A whirlwind weekend.

Friday night was Cate’s first birthday party. It was such a blessing to have her in Ohio to celebrate it with her. :) Here’s baby Cate sharing some Grandma love…

My sister wanted a Dr. Seuss theme, so with some online inspiration, we ended up with a super adorable party. I took so many pictures that I’m going to have to dedicate an entire post to the party details. :) But here’s a peak at little Miss “Thing 1” helping me decorate for the party…

Oh, and Cate helped me send a couple emails while I worked from my parents’ place for a couple hours on Friday before the party.

We had a lovely little family party for Cate & we even had four generations in the house…

Cate was pleased as punch the whole evening, that is, until she had to eat her birthday cupcake. Not a fan of the sticky, messy icing!

 

{Love it! }

Saturday was a bit relaxed as my sister and her little family visited my brother-in-law’s side. Baseball double header & a ticket for me. Yeah, a ticket. I got ticketed for “following too closely” because the car in front of me breaked quickly because they saw the cop. We were going a whopping 27 mph where the speed limit was 35 mph {Fabulous. Add it to the list.}

Anyway…

We gathered again for Easter Sunday. They joined Eugene & me in their adorable matching Easter outfits at our church.

I joked with Eugene that I wish I were still a little girl so I could wear such super-cute Easter dresses & hats! I mean, honestly, she is just ridiculously cute!

 

And just cause I love this picture – here’s some real beauties…

We enjoyed some praise & worship together for such a hopeful day {wondrous thing.} And Cate got a little cat-nap in before it was time to take her to our Aunt Jane’s {my namesake} for our family tradition of lots and lots of home cooked food, family visits, and a fun egg hunt for the kids.

 

This is just the desserts. Mmm, our family has some good cookin’!

Cate got into some comfy clothes to be sure she was totally ready to rock the egg hunt.

And she rocked it indeed, just look at her climbing over those barriers!

 

She even took home a kite, all part of the tradition. :)

  

She had such fun with the eggs! I know she probably won’t remember her first birthday party, or her first Easter, but we certainly will. I loved watching my sister smile with pure joy at her little girl laughing at big red balloons, playing with her second cousins, hugging her grandpa & grandma, and enjoying a long-standing family tradition. It’s great to see other people full of joy. {Gives me joy.}

Quality time sneak peak.

No real blog today – too busy living! I’m excited to spent some quality time celebrating baby Cate’s first birthday tonight.

She helped us decorate for the big bash. We’re throwing her a Dr. Seuss themed birthday party & I’m super pumped :) Here’s a cell phone pic sneak peak…

 

Be back with a super long weekend wrap-up post on Monday!

Easter egg flop.

First, I’ve had these on my desk all week. While we’re on the subject of things that I believe are going to be in Heaven, the smell of hyacinth is definitely at the top of the list. Lilac, hyacinth & doughnuts, Amen.

Second, yesterday after work I went to look for my camera. I usually carry it in my purse, but for the last day or so it hasn’t been there. My thoughts went something like this, “Hmm, I think my camera’s on the kitchen table. Nope, hmm, maybe it’s…last time I saw it I was building that fireplace outsideohmygosh. Tell me it’s not been outside in the rain for 24 hours!” And it was.

And when I found it in the mud, it didn’t look like it did the day I bought it – that’s for sure. My brain must have taken a vacation day because I left my camera, which was over five hundred dollars, outside for two straight nights. One of which, I woke up sure that our basement would be flooded because of the terrible rain {it wasn’t, PTL}. Torrential downpour & standing water all over our backyard. I found my love camera under a chair that was blown over in our backyard. Devastated, I gave it a .01% chance of actually ever working again. I turned it on. Nothing. I changed the battery & a light flicked on but it still didn’t work. {Hope!} So I put the camera & lens into a huge bowl of uncooked white rice in hopes that it would soak up the water & maybe revive my friend camera. Oh, and I cursed the devil for messing with me again & prayed hard that God wouldn’t make me handle an expensive camera broken out of my stupidity.

