Friday, April 05, 2013

Friday's Fave Five #237


I can't believe it's Friday already, but that it is and it's time to look at blessings that have touched our lives over the past week.  Please join me in sharing five of those blessings.  Guidelines are here if you haven't read them before or if you  are new.

1.  My first favorite is definitely having the family together for Easter.  After spending our first Christmas ever with one of us missing, I definitely was very grateful to have us all together.  We spent a bit on the quieter side as oldest Daughter had to leave on Sunday to make it back for school.  It was short but sweet.

2.  An easier Easter lunch.  Because the oldest did have to leave on Sunday, which I had totally forgotten until she reminded me when she arrived on Friday, that meant that the big turkey dinner with all the people and all the work got scraped.  We enjoyed just a really nice, much easier to prepare, but no less delicious lunch with this chicken, these gorgeous potatoes and nice spring asparagus that I roasted with sea salt and Parmesan cheese.  


For dessert, Costco did the honors with tiramisu and lemon meringue cake.  Yes cake, not pie.  And both were absolutely delicious!  I think I'm liking this less stressed out Easter lunch and it may just become a tradition.

3.  Speaking of Costco, while doing our Easter dinner shopping, they were demoing these huge olives.  Stuffed with garlic and jalapeno.  Very yummy.   Salty, tangy and with a good bite to them.  We went through the whole jar in the weekend and were back this week picking up another jar. 

4.  The extra day off this week.  I always appreciate an extra day off.  It always seems my weekends get so busy between church and chores that it always flies by.  Easter Monday is a day off for me and it was just what this gal needed to unwind from the busy weekend.  

5.   Hubby power raked the lawn.  While this may seem like an insignificant thing, to me it is huge.  It just cleans up the dead, dirty grass and leaves and makes the backyard so much more pleasant to spend time in. And I do spend a lot of time out there with the dayhome kids.  It just gets everything ready for the spring and allows the grass to get nice and green.  So that is an act of service to this family that hubby does that is very much noticed and appreciated!

What were your favorite blessings this week?



13 comments:

nikkipolani said...

Hurray for helpful hubby and clean backyards and extra days off (wish we had Easter Mondays!). I like your easier low-stress Easter meal. Man, those really are gorgeous potatoes!

Willow said...

I am a huge fan of less stressed out holiday dinners. My hubby has convinced me to 'make it easy'. I'm glad yours turned out like that for Easter.
I love cleaning everything up to get ready for spring. Your hubby did a beautiful thing to clean the lawn and garden.

Gattina said...

What a nice Easter ! We just did nothing as we both had a cold and couldn't go to visit our son and family in Amsterdam. So Easter was a weekend just like others only with a cold on the top !

aspiritofsimplicity said...

I am all for the easier Easter dinner. People just don't have the time for all the prep work anymore. Even if the hostess doesn't work outside the home -pretty much every one else does and it's so nice to get to relax a little bit on holidays instead of all the fussyness.

Faith said...

I'm a fan of no stress dinners too and for Easter, ever since the girls were born, we have been going out for brunch or lunch with my sister and her son. This year we traveled out to our oldest gal to do brunch near her college after the church service. Your lemon chicken is one that I have put into my recipe box :) so thank you!! And yay for cleaned up backyards and a husband willing to do that chore! I need to work on mine (the husband, not the lawn!) :) happy weekend, Susanne!

Melissa said...

Yay for no-stress dinners with family! The desserts sound delicious, too. We haven't been Costco members for a few years, and I don't recall seeing either of those.

Thank you, Susanne, for hosting. I've been having a bad week, but this morning I woke up craving the community of FFF. Thanks for being there!

Snowbird said...

I'm glad you had all the family together for Easter and lunch was less stressy. Your meal sounds delicious.
It's always lovely to have that extra day off.xxxxx

Barbara H. said...

Hurray for hubby! It's so nice to have the yard cleaned up.

Our Easter was kind of low-key this year, too, but very enjoyable.

It's nice to have a day off afterward to rest and recuperate and get back in gear for the week.

Jerralea said...

Yay for days off and power raking!

I'm glad you had such a great weekend, Susanne!

ellen b. said...

I've never heard of power raking but I'm sure our yard could use that treatment for sure! Hats off to hubby! Glad you had a good week.

Brenda said...

I love jalepeno stuffed olives!

Your potatoes look great!

Mom24 said...

I'm so glad you had your family together for Easter. I know what a blessing that is. We went out for Easter brunch, I enjoyed it, but I actually missed cooking and having Easter dinner, not sure which we'll do next year.

I am envious of your Easter Monday. We have to jump right back into everything on Monday and it's hard.

I love that my hubby takes care of the backyard too. Ours needs power raked, it probably won't happen, but he's been chopping down our ornamental grasses and raking out the beds, it is much nicer when everything's fresh and ready for spring.

Hope you have a good week.

Kathie said...

Our lawns aren't near the raking stage - we still have a few dirty snowbanks left. But it won't be too much longer - every day the temperatures are rising and the wind is from the south. yay!