Sweet Treats

Easter 2012

Easter weekend - what a nice several days together! This was surely an Easter like no other we've had before, typically Mom cooks for 2-3 days ahead, has a long shopping list and menu written out on the kitchen counter, held in place by the plate rack and with a pen handy for last minute additions. Probably under the list there's a magazine picture and new recipe that she's including, just trying something different. Her house is always decorated with eggs and bunnies everywhere, beautiful little Easter decorations she has collected over the years, very familiar to all of us.

This Easter was a little different...she's looked through the magazines, she told us to get dinner catered so we didn't have to worry about it, but do go get some things for the girls, and please buy the girls new dresses and shoes.

Shopping for the girls was easy, not as much fun without her there for her spot-on opinion of what looks good, but the girls had new dresses and they looked so pretty. But cater Easter dinner? That's not in our vocabulary, easy as it would have been.

Jennifer and I split up the essentials of the meal and between the 2 of us had the ham, cherries (mom's favorite), scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, crescent rolls, and cake. Not the traditional Italian creme cake that Mom's made for decades, but a Facebook-inspired Boston cream pie decorated by Mary Claire with a ring of Peeps on the outside. They stuck well to the chocolate, made cutting very easy. It was a pretty and fun ending to a simple but filling meal. Filling to the tummy as well as the spirit.

MC and the famous Peeps Pie

The Easter Bunny visited Dad with his favorite coconut, dark chocolate egg. Mom took a little bite, sensitive to the sweetness and her blood sugar levels (made high by the steroids she is on). Mom loved the egg, so did Dad. Mom said, "That thing must have 50 million calories!" but Dad checked and said it only had 120. Mom's reply? "We'll let's get another one, then!"

The girls enjoyed breaking the rules of no pictures on the walls of this hospital by decorating Mom's windows with the little plastic window decorations of Easter bunnies, the kind you get for $1.00 on sale at Walgreens. The brightness of the flowers and carrots and little bunnies brings cheer to the windows, and today looking out on the foggy morning, it brings continued smiles to the room. (and no one has told us to take them down yet, so up they stay!)

This Easter Monday, Mom has enjoyed Facebook posts, is reading a Southern Living magazine, and offered many thanks to the chef that just came in to take menu orders for tomorrow. As he was here, I found out yesterday that at 5am, Mom was craving a biscuit. She hadn't ordered it for breakfast...what to do...where to get a biscuit in a hospital with pre-ordered meals? Thankful for kind and resourceful nurses again, when Dad told the nurse of Mom's craving, she 'found' a biscuit and brought it right up! Many thanks to that chef and his delicious recipes every day, and especially for the biscuit that brought happiness to Mom yesterday!