Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Easter Weekend (Belated Post)

I know, I know this is late, but I have other posts which are even less timely to write so deal...

We celebrated Easter on the Saturday before. The festivities started with the kids opening their Easter baskets (which were recycled cotton bags from Art Mart this year). One of Josie's presents was a set of wings. She loves them!
Our neighbors, Margie and Rick completely outdid themselves this Easter with the biggest egg hunt yet. It completely took over their two yards and the park as well as one of their houses. The kids just adore the hunts and all the plastic eggs are filled with change instead of candy so it makes me happy. Margie did buy some special vegan candy for the kids because she is like a surrogate grandmother (since my poor kids have no grandmothers left and Margie is a total sweetie). The kids couldn't wait for the Easter egg hunt to start so they busied themselves with painting pictures for our neighbors.
This is a painting by Parker for Margie.
Josie trying out her new wings.
Look at how busy the Easter bunny was this year!
Josie waiting patiently on the porch for the "Go!" to start the egg hunt.
My three egg hunters.
Parker busy finding eggs with all the fallen blossoms from the tree in the park.
Dema finds a purple egg hidden on the tree.
Eggs in trees.
Even Princess Ninja Fairies need help sometimes reaching the high ones.
Help from the big "kids". Margie and Rick's son was ever so helpful and sweet. Josie adores him!
As soon as the Easter eggs were found, we had to quickly walk several blocks to Erin and Brian's house for a potluck. Rob is displaying the Easter Pie we made for the occasion.
We spotted the elusive Princess Ninja Fairy on our walk to the potluck. This dress was given to us by our friends Mark and Anna back when Josie was just a baby. They brought it to a potluck at a mutual friend's house to give to someone else, the person with a three year old didn't show up so they gave it to us. I forgot about it in the attic, but luckily Josie found it and uses it for all special occasions.
Here is my plate piled high with vegan goodies! Richelle's marvelous asparagus and mushrooms, our Easter Pie (I used the Herbed Breakfast Patties recipe from Vegan Diner), perfect roasted potatoes (can't remember who brought these), Loretta's luscious couscous salad, Erin's fantastic mac an cheeze, and Susan's beautiful Bulgar salad.
Brian is the master bar tender/gracious host and happily made pretty drinks all evening for the lushes, thus I will forgive him for the jokes about carving the ham. Josie did tell him how sad she was for the dead pig and chicken, but I don't think it swayed him at all. He's a great sport though!
After the fun at Erin and Brian's, we walked the kids home to hang with Aunt Karen and Stuart. Then headed to Urbana sans children for Wade's birthday party. I baked my favorite "adult" cake, Lower-fat Deep Chocolate Bundt Cake from Veganomicon for the occasion. All in all a lovely weekend with loads of great food and awesome friends/family!

2 comments:

Susan said...

Those first two pictures of Josie are *SO* adorable! She is so sweet with those wings. I must admit, she reminds me of my two daughters when they were little--they loved wings & scarves and things that flowed~~~

and ps--I would love to 'borrow' some black rice from you some time, so that i could give it a try. We'll work it out...eventually!

VeganLinda said...

Susan, I noticed a black and red maybe? rice blend at Strawberry Fields between the freezers and the pasta. You are welcome to have some of our black! Thank for the kind words about Josie, she really loves the wings. Last night we had some people over for Cinco de Mayo and the little girls were taking turns with them.