Easter Dinner: The Aftermath

Leftovers filled our fridge

Dishwashers were filled and emptied three times 

Our counters became less cluttered

Stock was made with leftover bones

Dan and I smiled as we cleaned up, talking about our time with our friends.
Worth every ounce of effort!

Easter Dinner

On Saturday, we invited 25 people to our home for Easter dinner. Unfortunately, one person fell ill and 3 others couldn't make it due to last minute family obligations. (For those who can't do the math, we ended up feeding 21 people). We invited a mix of people. Some older, some younger. Some new to our church, some that don't even attend our church. Some that we invite every year and some new people. It was an eclectic mix of people and definitely a wonderful group to have over.

 The Preparations: Dan and I planned to do most of our prep work during nap time. But unfortunately for us, the boys were too excited to sleep. The boys didn't have their traditional 2-3 hour nap so we could prepare dinner. Just an hour and a half each. This kind of shocked Dan and I. They were constantly in the way or getting into trouble, so we corralled them in a fenced area inside our home. That way we could work freely, without worrying that Micah was eating electrical cords or Joel being underfoot in our busy kitchen. For safety measures....ya, that's it...

Menu Planning: A delicious feast for all, which included working in numerous dietary restrictions. An excellent challenge for Dan and I. For dessert we had white cake with whipping cream and strawberries. And for those gluten free/dairy free folks, there were special (store bought) cookies and coconut milk ice cream bars. Dan and I made sure that everyone was well fed (big surprise there!)

The Feast: We've made it an annual tradition to invite people into our home for Easter. It seems to be the best holiday for us since it spans four days. This gives us enough time to accommodate our own family obligations and still leave room to carve time for our friends. Dan and I had a LONG list of people we wanted to invite and we wished we had more room to accommodate more families. It pains us that many people we wanted to have join us around our table weren't able to fit. (We need a bigger place to accommodate more people!)

We definitely enjoyed the group we did have!

Side Note: We own 21 chairs. The perfect amount for the number of people who came. But what family of FOUR has twenty one chairs??? Cough....hoarders....cough, cough. We prefer to think of it as hospitably inclined. Ya, that's it. We ain't no hoarders, we're just hospitable. Ya, that sounds right. Hospitable....

This end of the table was filled with laughter. Literally, all we heard was laughing. It was great to have our house filled with joyful sounds. We were blessed by the company we had.

I made a point this year to snap a few photos. Every year that we've held our Easter dinner, I've always regretted not being able to take photos. (I think I was always too busy or too exhausted). But this year, I took a few seconds to snap a few pictures. I'm glad I did.

 I love seeing the smiling faces and the conversations from around the table. I love seeing people connect with others whom they've just met. I love hearing and experiencing how gracious, warm and inviting our guests spirits are. I love the jokes and teasing yelled across the table. I love the kids squeals and cries. I love the gut busting laughs echoing in our house. I love the quiet conversations and whispers made amongst new friends. I love the gentleness that was received. I love watching people receive the small touches that Dan and I made to make everyone feel welcome. I love that God orchestrated the perfect group of people around this table. Dan and I felt truly blessed to be able to share this evening with all of you.

Anaya and Micah playing together

Anaya stole Micah's giraffe. Micah stole our hearts with that face.

New friends: Julia and Dolores

Matt and Anaya

Thanks to all of you who came into our home to share a meal with us. You have blessed us beyond words. We can't wait to do this again!

Joel's Imagination

Puppy is hungry for apples. So, Joel fed the puppy apples.

Good Mommy Moment: French Onion Soup

This boy sure likes his French Onion Soup. What kid likes that?
Oh...Mine!

(this is just a nice balance to the nacho dinner)

Bad Mommy Moment: Nacho Edition

Dinner consisted of Extreme Nachos

To drink: Chocolate Milk

I'm not up to anything bad or anything...

...just a bit of a lazy day, that's all

oh...and I had sour cream that needed to be used up.
That's a good reason to eat chips for dinner right?

Healthy? No!
Tasty? Definitely!

21.5

This ain't no joke. That boy is a BIG boy (at least for us). A mere two months ago, he barely weighed 18lbs and now he's up to 21.5lbs. That last half pound came last week. If he continues growing the way he is, Joel and Micah will be the same size by summer. They are virtually in the same size now. The only reason they aren't in the same size pants is because Joel has longer legs. (Sadly, Joel's waist still fits 6-12 months size, whereas that's a tight squeeze for Micah). Their shirts are only one size away from each other...and don't get me started on their feet! At least dressing them for summer will be easy. One size fits all!

Brothers

Brushing away the sugar bugs from Sugar High Sunday.
We love our sweet Easter Bread....

Paska

This is what happens when you start making Paska (traditional sweet Easter bread) at 8pm.
It was our first attempt. The recipe is old school. You know...add enough flour to make soft dough kinda thing. (yah..thanks for that. 10 cups later......)
We didn't let it rise long enough. It was already 11:30pm when we "finished" the final rise.
We set 3 timers and threw it in the oven for an hour and went to bed as neither one of us could muster the strength to stay awake that long.
About 15 minutes after the timers went off (one repeatedly every 10 seconds), we finally woke up to JOEL! Dan rescued the bread, but it was already too late.
Crispy Paska anyone?
 

Pears

We were at the vegetable store in Langley (yeah Ralphs!) the other day when we saw bags of pears on the clearance rack. $1.99 for a HUGE bag of pears.

So, the pears weren't pretty looking. But they are completely edible. Dan and I decided that we would can the pears since we had been rationing our pear supply for months. Joel really enjoys them and we were 3 jars away from completion. We grabbed 5 bags of pears to start. I kept telling Dan that he shouldn't leave that lonely bag on the shelf. Well, needless to say, 3 bags later, we ended up with a total of 8 bags of pears for a little under $16.

When we got home, we threw them all in a box to weigh them. We were surprised to find out that we had just purchased 50lbs of pears!!! That works out to 33 cents a pound! Steal! (Dan wants to note that grocery stores are currently selling them anywhere from $1.39-$2.48/lb)

We ended up with 56 jars of pears for a mere two and half hours of work. Not bad!

Shoes

Micah's favorite thing to chew on: shoes

You think he was a dog or something...

(better than Joel's affection for licking toilet seats)