Easter 2010

We had such a great Easter! Started with an amazing, Spirit-filled church service. We went to the early Breakthru service at 9:15 and I didn't want to leave, so we stayed for the 10:45 one also :)

Wait a sec... It didn't start then.

Lemme back up.

My side of the family decided to celebrate on Saturday since it's kind of a headache to get a time scheduled with 4 kid's calendars, 3 sets of in-laws, 2 kiddos with nap- times, and a partridge in a pear tree

A few weeks before Easter, I saw an aDORable 4-layer colorful cake on my friend's blogs, and thought I'd try it out. Even though, if you'll remember with me, the last layer cake I made. It not only was a bit on the Pisa side, I didn't even spell "Birthday" correct. Yep, that's right. I forgot the ever-important "H". But it didn't have to leave the house, since it was for Chris, and he got a kick out of it.

I digress.

Here are a few work-in-progress pictures. Not as many as I would have liked, but it was late, and my pregnant feet were begging to be elevated in bed.

I used box cake mix (2 for a 4-layer), and food coloring gels. My aunt who makes delicious wedding cakes (she made ours) uses a box mix, then right out of the oven, wraps in saran wrap and freezes the layers, which holds in the moisture. And the frozen layers were a bit easier to shave and carve.

The frosting was a "wedding cake" frosting I found on allrecipes.com. It was incredibly healthy with 1 cup shortening and 1 cup butter and 8 cups of powdered sugar. And by healthy, I mean heart-attack. But I very much dislike whipped frostings, so bring on the buttercream! (and the bypass)

I was pretty pleased with the way the colors turned out :) Everyone said it was great. Baby Shields wasn't interested in sweets that day, but I did try some later, and thought it wasn't too shabby ;)

Alright, so after cake was an Easter egg hunt. My mom practiced with Ellie (who is 20 months) the week before so she knew what to do, and Ava is a pro (at the ripe age of almost 4)

This would be Ellie saying "open, open"... Every time she got an egg she wanted to open it :) Mom was smart and put only one or two M&Ms or jelly beans in each egg ;)

Sunday after Breakthru, we went to Chris' aunt's house (the Shields' side) for brisket and chicken noodles. We were able to spend time with his aunt, uncle, and cousins from Oklahoma, which was great :) Then later that day (after a nap at home), we spent some time with his mom's side of the fam.

I love to think that next Easter we'll have a 6 month old baby! :)