WRAPPING UP EASTER....

"Spring bursts to-day,
For Christ is risen and all the earth's at play."
Christina G. Rossetti ~ An Easter Carol

Dear Readers, the Easter Parade was wonderful! I had a great time and want to thank each and every one who participated, left comments, and supported this event. I met so many new bloggers and gathered so many great ideas. My heart was filled by the sentimental memories and my eyes fairly feasted upon all the colors of spring. Mister Linky was a great Master of Ceremonies and made visiting one another easy. I declare this parade a success even if the hostess was late to attend! Thank you all for being patient and bearing with me through over commitment and up link problems. If you missed my post you can still visit it here. I wanted to wrap up Easter with a few final thoughts and then will get on to the give away winners!Our Easter celebration was wrapped up on Saturday as family gathered here a the Quill to spend time together. We shared a wonderful meal and made new memories. We topped off our celebration on resurrection morning by attending early service at our church. Darling daughter went with the young man, who has taken quite to fancy to her, to meet his family!(yikes!) Truth be told, I think she is just as smitten as he is!(double yikes!) Hubby and I were on our own and I suddenly missed the smallness of my children, the making of resurrection rolls (recipe below) on Easter morning, the pungent smell of vinegar and boiled eggs, and the hiding, hunting, and story telling that went along with our set of resurrection eggs.

Resurrection Rolls
Ingredients:
• 1 can refrigerated crescent roll dough
• 8 large marshmallows
• Melted butter
• Cinnamon
• Sugar
Directions:
1. Give each child one triangle shaped section of crescent roll. This represents the tomb.
2. Each child takes one marshmallow which represents the body of Christ.
3. Dip the marshmallow in the butter and roll in cinnamon and sugar mixture. This represents the oils and
spices the body was anointed with upon burial.
4. Lay the marshmallow on the dough and carefully wrap it around the marshmallow.
5. Make sure all seams are pinched together well. (Otherwise the marshmallow will "ooze" out of the seams)
6. Bake according to package directions.
7. Cool.
8. Break open the tomb and the body of Christ is no longer there!!
9. Celebrate God's love!

I missed being a small girl all frilled up in an itchy laced, stiffly starched Easter dress, with new white patten leather shoes wiggling all the way to my grandmothers house. It was a must to arrive all primped up for the big family gathering. I usually had a bit of a headache from the tightly wound pink foam sponge rollers in which I had to sleep to produce those perfect banana curls. I would sit primly in the back seat patting my paper sack that held my play clothes longing to be sitting comfortably in them. On the other side of me sat my Easter basket with a nibble or two missing. I like to leave it in tact so Granny could see what my basket contained.

After being properly paraded in front of all the relatives and posed for photos the starchy crinolines and lace gave way to cotton and denim. We always had what could only be termed as a family feast. After dinner, which is what some call lunch, all the aunts, my mother, and grandmother gathered in the kitchen to divide up the left over food and wash the mountain of dishes while the men would retire to the front porch.As soon as the kitchen work was done the cousins and I got to dye eggs. Being the only girl, I made all my eggs pretty, liking to make the striped kind the best. I loved using those wax crayons which resisted the dye. The cousins usually made ugly eggs, or camouflage eggs, as they preferred to call them by mixing up the dyes to make mucky colors. Dying done, eggs dried, and decorated with stickers the baskets of eggs were set out on the porch to await the Easter bunny's arrival.

Our favorite uncle, Charlie, would always tease us kids by saying he hoped he could hold off those hunting hounds because they sure did love rabbit! We would squeal and beg for him to keep them pinned up. He would instruct my cousins and I to sit still in the living room until he called for us saying he'd keep out a sharp eye out for that little egg hider. Once the eggs were hidden, Granny would lead the way out into the big hay field, line us up and then count to three and off we went! At the end of the hunt the eggs were counted and there would always be one missing and the real fun began. We got to play hot and cold until we found the very last egg, the prize egg, worth one dollar.
One year my uncle hid it in a hole in the ground and stood with his foot over the hole, one year it was in his overall pocket, once it was in a rusty tail pipe of an old car, and once it was in the crook of a tree, we never even looked up and saw it! No on minded who got the dollar it was the egg we were after. The cousins and I then took turns and hid the eggs again and again until we got tired of it, then we wrapped up the day by having dessert and driving home at dusk.

Here is how I spent the afternoon on Easter, wrapped up in a fuzzy warm blue blanket with my little snuggle buddy, Sophie, dreaming of Easter's past. My husband passed through and the camera was laying nearby, he felt compelled to snap away at what he termed his sleeping beauty and peeping cutie! He said it was too adorable not to and it was a perfect picture of resting on a Sunday afternoon. I confess exhaustion and actually took two naps and went to bed early. I am still trying to adjust to the changes in my immune system and I tend to tire more easily these days.The final wrap up for the Easter Parade is to announce the winners of the give away! I began with the links for the parade, added the comments of those not linked, and numbered them. If there was more than one link I only counted that person once, excluded myself, and came up with a total of 46 entrants, 38 from the links and 8 from the comments on the two posts.

Here are the numbers:
1. Nancy
2. Fated Follies
3. Bill
4. Sherri
5. Once Upon A Cottage
6. Creative Call Studios
7. Bejewled
8. Vee
9. Pat
10. Dawn
ll. Little Things
12. Katie
13. Betty
14. From My Cherry Heart
15. Cindy
16. Kathy
17. Miss Rhea
18. Knitting Mania
19. Pinkie Denise
20. Perpetualplum
21. Cute Pink Stuff
22. Karla
23. Karen
24. Joyce
25. Cindy
26. A Woman Who Is
27. Debbie
28. hoganfe
29. Edie Marie's
30. Lori
31. Denise
32. Across the Pond
33. Angelasweby
34. Kari & Kijsa
35. Karen Eileen
36. Ragamuffin Gal
37. Courtney
38. Samantha
39. Teri
40. Sue
41. Michelle
42. Meredith Tea Garden
43. Mary Isabella
44. Scrappy Jessi
45. Debb
46. Lidy

AND THE WINNERS ARE...

#15, Cindy of Yapping Cat Studioreceives the ballet bunny and tutu tags!#24, Joyce of Brookside Cottagereceives the chick and basket full of egg ornaments and tags!#8, Vee of A Haven for Veereceives the spring time sign and tags!#44, Jessi of Scrappy Jessireceives the Easter sign and tags!#31, Denise of Denise Truesdales Blogreceives the photo album, pen, and tag!
#37, Courtney of Nesting Instincts receives the magnetic clip board, magnets, and tag!
CONGRATULATIONS TO ONE AND ALL! Please email me your addresses, for privacy purposes I ask you not to leave it in the comments. You will find an email link at the top of my sidebar. Thank you!

Well, this wraps up Easter, ties it in a bow, think I'll sit and bask awhile in the resurrection glow!

"Come, ye saints, look here and wonder,

See the place where Jesus lay;

He has burst His bands asunder;

He has borne our sins away;

Joyful tidings,

Yes, the Lord has risen to-day."

Thomas Kelly ~ Come Ye Saints, Look Here and Wonder.

Blessings,
Miss Sandy