Make This Frosting Today!

The cake was yummy and will someday make its way to buildabelly, but I'm posting this to direct anyone interested to an utterly delicious frosting recipe.  Thanks to my sister Becky passing along a ton of the fresh strawberries she'd been given, I altered my plans a bit in order to use them.  I made lemon cake layers with a thin layer of lemon curd and strawberry slices for filling, all topped with this excellent strawberry lemonade whipped cream frosting.  The only alterations I made were to use a whole pint of heavy cream, 6 tablespoons lemon juice ('cause that's how much the lemons leftover from making the cakes had inside them), and a little over a cup of chopped strawberries.  I think I increased the sugar a hair, too, to make up for the extra lemon juice. Tart, light, and not overly sweet. So, so good. 

Sweet Baboo is an Old Man Now

Yesterday, Zeke turned FIVE!  How has this first boychild of ours been here so long?  Ezekiel smooches me over and over again at night and snuggles under the covers in the good morning.  He's a boy of a boy and scraps to hold his own, but now that there's a younger boy for comparison, I realize that Zeke's nature is unusually sweet at times.  I'll enjoy it while it lasts, because one day the soap beard he sprouts in the bathtub will be the Real Deal, and his tenderness will take other forms.

Annika woke up early and decorated a book-reading nook and the kitchen for him.  Aidan woke up first, though, and got to revel in it.

True to her word, she read him five books for his fifth birthday while a few bedheaded book-moochers listened in.

Birthday breakfast!   Sausage, berry shake, and Swedish pancakes!

The funny thing about Swedish pancakes is that a flat stack of about 18 has a dozen eggs, four cups of milk, and 3 cups of flour.  They pull off dense and delicate at the same time.

Happy candle day!

He couldn't wait for the jam and syrup to reach the table and spread shake on his first pancake instead.  Good enough.  (More birthday pictures to come.  Zeke wanted to wait until my Mom arrived home to have his birthday cake and presents from us, and we have a day still to go.)

p.s. His birthday supper was a light and healthy balance to the breakfast-- homemade pepperoni pizza, soda, and buffalo wings.  On birthdays, we have digestive systems of steel in this house.  (At least I baked them instead of deep-frying, though, right?)

Pluck Me Some Sunshine

Daytime Egging at Home

The day before Easter is always the best time to stain one's nails, hands, and/or arms, depending on how serious one is about the dying dyeing process.

My children always liberally stain the table and floor, too, because they are SERIOUS.

Nighttime Egging at Home

Because sleeping the night before Easter is for wimps...

But making your Easter surprise eggs form a conga line at two in the morning and then taking a picture is for winners!  (Hard to believe I've been doing this for seven years.  I'm no wimp!)

Easter Morning

I love Easter morning.  The world always seems fresh and new. He is risen!


I think this boy loves Easter morning, too.

Sleepy heads rise with the sun.

A table filled with good food.

Oh, yeah.  And cinnamon rolls.

With the tiniest dab of frosting...

I Tried (Kind Of) for Grandma

Easter morning is always fun and relaxed in a packed and hurried kind of way.  I should have had time to take a picture.  Instead, I hastily snapped these while John waited in the running van, late for church and too forgetful to change the exposure.  Oops.

They're nice children, anyway.  (And I think it's funny that it only took a few seconds for them to line themselves up in military formation here.  They're also organized children.)

A Plate of Poison for Everyone

No, not the carrot cake, silly! (I took this picture to show you how I used up the last of those giant Texas pecans I've been hoarding, Molly.)

The forsythia had just begun to bloom, and the daffodils woke up the day before Easter, just in time to put a pretty plateful of poison at each spot.

No one died, and I think the few minutes I spent admiring all that color was worth the risk.

Hot on the Track

First year.  First basket.  Cute baby in the wind.

Aidan is nearly three.  He was a little more impressed by the whole celebration this year.

Ezekiel was here nearly five.  An old pro.

And then the storm arrived.  Poor, shivering Lucinda.

Springtime cheer!

The wind was really whipping now, with driving rain, but Piper wanted her basket hidden outside anyway.

I put it in a normally excluded (but protected from the elements) hiding spot.

Then I declared a cease-fire, and we took a break until the storm blew through.

Susannah was next.  She found her basket before the broken-down barn cat did.

Annika thought I surely wouldn't hide it inside the chicken coop.  That's just gross.

But I DID hide it inside the chicken coop.  (It got some chicken droppings on it, too. That's just gross.)

Millie would have been happy if I just handed her her Easter basket, but nothin' doing.  She has to earn it!  I did hide it in an insultingly easy spot, just to get it over with.