Happy Easter!

The cupcakes are baked and decorated.

The Cheesy Potato Casserole is chillin' in the fridge and ready to be baked toted to a family dinner.

with these Jalapeno Popper appetizers. They'll just need a quick re-heat....

*Recipes for the cupcakes, Cheesy potatoes, and jalapeno popper cups will be posted next week.

And let's not forget the traditional breakfast casserole, it's ready to pop into the oven and bake while we all put on our "Sunday best"!

The eggs are colored.

The Easter dresses (and accessories) are pressed and waiting.

The annual Easter Eve rolling-of-the-hair is complete, insuring bouncing locks to be tamed with pink bows and headbands.

The Easter story has been read, prayers have been said, and...THE KIDS ARE IN BED!

What am I forgetting? Oh, the baskets.... Well, they're still in the trunk of the car...ready for hiding before we turn in for the night.

I just need to put a couple more stitches in my Easter dress and we are totally READY for one awesome Resurrection Celebration tomorrow!

I hope that all of you are ready too. Wishing everyone a wonderful day with your families and a blessed Easter!

An Easter Prayer:

Time for joy and time for giving
Time for remembering
Love while living.


Take this message Easter Day
Show kindness, care
At home and play.


It's in our very acts of giving
Easter's joy
Makes life worth living.


Children round the globe now hear
Keep Easter
In your heart all year.


May joy and love spread land to land
Linked heart to heart
And hand to hand!

Happy Easter!

Easter Dinner

Usually Easter is a big affair on both sides of our family. Fancy pastel dresses and bonnets and suits with ties for church. Big family dinners. Kids hunting for eggs. Last year our Easter was a quiet change. We lived about 8-10 hours from our family. My husband had to work in the days before and after the holiday, so we needed to stay home, rather than travel. My oldest ended up with 104 degree fever (and a trip to urgent care) the night before Easter. The baby was only 3 months old and consumed a strictly liquid diet. No need to cook for a crowd. As it turned out, the baby and I were the only ones who donned our Sunday best that day. I returned home to prepare an Easter dinner for 3. I served ham, scalloped potatoes, green beans, our favorite Bob Evans rolls, and deviled eggs.


This is one good looking Easter ham. In college I worked in a deli. We sold a deli baked ham, prepared in the big industrial ovens in the kitchen behind those cases loaded with salads and pimento loaf.I loved that ham! I love those delicious HoneyBaked Hams too, but at $52 for 7 lbs, this was certainly an economical approach. I found an inexpensive ham at the grocery and dressed it up, just like the deli ham I enjoyed so much in college. I sliced it diagonally and stuck cloves in every diamond sliced into the ham. Then I mixed pineapple juice with brown sugar and poured it over the ham as a glaze. Finally, I topped the whole thing with pineapple slices before baking the ham according to the package directions. It was delicious!


Deviled eggs are an Easter tradition with us. We used up the eggs that had been colored earlier in the week. My 4 year old, then 3, rallied from her double ear infection just in time to make this recipe her own.


Until yesterday, I had no idea what I'd prepare for Easter dinner. We rolled in from our Spring Break Adventure just hours before this Easter dawns. A good friend has generously invited us to join her family tomorrow, so I'm going to take a dessert that I've been planning to make for Easter since last Spring. I found the recipe for this Malted Mousse Cake in Better Homes and Gardens March 2008. I'll post about my dessert tomorrow.

Until then, here's my favorite scalloped potato recipe.