For Easter: Resurrection Rolls

Here's a sweet Easter recipe that you moms out there may have seen before: resurrection rolls.

It's used as an illustration for preschoolers about how Jesus was put into the tomb and how it was empty on Easter morning.  Basically, it's just a marshmallow wrapped in a crescent roll, and when you bake it, the marshmallow melts, creating an empty space in the middle, just like the empty tomb.  It can really elicit a "wow" reaction in some kids, and besides that, it's delicious!

On Saturday night, we'll assemble the rolls, and I'll bake them for breakfast on Easter Sunday morning, the day that Jesus rose from the dead!  (Hopefully the overnight rest won't affect anything.)  And here's a tip: baking them in a muffin tin helps the rolls stay together.  Just grease it really well.

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Resurrection Rolls

1 package of 8 Pillsbury crescent rolls
8 large marshmallows
1/2 cup melted butter, for dipping
cinnamon and sugar

Preheat the oven according to package instructions.  Unroll the crescent rolls.  Place each marshmallow in the wide end of each triangle.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  Roll the crescent around the marshmallow, sealing it off as well as you can.  Dip the roll in butter, then roll it in more sugar and cinnamon.  Bake according to package instructions.

Happy Easter!

What's Been Keeping Me

So several things have kept me from the blog for three weeks.  Here's a short list:

• Pinterest.  I knew it'd be a black hole for my time and had stayed away for a year or two despite friends encouraging me to get with it already, but I finally caved and have spent quite a few hours pinning craft ideas, crochet patterns, dream house ideas, etc.
• Cleaning out the garage, which happened this weekend.  Our garage was a disaster.  Imagine a disaster of a garage and multiply by a disaster factor of about 7.  We had unopened boxes from our move a year and a half ago, scattered tools and gardening supplies, about 50 cans of paint, dirt and leaves, old leftover supplies from our renovations (think stacks of wood with nails sticking out of them and boxes of cracked tile), etc.  It was truly awful, not to mention hazardous.  My hero of a husband cleaned it out and organized it this weekend, though, and after many hours of work and a trip to the dump, it is much, much better.  Like a new place entirely.  And, bonus!  We found a bunch of stuff we forgot we  had!  And the boxes of toys we opened were completely new to Jane and, therefore, total novelties.
• Nathan's travel.  He was gone for work for about ten days, first in Calgary, then in Boston (sorry, Boston friends--he would have loved to have gotten together with you, but the trip was quite short and he didn't have any free time).  And for at least a couple of weeks before he left, he was working every day in the evenings in preparation for these trips, so he was a little MIA even when he wasn't out of town.  Also, when he's out of town, it becomes even more clear that three kids is A LOT of work, especially when you don't have that extra pair of helping hands at the end of the day.  So by the time everyone was in bed in the evenings, I was too mentally exhausted to blog.
• Nathan took our laptop on his trips, which meant that posting pictures involved extra trouble, and I wasn't up for it. [see point above]
• I've been crocheting Jane's flower blanket, but, as I think I've mentioned, I've been a little drained in the evenings, and I haven't gotten as far as I would have liked.
• Noah got really sick this weekend.  He had a stomach bug or food poisoning, and he couldn't even keep water down for about 24 hours, poor baby.  He is still recovering, and I don't think he's up for a full day of school tomorrow, so I'll probably keep him home for one more day, lucky dog.  He made it clear that this is okay with him as long as he does not miss his book party on Wednesday, okay???
• Jane was randomly sick last week.  She threw up twice with only slight other symptoms, but it was enough to keep us home for about three days and thwart all our other plans, just in case.
• We had our kitchen and the odds and ends in our living room painted, F.I.N.A.L.L.Y.  The bits of painting that remained had disturbed my peace for long enough.  But clearly, not enough to make me pull out a paint brush and sand paper (Nathan, either), so we finally decided to call in a professional. At this point, the only things left to do in our house are updating fixtures and curtains, painting a few rooms, and renovating the upstairs bathroom.  Oh, the upstairs bathroom.  {Sigh.}  That is a conversation for another day.
• I read The Great Gatsby for book club.  The discussion meeting is this week, and it is going to be super fun, because the husbands are invited, and the couple who is hosting is going to have a little Gatsby-esque cocktail party.  Okay, so it won't be all that Gatsby-esque, as it will be a much quieter affair, I'm sure, but they will be serving cocktails. :)  And I think it'll be fun to see what a book discussion is like with the guys.  They'll mix things up, I'm sure.
• Jane turned three!  Pictures to come.  And Clara turned 6 months!  I'll post about that, too.

Later, peeps.  It's bed time.

Clara's New Stats

Clara had her 6 month well visit the other day.  Here are her new stats:

Height: 27.25" - 92nd percentile
Weight: 16 lbs, 3 oz. - 49th percentile
Head Circumference: 16.75" - 57th percentile

Holding steady as a tall girl!

My Janey Turned Three

My Jane Elisabeth is three years old.

 She had a princess party.

And she got a new princess dress, which she loved because it's a Cinderella dress.

(All her other princess dresses--which she wears daily--look more like Cinderella's clothes before the fairy godmother showed up.  They're just worn to tatters.)
Also, from time to time, she feels distressed that her princess dresses do not reach the ground.  It's just part of being so tall that none of them do, and it truly makes her sad.  But this dress does reach the ground!  Joy!

 She was so precious that day.  And so excited!

 I didn't end up with pictures of all the decorations, but my goal was that our house looked like a pink bomb went off inside.  We had pink streamers hanging from the ceiling, pink tissue paper flowers, real pink flowers, a pink castle, pink wrapping paper, and so on.

Even a pink princess cake.

Actually, folks, this cake was a pink Cinderella ballerina cake.  Now, there is not a single thing that would suit Janey more.

Janey and me.

(Did I mention that everyone got to wear a crown?)

We played a game called "Sleeping Lions" that I read about in this book, and, let's be honest, it's pretty awesome when you can get a bunch of rowdy preschoolers to play a quiet game.  Next time there might be some rule-tweaking, but hey, it was fun.

The party went well, but the gift opening was crazy.  We do have some friends who don't open gifts at the party, but I want my kids to practice gratitude, and I know the gift givers want to see the child's reaction when they open their gift, so I like to open presents during the party.  But just to make sure everything went well, I took Jane aside in a quiet room and talked to her about opening her gifts: "Jane, the reason we open gifts while people are here is so that you can look everyone in their eyes and say thank you.  Do not forget to thank everyone for the gift they brought.  Look at their eyes when you say thank you."  I really drilled it home, and she was very receptive.  But Noah and another little friend were bringing her gifts before she could finish unwrapping the one before, and it just got way out of hand.  Just like on Christmas Day, she didn't even know what she got before the next one was half unwrapped.  We'll have to figure this out.  I will say, though, that even though she hardly knew what was given or who gave it, she sure did have a lot of joyous fun.

One of our gifts to Jane was a brush.  Y'all, don't miss the significance here.  Jane finally has enough hair that she needs a brush!!!

My Little Lovey.