Easter Eve Cookies

Sorry, I'm a little late with this.  And although the kids didn't think they were the best cookies ever, they were fun to make.  So, I wanted to post this to remember it for next year.

Easter Story Cookies

(To be made the night before Easter)

·         1 cup whole Pecans

·         1 tsp. vinegar

·         3 egg whites

·         pinch salt

·         1 cup sugar

·         zipper baggie

·         wooden spoon

·         tape

·         Bible

Pre heat over to 300 degrees (this is important, don’t wait till you’re half done with the recipe!)

Place pecans in zipper baggie and let 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)

Let each child smell the vinegar. Put 1-tsp. vinegar 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 vinegar. Eggs represent life.

Explain that Jesus gave His life to give us life. (Read John 10:10-11).

Sprinkle a little salt into each child’s hand. Let them taste it and brush the rest into the bowl.

Explain that this represents the salty tears shed by Jesus’ followers, and the bitterness of our own sin. (Read Luke 23:27)

Add 1-cup sugar.

Explain that the sweetest part of the story is that Jesus died because He loves us. He wants us to Love and belong to him. (Read Psalm 34:8 and John 3:16)

Beat with a mixer on high speed for 12 to 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 teaspoons onto wax paper covered cookie sheet.

Explain that each mound represents the rocky tomb where Jesus’ body was laid. (Read Matthew 27:57-60)

Put the cookie sheet in the oven, close the door and turn the oven OFF. Give each child a piece of tape and seal the oven door.

Explain that Jesus’ tomb was sealed. (Read Matthew 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 Easter morning, open the oven and give everyone a cookie.

Notice the cracked surface and take a bite. The cookie is hollow! On the first Easter Jesus’ followers were amazed to find the tomb open and empty. (Read Matthew 28:1-9)

Witch Fingers

We don't trick or treat on Sunday.  It's not a bad thing we just choose to do other things on that day (like have landscapers working in our backyard but we'll save that for a different post).  So we thought we would get a four for one this year.  We planned a Halloween/birthday party for Isabel, DJ and AJ.  Then it turned out we got to turn it into a five for one because we added Monique's first birthday in there too.  I wish I would have taken more pictures.  What was I thinking?

On the menu for the night?  Mice house pumpkin rice, witch fingers, werewolf brain, vampire teeth, venom dip, little monsters, ghost pops and to wash it all down, fly water.  And then of course all the candy corn you could possibly ever want.  I still have leftover candy corn if anyone wants more.

Even the adults were encouraged to dress up.  Turns out my family (except Fabi, you looked great!) isn't very good at that. :P  But Kristine's. . .they did awesome!  I think we'll Halloween party with them more often.  This is me and my werewolf because we all know I'm a Jacob fan.  And, no it wasn't his brain we ate.  Although, sometimes . . . never mind.  

Activities for the night included pumpkin bowling and mummy wrapping.  Both done with cheap rolls of toilet paper that had little ghost faces drawn on them courtesy of the birthday boys.

 And of course the night wouldn't have been complete without the presents and cakes. 

Thanks everyone for coming to our party.  Hope you had as much fun as we did.  Oh wait, you adults couldn't have because you didn't dress up.  I guess there's always next time Halloween comes around on a Sunday.  Wish the rest of the family could have been here too.  And if you were at our party and have any other pics of the party could you send them to me?  Thanks!

Whole Foods Cooking 101

There is nothing like shopping in a store where you can't read any of the labels to make you only buy what you know for sure is real food.

See.  I can't read it either.  I guessed right on the bag of sugar though.  It was sugar.  I'm not a whole foods freak but I do read labels and anything with high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils can stay there and rot, or not rot because of the high levels of MSG, on the grocery store shelf.  So to say I'm going crazy not knowing what is in my food here is an understatement.  What if I get something diet with aspartame or something poisonous like that?  So I'm sticking to what I can see and I know have no nasty additives.

