The Weekend in Review

We got so lucky here in Seattle this Easter. We had sun! Easter is notoriously rainy here, almost like a given. This made our egg hunt all the much better. Afterwards we enjoyed our cake out on the front porch and soaked up as much vitamin D as humanly possible.

Before Sunday the girls dyed eggs. We tried using stickers on our eggs before dying. It didn't really work that well. The stickers didn't peel off all the way and left a fuzzy, sticky mark. I don't think the girls minded though. I made an Easter cake and had the ridiculous idea of making a bunny to peek out of the bundt cake hole. Using Twinkies and candy melts proved to be quite challenging. The ears were formed with wafer cookies. In hindsight what I should have done was buy a cute chocolate bunny from the drug store. Would have saved A LOT of time and A Lot of mess.  Oh well, it turned out cute.

On Sunday we had cousins big and small come over.  We enjoyed an early dinner and then sent the kiddos out to hunt for eggs.  It was an enjoyable day!  How was yours?

A variation

This year I attempted to make my nest cookies look more nest-y.  Mission accomplished, I do believe.  I used crunchy chow mein noodles for some and toasted coconut for the rest.  The chow mein noodles were a pain to "glue" on (I mixed powdered sugar and milk to make a glue.) They were pretty much assembled one noodle at a time.  I did it in front of the TV.  Bryce and I are back to Breaking Bad again.  That Walt, can't seem to stay out of trouble. The girls glued the eggs in the next day. 

Anyhoo, the toasted coconut was much faster, better tasting and easier to eat.  The girls prefer the chow mein noodles.  For the eggs I used M&M chocolate candy eggs.  I wish they were smaller.


We're taking these to a flashlight egg hunt tonight.  Doesn't that sound fun?  This is the first time I've heard of such a thing.  I think the girls will love it!

Here are the directions to make these more nest-y cookies -

1) Bake a batch of Thumbprint Cookies.  These are the same ones I make every Christmas; minus the chocolate filling, of course. 
2) Stir together about 1/2 cup powdered sugar with a teaspoon milk.  Add 1 drop at a time until a glue like consistency is reached.
3) Frost the out side of the cookies with your "glue." 
4) Quickly place chow mein noodles or toasted coconut on the "glue."
5) Spoon a little "glue" in the nest and place mini eggs, jelly beans or the like.
6) Let harden in the air then place in a container.

Hope you have a Happy Easter!

Where I've Been (again)

A theme is starting to emerge in my posts; my absence. Life is busy and full right now. Which is a good thing, but not so much for the blog. I hope you'll stick with me, though. I'll be back. I always come back.

Monday was a holiday here in Lux and for most of Europe. We went to the Easter Market and purchased our 2011 bird whistle.

Tuesday I took our visiting family to Rodemack where we took in the charms of this quaint medieval town.

Wednesday our family left. Back home to Washington for them. I met with some friends about our upcoming girls weekend in Paris. Squeal!!

Thursday was one of those funny days where I felt like I was on the outside of myself. Like I was driving on the wrong side of the road. Like I'm walking around without a shirt on but I don't realize it. At the grocery store I took someone's grocery cart and added 4 things to it before I realized it wasn't my own. Perhaps this happens to everyone, but this is the 3rd time I've done it in the past few months. I'm not kidding. When I realize it I always want to say to the person whose cart I hijacked, Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry. I accidentally took your cart instead of mine. I'm losing my mind, please excuse me. But this sentiment is much too complex for me to express in my rudimentary French. So I end up saying something (in French) that is more like - I take your cart. Sorry. Then I walk away with my tail between my legs like a total lame-o. Ever have days like that?

Friday is today! It is going to be great. I'm headed to a Royal Wedding party! We'll be sipping Pimms, eating strawberries and cream and partaking in all things English while watching the wedding. I'll give you a full report on Monday.

Have a wonderful weekend! With any luck I'll be back to posting on Monday.

Easter goodies.

Easter Bits and Pieces

A few tidbits for you ~

This year the bunny will be hiding eggs with Easter jokes inside of them. I, ahem the Easter Bunny, used jokes found here.
I was shocked today to learn this about Kinder Eggs! I bring these back to the US every time I come home. I guess I've been living dangerously.

We dyed eggs today. The girls discovered double (triple, quadruple) dipping this year. Our eggs are wild. They really enjoyed it, though and the activity lasted much longer. I still prefer simple, solid colored eggs. Clearly the preference of an adult, not a kid.

