Happy Easter! and Happy Birthday!

Easter Sunday was a beautiful day.

The service at our church was a blessing.

God always knows what we need.

Then:

For our lunch we ate:

Waldorf salad

(see? I tried to mold it-so fancy!)

Ham with caramel and pineapples

Roasted herb potatoes

Italian asparagus

(awesome new recipe)

and

just out of the oven banana cake bread...

mmmmm.....

served with tea.

Then...

Emmaline served us something special...

These beautiful bird's nest cupcakes.

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing!

She got the recipe out of Martha Stewart's Cupcake book.

The nest is made of spun sugar!

For a special touch, she made the little blue birds out of marzipan.

We enjoyed a peaceful, restful day here 

in our home:

Red Star Roost!

But what always happens around Easter?

Some-bunny's birthday!

Here he is...

my great, big, giant boy...

ahem...

young man.

Do you see that t-shirt he is wearing?

This is the t-shirt his sister, Rose, sent to him

for his birthday.

*He loves it!*

He woke up early

and we enjoyed an actual breakfast together.

He was all smiles!

We have been teasing him

MERCILESSLY

that we are going to show up at his school,

with cupcakes,

and a banner,

S I N G I N G 

Happy Birthday to You!

as loudly and horribly as we can!

He's hoping no one knows it's his birthday...

apparently...

the principal of his school...

(the father of his school as Robbie calls him!)

will come out and make a big deal out of his birthday!!

This sweet,

kind hearted man will,

when he hears it's someone's birthday,

will come out of his office

sing-ing

loud-ly

and

hor-ri-bly

making the entire high school sing along!

and then...

they get a

birthday spanking!

* * ROFL!! * *

I simply

WANT TO BE THERE

when that happens!!

If we're lucky,

s o m e o n e 

will videotape it and

put.

it.

on.

YouTube.

I promise I'll share with you.

Tee Hee.

His presents are here at home...

all piled up

waiting

for Robbie...

and 

shhhhhh.....

I'll let you in on a secret...

He has a surprise present!

We are giving him a purity ring.

It is a yellow gold signet ring.

Can you see the engraving?

It's in Hebrew.

It means:

"To be pure"

Pure

in every part of his

heart,

mind,

soul

and

body.

If you look on my Pinterest page,

you'll see a ring that inspired this one

on my board for a young man's purity ring.

It was a ring that had raised Hebrew lettering.

I love that this ring is special...

because my husband and I designed it...

and it was made just for him.

My husband has the day off

(only one meeting...at 6:30 am boo!!)

and so we are here at home...

busy with tax things and daily chores...

but we ARE a bit jittery with anticipation...

we can't wait

to see his face.

Oh, yeah...

are you wondering how old this lad is?

He's 17 today.

I praise and thank God

that he gave us this sweet young man

for us to enjoy

each and every day

of these past 17 years.