Our Easter Weekend {randomness and yummies}

So we started off our Easter weekend on Thursday with my youngest's class party and egg hunt. He had a blast! Originally I had planned to make some PEEP-POPS for the entire class, but after painting eggs for a few hours on Wednesday night with a friend and her kiddos I decided just to make a few for them and for lil man's teacher and teacher helpers.

Aren't they cute?!

Just put some peep bunnies on a lollipop stick and dipped them into melted chocolate {almond bark}... then I added some sprinkles. Actually I had a bag of mixed sprinkles left over from a baking party I had on the 12th with a bunch of college girlfriends, so I put them to use. :) Then covered them with mini pink baggies and tied a pink ribbon on. They were cute teacher treats that lil man got to help with {sprinkles}.

eggs we colored with my friend and her cuties

made a super hero egg with lil man's first name initials - he has two first names

super hero egg's cape

my chick egg

On Friday we planned to go to the Louisville Zoo... too bad that the weather had different plans. So a quick search online and we decided to go to the Cincinnati Museum {3 museums for one LOW price and a day of fun and education}. At first lil man was sad he wouldn't get to see his favorite animals {giraffes} but when we walked in the entrance he was jaw-on-the-floor blow away! 

Saturday we went to an egg hunt at a friend's church and then more storms hit our area... so we cleaned up and I got ready to bake for Sunday while my husband curled up on his recliner sick... You know, the MAN COLD. {lol} Actually he had a severe allergy attack that turned for the worse and he is just now getting over it. 

So my baking/cooking for Sunday consisted of = Resurrection Rolls... Pizza Chena... and Ratatouille.

After Easter Basket time I sat with lil man at the dining table {with his cute little apron on}. I opened up our big children's Bible and read to him the story of Jesus' resurrection while we made the RESURRECTION ROLLS. I made them years ago, but hadn't since I was a children's pastor. Anyways- it was such a neat experience watching him take it all in. And when I cut open one {after baking and cooling} he cried out "where is the marshmallow?!" and was in tears... SO I got to go back over the story of how the tomb was empty and what each part represented and then he was jumping with excitement and gobbling up his treat... "Ooooh, now I understand!" {lol, too funny}. 

Here is a good link for resurrection rolls!

So while he enjoyed his goodies and his new movie 'Happiness is a Warm Blanket' {Charlie Brown} I cooked.

Every year, well for the past few years, I have gone back to a tradition that I missed from my teen years--- Italian Easter Meat Pie.... PIZZA CHENA! So I have been baking it now for 3 years and the husband LOVES it! We have never celebrated Lent, but from what I understand is that why my grandma used to make it on Friday was so that she would not pick at the meats and cheeses and then we would have it on Sunday. IDK, that's what I understand... I usually make it on Friday but we were gone and Sat was crazy with "the man cold". 

pizza chena

Anyways, I have always made it with store bought raw dough/crust... this year I went ALL OUT HOMEMADE! Let me just say it was a LOT of work but soooo totally worth it! Now we are a blended background so seeing as this was a new tradition to this family of mine, we decided that we will pick some favs and every year add to it, or take from it so long as we keep the Pizza Chena. 

ratatouille

My husband last year requested RATATOUILLE and well- it stuck with us this year! I made that from scratch also... dicing and dicing and dicing... did I mention there was a LOT of dicing? But wow- sooo good! After all that I did NOT want to bake {even though I LOVE baking} so I picked up these cute little mini egg-looking cakes from the grocery's bakery. 

we didn't get our Easter pics done yet... this is from the egg hunt

Hope you all had a fantastic EASTER!

Oh, and here are the bulletins I made for the Academic office on my college campus...

popsicle sticks and tulle 

remember the bunny and chick I made in a previous post? there they are!!

linked up...

Sugar Bee Crafts - Take-A-Look Tuesday

Tip Junkie - Tip Me Tuesday

Lemon Sunshine & Irish Cream Filled Cupcakes

First off on a side note... This week has been CRAZY, starting LATE Saturday night and running through Sunday morning. My LIL MAN ended up in the hospital again for his ears. Between his doctor, his ENT, and the ER, the last 2 months have been painful for him and exhausting for us. While he has other medical issues these two months have mainly been his ears, so it looks like tubes {we will find out next week}. I just want my lil man to be better again {no more crying out in pain}. It really is {IMO} one of the hardest things a parent can emotionally face- when their child is in pain {little or big} and you can only hold them, pray over them, and give them medicine, to comfort them. Well, it has been a long week and it is coming to an end. Lil man's meds are working, though he hates all of them. So for a treat we have decided to take him out to the movies tomorrow {either Nomeo or Rango, he will choose}. 

So at least we will end the week on a HAPPY NOTE! 

Another happy note, well for me baking wise, is that my sweet baker friend and CRAZY PRINCESS sister Becks has hooked me up with two of her yummy recipes for cupcakes I am wanting to make for my lil man's 5th BIRTHDAY {and she is playing around with another for me}. I would TOTALLY have her do the baking, but sadly we live too far away for that. I wanted to do them from scratch {like my frosting} but I wanted something a bit more dense, yet moist and pudding-like. IMO, box mix does NOT do that {even with the pudding mix kind} and I want my cupcakes to hold filling better than the ones I will talk about in a minute. Well, I will be testing them out soon enough as a few friends have decided to join me in having a BAKING night on our college campus for a few ladies! {yay}

Anyways... onto the post title stuff. haha

So I wanted to try out my Wilton filling tip and well, I wanted something yummy to eat and share too. I decided to make a vanilla CAKE {box kind} and play around. 

My first batch was turned into {what I will call} IRISH CREAM CUPCAKES. I didn't have any one me and we live in a dry county {yep, shocked me when I found out they still exist! lol}. So instead of doing a 45 minute run, I decided to use Irish cream CREAMER. I used it in my homemade BUTTERCREAM frosting, instead of the milk. It came out perfect consistency wise though it was very VERY rich with flavor {next time I will use 1/2 the amount and the other half cream}. I liked it, but since I both filled the cupcake with it and topped it with it, it was a tad over kill. {haha} Part of LEARNING. I'd probably liked it filled with CHOCOLATE too.

They do look pretty though! :D

Now this second batch {what I am calling} was made into LEMON SUNSHINE CUPCAKES {lemon filled, CREAM CHEESE FROSTING topped}. I made the frosting a little runnier than usual, because I wanted it to have a poured look to it. It was filled with a lemon filling, topped with the cream cheese frosting, and sprinkled with blue sprinkles {lil man picked them out}. They were SO YUMMY! 

The one thing I noticed was that they were too light and fluffy for the filling, which is why I called on my friend Becks to help me. Now they didn't crumble, but they could hold the filling better and besides I really want to bake from SCRATCH! 

Sunshine peeking through the middle!

Well, that is my sharing for the week. I feel a bit off since I didn't CREATE much this week, other than classwork but my baby is getting better and that is what matters most right now. 

Have a BLESSED Friday everyone!