So, my apologies for letting 10 days go by in between blogs! Last week was Spring Break for Champ and Matt took him to the beach and Orlando for a few days. They had a ball! When they got back, Matthew left with his friend, Jeff, for Florida for a few days where he spent Easter - our first Easter without him. :( While he was very much missed, it did the boys some good to spend so much time apart.
Before I get to Easter, let's talk pre-Easter. On Wednesday, Brooke and I hit the ground running. We hit 3 stores before I dropped her off at Mimi's. I needed to finish up my Easter basket shopping and things go so much more quickly when I don't have to mess with the car seat, stroller, snacks, etc. - so she enjoyed the day with Mimi while I shopped as fast as fire spreads. I was in and out of stores so fast it would make your head spin. I squeezed in a half hour of luxury as I enjoyed a pedicure with my sweet mom. More enjoyable than having my own feet pampered was watching her relax and enjoy her pedicure. My mom is the sweetest, most hard working woman in Atlanta and she deserves to have a pedicure every day for the rest of her life. I love her more than I can even begin to put into words.
On our way home from our pedicure outing, we drove by our neighbor's house who was having a couple of trees cut down. We have a nice large area in our backyard that was in desperate need of mulch, and I was in the process of pricing out wood mulch versus rubber mulch when I had the thought to ask the tree cutting people if they would dump their truckload of mulch on my driveway. Well, they did!! They backed up their truck and dumped a huge pile on the driveway - for free!! I was so excited.
Here is what we started with.
I'm a little disappointed with this picture because it doesn't look like that big of a pile, but folks, it was the size of a small-medium car. I was standing on our front steps pointing my phone down on the pile which makes it look smaller than it was. The more we shoveled, the bigger the pile grew, it seemed. Matthew and I worked on it for 3 hours the first night. I thought it would be a fun surprise for Matt to come home and see the backyard all covered! Little did I know that it would be three days later, many man-hours and hundreds of trips to the backyard before the pile would disappear.
Matt, Champ and I worked on the pile for 3 or so hours the next day and we had the pile down to a level that didn't make you cringe at the thought of moving it. I woke up Friday morning and went on a short run with Sandy and as I walked up my driveway, I glimpsed at the pile and decided to attack it. And let me tell you that it was quite possibly the best workout I've ever had. My heart rate was up for two hours while I shoveled mulch into two large baseball buckets and ran them to the back, up the stairs and dumped them. I jogged back down, grabbed the shovel and did it all over again - and again and again and again.... until the pile was gone. I felt like a contestant on the Biggest Loser or something - when they have to work so hard doing something like that and they're sweating and tired and in agony but yet so happy to have accomplished what they did... that was me! I was fighting for immunity! In fact, I had the thought that perhaps I was born to work on a farm or do some type of hands-on labor - because I love it. I love the simplicity of it - I love the hard work and sweat that comes with it - the satisfaction...
Have you ever seen the movie, BIG BUSINESS with Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler? I watched it many moons ago (1988 is when it came out) and I loved it! While shoveling the mulch, I thought that maybe I have a twin sister somewhere who is working on farm (you'd have to have seen the movie to understand what I'm saying - 2 sets of twins separated at birth - one set ended up in the city and the other in the country...)... I think this would be a fun movie, actually, for our own kids to watch. Makes me smile just thinking about it.
Anyway, we had the mulch all laid out and the house ready to entertain. On Easter Eve, Champ and I dyed Easter eggs.
After an amazing sermon at church, we had Matt's family and my family over for Easter lunch. It was so fun and lovely! We enjoyed a Honey Baked Ham, sweet potato casserole, potato casserole, cabbage salad, green beans and a strawberries and cream trifle (made by my sweet niece, Kendall, a.k.a. up and coming chef!)... The kids hunted for eggs. It was a beautifully delightful afternoon, complete with just about the most emotional Master's ending I've ever seen! I was crying right along with Bubba!
So, let's talk about Giada for a minute. She led me to a blue ribbon in the Chili Cook off. She's so fun to watch on the Food Network because she makes everything look SO EASY and effortless, in addition to the fact that she is gorgeous and seemingly very sweet. My friend, Tara, gave me her latest cookbook, , as a housewarming gift. Thank you, Tara! I love cookbooks so much. I never buy them for myself, so it's SUCH a treat when I am given one. The day I got it, I couldn't wait to get home, change out of my work clothes and into comfy "play" clothes, pop open an ice cold Blue Moon and just read it from cover to cover.
First, I made her Apricot bars. Mmmm mmm. These are delicious! They are cut and in the fridge now and everyone in my house loves them! I wouldn't call these "healthy" by any stretch, but they do have some dried apricots and oatmeal in them. While we are being inundated with billboards and commercials addressing our very serious childhood obesity epidemic, I'm on a quest to put a little meat on the bones of my crazy active boys, so I don't mind using butter and extra sources of fat or calories for him every once in a while. These Apricot bars taste like cobbler in the form of a bar. They are delicious and my whole family just loves them!
First, I pulled out the ingredients I needed - dried apricots and apricot jelly.
I mixed the jelly and chopped dried apricots together. You'll notice that there is some grape colored jelly in the bowl. That is exactly what it is because I only wrote down "apricot jelly" on my grocery list. So, I picked up a jar of jelly and when I got home, I was a few ounces shy of the 13 oz jar it called for - so I improvised and added some grape jelly.
Then I mixed the flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda together - then I added the oats and walnuts. Lastly, I added the melted butter, egg and vanilla.
I baked it for 35 minutes - let it cool for an hour (though I was impatient so I dug into a corner with my spoon and enjoyed every bit of it) - cut into bars and store in the fridge. Delicious!
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