Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Vera Rose discovering her Easter basket!

 

       Liliana and Vera Rose eagerly put on their Easter attire (they have been begging to wear their poofy yellow dresses with the sprigs of pink roses for weeks).  Liliana had hung hers right beside her crib yesterday and gazed at it with a smile the whole time I read the Bunny Brown and Sister Sue book at bedtime last night.  The girls were very excited to head to church, but first they discovered the Easter Bunny's hiding spots for their Easter baskets.  Plus, they noticed that the Easter Bunny had eaten the carrots, spinach, and cabbage we left out for him on the front step. 

       Well, unfortunately we arrived late to Sunday School this morning, only to discover that hats, gloves, and purses had been left laying in our living room but Daddy saved the day and drove back home to get them.  My favorite part of Easter is always singing the grand hymns of Eastertide so it was with much happiness and rejoicing that I held Vera Rose on my hip today in church to sing "Up from the grave he arose..." as we looked at each other and sang with all our hearts.  Happy Easter!

 

 

Hot Cross Buns

Recipe for Hot Cross Buns

Hot Cross Buns:
3/4 cup warm water
1 T yeast
3 T butter, softened
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1 egg white
1 egg yoke
3 cups flour
2 T water
3/4 cup dried currants (optional)



Unbaked buns with piping, raisin, & egg glaze, just prior to baking.

Decorative Cross
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
dash vanilla
1/4 cup milk or enough for piping consistency

Directions:
Combine warm water and yeast and let rest for 10 minutes.

In mixer bowl, combine white sugar, salt, butter, egg, egg white, and half of flour.  Add yeast mixture and rest of flour.  Add currants if desired.  Knead dough.  Place on floured surface and let rest 10 minutes.

Shape into balls and arrange on greased pans.  Cover and raise in warm place until doubled (40 minutes). 

Combine ingredients for Decorative Cross.  Place in piping bag and pipe cross shape on buns. 

If desired, add part of a currant or raisin to center of cross design.

Combine the egg yoke and 2T water and glaze buns.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10-20 minutes.

 

 

 

 

Easter Bunny Books

Easter Bunny Books from Generations Past 



Liliana sets up her "Easter parade for Ann Eliza" based on Lois Lenski's The Easter Rabbit's Parade

 

      Usually I eagerly tote the dozen or more holiday picture books for that month's holiday up from the basement toy room at the start of a new month, but this Easter I sort of dragged my feet on it and thought maybe I'd wait until next year for the Easter Bunny books.  Why?  Well, while my Easter books are lovely gems, they tend to be old, out-of-print books which, while beautifully illustrated and charming, they also tend to be long and verbacious and I wasn't convinced that my 1 and 3-year-old had the patience to sit through them.  Plus, their from-another-generation stories tend to include parts I would not personally have written into a sweet children's book.  For example in Lois Lenski's (most famous for her Cowboy Small and other "Small" books) The Easter Rabbit's Parade, the Rabbit is not all-sweet and Eastery but seems to stem from the wily rabbits in the old trickster tales of yore.  Also, the character, Greybeard the Goat, is always bleating contrary statements in bold lettering throughout the book.   So, it was with trepidation and reluctance that I unearthed the Easter books a little over a week ago.
       Let's just say I should never underestimate children.  And also that unusual/undesirable character traits are not necessarily a hindrance to good storytelling, in fact,  Liliana's favorite Easter book is probably the long The Easter Rabbit's Parade! and Greybeard the Goat?  Well, she laughs non-stop at all his interjections (especially when I use a different voice for them).  And the Easter Rabbit is not necessarily the hero of the book since he's a bit vain and cocky, but the story itself is one of selfless sweetness where the barnyard animals decide to "make Easter for Ann Eliza," the little girl in the story.  Each animal gives up something (feathers, eggs) or makes something (a basket, etc) to surprise Ann Eliza on Easter morning with an Easter Parade (the parade of barnyard animals bringing her an overflowing Easter basket).  The illustrations are splendid, some of my favorite.  Liliana is so taken with the book !  And yes, I do skip over a couple places in the book (when the Easter rabbit has his comeuppance for his vanity due to purple egg dye splattering over his face, the other animals call him "Freckleface" and although it's satisfying in a story way, I don't like Liliana hearing any making fun of people [or animals] so I skip that for now).  And my happy reward for bringing out the old gems?  Liliana is so taken with The Easter Rabbit's Parade that she regularly uses her Holztiger wooden figures to set up the Easter parade and act out the story. 
      

Some of our favorite old Easter Bunny gems:

The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by Du Bose Heyward (another one of Liliana's favorites--and such sweet illustrations of children bunnies!)
The Easter Egg Artists by Adrienne Adams
The Easter Rabbit's Parade by Lois Lenski
The Egg Tree by Katherine Milhous (a Pennsylvania Dutch book with the German Easter egg tree complete with traditional designs; seem open in one of the photos above)
The Golden Egg Book  by Margaret Wise Brown
Grandpa Bunny Bunny by Jane Warner (this is an all-time favorite book from childhood where bunnies paint everything from shadows to brilliant sunsets)
Happy Easter by Kurt Wiese (a short sweet book about hatching colored chickens--and the rabbits have their baskets strapped to the backs which I adore)
Two Hundred Rabbits by Lonzo Anderson and Adrienne Adams (not actually an Easter book but a bunny book)

 

 

PS.  We like these books too, and no Easter rabbits seen here!:

 

Easter Happiness

Our Easter Tree

Jellybean-topped cupcakes

It's been such a great week, with special services such as the Maundy Thursday Love Feast (with feetwashing and communion) and a Cross Walk in our local town (someone carries a large cross down the sidewalk while the rest of us sang Easter hymns [I so love listening to my girls sing hymns!] as we walked/strollered  and stopped periodically for devotionals led by local clergy from various churches).  This week has also been full of reconnecting with old friends, sled-riding with my girls, seeing the first robin of the season perched outside my kitchen window, and contemplating how special life is.  Whether you are fasting today, attending special services, or fulfilling your work responsibilities, I hope today and this Easter are extremely meaningful for all my loved ones.  I am so thankful for my God, my church, my family, my friends.  It is so wonderful how holidays tend to remind us of that!

