November 23

1}  I'm thankful for humor.  I am glad that I can laugh at myself, I can laugh with my husband and kids.  My kids are hilarious and crack me up all the time.  And I think laughter is one of the most important parts of a healthy marriage, or at least our marriage.

2}  I'm thankful for desserts...such a simple thing that brings such joy.

the pie tree! such a beautiful sight

3}  I'm thankful for where we live.  I love living in FAR Northern California.  It is truly one of the most beautiful places to live.  Yesterday my in-laws, daughter and I were able to participate in the annual Turkey Trot on the gorgeous Sacramento River Trail.  We have a wonderful trail system in Redding, with 100's of miles of paved trails just a few miles in all directions.  We live minutes from 2 beautiful lakes, about an hour from 2 beautiful mountains, just a few hours from the ocean. Today we will go out and explore more of our 'home' with the family.
I love this place, it is a gift from God.

buttermilk pie

...if you're from the south I'm sure you've heard of a Buttermilk Pie...
or at least all my internet investigation of buttermilk pie has led me to believe that it's a staple dessert for all holidays in the south...but if you're like me...
west coast girl all the way
I've never lived more than 100 miles from the Pacific Ocean...
... (I just googled that...I looked up all 3 cites...yes a whoppin' 3 cities and measured how far they were from the Pacific...as a crow flies...& it's probably more like 90 miles, but it didn't sound as good)...
...than you may have never heard about this thing called the Buttermilk Pie...


I just discovered it last week...
while I was standing in the checkout at Wal-Mart...
...at the first of the month (stupid me)
so I picked up some recipe magazine to help wait out the next 45 minutes of my life...
and I stumbled upon an article about traditional Easter menu's
(I have NO idea what magazine I was flipping through)
and there is was this beautifully simple pie...
just looking right at me...
it had this beautiful golden crust with this golden filling
...not 100% a custard filling
...not 100% a cream filling
just a pretty golden filling...

source Aunts Ruthie's SugarPie Farmhouse

source Food Network

note...these are NOT my pie...I failed and took ZERO pictures of anything on Easter Sunday!

anyways...

veggies for lunch

yep...I did that yesterday...
...maybe I was feeling a little vegetarian...
just a little...

so I just decided to have some carrots...
and that was my lunch...carrots....

carrots wrapped up in some cake and frosting!

This was a leftover slice of one of our Easter desserts...
gotta have a carrot cake for Easter...
am I right?

cake pop

my version...
making a popsicle flavor cake...

Creamsicle Cake

okay...confession...

starbucks doesn't just serve coffee

I'm sure you knew...
that starbucks has other things besides coffee...
which in our-not-so-humble-opinion
          is not the greatest coffee ever....

my Beau, the boy child and I were there a few weeks ago, waiting for the girl child...
just killing some time and we didn't really want to sit for an hour and drink coffee...

so we ordered a cookie....
     .....a giant monstrous cookie!

I'm not a big fan of cookies sold at coffee place...
they're usually dry,
     over cooked,
          lacking flavor
               and horribly overpriced...

well, this one wasn't....
we might not love starbucks coffee...
but HELLO...they got the cookie thing dialed in!
I'm thinking they might want to rethink the whole coffee shop thing and go for a bakery...
except I think that the rest of the world might actually like their coffee...

anyhoo....

we couldn't stop thinking about the amazing oatmeal cookie at starbucks...
we were talking about it for days...
so I did want any self respecting...
(tangent, I just had to sing the R-E-S-P-E-C-T song to spell it)
...any self respecting person would do and googled "starbucks oatmeal cookie recipe'....
and low and behold, we must not have been the first to fall in love with their baked goods!

so here you have it...with a few twists...I doubled the recipe
...I posted the double version, so no need to double this one...
     ...well, you might need to double it, because these don't hang around for long once you make them!!!
I also took out the golden raisins that the recipe called for and replaced them with dark chocolate chips...
added some butter flavor crisco rather than all butter
and of course doubled the vanilla...
so here is my version of starbucks crack outrageous oatmeal cookies

