Where am I today?

I am over at my husband's blog again today starting a new series Family Dinner Friday

Sharing about the importance of family dinner, sharing an easy family dinner that is custom-izable and everyone in our family ends up eating more than their share of veggies...and some Q&A about dinner time for our family

I was also featured today over at my friend Ashley Brendle's blog.

Ashley's blog Tips4Mom; helping mothers thrive, a place with healthy mothering tips for today's Christian moms.  Ashley describes herself as a mother of 6 {boys} and a lover of Jesus.  She's also a wonderfully supportive wife to her husband.

So go check out both blogs and let me know if you have any favorite blogs I should know about!
Happy Friday!

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?

easiest.main dish.EVER!

our normal Easter dinner main dish is Ham...
I love ham...
it's my favorite pig product...
my brother-in-law coined our new favorite term for ham
...dinner bacon....

so anyways...
I make ham about once a year...
which is weird because I do love it so...

anyways...
I pinned a Pomegranate Glaze Ham...
looked good and easy...
but I changed it up a bit and added pineapple....

ready for the easiest recipe ever...

this is NOT my ham
I borrowed the image from google
because I failed to take any pictures on Easter!

missing...

we started the hunt with 54 plastic eggs & 18 real eggs =72 eggs
72 eggs / by 3 kids =24 eggs per child

after counting 3 times yesterday
3 times...
all 3 times I came up with the same number...

boy child...
17 plastic + 7 real=24
sweet little niece
19 plastic + 5 real= 24
girl child....
17 plastic + 5 real= 22 (our 2 missing)

Easter Fail

we had a wonderful Easter.
kids loved their Easter baskets
.....with dollar store bad mitten sets
(seriously....I thought they would break after 2 minutes...but they're holding up nicely, they might make it through a whole week!  So worth the $2 I spent on 2 sets...I would have maybe even shelled out $4 for the quality!)

and then off the church, it was a beautiful morning at church
...not that I got to attend either service
doing check-in station beginning of 1st service
...then toddlers the rest of 1st service
....then 3's & 4's 2nd service...with my sweet niece in my class...that was special!
...but I've heard Pastor Stephen preached it yesterday!
I will be listening to the podcast today.


in-between the two services we had a Celebration Cafe with brunch
and then 3 baby dedications
and 17 baptisms...17!!
and one of those 17 was our boy child!
and my Beau had the privileged to baptism him
what a special morning...
& both Beau and I sort of kind-of went into mini little ugly cry's
     ...but not too bad, we recovered and all was well!

how we do Easter

many of you may know that my husband is a Children's Pastor & that I'm the Early Childhood Director at our church...
so with that knowledge many people ask...
Do we 'do' the Easter Bunny?

(and for that matter Santa, the Tooth Fairy, lepercauns, etc)

Yes...we 'do' the Easter Bunny...and all those others too...

how does that look?
how do we celebrate one of the most sacred (if not the most sacred) holiday on the Christian calendar yet allow a bunny to be part of it?

The same way we let the Big Jolly Elf be part of Christmas.
We don't let either the bunny or the big guy the center attraction on these special Christian days, but they are there...