Nesting

The girls and I took advantage of the bit of down time we had today to make some cookies for Easter. I whipped up some thumbprint dough (Audrey still calls them fingerprints. I love that.)and we made little bird nest cookies. The girls were really into it. I'm quite certain it had something, everything, to do with the jelly beans. Both girls declared jelly beans their favorite Easter candy. Thank you mom for sending us some!

To make the cookies you need to make Thumbprint cookie dough. Here's a recipe for ya. Bake the cookies as directed. When they've cooled spoon a bit of icing (powdered sugar and milk) in the indentation and place 3 jelly beans on the icing. Let the icing harden before storing.

If I would have had some shredded wheat cereal, I would have iced the whole top of the cookie, sprinkled some broken up shredded wheat around the indentation before adding the 3 jelly beans. You could also do this with slivered or sliced almonds. This would make the cookies even more nest-like.

See that cookie with 3 black jelly beans on it? The girls made me 2 of these because I like black licorice. Such a sweet thought . . . not so sure it will be such a sweet cookie.

Happy Easter

Wishing you a day filled with family and chocolate (not necessarily in that order)!

Bunnies!

My mom arrived with gifts in hand, of course. For me she brought this great calendar (that I'd seen on Ayumi's blog) full of simple, little projects. These darling bunnies from Crafty Carnival caught my eye and before I could stop myself I was at the sewing machine. Thankfully my mom stuffed these little buggers as this project reminded me how much I dislike sewing, turning and stuffing little teeny things. We persevered and out came these 3 cuties. Eva added the wings herself - paper and scotch tape. She's creative and resourceful, that one.

From the Archives

Easter Ideas

It's highly unlikely that I'll get to any Easter crafting this year, so I thought I'd put together a post of some projects I've done in the past. Maybe it'll be new to you. Maybe this post is just intended to make me feel like I'm still a crafter. Ha!

Recycled Bottle Easter Baskets

Fabric Easter Baskets

Easter Draw-String Bags

Bunny Bread and Place Cards

Lemon Raspberry Strata

Chocolate Nests


This is a great hot-cross bun recipe. I have been thinking about these rolls all year long, waiting to make them again. It is all about the fresh zest.

Easter Photos

Hope you had a wonderful Easter.

We certainly did over here~

Fabric Easter Baskets

Gave another tutorial from Pink Penguin a try. This is called a Fabric Basket. It also was a great pattern; simple and very forgiving. I think I'm going to use these for the girls' Easter Baskets this year. They each have an official Easter Basket that the bunny fills each year but they are a little on the big side. I'd like to try and reign it in while they are young. However, these baskets are a tad too small. We'll see. They are going to be the girls one way or another. I found that cute fairy fabric at Joann's a few years ago. It was in the remnants bin. I bought as much as they had. Glad to have found a use for some of it.

So, what are you serving for Easter Dinner? I'm making a traditional American Easter dinner - ham, scalloped potatoes, asparagus, and hot cross buns. Also throwing in a fruit salad for good measure. We're having some friends over who are also expats here in Luxembourg. They have 2 girls too. The weather is supposed to be sunny so it looks like the Bunny will be hiding some eggs in our back garden! I'm really looking forward to Sunday. Hope you've got a special day planned too. Happy Easter!

Easter Bits

Just a quickie to share a few Easter related ideas.

Eva, my 5 year old, has been wanting "fancy ballet shoes" for months now. We've lost one of the red ballet shoes she usually wears with her dress-up outfits. Honestly, she still happily dances around wearing just one - it cracks me up. So, I found these plain dance shoes at H&M and figured I could embellish them. I couldn't find the flowers and ribbon I had in mind so I used these pre-made bows instead. They were the closest thing I could find to my image for these slippers. I sewed them on with a needle and quilting thread. Easy peasey.

I think they look lacy, frilly, fancy, flowery, princessy and gaudy enough for the most discriminating of 5 year olds. These will be in her Easter Basket and a pair for Audrey - they are at the age where they have to have *exactly* the same thing.

We made these place cards for Easter dinner out of some left over spin art. Easy and cute.

Yesterday we made bunny bread. I just bought premade dough at the grocery store. It was sticky, gooey and hard to shape but the girls had fun. We ate these for snack.

I'm really want to make these too, but don't have the time to find the proper string. Thought they would be fun for the girls and their friends to make on Easter. We didn't get to these this year either . . .can't do it all.