Outrageous Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

3 cups old fashioned oats (not quick cooking)
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup raisins
1  cup dark chocolate chips
3/4 cup dried cherry-cranberries*
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
6 tablespoons butter flavor Crisco
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large egg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 350°F.
2.  In a medium sized bowl blend oats, flour raisins, cranberries, chocolate chips, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
3.  In a large bowl beat butter, Crisco and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs, cinnamon, and vanilla; beat until combined.
4.  Gradually add oat mixture to butter mixture; beat until combined.
5.  Form 1/4 cup balls (or use a large cookie scoop) and place 2 inches apart onto two lightly greased baking sheets.
6.  Bake about 12-16 minutes, until cookies are golden brown, but still soft. Cool on sheets before serving.

* I used the cherry cranberries, I buy all my dry fruits in bulk at WinCo and their cran-cherries are usually cheaper than the straight cranberries, sometimes I buy the cran-strawberries....
you could also use dried strawberries or cherries rather than cranberries

special notes...starbucks had extra raisins on top of the cookie and the recipe called for that also, so if you want to mix up extra raisins, cranberries and chocolate chips and sprinkle about 2 tsp on top of each cookie before baking go ahead...

the second time I made these I dumped in too much vanilla (I wasn't actually measuring it, I was just pouring, got bumped and dumped in too much)...so I added a 1/4 cup cocoa...making Chocolate Oatmeal Raisin Cookies...very good also....
second time I also used whole wheat flour...just as good....the cookies were WAY darker with the whole wheat flour and cocoa...

priceless moments

the kids and I hit the farmers market last Saturday...

Beau was going to the library sale and he likes to wait in line....

and well, 

well, the crew that shows up early and waits for the library sale is a very interesting mix of people...

so rather than wait around and people watch 

(it is a good group to people watch with, but maybe not with the kids in tow)...

anyways, rather than wait the kids and I walked over to the farmers market...

I wanted some peaches and some honey...

got both, and the peaches were gone by Sunday afternoon...

yeah, I know, I take amazing pictures...don't be jealous!

so back to the farmers market for us on Tuesday morning...
I wanted  needed to make a peach cobbler...
arrived at the market around 11 and the peaches were almost all gone, I asked for 10 lbs because some ladies at the office wanted some too...and some for eating...
it was the last pickin's of the day and she sold me her last 10 lbs,
& they were all seconds and needed to be used that day...
took all 10 lbs to the office
only got rid of maybe 2.5 of the 10 lbs
& I was left with just less than 8 lbs of peaches...
that needed to be uses asap...
so I set to work peeling those little guys...
and before I knew it I had a helper...
the girl child came it,
donned her apron
found a knife
and asked me how she could help...

before I knew it she had taken over all the peaches and I had moved onto making the 'cobbler' part...

it was great working together with my girl..

she peeling and slicing peaches, me mixing up the cobbler...

talking about girl stuff....

laughing...

and then cleaning up the mess of peach juice all over the floor and counters...

and then enjoying the girls first cobbler...

this was only 1 of the 2 cobblers we ended up with, the other went to our neighbors...

it was a bubbling, golden bit of heaven...

I love a good cobbler....

but a girls' first cobbler...that's just priceless...

Whole Wheat Peach Cobbler

peaches

6-8 peaches-peeled and sliced

1/2-1 cup sugar 

     (depending on the sweetness of the peaches, you may be able to cut this down to 1/4 cup)

2 Tbs cornstarch

2 tsp vanilla

cobbler

1 1/2cups whole wheat flour (or regular if you want)

1/2 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter

1/2 cup milk

pre-heat oven to 350

place peaches, 1/2 cup sugar, cornstarch, and vanilla into large saucepan, stir over med heat until mixture begins to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

while peaches are cooking mix up cobbler,

mix all dry ingredients together, and then cut in butter.  once mixture is crumbly slowly add in milk.

pour peaches into a greased 13x9 inch pan and then drop spoonfuls of cobbler over top of peaches...

bake at 350 for 25-35 minutes until cobbler is golden and bubbling...

serve warm with vanilla ice cream and or whipped cream...

or for breakfast...

no judgement...

it's whole wheat, oats and peaches...that's a good breakfast...

and well it's better than doughnuts...

check out this amazing recipe book...

