Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!  I pray your Easter was a very blessed one as we remember our Lord who rose from the dead and lives forevermore!  We serve a LIVING Saviour!
I started the morning out by getting up early and (helping the easter bunny out) by hiding the eggs outside for the easter egg hunt.  :)  I told V she'd better not tell H that the easter bunny nor Santa Claus weren't real.  I know some people have mixed feelings about this- some think we are lying to our kids, others think that it takes away from the real reason we celebrate these holidays but my feeling is this: kids grow up waaay too fast in today's world and this is a little way to bring some fun memories into their childhood.  I remember growing up thinking that they were real but I also knew the real reason we celebrated Christmas and Easter.  And I turned out all right so I will continue the tradition with my girls!  :) 
So, the eggs were hidden and I sat down to breakfast.  I ate outside on my patio as I enjoyed the warm weather and had my celebration breakfast.  I called it that because for the first time I participated in lent.  I have never done that before, neither have I ever really given it a thought!  But I felt the Lord laid it on my heart that he wanted me to fast from somehing for those 40 days and I did.  I gave up coffee- something that was extremely hard.  But I have to say, the Lord didn't ask me to do that for no reason- He worked in me and through me and I experienced a closeness to Him that I haven't had in a long time.  And I believe that because of that, celebrating Easter took on a new meaning for me today- I truly serve a RISEN Saviour!!
So, as you can guess, part of my celebration breakfast was coffee!  And it tasted soooo good.  :)
Then I went inside and got the girls up and we all got ready for church.  We went to church, came home and the girls opened their easter baskets, we had our easter egg hunt and then we ate lunch.  What a wonderful Easter morning we had but it was saddened by the fact that this was our first Easter away from family and that was hard.  This also was a different Easter- first, we weren't with family;  second, my mom always made the Easter dinner and third, my sister always headed up the easter egg hunt!  So I had to do it all myself this year!  Thanks mom and Sara for all the hard work, love and time you put into it all! 
I have to start out before I post the pictures of our Easter saying that I'm sorry that there is so many pictures.  There is a lot of the egg hunt but since all our family is far away and weren't able to be with us, I wanted them so experience it with us.  So, I hope you enjoy "experiencing" our Easter with us!!

Egg festival

On saturday, we went to a fun easter egg festival  at

V's school.  The girls went fishing....

and caught a fish!!

H was enjoying herself!!

Having fun with daddy.

Making a flower with daddy

V got to make a flower with daddy too!

"Oh my,do we have to go now?"

On saturday I put the baskets together

and we also colored eggs.  It made for a fun family weekend!

Decorating eggs

She insisted on rolling the eggs around in the

bowls of food coloring so her hands were totally blue!

Leo watched us from the couch wishing he could get

in on the fun!  :)

Our beautiful decorated eggs.

Of course, Chad had to drive the dune buggy to church!

Since I drove separate, after service Chad drove the girls

over to where I was parked. 

Easter baskets

Ok, now it is Easter Sunday!  We just got home

from church and the girls are opening up their easter baskets.

Checking out the goods.  :)

She LOVES the Chuggington show so the "easter

bunny" brought her a movie and book.

(Thank you Amazon!)  hee hee

It brings me such joy to watch my children enjoying

their baskets and being together.

Egg Hunt

H found her first egg!

But V was off and running and finding eggs

way before H found her first one!

Soon after, she was into it and off and running too!

Found another one....

and she's off again!

H: "hey, I want that one!"

V: "too bad!"

My beautiful precious V

My beautiful precious H

After dinner we enjoyed easter cupcakes!

Hope you had a happy Easter like we did!





Delicious oreo balls

V had an Easter party at school yesterday and she signed up to bring sweets.  So she decided to make her famous chocolate chip cookies and oreo balls!  Wedneday after school we came home, she was on one side of the kitchen and I was on the other, she was making her cookies and I was making the oreo balls. Oh, my heart was going pitter patter as we worked together, talking and laughing and doing some much needed bonding.  And what better place than in the kitchen!
For dads and sons, bonding might happen in the woods hunting, in the garage tinkering around or working on a car together or maybe at the ball field.  I can't come up with very many ideas (I am not a dad nor do I have a son!!)  haha 
But I do know that for moms and daughters, our bonding could happen in the kitchen over cooking/baking, in the salon during a pedicure or manicure, or in the mall shopping (unless your daughter is V and she would rathe die than go shopping!)  For her, we would have to bond at a Petco or animal shelter!!  My girl loves her animals!!
So, now that you have such a delightful picture of us calmly bonding as we baked together, let me cue you into what else was going on.  About every 20 seconds or so I was running into the laundry room, (politely) raising my voice at H to stop feeding the dog.  (Now that we have little Leo, H thinks it is her mission to make sure Leo has enough food and that he eats it.  She actually carries his water bowl and food bowl to wherever he is in the house or outside and puts it down right next to him.  The she proceeds to hand feed him, piece by piece. Arrrgh.)  Anyway, you would've thought after running in there and asking her to stop for a 1/2 hour, I would've just picked up the food bowl, water bowl and the large storage bin of dog food and put it out of her reach.  But of course, I never thought of that.

Secondly, it was during a really bad thunderstorm so there was lots of lightening, thunder and rain and H kept opening up the back door and letting hersef and the dog out and I kept running outside to the porch to again (politely) tell her to get back inside. (I was so scared she would get struck by lightening!!)

So, I came up with the brilliant idea to turn on the tv and put some cartoons on to keep her distracted (she is really not a tv watcher but I thought I would try, I was getting desperate!!) Well, the little precious thing decided to turn off the kitchen lights, so it got really dark and I thought the power went out. I didn't know at this time that it was H turning off the lights, so I declared to V "oh great, this is just what we need- the power to go out!"   She very calmly said "mom, if the power went out, the tv wouldn't be on and my mixer wouldn't be running.  It is just H playing with the light switch!"  Oh My Goodness!!!  I just about lost my mind!!
So,there you have it!  The cookies were baked and the oreo balls made and they were delicious!  But most importantly, I think some really precious memories were created that day also.

To finish off the afternoon, V made her easter eggs for her

school party.  What a blessed afternoon of

making memories with my girls. Thank You, Lord!

Oreo Balls

I am so bummed- with all that was going on (as mentioned above!!) I forgot to take a picture of 

oreos- what you are supposed to start out with! So, pretend you see a bowl full of oreos and

to start, you are going to take apart each one and scrape the filling into another bowl. 

After you scrape out the filling, put the chocolate cookies into a large ziploc bag.  When you have

 them all scraped off, you are going to crush them into fine crumbs with a rolling pin.

Now back to the filling- add 1 pkg. of cream cheese to it and mix it until it's smooth and creamy.

Now add those crushed cookie crumbs and mix it all up!

Mmmmm.  This looks delish!

Now you are going to roll it into 1 inch balls and stick it into the frig or freezer to chill.

Melt 1 pkg. of almond bark and after they are chilled, dip them into the chocolate to coat them.

Sorry, this isn't the best picture but I think you get the idea!!

Oreo Balls

1 pkg. oreos

1 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese

1 pkg. almond bark

Twist oreos and take apart.

Scrape filling from cookies and put into large bowl.

Add cream cheese to bowl and cream together.

Put remainder of cookies into a ziploc bag and seal.  Use a rolling pin to finely crush.

Add finely crushed cookies to the creamed mixture and stir.

Roll into 1 inch balls and chill.

Melt almond bark according to package directions.

Dip cookie balls into almond bark and place on a wax paper covered cookie sheet.

Let set and enjoy!!