Easter Sunday Recap

We had a fabulous Easter filled with family and friends. Our family enjoyed our Sunday morning church celebration of our risen King! Later we enjoyed the company of some out of town friends who are visiting Tampa on spring break! We had a great, relaxing day of hanging out together.

He is risen

Since we usually spend most holidays at my parents house, they offered that our friends would be more than welcome to join us. Mom and I spent time on Saturday preparing food for everyone. We may have gone just a little overboard on the dessert table, but we couldn’t help it… they were just so much fun to make!

Dessert table

Of course, we had Mom’s famous bunny cake! I took pictures of her making it, so there will be directions to come. It’s just not Easter without bunny cake.

Easter bunny cakeEaster bunny

Mom make a lemon meringue pie as her dessert of choice. I really wish it didn’t have so many ingredients I was allergic to… yum!

Lemon pie

We made lots of cupcakes! We decorated them with Easter grass, nests, and eggs. And we made mini cupcakes… because they are cute, with multi-colored icing.

CupcakesMini cupcakes

There was tons of candy. Mom got creative on how to serve it all.

Jelly beans

And I made my allergy-safe brownies for myself.

Brownies

We had plenty of real food too, but somehow sandwiches and veggies don’t photograph as cute as cupcakes.

Real foodSandwichesFruits and veggies

We visited with Rhonda in the beautiful weather while the kids made good use of the swimming pool. The pool kept their interest the entire day and they only stopped swimming long enough to eat. I’m so glad they had a good time.

Madi floatingShelbyShelby splashingIan and MadiIan jumpingIan in splashMadisonMadison

Tonight Rhonda and I are heading out to dinner with the rest of the Tampa CF wives (her husband also has CF)! She’s taking her older kids to the movies and Jesse agreed to watch Madison while we are gone. Rhonda says trying to keep up with her will be good practice for him. Madison is just as CUTE as can be and Jesse is looking forward to the challenge.

Downtown Disney with the Ruiz Family

Today we got a chance to meet up with some family at Downtown Disney. Jesse’s cousin and her family are visiting Florida on vacation from Ohio and invited us to join them today. We had a fun time and enjoyed the opportunity to see Devon, Ruben, and the girls!

Mickey

Even though we live so close, Jesse had never been to Downtown Disney and I only been once several years ago. I think we will definitely be going back! It was a nice taste of the Disney atmosphere without the Disney price. We enjoyed a nice lunch together at Rainforest Cafe. I’ve always thought it looked like a fun place to eat and the girls sure enjoyed it. I must say that eating among a herd of elephants is quite noisy… good thing the waitress warned us they would come alive every half hour.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous! It was the most perfect day for an outdoor activity. We walked around and the girls shopped for their souvenirs to bring home.

We had a great, fun, and (almost) free day!

Nuggets: End of Holidays

Well, the holiday season has definitely come to an end in our lives. Our home decorations are back to normal and work is back in full swing. We worked last week too, but we never felt like we got back into our normal routine after having last Monday off. After two super full work days this week we both feel like it should be closer to Friday already. Life goes on, with a few random nuggets…

:: Un-decorating. Boo! It’s soo fun and exciting to put up all the Christmas decorations, but taking them down is such a pain. I always have to take our stuff down right after Christmas, I feel like I can’t relax knowing that I have to do all that work eventually. But then again… it’s nice to have things back to normal too.

Christmas decor

:: Ramekins! I’ll bet that you have no idea how useful ramekins can be. My mom got a great deal on a set of ramekins and has since decided that they should be used constantly. Over the holidays we enjoyed a variety of foods served in ramekins. Eventually, “ramekin” became the answer to any and all questions. Just a few examples:

Our New Year’s Day meal and one of my favorite dishes… tourtiere.

Tourtiere

Allergy-free version… in a ramekin.

Tourtiere in ramakin

Crust-less pumpkin pie… in a ramekin.

Pumpkin pie

Dip with appetizers… in a ramekin. You get the idea? How did we ever live without them?

Dip in ramakin

:: Pomegranate seeds. Yummy! My sister introduced me to this new snack. We’ll have to enjoy them again soon.

Pom seeds

:: Ashley. She is on a plane headed home as I write this. The rest of my family returned to work and school this week, and she had to return to California. We like when she is able to visit, and we like all the game nights we get to have when she’s here. It’s always fun when we can all be together.

AshAshley

Happy hump day. Ramekin!