"New Recipes for Good Eating"...check out how happy the mom is feeding her kids the doughnuts she just fried in Crisco......

Thanksgiving Recipe Blog Hop 2010

Welcome to the Hop...

this is the last stop in the hop...you made it!
if you've been 'hopping' then hopefully you just came from Jamie at Creating Home
and just enjoy browsing all the wonderful recipes that everyone posted for you

if you are just starting the Hop, then go to the beginning with Robin at Creative 2x Mom and follow the blogs thru, they will bring you back to me...

this is my very first blog hop and I am so excited to be sharing it with all of these wonderful ladies..

if you have NO idea what I'm talking about...just trust me...

grab a cup of coffee (or tea) and start hopping

I am actually sharing 2 recipes with you...
first it's my mom's sweet potato recipe...

and I totally cheated on my own blog hop and I'm using my Mom's recipe for Sweet Potatoes...and actually I think she uses Yams but we still call it sweet potatoes.... (you say potato we say yam)...

this is a tried and true recipe that isn't even written down anymore, but right out of memory (you know those are the good ones!)...but I did recently see a very similar recipe that called for pears rather than apples...since we've never tried that I didn't want to add it/change it in the recipe, but I wanted to give you guys the option....sort of on a pear theme today in my recipes!

When I asked her the name of the dish she told me that she got it from a long time family friend...named Linda (also my mom's name...and 20% of the ladies from that generation!) so it's appropriately called

Linda's Sweet Potato Recipe

2 large cans Yam/sweet potato

2 red apples (I use either Fugi, Gala or  Braeburn-my mom)  (maybe pears?)

½ cup brown sugar      

½ cup chopped walnuts  

     (or pecans...my suggestion not moms, my family will not eat walnuts but will eat pecans...such snobs!)

¼ cup butter

Marshmallows

Wash core and thinly slice apples into large casserole dish with yams.  Add brown sugar and walnuts. Gently fold together so that everything is evenly mixed and dot top with butter.  Bake for 25-30 min or until apples are done. Put marshmallows on top as thickly as you prefer and put under broiler until golden.

You can add more nuts if you really like them and it’s still yummy if you don’t put marshmallows on top although you might want to add a little more brown sugar. I actually prefer it without marshmallows, but to my husband aka my father, it’s not a sweet potato casserole unless it has golden marshmallows melted on top! (my mom's notes)

okay now my REAL recipe is for a pear tart...

and -confession- I've never made or had this for Thanksgiving...

but I feel like pears get the short end of the stick during this season...
it's their season too...
why do the apples and pumpkins outshine the pear...
maybe I'm just more supportive to pears since I grew up in pear town...
aka the Rouge Valley (Southern Oregon)...

or maybe it's because I have my kitchen decorated in pears...

whatever it is...I feel we need to give the pear it's rightful place at our Thanksgiving tables this year....

just to clarify...I HAVE made this recipe, just not for Thanksgiving!

Brown Butter Pear Tart

Browned Butter Pastry Recipe (follows)

1/4 cup sugar

4 tsp flour

1/4 tsp ground ginger (more or less depending on your taste...)

     or substitute nutmeg and cloves if your family doesn't 'do' ginger
4 cups sliced & peeled pears
1 Tbp lemon juice
1 Tbp sliced almonds or pecans (optional)
milk/cream
sugar
1.  Prepare browned butter pastry (recipe follows), set aside.  Cover a cookie sheet with foil, sprinkle lightly with flour.  Roll out pasty* into a 13-inch circle and place on foil.
2.  In large bowl stir together sugar, flour, and ginger.  Add pears and lemon juice; toss gently until coated.  Mound pear mixture in center of pastry, leaving a 2-inch border.  Fold border up over pears.  Sprinkle center with nuts (optional).  Lightly brush pastry with milk/cream and dust with sugar.
3.  Bake in a 375 oven for 35-40 minutes or until crust is goldeny brown (the color will be different than a 'normal' pie crust with the browned butter pastry) and filling is bubbly.  If necessary, cover edges of pastry with foil for the last 5-10 minutes to prevent overbrowning (aka burning!).
4.  Cool 30 minutes on the baking sheet.  Serve warm (you can microwave slices to re-heat them) with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream!

