Easter/Friendship Brunch

I was so blessed yesterday to have 4 of the 7 women in my Wednesday night Bible study over to my house. I hosted an Easter/Friendship Brunch and we had a great time! In the picture above are from left to right Beverly, Irene, Joanne, Christina and me. (We missed you Donia, Janet and Chris!)

My regular blog readers will remember that I hosted a similar brunch for the same ladies at Christmas time. I had not thought about hosting another so soon, but when Joanne and Irene approached me with the idea I was happy to do it.

As Christians we believe that we have "spiritual gifts" which are talents and abilities that are given to us by God to be used to serve Him in ministry and other areas. In fact there is a spiritual gifts test that you can take if you are searching for areas to serve at church and you are just not sure what you are good at or where your talents lie. In taking that test in 2004 I found that one of the areas I scored high in was hospitality. I LOVE to entertain in my home and was active in the hospitality ministry of our last church. This involved helping to plan and execute many different events like a Mother's Day tea and a Christmas boutique and desert. I give a great deal of credit for my passion for hospitality to my Mom Mitzi. For those who knew her and attended even one of her parties, including family birthdays, holiday get togethers and least of all my wedding...then you know where I get this passion for hospitality. I learned from the best. I remember from the time I was young I used to watch her in action and often helped her to prepare for parties. Everything from menu planning,decorating the house for the holiday at hand, to preparing a dining room table center piece; I learned from watching and helping her.

Below are pictures of the dining room table I set for the brunch. I am always excited to have the opportunity to use my Nana's dishes that were left to me after she passed away. This time I used this beautiful Franciscan set called Desert Rose. It is the perfect set of dishes to use for spring dining...especially Easter!

Below is a full shot of the table and the centerpiece. After covering the table in a pretty sage/sea foam green table cloth, I used a cute wooden basket full of silk flowers and faux Easter eggs that I bought at Home Goods last year as the anchor of my centerpiece. Additionally I added a strip of Easter grass and fun painted wooden Easter eggs to finish the look.

I set up a "beverage station" in my kitchen where the girls could choose from coffee, tea, juice and water.

I absolutely LOVE making these cupcakes for Easter! My Mom was always the room mom in all of my elementary school classes and these are the cupcakes she would make for the class Easter parties. I have carried on the tradition and made them for Kate and Kyle's elementary school classes as well as for many other occasions. The ladies loved the cupcakes!

To make these just make your favorite cake mix and follow the directions for cupcakes. Once baked and cooled, frost them with white frosting. Take about 2 cups of coconut and drop 2 drops of green food coloring into the coconut and stir well. Sprinkle the coconut liberally on top of  each cup cake and place 2-3 jelly beans on top of each cupcake in the center. Press down gently to prevent the jelly beans from rolling off. Finally, take a green pipe cleaner (you can find a bag of 20 for under $2 at Michaels) and stick each end into the cupcake to make a "basket handle". Be sure to stick the ends of the pipe cleaners about a 1/4 inch in from the edge of the cupcake. If you get it too close to the edge it will pop out the side and ruin the cupcake! The result is a darling cupcake that looks like an Easter basket with "eggs" on top!

Once the gals arrived we enjoyed a potluck brunch that we all contributed to. Then we played a few games that I put together. The Easter themed games included a word search, a bible trivia and Pictionary. Here are some candid shots of the girls playing games and enjoying fellowship.

Joanne won the Bible trivia game (not surprised there!) and Bev won the word search. Here they are with their prizes.

We had such a great time playing Pictionary at the Christmas brunch that I knew we had to play it again at the Easter brunch. Here are a few pics from the game.

Christina begins to draw.... 

...as Joanne looks on and tries to figure out what she is drawing.

...it's an "Easter Bonnet"!

                                                       Irene's word was "empty tomb"

After a fun game where Christina was clearly the champion of guessing...everyone ended up winning a prize since I had enough for everyone.

Here they are with their prizes for being champion Pictionary players!

...and Joanne got a little silly at that point!

After the games we sat around and visited for quite a while before it was time for everyone to go. Of course we had to get a couple of group shots before everyone left.

As can be seen from this post, the Easter/Friendship Brunch was a blessing for us all.