HAPPY EASTER!!!

Okay, so this is how we spent our Easter week. First, we knew we weren't going to be going anywhere special over the vacation, so we started out with a trip to the bookstore. The girls each got two books, and they are now on their second ones, and I have read three of my four (I had way too long to think about what I missed out on reading while I was reading textbooks and writing papers for my masters!). Rebecca is starting to read the American Girl books, and Mallory is starting to read the Ramona Quimby books. Since I love to watch Medium, I got two books written by the real Allison DuBois, and they are motivational and very interesting- if you want to know, call and ask me, and I will talk your ear off about it! I had also started reading the Shopaholic books, and so I got the third one. Lastly, I missed out on knowing what all the hype was about with the Twilight books, so I got the first one. That is the one I thought I would read first, but it turns out that it's the one I have left, and will at least start it tomorrow, since we go back Tuesday, and I probably won't read Tuesday since American Idol is on and I have to see what Adam will do :)
Next, we gave the girls a minor room makeover. It had been about 5 years since we had upgraded or replaced anything in their room, and I had been keeping my eyes out for a cute bedroom in a bag set that incorporated the green for Bec's room and pink for Mal's. We found this at Bed Bath and Beyond, and both of the girls fell in love with it. When I found out that they were on sale, plus they were going to honor a 20% coupon-and- ship it for free, I could not resist. It included the valence, dust ruffle, shams, comforter, two sets of sheets, pillow cases, and two throw pillows. They are thrilled, and I love it. Since I have a sister and sisters in law who have such a penchant for decorating (yes, Amber, Cammi and Angie, I am talkin' 'bout you), I am happy when I can even come close to something show-worthy :)
So, here is Rebecca's room...

and here's Mallory's

Here are the sillies on Easter morning with their loot. The Easter Bunny gave them peeps, See's Bordeaux eggs, toffee candy bars, and butterscotch and chocolate suckers. He was also very practical and got them flip-flops, and new socks and undies (some of you may think that odd, but we have no shame about getting those in Easter baskets or Christmas stockings around here, haha)...

the loot...

Thier dresses this year actually served a double-duty. About a month ago, they were invited to take part in a adoption/dedication ceremony at the church of a good family friend (they have children attendants that get be with the adoptees the whole afternoon and they get treated like guests of honor). One of the kids is in my class this year, and it was a special day, where we definitely learned that you can feel the spirit in other houses of worship other than ours. They loved the dresses, and asked if they could wear them for Easter. I was going to change things up a bit and find out about getting them altered to be short dresses but that never happened. And of course there are lots of things I would be perfectly fine with doing myself, but this isn't one of them. I never did learn how to sew a straight line to save my life, and because of that, I have never had the desire to even own a sewing machine. It's just as well, because the girls like them long, and I am pretty sure I wouldn't have liked the cost of having them changed anyway...

Okay, so they are pretty as long dresses :)

In the morning before church, they had looked for the hard-boiled eggs inside the house, so after church, they got to change their clothes and look for plastic ones outside. We even had found some baseball "eggs" to put the jellybeans and robin's eggs in, so Mallory thought that was cool...

The hunt was on...

One thing that both of the girls are into lately is wanting to help in the kitchen. Mallory especially has earned the title of "little chef", saying that she wants to go to cooking school when she grows up. Rebecca loves to help, so we definitely don't leave her out either. For our appetizer on Easter, we had chips and guacamole, and the girls did most of the work. All I did was chop cilantro. They scooped, mashed and squeezed like little pros. They even tried it, but after all that work, they asked if they could eat the chips with salsa.

Mommy and Daddy didn't mind, they were happy to eat it!!!

For dinner, I had been trying to convince Kris to barbeque something tasty, but all he and the girls could think about was the fact that it had been a really, really long time since I had made scones. So we did it up full Stohl-style with homemade bread dough, filling with shredded carrots, cheese, and corn and salad to go with them. It wasn't your traditional Easter fare, but it sure was tasty!

Now on to the dessert. I mentioned to Kris, "why don't we use the ice cream maker?" So we got on the internet in search of ice-cream ideas. We found a recipe for cinnamon ice cream that sounded very good. Then we got the idea to modify it to be like one of our favorite Coldstone Creamery creations- Dulce de Leche. So we did exactly what they do, except instead of putting the graham cracker crumbs in the ice-cream, we put the ice-cream in a graham cracker pie shell.

We made the cinnamon ice-cream just like they said to do. Once it started to set, we added some honey and caramel, then put it in the pie crust and froze it overnight. When we were ready to eat it, I took it out and smoothed some more caramel on top, squirted canned topping all over the top, and sprinkled some cinnamon over that. Here's how it turned out...

It was sooo good. I think just the straight cinnamon recipe would be awesome with warm piece of apple or peach pie too!

We will end our Easter by reading about the Savior's Resurrection in the scriptures, and/or watching the Living Scriptures version of it...

Anyway, that was our week. That, and dance-dance revolution dance offs, wii playoffs, watching conference, cooking other meals together, and just enjoying being home without worrying about a crazy schedule. Tomorrow is our last day off, so we will have to let you know if we decide to do anything special! Hope you all had a great Easter. We miss you and hope to see you soon!!!