He is risen!

He is risen indeed!

Happy Easter!  Even though it's cloudy and misty today, it's a beautiful day.  We need the moisture and the cool temperatures are awesome.  Our little family got up this morning to have bunny rolls (plainchicken.com) and then got ready for church.  Service was wonderful!

What's sad is this is the best picture of the girls together.

We had our egg hunt and supper at Mom's.  The kids had a good time hunting eggs.  For this Easter supper, I cooked the ham and helped with the cupcakes.  The girls got baskets from us, Terrie, and Sondra and Howard.  Thank you all so much!

On your mark, get set, go!

Easter Party

Holland's class had their Easter party today and they had a lot of fun.  The kids had an Easter egg hunt followed by their party.  I signed up for cupcakes and solicited Mom's guidance and help.  We made Easter basket cupcakes and yellow chick cupcakes.  And when I say "we" I really mean, I baked and helped organize.  Mom was the one who did the majority of the work.

Easter sugar eggs

It's that time again!  Sugar eggs!  This year we went with a new color........ teal.  The color was beautiful.  Mom is so awesome for agreeing to lead me in this project every year.  She has been making sugar eggs for close to 35 years now.  You would think she would be burned out on them, but she does a ton of work.  Thank you Mom!   

Oil field fire

Friday was a sad day for my family.  A huge fire broke out and stretched 15 miles from Petrolia to Henrietta.  It ended up burning over 20,000 acres and at some points, the fire was 3 miles wide.  In the path was my grandparents oil field which had the hay barn and the house they started living in 1944 when Grandad worked the oil fields.  The house was vacant and no belongings in it, just tons of memories.  The hay barn had square bales of hay and the hay and back part of barn are gone.  Kirk was out at the fire all day.  First as a volunteer firefighter with PVFD and then on duty with the Sheriff's Office.  Prayers go out to all the firefighters and volunteers that helped fight the fire and to the families that lost property.

For those that know the oil field.  This is looking from the Dean lease to the Zachry lease.

Looking from the creek back to Culberson lease with an electrical pole still on fire.

Looking towards the Power from the curve before the creek.

From the Power looking towards the curve before the creek with pipe still on fire under the tree.

The hay barn. Hay in the back was still on fire.

The old home my grandparents lived in is now the light colored rubble.

DC Cupcakes

I LOVE the show DC Cupcakes on TLC.  On one of their episodes I noticed they ship out orders so of course, I had to go online and order a dozen cupcakes.  I couldn't wait to get them in!  If you order by noon, the order will ship out that day and you receive the next day.  Our order came in on Friday.  We ordered various flavors we wanted to try and let me say, they are awesome!!

Growing up

I'm sitting here in bed tonight kind of sad.  Britton is sleeping her first night in her crib right now.  I'm so used to having her right beside our bed and so easy to get to.  I know it's time, but it's still hard.  Britton has been such a great baby.  She started sleeping all night long at 5 weeks old and she sleeps like a champ.  Once she is laid down, within a couple of minutes she is sound asleep.  Today had another first for Britton.  She flipped over from her back to her tummy.  It seems like these changes in Britton are happening faster than they did with Holland.  Maybe it's just because life seems so much busier with two kids.  Here's hoping I don't worry myself into a sleepless night.

Recipes: breakfast

I think I'm going to start weekend cooking by theme.  The new recipes for this weekend are breakfast foods.  I made coffee cake (plainchicken.com) and sausage and cheese muffins (plainchicken.com).  As you can tell, I'm obsessed with plainchicken.com.  She is awesome.  She makes good food with easy, simple recipes.  I also busted out one of our old family recipes, hamburger bun pizzas.  They are so simple and kids love to help make them.  My family prefers hamburger pizzas so we use hamburger meat on top, but you can use any of your favorite pizza toppings.  I use pizza sauce, but Mom and Mommer use taco sauce and make theirs a little spicier.

Kate is home from ODS this week so we are going to work on decorating the Easter sugar eggs and make an all time favorite.....Cinnamon ring!  Most people call it monkey bread, but our late grandmother on our Dad's side, Grandma, always made it from scratch and called it "Cinnamon ring."  I can't wait!!!

Britton's 1st food

We gave Britton her first cereal and first veggie this week.  The cereal didn't seem to interest her, but the organic green peas did.  Britton loves the peas.  She kicks and squeals when eating it.  I have a video of the cereal but it's too long to post.  Here is Britton eating her first veggie.  Tomorrow we will try green beans .... yuck!

New recipes

Last weekend I wanted to cook a lot to make up for not cooking the weekend before.  We were sick with the allergy/sinus/bronchitis crud and I didn't do much other than what had to be done.  This weekend I made pecan praline chicken (Super Suppers), chicken and cheese enchiladas (plainchicken.com), and gooey nutella butter cake (plainchicken).  All were awesome!!!  I seriously think I'll never have to go to El Chico's for chicken enchiladas again.  And, the nutella cake was like eating a chocolate cheesecake brownie.  Fabulous!