Browned Butter Pastry
1/4 cup butter
1 1/4 cup flour (wheat flour is very yummy with this)
1 Tbp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
4-5 Tbp cold water


1.  In a small saucepan melt butter over medium heat until butter turns the color of light brown sugar (slightly hard to tell because the butter will be frothy), stirring constantly.  

Cover and chill browned butter until solid, about 1 1/2 hrs (you can do this a day ahead).
*2.  In medium bowl stir together flour, salt and sugar.  Using pasty blender cut browned butter into flour mixture until it resembles pea-sized crumbs or smaller.  You can work your flour/butter mixture as long as you want...pastry gets tough once you add the water...but at this stage it's still forgivable...
3.  Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour your cold water (the colder the better) and mix water into flour using a fork, work quickly, until dough forms a ball (you may need to use your hands).  Place pastry onto lightly flour surface, use your hands flatten out ball, coating it with flour on both sides.  Roll dough into a 13 inch circle with a floured rolling pin.

* If I can teach you anything about baking it is this....

handle pastry as little as possible, the more you handle it the tougher it will be, so opt for taste over beauty, if it's falling apart try to patch the pastry with extra pieces rather than starting the whole thing over and re-rolling it!!!  trust me on this...I have served many pies, and once it's cut and served how it looked gets WAY over shadowed by how it tasted!

Thanks everyone for joining us on my first every blog hop!  Hope you had fun visiting all the ladies on our Thanksgiving Recipe Blog Hop 2010!

just a re-cap here was the hopping order...

Robin from Creative 2x Mom http://creative2xmom.blogspot.com/ 
Kristin from Sweetheart Moments  http://www.mysweetheartmoments.com/ 
Krista from ~LopezFamily~ http://kristasuz.blogspot.com/ 
Becky of From Rookie to Rockstar http://rookietorockstar.blogspot.com/ 
Lisa from Juella Designs the Blog http://www.lisaski.typepad.com/ 
Jamie from Creating Home http://www.jamieschulz.blogspot.com/ 
and then ME...Kiera (that's me) from ChambersMade http://chambersmade.blogspot.com/ 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, have a safe and thankful day!

it's pumpkin time!

took this to a party on Saturday, and if I do say so myself it was the hit!
made it again last night and the guys preferred the peanut butter chocolate brownies over this...
(and for some crazy reason we now have both options sitting down on our counter...tis the season...)

one suggestion after making this twice in a week...use Butter Recipe Yellow Cake Mix if you can find it (much easier to find during the holiday season)...I used the Butter Recipe Cake Mix for the one I made on Saturday and just a regular yellow cake mix last night, I think the 1st one was better!

it's a pumpkin pie/cake/pecan crunch thing that follows the classic dump cake format...
liquid in the bottom, cake mix on top, and BUTTER on the entire thing!
how can you go wrong with that???

Pumpkin Crunch Dump Cake
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup evaporated milk
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
1-2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 box yellow cake mix...Butter Recipe Yellow if you can find it!
1/2 -1 cup chopped pecans (I only sprinkled them on 1/2 the cake because I had non-nut eaters)
1 cup (2 sticks) melted butter

spray 9x13 pan, set aside.  preheat oven to 350

in large bowl mix together pumpkin, milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla, cinnamon & nutmeg.  Pour into prepared pan.

sprinkle dry cake mix evenly over the top of pumpkin mixture.  sprinkle pecans oven cake mix.  pour melted butter over entire thing.

bake for 50 minutes or until it's nice and golden brown!

serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream!

