The Weekend Replay

Good Monday morning friends. I'm still A-Z-ing, so using today's letter as part of my weekend recap, which I'll link with Holly and Sarah. 

R is for Resurrection

'because that's the reason for the season'

We had a nice weekend centered around Easter, which is my favorite day of the year. The meaning behind this day is what gives me hope for the future and strength for the day. In church this morning the first song sung was Because He Lives...

'because He lives, I can face tomorrow, because He Lives, all fear is gone, because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives.'

I pray everyone reading today knows the truth contained in these lyrics. 

On Friday we made Resurrection rolls with the grands. I'd never made them before, but have seen them all over the Internet for years, and my daughter had done them in Easters prior. Super simple, but a really powerful visual for little ones to go along with the story of Easter. 

You roll a large marshmallow in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon, then wrap a crescent roll around the marshmallow. You can talk about Jesus body being prepared for burial to go along with this. The rolls go into the oven and you wait for them to cook, which allows you to talk about Jesus being dead for three days. 

When you take the rolls out of the oven and cut into one, the marshmallow has melted which makes the roll look empty, just like the tomb. The kids seem to make the connections too which is fun to see. 

After the roll baking was finished I ran some errands including last minute grocery items, the dry cleaning, and paper goods from Hobby Lobby. It's hard not to wander the entire store when I'm in Hobby Lobby but I stayed focused. We had dinner at home Friday night, and I'm guessing we went to bed early, although I can't say for sure. It's a safe guess though -ha! 

Saturday morning we dyed eggs. In my dining room, because  we like to live dangerously here. 

All went well and it was a fun morning for everyone. Hubs carried on his tradition of dyeing one 'ugly egg' and the kids get a kick out of that. 

After we got that cleaned up I did some prep work for the next day's dinner, along with making a dessert to take to a neighbor's house that evening. I've been trying to bake each of the Southern Living Cake of the Month cakes this year and I made the April recipe on Saturday. A definite win and I'll make again. 

April's recipe is mini carrot cakes. So cute! I love the presentation. You bake the carrot cake recipe in sheet cake format, then use a small biscuit cutter to cut circles. It makes 12 cakes, so you cut 24 circles, then pipe icing on one, stack another on top, then pipe some more. 

The icing is a coconut butter cream, and both the cake and the icing were super delish. My daughter did the piping so it was a team effort. 

I also went ahead and made my pineapple stuffing for Sunday's dinner because it does well sitting in the frig overnight. I love to do whatever I can ahead of time. If you don't know what pineapple stuffing is I use this recipe. It's the texture of stuffing, but sweet. 

We had plans to go to the neighbors for dinner and cards Saturday night and I was bringing dessert. I made Ina Garten's triple berry crumble and it's scrumptious. The berries are really sweet right now so I cut the sugar by quite a bit, but it wasn't noticeable. I thought I took a picture, but can't find it so maybe not. All that baking and I am kinda wishing I'd taken a picture of my kitchen after, but I didn't think of it. 

Sunday morning the kids woke up to their Easter baskets followed by cinnamon rolls for breakfast. What's one more sweet thing today, right?  My son-in-law was on call this weekend and suffice it to say if you're a surgeon on call on a holiday weekend you'll be working. He was able to see the kids dressed and get in a quick family photo, but then we didn't see him again until we were wiping down counters and getting ready for bed. 

Hubs and I went to church with our daughter and her littles and the music was wonderful and the message  so good. We got home and changed into comfy clothes then got busy putting together our lunch/dinner.  Her in-laws, both the mom and dad and the sister-in-law and her hubs,  arrived around 1 and the kids did their egg hunt. Then we all chatted, the kids played, hubs manned the grill with our ham upon it, and I finished up the rest of the sides. 

I normally love to break out my china on Easter Sunday, but this year we decided to dine al fresco in the new space so I went with paper plates and have zero regrets. 

Daughter1's mother-in-law brought her famous banana pudding and her sister-in-law brought homemade mac and cheese which were both so good. 

We had a fun little Easter Bunny charcuterie while we were waiting on dinner. Besides the ham we also had roasted honey-balsamic green beans and carrots, the pineapple stuffing, deviled eggs, and I also made Nigella Lawson's pea-mint-avocado salad which was really good. 

I used just butter lettuce instead of adding chicory, and I go easy on the mint. I also throw a handful of parmesan on top before tossing because it seems like it needs a little salty something. We all loved it. So fresh!  

The in-laws headed home and we finished the clean up, the putting away of the leftovers, and then I crawled into bed to finish this post. It was a beautiful day filled with family, good food, and many reminders of our faithful loving God. We missed our Tennessee littles and their parents, but will see them soon. 

I hope your weekend was a good one. You can read more Hello Monday posts by visiting Holly (Pink Lady Blog) and Sarah (Sunshine and Books). Have a great week everyone!