Easter Dinner Recap

We feel very lucky that we live near a lot of our family and we are able to celebrate most holidays with both my husband's family and my family together.

This year Easter dinner was at our house and I had fun getting things ready. The kids were really helpful getting the table set. We set up at our dining room table and then added a 6" table and a card table so we could fit all 18 people together.

We like to eat on paper plates so that dinner clean up is easy!  You can see close up photos of the centerpieces here and here. It is just used the same centerpieces that I've used in the past.

My girls and I made these macaroon nests with Cadbury eggs. My sister also made her famous carrot cake with delicious, thick cream cheese frosting. The macaroons were inspired by these found through Pinterest. They were perfectly sweet and moist.

A couple of hours before dinner, the girls decided that we should put out name tags at the seats. With the help of my Cameo, we had these cut and glued in about 45 minutes.

One of the best things about having a lot of family over is that everyone makes just one dish and we have a lot of food.

The kids had new Easter clothes to wear to church. I tortured them by taking pictures. Most of our photos turned out something like this:

We also got a couple of more serious shoots:

If you celebrate Easter, I hope you enjoyed the holiday. Although all of the food and decorations are nice, I appreciate a day to reflect on the reason for the holiday which is the resurrection of my Savior. I am very grateful to Him for all that He has done for me.

Project Life: March 18 - 24

Another week of Project Life is now complete!

We had a usual full and busy week. The highlight was getting to meet the newest member of our family, Rose. My kids now have another cousin!

 

Another highlight this week was going with my husband and oldest daughter to the midnight show of the Hunger Games. All three of us had read the book and it was fun to get to be one of the first to see the movie. Since it was spring break for us, we decided that we could all handle staying up late and sleep in a bit the next day.

This week I documented one of our favorite snacks: homemade salsa and chips. You can check out one of our favorite salsa recipes here.

This week also included a trip to the dentist for teeth cleaning, playtime with friends, swimming, a birthday party and a trip to Kokomo (a favorite yogurt place.) I really love documenting all of the little things that make up our daily life. This is the stuff I want to remember. This project helps me focus on and enjoy all of the little details that make our life special.

Thanks for joining me for a look at another week in our life!

Supplies used this week:

InLinkz.com

Quick Bunny Banner

While cutting some little vinyl bunny stickers with my Cameo to use with our egg coloring yesterday, the idea to make a little banner out of the bunny shapes came to me.

I cut out a bunch of bunny shapes from patterned paper. Since I wanted to sew a ribbon to hold the bunnies together, I cut enough bunnies so that they could go back to back.  The ribbon is sandwiched in between the bunnies is sets of two.

If you want to do something like this, you will need some of the shapes to be left facing and others to be right facing. In the Silhouette software, it is easy to flip a shape. Go to Object > Transform > Flip Horizontally.

 The ends of the ribbon are just taped inside of the candle holders.

My girls think that I need to add the words "Happy Easter" to the bunnies, but I'm really liking the simplicity of just the bunnies. Maybe I'll add some text to them next year.

Hope you have a wonderful Easter!

Easter Tables and Desserts

This year we are hosting Easter dinner at our house. I'm keeping things simple this year. Sometime I hope to really go all out with fun table decor and some fancy desserts.

I've been gathering ideas in hopes that I'll be able to just a couple of the ideas to our Easter dinner. Here's a look at some of my favorites.

This simple nest and egg setting would make a nice touch on the dining table. It's a perfect way to add a bit of spring to the table without going overboard.

Source: marthastewart.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Love this idea of spreading giant confetti pieces on the table. There is certainly enough paper in our house to make this happen. Maybe I can talk my kids into cutting out a bunch of circles. Or maybe I'll enlist my Cameo to do the cutting. I do have one Easter table runner, but we are going to need at least two tables for Easter dinner. This may be our table runner on our second table.

Source: nestofposies-blog.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Sometimes all you need is a single centerpiece to make a statement. I think I'd do lighter pastel colors, but this vase in a vase ideas is great.

