Easter is such a beautiful holiday.  Spring is beginning, the flowers are beginning to bloom. The holiday is steeped in rich traditions and most of the things that we associate with Easter have symbolic religious meanings.  At our house, we love Easter for so many reasons and we have many traditions that mark this holiday as special to us. So, for today's Friday Faves, we decided to share 10 Things That We Love About Easter! I'll start with #10 and work my way forward! 

10.  Jelly Beans! About the only time of year that we eat these sweet, fruity beauties is during the Easter Season! Of course they are widely available everywhere and now they come in so many flavors and varieties.  I have found that I like them all!! :)
9.  Easter Eggs! This is actually going to be a few ideas in one spot.  Alicia mentioned that she loved coloring the hard boiled eggs.  (I have always loved that, too).  It is so much fun to get creative with the egg coloring.  We always set aside time on the Saturday before Easter Sunday to color the eggs.  
     Early Sunday morning, before church, the kids would all come out and hunt for the eggs that the Easter Bunny had hidden around the house.  Yes, they had to hunt for the real ones as well as plastic ones.  Surprisingly, we never had any mishaps! 
     Since I have 6 children, that meant a lot of hard boiled eggs! Of course we ate some at breakfast on Easter morning.  One of my favorite things to do with the eggs was to make them into Deviled Eggs and into Egg Salad Sandwiches.  Hmm, we may need to share those recipes with you before Easter arrives! 
7.   Easter Morning Pastry!  To go along with the hard boiled eggs at breakfast, I always had either homemade or nice purchased pastries for Easter Morning.  Add a glass of juice, and it was a nice, quick breakfast to eat before it was time to head off to church.  Lindsey wants to keep this tradition in her family now.  One of the things that I would sometimes make was this Cherry-Cheese Pastry that I have shared with you before.  (It is a favorite of my DIL). 

7.   Easter Baskets! Maddy made sure that we mention Easter Baskets here.  They are always so much fun to get on Easter Morning.  Our kids had baskets that were their's that they used year after year.  Some of our kids had nice willow baskets and a couple had the colorful Easter type, but they were their own, so they didn't mix up whose was whose.  We always put in a nice mix of treats and little gifts.  Nothing too elaborate.  If you want some inexpensive basket ideas, be sure to check out our Easter Basket Stem Activities post, with a video! 

6.   Chocolate Easter Bunnies!  We used to get our kids those hollow chocolate Easter bunnies.  The chocolate wasn't that great, but they loved to break off the ears and then pour milk inside the bunny! My oldest son started doing this and showed his younger siblings how to do it.  Surprisingly, there weren't many messes from it.  It is just one of those funny things that evolved at our house from the early stages with our kids. 
​     If you have more discerning taste in chocolate, you can get Russel Stover bunnies at Dollar Tree! 

5.   Easter Dresses and Outfits!  When my girls were young, I used to love making them Easter Dresses, just like my mother used to do for me.  I like getting a nice, new Spring Dress as well, but I hate to sew for myself, so if I get one, I always purchase it. It is also always nice to get a new tie or something for the boys as well.  Starting on the 18th of March, Target is going to be having BOGO on their girls and toddler dresses. That is buy one get one for 50% off! So, if you aren't sewing the dresses, there is a great deal! Here are a few that I think are adorable:

4.  Going to Church on Easter Morning! Lindsey mentioned that she loves going to church on Easter Morning because the hymns seem to be sung more fervently and the messages are always beautiful. The same feeling comes to me when Christmas falls on a Sunday.  Easter Services are always beautiful and filled with hope.  In our church this year, there is a world wide conference that will be televised on Easter morning.  It will be wonderful to hear the messages right in our own homes. We can stay in our pjs and wear the Easter dresses the following week! 
3.   The Easter Hymns!  I already mentioned them, but the beautiful music of Easter deserves a place of its own.  Go here to listen to "Christ the Lord is Risen Today".  Go here to listen to "I Know That My Redeemer Lives".  Just a couple of my favorites.
2.   The Messiah! Madalynn reminded me of Handel's Messiah.  What a truly inspired and beautiful work of musical art! My girl's have all had the opportunity to perform in presentations of the Messiah, or at least portions of it.  Have you ever gone to hear it live and to feel that music just wash over you and fill your heart?  Have you ever been able to go to a sing-a-long of the Messiah and be a part of the music?  It is amazing! Guess what!   There is a great opportunity this year to sing-a-long with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as they perform the Messiah! Go to this link and find out all about it! Event is on March 23rd.  You can even download download a PDF of the musical score! It is so amazing to sing the Hallelujah Chorus with that wonderful choir. I can hardly wait! 

And, at last, the #1 favorite thing that we love about Easter! Let me tell you a true story.  When my daughters and I were discussing what we should make Friday Faves about this week, and I told them I thought we should talk about something to do with Easter, I jokingly asked, "What was your favorite Easter?" Silly, right? Who can pick a favorite Easter from their lives?  But,  Madalynn answered, "The one when Jesus Christ was resurrected." Yes, she was kind of teasing me about even asking that question, yet, I was humbled and very glad that this was the first thing that came into her mind.  He is the reason we celebrate this wonderful holiday.  Because of Him, we have hope for eternity.  We hope that each of you can feel His love and hope in your lives.  While all of the other trappings are a lot of fun and serve as reminders of what Jesus Christ has done for us, I want to make sure that His name comes to my mind every time I hear the word Easter, and that I remember Him everyday!  Thanks Maddy, for that simple reminder.