You know what? God had mercy on my pour desperate soul & the camera worked perfectly this morning! :) Hallelujah! I can’t believe that it stayed outside through frost, tornado warning {or watch, I never know the difference}, lightening, inches of rain, and mud and still works! Amazing! Thank Heavens, because I honestly don’t think I could have handled that right now.

Onto less stressful items…

Don’t ask me why, but I decided to dye some eggs last night at 9:00 pm. {Weird… I know.} I tried a technique I saw online by the Martha where you use olive oil to create a marbleized design on your egg. It’s supposed to look like this…

{image source}

Haha, well, as you probably gathered from the post title, mine didn’t quite turn out like that. Um, not even close! It’s okay though, I still have fun pretty eggs. Here’s some pics from the process…

I was secretly happy that I could use my Fiesta Ware to color code the process {=nerd.}

I was also happy to see that my egg carton gave me an encouraging Bible verse to get into the spirit of things {pun intended.} Check out the top right corner of the egg carton lid…who would have thought you’d see it on an egg container?

Darn Martha led me astray. Or I’m too dumb to figure out her directions.

   

These don’t look marbled. At all. Well, maybe the yellow one just a really tiny bit, but that doesn’t count in my book. {Big flop.}

 

But good news – I put the on my pretty newly re-found antique treasure & they made for a gorgeous Easter arrangement. So classically beautiful!

 

You can kinda see the slightest marble below. Maybe.

 

I love how beautiful they look with that bowl. Makes me smile!

P.S. Something else that makes me smile is seeing her in her pj’s

…and knowing I have a few more days to see her. :)

Love this girl & her momma.

Cinnamon and sugar doughnut muffins.

I’ve always thought that doughnuts will be in heaven. Especially the chocolate cream-filled, whole wheat, and glazed kabobs at a local infamous bakery where I live. I have a special place in my heart for doughnuts, and some may call it my weakness, but I fully embrace my love of these sweet treats. In fact, all the one thing getting me through all my workouts, healthy eating, and stressful planning of my wedding was knowing that I was going to treat myself to an overdose of Schuler’s doughnuts the next morning. I even took a ziplock baggie of doughnuts with me to the airport on our way to our honeymoon! {A bit obsessive, I’m aware.}

When I saw this recipe for doughnut muffins, I knew I had to try it out asap. The bachelorette party this weekend was a perfect opportunity because I knew we’d stay the night & want something sweet in the morning to fuel us for the long drive home. And despite the extreme fatigue we all faced that morning, the muffins were received very well.

I doubled the batch because I knew if I didn’t leave some extras at home, Eugene would be disappointed. {Aren’t I a nice wifey!} I also swapped out some white flour to wheat, added vanilla, & cut back the sugar a tad. In my opinion, these muffins taste more like coffee cake when you eat them right away {while still slightly warm}, but after completely cooling and when the butter dries they tasted extremely similar to doughnut holes. I actually liked them better the next day. They weren’t an exact taste match to doughnuts, but super close & even a couple days later they were delish. I made mini muffins, which I recommend for this recipe…more cinnamon & sugar coating is a plus with the mini version. The amounts below are before I doubled the recipe, so this recipe will make 24 mini muffins {I made 48.}

Doughnut Muffins {originally adapted from here}
For the muffins:

• 1 cup white all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg {next time I make these, I think I will use less nutmeg}
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1/2 heaping cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk

For the coating:

• 1/4 -1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

{no brown sugar used…I was confused when I got these out.}

After you preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a muffin tins, you want to combine flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon in a medium bowl.

In a separate larger mixing bowl, combine oil, sugar, vanilla egg and milk in a large bowl.

Next, you can add dry ingredients and stir only to combine. 

Then I used my cookie scoop to fill my muffin tins.

Pop ‘em in the oven at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

While muffins are baking, melt your butter in a small bowl in the microwave & in another small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon. When the muffins are done {toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean}, shake muffins out of the muffin tin onto a paper towel while the muffins are still hot. You then dip muffins in the melted butter and then into the sugar and cinnamon mixture.

Place them on your cooling rack to dry & cool.

Enjoy with a hot cup of coffee.

Oh, heavens!