(I would thoroughly being pregnant if this is how I looked...too bad my tummy is the LAST thing to grow.)

And...this is how I will feel in 5 months.