How I spent my Easter vacation....

Easter...that lovely time of year when you gather with your children...or NOT!  When we realized neither one of our children could come home for Easter this year, we were sad! So, I mailed them $$$ to buy  new Easter dresses, instructed them to email photos of their own Easter day, and got to work on Plan B for "Empty Nester Easter celebration 2011"!

A few days before Easter, I exercised my inner Martha Stewart and did some non-needlework crafting! Our church has a partnership with an elementary school where nearly everyone speaks Spanish. Our ladies group meets with a group of dedicated Moms who are busy in their own English Literacy program, learning English and life skills to live in Wichita, Kansas! We gather with them once a month to have lunch together, practice our English/Spanish language skills and just have GIRL FUN! Since I'm in charge of programming, we often do a hands-on project.  Even if our communication isn't always perfect, we do a lot of bi-lingual laughing!!!

This month we made tiny pompom rabbits - conejitos!!!  They sure didn't look this small on Martha's website, but they were so cute and quick. Well... relatively quick, since I spent hours cutting and prepping the little creatures and bagging them into little kits the night before. Recognize the tiny black eyes???  L*K Flip-it buttons! The "whiskers" are pink floss.

I also made cute little Easter buckets to use for favors and table decor.  Check out the little bunny eggs - super simple to make with crepe paper, white pompom and magic marker eyes.  I glued them in mini-muffin cups so they would stay still! I also made PEEP cupcakes, which were pretty cute!

Right after the meeting, we "hopped" in the car with 4 other friends and drove to Tulsa, OK for a short road trip. We are all avid bike riders, and we were excited to explore the cool bike trails in the city.  We managed to avoid the rain and had a great time exploring the "wildlife" in Tulsa! I'm bottom left in orange shirt, and Alan is the spandex geek in purple KState jersey on top right. 

We got home Sat. night in time for me to do some Easter baking for the next day's dinner with my mom and my brother's family. My brother John and his wife are fabulous cooks, they have teenagers (always entertaining) and the cutest dog ever (next to our granddog, of course).  

What a lovely weekend...the only thing missing was a visit from the bunny...I'm definitely experiencing a chocolate shortage!!