Gourmet Night

I hosted Gourmet Night at my house this month. Once again, I'm sure the company was better than the food, but we had a grand time! I look forward to these nights all month long, even when I'm hosting. The morning after, Jackson told me that he sure heard a lot of laughing going on down there! We always have a great time together. Thanks, girls!

The Menu:

Appetizer- Italian goat cheese and pesto torta

Drink- Strawberry Lemonade punch

Salad- Mixed Greens with apples, feta, bacon, & walnuts 

 Horseradish dressing

Main Course- Spicy Grilled Tilapia with Creamy Grits and Mushroom Scallion Sauce

Dessert- Raspberry Pistachio Cheesecake

*Check out Cookbook Junkies for all the recipes

I was so busy eating that I forgot to take a picture of my main course! I found this one online- similar, but not quite how mine looked.

Tulips

The tulip festival this year did not disappoint! They were so gorgeous, and I was especially appreciative of them this year because the deer have eaten all of mine. Curse you, deer! 

The kids enjoyed their first roaming of the gardens, and spent a lot of time rolling down the giant hill. Landon couldn't quite figure out how to roll, which was very entertaining to watch! 

the perfect ending to the day!

Spring Break

Here's a recap of our Spring Break, as seen through Instagram......

We moved out all the furniture to get the carpets cleaned (which barely put a dent in the nasty carpet. It needs to go NOW!) and had a Just Dance party!

We (and by we I mean Matt) had a priming and painting party in the basement

We wore whatever we wanted to because we could!

We enjoyed the nice weather by playing outside and having fun at the farm

of course it wouldn't be spring break if it didn't snow!

We made greenhouses and planted our seeds.

We had lots of fun at Grandma & Grandpa's!

Easter Festivities

 We had a low-key Easter this year. We opted out of the egg hunts and just spent time with family.

We decorated eggs at Grandma's and at home:

We woke up to snow on Saturday morning, but it warmed up for Sunday! We spent Saturday with my family- egg hunting, playing with cousins, eating yummy food, learning about the Resurrection, and of course holding Annie!

 

 

On Easter morning we woke to see that the Easter Bunny had visited! The kids explored their baskets and hunted for hidden eggs and we rushed to get ready for church at 8:30 a.m.! Whew!!

 Church was great! I always love Easter Sunday. Such an uplifting day. For FHE we watched a short video and read each of the scriptures that went along with it. I felt that it was important to make sure the kids realized that, thought they may read about and watch a lot of things that they know are pretend and made up, THIS is a REAL story. Jesus is a REAL person who suffered horrible things for all of us. He really did die and he WAS risen!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Eggs

 oh. my. heavens.

I made these homemade Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs for Easter and they are to die for AND super easy!

 

No-Bake Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Eggs

Ingredients

• 1¼ cup creamy peanut butter
• 5 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt 
• Chocolate Almond Bark, or candy melts

Instructions

1. In a large bowl mix together peanut butter, butter, graham cracker crumbs, powdered sugar and salt until well combined. You may have to use your hands if you're not using a stand mixer.
2. Roll dough out on a wax paper lined surface to a generous 1/4" thickness.(place a another piece of wax paper over dough for easier rolling). Remove top piece of wax paper and using a small oval cookie cutter, cut out your eggs and place on wax paper lined pan. Reroll scraps and cut again. *I molded my dough into my deviled egg tray. SO much easier! Just spray with non-stick spray first to ensure easy removal once frozen. One batch made 12 eggs.
3. Place cut eggs in the freezer for one hour, or until firm.
4. Melt chocolate according to instructions on package. I used half a package of Almond Bark.
5. Using a fork, dunk each frozen egg in the chocolate, tapping off the excess. Use a spoon to push egg off fork on to wax paper lined baking sheet and refrigerate until set.
6. Enjoy!

Notes

These can be made using any cookie cutter shape, or you could even shape dough by hand.

The Apple Pip Princess

Another successful year of dance is nearing its end! Kensie performed in The Apple Pip Princess last weekend and it was spectacular! You should all read the book by the same name written by Jane Ray. Such a good story!

As always, it was a hectic few weeks leading up to concert, but I LOVE it. As always, I love being a parent monitor at Capitol Theatre because I get to experience the back-stage fun! As always, Kensie was great! This year the 5th grade were raindrops. The girls were apprehensive about their costumes, but they looked SO cool on stage. It was tough to tell who was who, however!!

Baby Ann

On St. Patrick's Day our first niece and girl cousin joined the family!

Baby Ann is simply adorable! The boys and I got to meet her for the first time while Kensie was at a dance rehearsal. She was pretty mad that she couldn't come too, but she got her chance later!

Congrats to Danny, Leah, and William!!