So Good it Might Not be Real

Made this cookies 2 weeks ago when I was in need of some chocolate...
my kids started calling them the Peanut Butter Brownie Cookies...pretty much sums them up.
BLOG WARNING
if you make these you may eat the entire batch all by yourself and then feel slightly nauseous!
not that I would have done that, I totally have will power...


Peanut Butter Brownie Cookies
1 package chocolate cake mix
3/4 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)
2 eggs
2 Tbs milk
1 cup mix ins (choose one or a mixture of any of theses, semi sweet chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, Reese's peanut butter pieces, peanut butter chips, chopped peanuts)

Preheat over to 350, grease cookie sheet.
Combine cake mix, peanut butter, eggs, & milk in large mixing bowl, beat on low until blended, stir in mix ins.
Drop  by rounded spoonful onto baking sheet and bake for 7-9 minutes.
Serve with milk...

so, um, I have no picture of these cookies because we ate them all REALLY fast!..
I made mine with Devil's Food Cake mix, dark chocolate chips as the mix in and creamy peanut butter....

Where's the Cake...I Thought I Saw a Cake

oh, wait...it's camouflaged!

at the beginning of this week a friend on facebook posted a plea for a camouflaged birthday cake for her son...

I've never actually made one before, but knew I could make it with fondant...and since I was also making Wilson's rainbow cupcakes for preschool I knew I could also make the inside of the cake camo looking...so I told her I was interested and she took me up on the offer...

so I made the same recipe that I did for the rainbow cupcakes

and then split the batter into 4 different batches...it doesn't have to be even batches, and you can do any color you want, this would be fun to make blue camo for a baby boy shower, or for an ocean birthday

or do blues and greens for an "earth day" party...

or a pink and brown camo for a little girl

... or even a baby shower...

and you could color it brown or use chocolate mix with the yellow cake dyed pink...

or a strawberry cake mixed with a chocolate cake...

ohhh, I'm going to have to make that....

oops, tangent...

so I had three different shades of green and a brown (forgot to take pictures along the way)

then just globed them into the cake pans in different amounts and in different places...don't over think it, just do it.

then bake according to the size of pan you are using

let cool, and then cut the cakes to make them level

I then frosted and layered them with a chocolate butter cream frosting (didn't get a picture of that)..

set aside the cake and start working on the fondant...

I buy the Wilton brand that's pre-made...you can get it at Michaels or WalMart...

now if you've never used fondant before you should try...

it's like play-dough that you can eat...and cover cakes with...and make lots of fun stuff....

the camo cake is a pretty easy one to start with because you really can't mess up the look of camo...

divide up the fondant and start coloring the different batches the colors you want for the camouflage

 then I use the Wilton food colors, you can use less and get a really rich color...

I mix the color into the fondant inside a bag otherwise your hands will be COVERED in color...

then lay out your colors and start rolling

the directions on the box of fondant tell you to use powdered sugar rather than flour, the sugar just makes it all sticky, I was told by a friend a long time ago to use corn starch and it works great!

add some more and just have fun

then I wanted to add some camo words

I really wanted to put "Happy Birthday" but it was too big and would have all globed together...

so the birthday boy, Drew was turning 10, so I just camouflaged the #10 and his name into the top

then very carefully, with the help of my husband, lifted the fondant and layed it on the cake

smoothed it down, trimmed off the excess and then made some little camo balls to put around the base

I was going to make some bullets...

but they turned out looking not so much like bullets 

....and a little more like something I didn't want to put on the top of a 10 year old boy's birthday cake...

so I suggested to the mom to maybe add some army men to the top of the cake...

I hope they enjoyed it...maybe I can get mom to send me some pictures of the kids eating it the cake and I will add those....

Rain + Sun = Rainbows...

both my kids love looking for rainbows after the rain, or during the rain...

and we always try to remind them of the promise of a rainbow...

God's promise of protection, his promise to NEVER flood the entire earth again...

so when I signed up to bring cupcakes to Wilson's preschool graduation he suggested that I make rainbow cupcakes...

fun times...