Real food!  No ingredient labels on these delectable grocery items.  And I'm even experimenting with some Japanese cuisine using items that I know will not hurt me or my priceless children.

Noodle soup!  All natural, well except for the buillon cube.  And it got rave reviews.

I Did It!!

Thank you Katy for putting this on your blog so I knew how to do it. I got it a few weeks ago I just haven't got around to posting about it yet. But I'm so excited. I figured I'll do it every year on my blog anniversary. Knowing that I can make a book out of my blog makes it so much easier to blog. I'm not a scrap booking kind of gal unfortunately so this is great! To make your own go here.

Here's a peek inside. If you want to see the whole thing you'll have to come visit. :) Or you could just review my blog but that would definately not be as fun.

And here's where it sits now on the bookshelf to look at anytime.

Never Again . . .

. . .will the drawer in my kid's bathroom look like this.

How embarrasing! Can you find anything in there? Because I can't! So, you see I came up with my own little contraption for hanging all the girls' ribbons, flowers and headbands.

TA-DA!! THE RIBBON HANGER!!

I'm sure some of you crafty people out there could really make this look cute. But for now it's functional and works for us. And hanging all those cute ribbons and flowers adds something and is about as crafty as I get. :)

BTW - I'm taking all the photos off of my old camera and these were taken with the old one. I'm sure they would be much better if I used my new camera. ;) Maybe I'll go try and see if there's a difference.

Need Lemons???

Calling all family, friends, acquaintances, bloggers, and lurkers. Bring your bags and and your citrus pickers. We have a lemon tree that every year produces enough lemons that it could provide all the lemon needs for a small country. So PLEASE do not buy another lemon if you need lemons come get some from our tree. Think of all the possibilities . . .nice refreshing lemonade, lemon chicken, salad with lemon and olive oil, homemade salsa, a cool lemon cheesecake, a nice centerpiece filled with lemons . . .I'm sure you have a few ideas of your own. Come on guys free lemons!!! Hope to see you soon.

P.S. If you don't know where we live I can email you our address.

Wannabe Gardener

That's me. I would love to have a garden and fresh vegetables and fruit and know all about flowers and all that stuff. Unfortunately, I have a very UNgreen thumb. I kill everything. But I try. I figure my grandmother was an excellent gardener so it must be in my blood somewhere I just have to find it. I have managed to keep tomatoes alive. I've done it before and Alexandria loved it. Here's our tomato plants so far this year. One of the advantages of living in AZ is we have lots of seasons to plant. So the two really big ones we actually planted in October.

And here's our newest additions.

Starting from left to right, an avocado tree, strawberries and an ice cream banana tree. YUM! Okay so maybe I was guided by my stomach more than my brain when I purchased these. Like I'm going to be able to keep these alive. Plus, the fact that we live in a desert and these are tropical trees (not the strawberries) . . . I'm not sure these are going to have any chance at all. But they do sell them here and I have done some research on line and you can grow them here. They're just not native to AZ. I would love to have a tropical paradise in our backyard. So, here's to hoping that by some miracle I can actually keep them alive. Oh, and any advice is always super appreciated too.

Working on New Year's Res

My word for the year is organization. We have a huge storage room / pantry area so I took it on. I tackled my first project towards organization and here is the before and after.

That was the pantry. It's so embarrassing.

That's the back pantry. Even worse. Now, it's not as pretty as it could be but it works and I feel 100 times better. I trashed so much junk! I filled the recycle garbage can once and I'm waiting to empty it so I can fill it again. And look Papi you have places for your stuff too, so NO messes when you get home. Thanks. Love ya!

Domestic Diva in Training

We had a lot of showers this week and I was asked to bring a fruit plate to one of them. Yes, I did this. This was my first ever attempt at a fruit plate. I'm not very creative when it comes to displaying foods. All of you expert domestic divas might think its very basic but I was pretty proud of it. I even sprinkled blueberries on top after I took the picture. YUM! Actually it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. The hardest part was keeping the little kiddie vultures away while I was preparing it.