Source: Uploaded by user via Lisa on Pinterest

Here is another vase idea that uses eggs. I like the simplicity and the mellow color palette.

Source: b-moviestar.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Okay, now on to my favorite past about dinner, the dessert! This Salted Caramel Easter Popcorn would be great to have out as both a snack and a dessert. Caramel, chocolate and popcorn together in one place. Delicious!

Source: twopeasandtheirpod.com via Lisa on Pinterest

This classic bird nest dessert would be easy to make and looks festive. A perfect place to hold a few of my favorite mini Cadbury chocolate eggs.

Source: thecurvycarrot.com via Lisa on Pinterest

I don't think I have the patience for this dessert this year, but I really love how it looks.  It's hallow chocolate eggs filled with cheesecake. So creative!

Source: raspberricupcakes.com via Lisa on Pinterest

These macaroon cookies made to look like nests look so pretty and delicious. I have the items to make these on my grocery list, so I'll have to tell you how they turn out!

Source: twopeasandtheirpod.com via Lisa on Pinterest

This spring colored Easter cake would be pretty easy to make and would be even prettier to serve.

Source: picky-palate.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Although this Salted Caramel Cheesecake isn't necessarily spring themed, I think it would be a decadent choice for an Easter dessert. I'm thinking about making this for Easter. If not for Easter, then very soon.

Source: themodernapron.blogspot.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Do you have plans for Easter? Is there a special dish that you like to make?

Wishing you a wonderful weekend with your family and friends!

Project Life : March 5 - 17 : Spring Break!

Last month our family was able to travel from Arizona to Maryland and North Carolina for our spring break. Of course, I was busy taking pictures on both our "big" camera and my phone.

The first layout I want to share today includes photos taken on my phone and shared through Instagram. Out of all of the social media outlets available, right now Intsagram is my favorite. What could be better that sharing photos with your friends and commenting on them?

 It was so fun to work with the new Glitz lines on this page. Here I mixed pieces from the Happy Travels and Pretty in Pink lines. I love the bright pink with a splash of blue!

This layout was inspired by the Glitz Designs April blog challenge. We were challenged to create a spring themed layout and spring break certainly seemed to fit the bill for that topic. I was also inspired by the grid pattern in the challenge photo and incorporated a grid of photos on my page.

While I had the Happy Travels line out, I decided to would be perfect for documenting our spring break week in my Project Life album.

I was so excited about all of the airplane elements in this line because not only did we fly to get to our destination, but we visited Kitty Hawk, NC where the Wright Brothers first flew a plane. Plus we visited the Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.  Lots of aircraft adventures to document from our week!

Since I had so many photos that I wanted to include this week, I used a page protector originally made for coin collectors to hold a collection of my 2x2 pictures. The page protector had 25 slots, but I didn't need that many, so I just trimmed it down to 10 slots. Here's a look at both sides of the page of small photos.

Did you notice that I used some of the same photos on my Project Life pages on the "Everyday is an Adventure" page? I love documenting the highlights in the Project Life album and then pulling favorite photos to help tell specific stories on my layouts. I think the two styles of scrapbooking bring a nice balance to preserving family memories.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Everyday is an Adventure Supplies
Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink" Patterned Paper: Polka, Pink Rose, Stripe
Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink" Peek a Boo Transparency
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Rhinestones
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Patterned Paper: Stripe, Bicycle
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Glitzers
Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink" 6x6 Paper Pad
Glitz Designs Teeny Alphas Black Type

Project Life Supplies
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Patterned Paper: Bicycle, Polka, Stripe
Glitz Designs "French Kiss" Hats Patterned Paper
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels"  Layered Stickers
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels"Glitzers
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels"  Epoxy Stickers
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Peek a Boo Transparency
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels"6x6 Paper Pad

In addition to all of the Glitz supplies, here's a look at other products included on my Project Life pages.

InLinkz.com