I've made a rainbow/polka dot cake before and the dramatic part is cutting into the cake and seeing all the colors...

well...in case you forgot, there is no cutting into cupcakes...and I don't like to put extra work into something unless people know I've done the work...

so I needed to find a way to make rainbow cupcakes and have everyone see all the work I did...

I googled rainbow cupcakes and a few images came up, and one had the cupcakes not in the cupcake papers  but in wax paper...

GENIUS...you can see all the colors...

so I cut enough wax paper squares for the cupcakes (26)...

then formed them around the bottom of a small cup and then sat them in the cupcake/muffin tin...perfect fit

then mix up your cake batter (I used a simple yellow cake mix with a simple cake mix dr. recipe...recipe at the bottom of the blog)...you NEED to use either a yellow cake or white cake recipe...

divide your batter into the number of colors that you want/need to make your rainbow or polka dots...

and color each the color you want

I had planned on 5 colors...

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue...

very rainbow like...

and it wasn't until I had the cake all mixed up that I got out all of my colors only to discover I was missing my Red and Yellow food coloring...

so I left one batch the "natural" color of the yellow cake batter and then left red out entirely...

thinking...

"They're preschoolers, they won't notice that the rainbow cupcakes are missing red..."

then using a small spoon or cookie scoop, start filling your cupcake papers with one scoop of each color

then bake per directions...

remove from pans to cool and then frost with the color frosting you want...

I had planned on making 5 different colors of frosting and then once I realized I didn't have the red or yellow I just asked Wilson what color he wanted...he said green (I was actually a little surprised, he's a blue sort of boy)...

so I frosted them all green...

and I was also going to make little crayons out of fondant to top them all with...but then the boy got sick...and wasn't even going to make it to his preschool graduation...so I just left good enough alone...kept one cupcake at home for the sick little boy and delivered the rest to the little graduates...and it was raining for the "outside ceremony" they had planned for the graduation...perfect cupcakes for a rain soaked party...

picked up Wilson's graduation cap and school goodies and came home to "celebrate" his own personal graduation...

little boy bummed that he's not with all his friends...

and finding it rather silly that mom will only let him eat his cupcake if he wears his graduation cap...

are those eyes just melting you right now???

"hmm...mom, did you forget the red?"...

okay so preschoolers might notice if you don't have red in the rainbow!

but it's still good...can't believe that my sweet little boy is going off to kindergarten next year!

Easy Peasy Yellow Cake

1 yellow cake mix

8 oz, 1 stick butter melted

1 cup whole milk or half & half

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Mix together all the ingredients on low speed for 1 minute, scrape down sides and mix on medium for 3 minutes...

bake per directions on the back of cake box for whatever size pan you're baking your cake/cupcakes in...

frost with vanilla butter cream or chocolate butter cream frosting.

Healthy? Maybe...Maybe Not...

Okay, so maybe cookies aren't healthy...

maybe they're not good for my  hips...

but we all know that there good for our heart...

...and good for your family,

I love to bake with both kids standing next to me...

...sometimes...

when they're not fighting...

and saying,

"my turn"

"let me do it"

"can I do it now?"

"but she already had her turn"

"can I taste that"

"can I have a bite"

....

but no, really, I do have fun with the kids in the kitchen, and they both really like to help me...just got a little sidetracked there (shocking)...

anyways...

here is a healthier version of cookies then the regular old one...they might not be a carrot, but it's better than a twinkie, both in health and taste!

The Better for you Cookie

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup butter (this can't be helped...you NEED butter for a good cookie)

1 1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

2 Tbs low fat milk (see healthy?)

2 tsp vanilla

1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 cups quick oats

1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips (dark chocolate is good for your heart!)

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 375.  Beat butter & sugars until creamy.  Add eggs, milk & vanilla, beat well.  Mix in flour, oats, soda & salt.  Stir in chocolate ships, raisins and cranberries.  Drop by teaspoon full onto un-greased cookie sheet.  Bake 9-10 minutes....

enjoy.

