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.

Christmas Brunch

I'm finally posting pictures from the Christmas Brunch I had for a few of the women from my bible study group. In mid December I invited all of the women from my bible study group over for brunch. Unfortunately, only four women were able to make it...but even with the small group we had a wonderful time!

I decided to keep it casual and set the table in the breakfast nook for the brunch. I used my snowman plates, a red runner and centerpiece of greenery, pine cones, berries, ornaments and candles.

                

Here are my "red" velvet cupcakes that I make every year. THIS year however I made the mistake of buying a regular chocolate cake mix instead of a German chocolate cake mix. The recipe was given to me by my friend Beverly J and it comes from a book called "The Cake Dr." Well I learned WHY it calls for a German chocolate cake mix. That cake mix is lighter in color so when you add the red food coloring your cupcakes turn red. A regular chocolate cake mix is too dark, so when you put the food coloring in the result is NOT red cupcakes but a sort of burgundy colored cupcake! Oh well, live and learn....they were still delicious.

In addition to the cup cakes, I made a breakfast casserole and a chessy hashbrown casserole. The girls brought the rest of the food. We enjoyed an assortment of breakfast breads and muffins, fruit salad, and a vegy tray.

                                                   I set up a coffee and tea station for the ladies.

                                          I made these ornaments as party favors for the girls.

                                                      ...and yes I made one for our tree too!

Here are the girls sitting at the table right before we ate. From left to right is Janine, Joanne, Karen and Irene.

I thought it would be fun to play some Christmas themed games. The first game was "Guess the Christmas Song" and Janine and Irene won. Here they are with their prizes.

                                  We also played "Christmas Pictionary". Here is Irene drawing.

                                               .....and Joanne drawing.....

                                                 .....a nutcracker!

                                          Below is my drawing. Everyone cracked up at my drawings. The word was
JESUS. First I drew the face and long "hair", but the girls thought the "hair" looked like rabbit ears! Finally when I drew the cross next to the "rabbit eared" Jesus. Someone guessed it was Jesus! They insisted I take this picture. It got quite a few laughs.

The final game was "Guess what's in the stocking". I took a very large stocking made of thin fabric. I put Christmas related items in the stocking such as an ornament,  pine cone etc.. and then asked the girls to guess what was in the stocking  by feeling the items through the fabric. Whoever guesses the most items within 90 seconds wins.

We had such a wonderful time of fellowship and fun at the brunch. The girls seemed to really have a great time and thanked me several times for putting it together.

 Here we all are on the stairs.

I feel so fortunate to have met these wonderful ladies!

A visit from Annie

This past week I had a visit from my dear friend Annie starting on Tuesday morning. Annie was my neighbor from right across the street from our first house back when we lived in Northern Ca. We were neighbors for 5 years starting when Kate was 3 years old. Her and her husband Zac have been our very close friends for over 17 years. They are Kate's Godparents and we are their son Andrew's Godparents. Annie and I made a pact when she first moved away that we would get together once a year and we did for many years. However life became very busy for both of us and we had not seen each other for FOUR years. So when she told me she was going to be in our area to run a marathon in a nearby city and could spend three of the six days she was going to be here with me (she spent the other  3 with her Aunt who lives in the nearby city) I was thrilled!

I picked her up at her Aunts late Tuesday morning and we came back to my house where I made us lunch and we spent a few hours catching up and watching Oprah together. I had made a home made pot pie that morning (one of her fav meals) and we spent the evening enjoying a casual meal at home and then we watched a Lifetime movie I had been wanting to share with her which I had previously taped.

The next day I took her on the grand sight seeing tour of our city which included a scenic drive through the wine country and walking through all the shops in the historic down town. We grabbed a turkey burger for lunch at Kevin's and mine favorite down town burger shack and we enjoyed the sunshine as we ate outside in the spring like weather. SoCal has felt like Spring for over 3 weeks with temps in the mid 70's and bright sunny days. The best weather I've ever seen in January in my entire life, it was just perfect for Annie who lives in Minnesota where last week the high was -10 below! Annie loved every moment of the SoCal sunshine and warmth! After shopping, lunching and sightseeing we returned home once again to watch one of our mutually favorite shows Oprah. I had made home made pizza dough that morning and assembled the rest of the pizza for a homemade pizza dinner that evening. After dinner we decided to catch a movie and grab a gourmet cupcake at the cup cake bakery in the same local mall as the movie theatre. We finished the evening sipping tea and watching a show on OWN before turning in at the end of a very full, wonderful day together.

Our time together came to an all too quick end Thursday, when after having coffee and a slice of cinnamon burst bread  at The Great Harvest Bakery and a little more sightseeing of my fine city I drove her back to the major nearby city airport to catch her flight back to MN.

An avid runner (has run the Boston marathon many times) Annie got several runs in through our neighborhood while here. I know it will be difficult to return to the cold weather and icy roads. I could tell  Annie truly enjoyed her time her in SoCal! I'm excited to fly out in the Spring or Summer to visit Annie, Zac, their daughter Jillian and my Godson Andrew. I have not seen my Godson since his baptism before he turned 2!

I am very blessed in life with many wonderful girlfriends, but in many ways Annie is like a sister to me not just a friend. She, her husband and kids feel like family to me. I look forward to seeing her again this year if things go as I plan.

*unrelated to this post is the fact that I will NOT being posting daily as I had mentioned and hoped to do. One or two posts per week makes much more sense with the rest of my busy life...thanks again for reading Definitely Debi*

A visit from Janet!

Janet came to visit us from Vegas for 3 days and 3 nights. It had been a year since I'd seen her so it was wonderful to spend some time with my close friend. She arrived Saturday after lunch and we spent the afternoon catching up. That night I made a big pot of Spaghetti and we had a nice dinner before heading to the movies to see something that we both had been wanting to see...Charlie St. Cloud. What a wonderful movie! Janet was always game for going to the movies when we used to live in Vegas, so it was great to go see a movie with her the first night. The next day we got up and went to the 11:30 church service where I was able to introduce her to our Pastor and several of our friends. Janet enjoyed our service immensely and it was so great to have my friend next to me in church. After church I took Janet to the "old town" section of our city and treated her to lunch out at my favorite Italian restaurant as a belated Birthday gift. (her birthday was in late July) I knew Janet would love this restaurant as much as me and she did! Their handmade ravioli and sauces are to die for. We also splurged and had a tiramisu in a coffee cup which is my all time favorite desert since moving here. We don't go there often (it's not low calorie as you can imagine!) but when we do...it is fabulous!! After lunch we strolled for 2 hours through all the little shops and Janet had fun buying a few things here and there. Monday we slept in and drove to the beach around 11 and spent the entire afternoon there soaking up the sun. The tide was high, so the beach was not as clean and pristine as our beaches in this part of the state usually are...but Janet didn't mind and soaked up every moment of the sun, sand and surf! On the way home we stopped for in In and Out Burger and strolled through my favorite scrap book store in this area which is on the way home from the beach. This morning we sat in the back yard and enjoyed the cool morning while we sipped coffee and one last long talk before saying say good-bye (for now) After being my next door neighbor for 5 years, Janet became a true friend and confidant while living in Vegas. We have made a commitment to try and get together at least once a year if not more. Luckily we only live 4 hours apart which makes that goal attainable. The pics below were taken this morning across the street right outside of the Country Club's club house. Not bad for two forty something gals, right? It was so wonderful to spend 3 fun filled days with one of my besties! Can't wait to see her again.