     You will be hearing more from us on the subject of Easter over the next couple of weeks! We have recipes and ideas to share. We hope that you will let us know some of the things that you love about Easter and how you celebrate at your house. I am going to put links to some of our past Easter posts below. Just click the pictures and they will take you to those posts! 
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Hey Alicia here again with another Irish recipe from our culinary adventure. You can read about my experimenthere. 

This has been such a fun experiment, especially learning about dishes that our ancestors may have eaten. We just got my husband'sDNA results back, so it has opened up more opportunities for us to experiment with food and culture.

For our Irish meal this week we had Bangers and Mash. In researching this, it's not a dish exclusive to Ireland or Irish in origin (as far as I can tell).  And this dish is the only instance in which you would hear a sausage referred to as a "Banger." In Ireland and England sausages are called sausages.

​It's a simple but quite delicious meal.

The meal consists of a pork sausage, mashed potatoes, and an onion gravy.

The pork sausage has to have at least 20% filler in order to get the right consistency. Fillers include eggs and breadcrumbs. The name banger comes from during WWI when the sausages contained a bit more water. They would burst while cooking them and make a "bang" sound. 

The potatoes are pretty straight forward mashed potatoes except they have added a bit of mustard powder which gives a nice subtle flavor. The gravy has no thickener added to it and will be more like a jus than a traditional gravy.

I was really impatient and didn't reduce my gravy enough so it was very liquidy but still very tasty!

To come up with my recipe, I research the dish and a few different recipes from Irish people who ate Bangers and Mash on the regular. 

This dish is so simple but packs big flavor. I love it. I mean can you go wrong with pork and potatoes?

Bangers and Mash

Let us know if you try it out! It could be a good one for St Patrick's Day. Or try my recipe for Irish Bacon and Cabbage Pie!

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      I love cooking with my grandchildren and they love to feel like the chef as we cook.  Cooking is such a learning opportunity when it comes to science and mathematics, (you know, those STEM activities). We try to create learning opportunities for our children and grandchildren as often as we can, and have fun while we are at it.  (Saturday, Lindsey gave you an example with theseboard books, that I just love! And, don't forget to check out our Dollar Tree Stem Activity Ideas for Easter here).   When I came across a recipe for Grasshopper Pie in our local grocer's magazine, I knew it was the perfect no-bake recipe that would have enough jobs for all five of my grandchildren who are in my home at the moment and it would be something they would enjoy eating afterwards.  Put that together with the fun name, this was a winning recipe.  It would make a great dessert for St. Patrick's Day or Easter.  I had made this pie years ago with ice cream, but this is a lighter, fluffier version. Here is how I made it happen with 5 young kids doing the work.

Division of Labor

     I put my 4 older grandchildren into pairs.  The 4 and 6 year olds worked together on the crust.  The 9 and 10 year olds worked together on the filling.  The 3 year old did the decorating at the end. It worked out great! I was able to send the oldest 2 off to play while I worked with the crust team! 
     The crust team counted, rolled and crushed Oreos in a plastic bag with the rolling pin.  We could have used a food processor, but that wouldn't have been as much fun. After the cookies were crushed, we added the butter to the bag, resealed it and then mushed it all around to mix it together.  Then, we poured the crumbs into the pie dish and used a fork to spread and form the mixture to the pie dish. We popped it in the refrigerator and I had those two kids go and get the other two for their turn.  Remember that it is important to talk about the process with the kids so that they start to understand the whys and the science of cooking.  For example, when things are warm, they can become liquid, when they are cooled, they become solid again.
     The older two checked the weight with me on the container of marshmallow cream so make sure we had the right amount.  I set my granddaughter to melting it over a low heat on the stove as I watched her carefully.  When it was melted, she put in the extract and the greed food coloring.  She mixed it in very well.  While it cooled slightly, my grandson and I got the cream whipping.  He measured out 1  1/2 cups of heavy cream.  Then we measured out the powdered sugar and discussed why we needed to use different measuring cups.  Then, we talked about the air in the whipped cream and how we needed to keep the air in it.  So, we folded in the marshmallow cream mixture and they each took turns learning to do that.  
     After the filling was spread into the crust, it was the 3 year olds turn to sprinkle on the Easter colored M & Ms.  Look at his chubby little hand.  Counting the M & Ms is a good skill for young kids. Also, naming the colors.
     

Final Touches

     The hardest part of the process was to let the pie cool long enough to set before eating it.  Using a clock,  we did it and the kids were so excited for everyone to try their handiwork.  I added one final touch before serving and that was to drizzle on some chocolate syrup to give it that little something extra. 

Here is the whole recipe, adapted from Fry's Food Store's My Magazine! 

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Lindsey here, back with another review! Today I want to tell you about these books that I found on Amazon when I was creating my baby registry.

Chris Ferrie is the author of these science books for babies. Remember when we did that video showing you all the STEM toys you can find at Dollar Tree to put in your kid's Easter basket? Well these books go hand in hand with that post.

When I was creating my registry the Rocket Science for babies book came up and I just had to have it!

My little one loves when I read to her, and these books are so great. They explain these concepts simply and really they break down the subject so well that they're helpful for all ages to understand these subjects.

I highly recommend these books, and you can find them on Amazon to read to your little ones! Help prepare them for these concepts early on, you won't regret it!