Easter Fun

Even if I tried a "Wordless Wednesday" I'm just not good at being wordless.... However, here are some pics from this weekend's festivities.

Tater tot turned out to be a fine frisbee thrower!

Papa B and Nana both played with him as did his Great-Grandpa B.

This was, of course after the Easter Egg hunt - so my pictures are in reverse order here.


It was also after the Birthday party.







Here's a little "Incredible Hulk" green GRIN - thanks to the Birthday Cake icing.







And finally- my little egg hunter... man he needs a hair cut!

Good Movies, Good Books, Yummy Cake and Happy Easter

My mom lent me a copy of the movie Bride and Prejudice. If you have a chance to rent it- WATCH IT. It was so fun and cute. It's a retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice set in modern day India. A bit English Romantic Era with a good dose of Bollywood thrown in. I don't normally always agree with my mom's assessment of movies but this one is actually really cute... I watched it 3 times before lending it to a friend who will hopefully get it back to me in time to return it to mom this weekend when we gather for Easter.

We are having a bake sale at work Friday and are making mostly 'big' desserts that will appeal to people who don't want to have to bake for their Easter get togethers... so I'm making an Orange Marmalade Cake (from The Mitford Books) and a dump cake (from the Pioneer Woman's website)... and... well, maybe something else - but that might be it for me! The Orange Marmalade recipe is 2 pages long and its totally from scratch! Thankfully the dump cake is blissfully easy. (Oddly - pioneer woman has a totally different orange marmalade cake too!)

If you've never read the Mitford books by Jan Karon you need to read them. It's a great series of fictional books about Father Tim - Rector of the Episcopal Church in Mitford NC. His escapades and experiences are just so fun! I don't even like Orange Marmalade but when I read the stories about this 'famous' cake that - because he just couldn't resist - caused a diabetic coma and almost sent Father Tim to his Maker, I crave it...
More about that and the recipe here -

Next week we are having food day and the theme is "Mom's best recipe" so I emailed mom and asked her what her best recipe was and she gave me like 10 so I still have to whittle through them and decide. I was thinking "Lucky and Dumplins" but she didn't think that was her "best" although it may be her most original!

This weekend we have our family Easter shindig. Mom's one of seven kids - six of whom felt called to breed - and their kids have popped out an amazing number of great-grandchildren for my Grandma... My sis has 5, My cousin K has 3, my cousin C has 2, other cousin K has 3, I have 1 and my Uncle J - not born until mom was 18 so he's in my generation has 3 also! I also have 4 or 5 other cousins with off spring that live out of state and I've honestly lost count on them! So the grand total of people of all ages at this thing will be between 20 and 30 people!

For the first year ever my mom talked her mom into having Easter at mom's big 2 story house instead of my grandma's 1100 sq. ft. shoe box of a house... There's something to be said for being able to get far enough away from my Uncle J not to hear him yelling! Even when he's happy he sounds mad... and he's just LOUD!

Mom's back yard is pretty barren (just grass- no clutter or trees or anything!) so she said she was planning to plant some flower beds in the back yard so there are actually some places to hide eggs! Interesting motivation to take up gardening... but whatever...

Didn't mean for this post to reference my mom seven billion times... it just did... and that's okay... because despite being "Martha Stewart without the criminal background" she is a pretty neat lady.

Liturgy, Legacy, and Palm Branches

Okay - Copper's working 9:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. now - Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesdays each week. He sleeps during the day so it is challenging to keep Tater-tot quiet on Sundays when we get home from Church.

Today I went to Tater-tot's Sunday School class. It was totally cool. The teacher had wooden figures cut to be Jesus and the twelve disciples - she had a little table just their size and recreated the upper room/last supper. There was a little silver chalice and a brown lump of play-doh was the bread which she broke and explained that Jesus shared the bread with the disciples.

Then she explained Jesus washing their feet. And how Peter tried to stop him. Next, we all took off our shoes and washed each others feet.

She led all of the children (3-6 years old) in reciting a litany about Jesus and who he was, lit a candle, read the scripture for that lesson - the story of the upper room. Asked all to share what they were "happy" about and then let me (as the helper) snuff the candle and all of the children knew to speak the response "Jesus is always with us." once the candle was snuffed out.

Finally we shared a "feast" of cookies and water. She had a special way to end - she called each child one at at time to throw away their napkin and cup and then hug her goodbye.

It was truly a special and unique time. So many teachers just do a work sheet or get out play-doh or paints, so to have special rituals and liturgy that they do every week with 4 year olds was just really cool.

After Sunday School all of the children - even the little babies (carried by parents) got to be in the processional with palms and lay palms next to the altar...

So overall - it was a red letter day for Tater tot.

Copper's Fox

Everyone sing along with Tater-tot

There was a farmer, had a dog
And Dingo was his name, O
EINGO, EINGO, EINGO
And Dingo was his name O

(Did a Dingo eat the baby?)

Please don't laugh at that - it was the worst joke EVER!