Egghunt happiness at a good friend's home!

Easter Egg Banner

Easter Egg Banner

Note the large central egg has a face!

 
      Liliana and Vera Rose watercolored some egg-shaped paper last week at Grandma's, then we received a fun Easter package from Brian's Mom which included Color Wonder paper and markers (which I am now truly a fan of since I think it's teaching Vera Rose marker etiquette--she immediately tried to stealthily color on her arm, her hand, the wall and was so disappointed when nothing appeared!  Love that it will only color on the Color Wonder paper because it gives me one artistic medium the girls can use without being fully monitored by me every moment!) so we did what anyone would do the week of Easter with new markers: we made a temporary egg banner!  Even Brian added a carefully colored joke egg to the banner yesterday (and by joke, I mean that it has the head of David Hasselhoff on it, something no egg should have to face).  Liliana is so proud of her egg banner and my favorite part of making it was seeing her efforts to duplicate my Easter symbols.  She's definitely old enough to make some art!




Mine are on top; Liliana's are the bottom row : carrots, cross, tulip, & palm branch.



Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday

 

      Liliana and Vera Rose both really connected with the symbolism of the palms this past Sunday for Palm Sunday, or at least really loved their palm branches (which they called "Pom Poms").  After a Sunday School lesson specifically about Jesus riding into Jerusalem over the palms as people called "Hosanna," the girls were enchanted to find palms strewn down the aisle when we entered the sanctuary for the worship service.  Then, for each member of our family to receive palm branches as we exited, was true delight.  Liliana was thrilled to not only carefully place her palm branch in a vase once we arrived home, but to find pictures of Jesus and palms in some of our Easter books. 
       Unlike Christmas, I think Easter and the Lenten season hold so much depth and mystery and tragedy and sacrifice that it seems beyond the understanding of toddlers in so many ways (although I know I must never underestimate the brilliance of children because their faith can far exceed adults) that it was bliss to see the girls connecting with the palm branch, learning that God is great and worthy of worship and praise.

Easter Eggs made with Onion Skin Dye & Flowers

Easter Eggs Wrapped in Flowers

and Cooked in Onion Skin Dye

Top left: Carnation wrapped; Top right: Fern; Bottom left: Baby's Breath; Bottom right: Daisy



Egg wrapped in Baby's Breath

       After wrapping cut flowers (carnation, daisy, baby's breath, and fern) around a raw egg (using quilting thread), I placed the wrapped eggs in a pan and covered them with the onions skin dye (the outside skin of two onions that had been boiled about 20 minutes) that I had previously used for dying eggs with leaves yesterday (click here for that post).  I then boiled them for at least forty minutes (and I'm surprised that my eggs didn't crack because they were only supposed to cook for twenty minutes but yes, I forgot about them!)  The result was much darker than the eggs from yesterday.  This is such fun!

 

 

Onion Skin Egg Dye with Leaf Patterns

Onion Skin Easter Egg Dye with Leaf Patterns

 

Center egg was dyed with onion skin dye.

 

       This week, while dying Easter eggs at my Mom's house, I decided to try a dye technique that I read about in one of Liliana's Easter books: Onion Skin Dye. Liliana helped me peel the skin off of two onions and place them in a saucepan. Then I added water and boiled it for a while. (The original directions called for boiling the eggs in the dye combo for 20 minutes but our eggs were happily already pre-boiled by Grandma before we arrived so I simply let the onion skins simmer for about 20 minutes with no eggs in it). 

       Since there were no live leafy plants anywhere in the snowy outdoors (at least that weren't frozen and crunchy!), I used some branches from my Mom's houseplants, wet them, wrapped them around the eggs, tied them to the egg with some string, then set them in the onion skin dye.  The eggs soaked for about 3-4 hours, then Liliana and I removed the leaves to find some fun textures.  Such a pretty hue, reminiscent of freshly-laid Barred rock chicken eggs and with such an interesting yet subtle texture because of the leaves. 
       This technique would be fun to use some year when we have a later Easter with some green plants outside so that the girls would have the fun of scavenging for leaves as part of the process.  This was so simple to do, that I'd love to try some other natural dyes while making Easter eggs!

Springtime Easter Fruit Cups

A Healthy Fruit Treat for a Happy Easter

 

        Part of our "Healthy Easter Treat" for the girls' Easter party at Tiny Tots playgroup preschool was a medly of watermelon and cantalope cut into Easter shapes (a chick, a cross, a tulip, and a butterfly), then set in a spingtime cupcake paper (which I had lined with a flower-shaped foil cut-out so that the fruit juice wouldn't soak the paper).  It was a bit tricky to cut the fruit into layers conducive to cutting out shapes (but the only real "tricky" part was trying not to have a ton of scrap left over).  The rest was super easy because cookie cutters cut through melon quite well and my girls had such fun nibbling on the excess. 
       Luckily, the night I worked on their Easter treats coincided with their Tuesday night playtime/Spanish exposure with my dear cousin Rachel so I was able to work with less distractions (you know, those fun everyday interruptions like diaper changes, the "I'm thirsty"s, etc which seem to add an extra hour to every project attempted!).  I am so thankful that my girls have the opportunity to play with 25 children each Wednesday morning, that they have such a wonderful teacher, and that I, too, have the chance to visit with highschool classmates of yore!  Life is such fun these days!