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Baby Egg Hunt and Easter Lunch

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Yesterday was Freddy's first Easter. I have always wanted to celebrate Easter. Growing up Orthodox, we went to midnight mass and had a big meal at 1am. But now that we have a little one, I wanted lots of family and friends around for lovely time of laughs, sunlight, and sweets.

The Baby Easter Hunt was hilarious. At one point Freddy was rolling on the couch in absolute rapture, banging eggs together, rolling on them, and chewing on his plastic eggs. Darling Isla wearing a gorgeous cherry dress had both baskets and walking around the garden getting all of the eggs. It was wonderful just to be out there with family and friends, laughing and watching the children play. I used plastic eggs and filled them with non-edibles, bubbles, chalk, and barrettes (for Isla). I also color coded the eggs. Pink smaller ones for Isla. Blue larger ones for Freddy. Seeing they are so young there wasn't much I could fill the eggs with, but my friend Leslie said her sister-in-law's mother filled them with puffs. Which I thought was brilliant.

My good friend Blythe made a Pizza Rustica, classic Italian Easter tradition. Which was wonderful! I will get the recipe and post it. My good friend Meg made a great salad of mixed baby greens, apple, cheese, and walnuts with a balsamic dressing. Leslie and I made an excellent orzo, peas, and asparagus pasta salad, that I will have to make again. And as per our tradition, ham and biscuits. Oh how I love ham and biscuits on Easter.

For dessert, Bella (my sister) and I made carrot cupcakes and white chocolate sugar cookies. Which my mom decorated, and went a little overboard on the sprinkles, too cute. I also assembled candies from Trader Joes and mini desserts from Whole Foods.

For drinks we put together a citrus bar. Orange and Grapefruit Juice, Prosecco Frizzante Secola, Vodka, and Pellegrino. I really liked doing the bar this way, because there was a lot of variety with very few ingredients. A greyhound which is vodka and grapefruit juice is my choice drink these days, but there was plenty to choose from. A little grapefruit juice and sparkling water is refreshing and tasty. I think next time, I would put a pitcher of water and I would put out garnishes as well. Carl added a blackberry to his greyhound and it looked great.

Next year will be at Blythe's house, and I can't wait already. Palm Sunday used to be my favorite holiday, but I think Easter is my new favorite.

As always, much love, many blessings, and happy celebrating.

What a perfect day.

Easter Card!

Wreath Of Wishes Easter Card

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I will admit, I mocked women that sent out pictures of their children at every holiday. And it is true, there is an element of this process that feels like shameless self promotion. None the less, I only send the pictures to family, god-mothers, and close friends that would actually want a picture of Freddy. All that aside, I love these cards from Shutterfly. So, if you are looking to do a little shameless self promotion of your darling little ones, I recomend Shutterfly. And did you know, they can send the cards for you! Amazing. I did all of my Easter cards in 10 minutes. I couldn't stamp 36 cards in 10 minutes... I heart technology.

Meg's Baby Shower: Birds and the Bees Theme

One of my dearest friend's Meg is having twins. And to celebrate two more little ladies joing our wonderful happy family, we decided to throw her a darling Birds and the Bees Baby Shower. Her sister, Jillian, Meg's Mom Mrs. Geiss, and I started working on the theme.

Here is my inspirational idea board...

After that I designed the invitation and some other stationary to go along with the event.

Jillian had a wonderful idea to give Meg cards of encouragement and advice.

We had a small party, 15 ladies, 4 children and 4 husbands came. We tried to strategically time it between nap times and dinner.

For the entrance we created a welcome sign with the same stationary design and added wooden bird houses on the railing. The wreath was wooden rossettes which matched the color scheme from Target. I added potted tulips and daffodils from Trader Joes.

 I thought the BABY wooden letters were just darling. I bought the wooden letters from Micheals and wrapped them in color coordinated yarn. I loved the clothes line with color coordinated onesies. Jillian and her mom put that together, and one day the girls will wear them.

I found the cutest felt bee clothespins and baskets at World Market. We used the clothespins on everything from the signs to the napkins. We used the basket to hold the completed cards of encouragement and advice for Meg.

I love any excuse to use a cake mold, and this bee hive cake was super cute. We had a large cheese platter, a fruit tray, and various deserts including a honey bee cake recipe which was just so cute.

I try to be as local and seasonal as possible. For the centerpieces, I purchased daffodil plants from Trader Joes, they were $4.99 and now I get to replant the bulbs in the garden. I also bought the cutest little ceramic birds and little bird houses at Micheals for $1.99. They now adorn my garden.

Jillian came up with two darling games. One was guess the circumfrence of the Meg's bump. Which she had pink ribbon and everyone in the room got to guess. The other game was a list of personal characteristics from Meg and Brad and guess which one Meg wanted the children to inherit. It was so much fun and the personal stories about tire changes and getting lost in front of their house was hilarious.

For favors, I made little white chocolate bee hives. I melted white chocolate chips and let them cool in the fridge using a bee hive candy mold. Let them completely cool before you take them out. I wrapped them in cling wrap, and took simple mesh bags from walmart and imprinted them with regular ink with Welcome Baby and Merci stamps.  We hung up a peice of wrapping paper from PaperSource and using brown satin ribbon and clothes pins hung the favors on the door.

It was a wonderful time, and a incredibly joyous occasion. I think the only thing I would do differently was I would have had a citrus punch and perhaps balloons, but hind site is 20/20. All in all it was a perfect day.

As always, much love, many blessings, and happy celebrating.