Easter Egg Decorating Party, & Good Friday dinner

Happy Good Friday everyone! Hard to believe that Sunday is Easter already. I feel like the months are flying by. The weather is supposed to warm into the 60's & 70's especially next week so I am looking forward to that. I have never been so anxious to pack away my winter coat.

Yesterday, we had our annual Easter Egg Decorating party. This tradition started when my son was born, and we invited our lovely neighbors who live directly behind us, over for egg coloring. They have three girls~~one is Billy's age and their youngest is Caitlin's age. We've continued this tradition for 9 years now. We have lunch and desserts and the kids color the Easter eggs. It's very fun. Plus the kids love to exchange little gifts and baskets between themselves. They love to decorate with the wax crayons, feathers, stickers and all that fun stuff. They are very creative! This year we invited some additional friends. We had Caitlin's preschool friend Olivia and her two sisters Lilah and Ella. Their Mom is also my good friend. Caitlin wanted to invite her friend from her class this year, Stephanie. So we had a nice group. My neighbor Christina made some great treats, and Genny, who is the daughter that is Billy's age, made an adorable bunny-shaped GIANT chocolate chip cookie. We had cupcakes and rice krispy treats, homemade Crackle candy, PEEPS (of course), donuts and donut holes and yes, more candy. Lots of fun and then the kids enjoyed the backyard while us Moms sat and enjoyed our treats with a nice cup of coffee.

For Good Friday I know many people have a special menu. Of course, in the Catholic religion, their is no meat consumption. Our family has always observed this. Recently, I was talking to my cousin in Connecticut, Joanne. Her Dad was my Father's brother. We were discussing our holidays, and she told me that every year on with Holy Thursday or Good Friday she makes spaghetti and eggs. Eggs are the IT food for all they represent at this time of year, and she told me her Grandmother on her Mom's side made this meal faithfully every year. She would make a red marinara sauce and scrambled eggs and put them together with spaghetti. She said many people think it's weird UNTIL they try it. SO I mentioned this to my Mom who remembered that both sets of my Grandparents used to prepare a pasta with a red sauce and slice up hard-boiled eggs into it and serve with pasta. Tonight I will be making cheese ravioli with sliced hard-boiled eggs and a salad for dinner. This will be my new tradition and a little homage to the Grandparents. I don't know if it's an Italian thing, but EGGS are like the most important food there is. They always believed it to be this major health food so we were always eating eggs, drinking egg nogs, etc as kids.

Thanks so much for emails about my trip postings. That means alot that you enjoyed reading them and weren't bored to tears. I hope everyone likes my new header picture of the House of Seven Gables and it's outbuildings. I came home inspired to do my crafts and work outside! The sewing machine is going to be coming out of the trailer, and I'm going to make some pillows for my parlor room. I also got these adorable felt farm animals that I'm going to blanket stitch onto felt as doilies.

Have a great day and a wonderful Good Friday!