Easter- Tutorials & Recipes-Part 1

I love having people over our house, especially Sam's little friends. I get such a kick out of seeing her "hang out" with her buddies. We decided to have brunch & an Easter egg hunt at our house this year & I've been mulling over it all week. What to cook, what to craft...so much to decide! Here are some pics of how the party went along with a few tutorials & recipes along the way. There's a lot to share so I think I'll break it into two posts, so as to not Easter overload you.

First off we HAD to get our deck re-painted. It was literally chipping off under your feet. Normally I'd totally be up for jumping in & doing it myself but nowadays it's getting easier & easier to talk myself into paying someone to do it. Do what you gotta do to survive people. To pretty the new deck up a bit I planted some flowers & snazzed up terracotta pots with a bit of spray paint to make them in the style a la Crate & Barrel. (The little pink Adirondack chair is from Kmart, $10, sweet. Hers is plastic but I just found these on Amazon that are real wood, cute!)Here's a "process pic", I taped off the parts I wanted to stay clay colored (these were "chocolate" terracotta from Lowe's) with painter's tape and then gave the rest two coats of lt blue spray paint & one coat of outdoor polyurethane spray sealer. I wish I had taken more pics off all the food & table set-ups but it looks like these 2 are it...Spinach Artichoke dip from this post, baked brie from this one, snack bags of Cheerios & Goldfish for little hands, a cream cheese frittata (I'll write out that recipe tomorrow), a big bowl of cheese & bacon grits & this delicious Martha recipe for apple cider glazed sausages. (when it's just us I use turkey sausage & it's delish but I usually go full-fat for guests, it's kind of like being on vacation)

Ingredients:
12 ounces (1 package) frozen breakfast sausage links
1 cup apple cider or apple juice

In a large skillet, cook frozen breakfast sausage links, thawed, over medium heat, until dark brown on one side, about 6 minutes. Turn sausages over, and cook until golden, about 2 minutes. Add apple cider or apple juice to skillet, and raise heat to high. Cook, stirring occasionally, until cider thickens to a glaze, 4 to 5 minutes. Drizzle leftover glaze over served links.

Sam cracked open an egg early & had her first taste of chocolate...She took a few bites, said "Mmmm", and then handed it back to Daddy. Just like her mommy, our weakness is salty fried goodness, not sweets. Her dress is the ruffled dip-dyed tshirt dress from this post & I made her "gardenia" hairclip the same way as the Big Bloom Headband except it's glued to a clip instead of a headband.

In this photo the egg hunt is about to begin but Samster's little boyfriend Braden has used his devastatingly good looks to distract her & get a head start...Sadly he moved on to a younger woman by the end of the day...But don't worry, Samster got her groove back by hunting down the princess sticker stuffed eggs. SCORE!Tomorrow I'll show you a new "Magnolia Wreath" I made for the front door, give you the frittata recipe & force you to look at some more pics of my kid.

Hope you had a wonderful, blessed Easter!