My kids, husband and I all gobble these up.  I like to mix up a batch, bake up a sheet and then refrigerate the rest, baking a sheet every few nights.

Easter Traditions.

We have a few family Easter Traditions...

we color eggs...

the girl and I go shopping for the perfect Easter dress....

the Easter Bunny brings shoes for this kids and other fun Easter goodies (the shoes happened one year when the girl and I couldn't agree on what was appropriate Easter Shoes so rather then getting either, the Easter Bunny bought a pair...that just happened to look a lot like the ones that I felt were more appropriate...and she LOVED them since they came from the freakishly large bunny that hides eggs!)...

and the "bunny" (my mom) usually comes back once we've left for church to hide the eggs (with my husband being a pastor we have to be at church early on Easter Sunday so there isn't enough time to find eggs)...problem this year is that the "bunny" isn't visiting for Easter, so we have to figure out something else!...

trying to get at least one decent family photo since we're all in our "Sunday Best"...

1st Family Easter photo..2006

only picture that both my kids made it in the frame 2007

kids Easter 2008

Family Easter Photo 2009

Then about 4 years ago we starting making Resurrection Cookies on Saturday night...these cookies are a great way to share the true meaning of Easter with your kids...if your kids help out in the kitchen a lot or if you never let them into the kitchen this is still fun...and the cookies are yummy...

Read the whole recipe before beginning...

and you have to do together Saturday night before Easter Sunday. Or a different day before Easter, sort of missing the point if you do it on Easter Sunday

Resurrection Cookies

Preheat oven to 300 degrees

Ingredients:                     You need:

1 cup whole pecans             Mixing bowl

3 egg whites                     Wooden spoon

1 cup sugar                     Bible

1 tsp. vinegar                     Zipper baggy

1 pinch of salt                    Wax paper

                                     Cookie sheet

                                      Tape

Place pecans in the baggy and let the children beat them with the wooden spoon to break into small pieces.

Explain that after Jesus was arrested, He was beaten by the Roman soldiers.

Read - John 19:1-3 to them

Let child smell the vinegar. Put 1 tsp. into mixing bowl.

Explain that when Jesus was thirsty on the cross, He was given vinegar to drink.

Read - John 19:28-30

Add egg whites to the vinegar.

Eggs represent life. Explain that Jesus gave His life for our life.

Read - John 10:10-11

Sprinkle a little salt into each child's hand let them taste it then brush the rest into the bowl.

Explain that represents the salty tears shed by Jesus followers, and the bitterness of our own sin...

Read - Luke 23:27

So far the ingredients are not very appetizing.

Add 1 cup sugar.

Explain that the sweetest part of this story is that Jesus died because He loves us.

He wants us to know and belong to Him.

Read - Psalm 34:8 and John 3:16

Beat with mixer on high speed for 11-15 minutes until stiff peaks are formed.

Explain that the color white represents the purity in God's eyes of those whose sins have been cleansed by Jesus.

Read - Isaiah 1:18 and John 3:1-3

Fold in broken nuts.

Drop by tsp.onto waxed paper-covered cookie sheet.

Explain that each mound represents the rocky tomb where Jesus body was laid. Read - Matt. 27:65-66

Put cookies sheet in the oven.

Close door and turn oven OFF.

Give each child a piece of tape and seal the door.

Explain that Jesus tomb was sealed.

Read - Matt. 27:65-66

Go to bed !

Explain that they may feel sad to leave the cookies in the oven overnight.

Jesus followers were in despair when the tomb was sealed.

Read - John 16:20 and 22

On Resurrection Morning open the oven and give everyone a cookie !

Notice the cracked surface and take a bite.

The cookies are hollow !

On the first Resurrection Day Jesus followers were amazed to find the tomb open and empty.

Read - Matt. 28:1-9

He Has Risen ! Hallelujah ! ! ! ! !

Enjoy, hope your Easter is full of great family traditions and maybe some new ones too!