And dances with the daffodils...

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I hope you had a wonderful time filled with love and all good things over this special weekend.  I was blessed to be able to spend it with my children and husband, and enjoy the early signs of spring, like the robins in my front yard, the cardinals singing away in my backyard, the tiny shoots of hyacinths that I can see trying to climb out of the frozen snow beside my deck, and this cheery bouquet of daffodils on my serving island for Sunday dinner.  I had a lot of fun preparing for Easter (once I got the cleaning and grocery shopping out of the way!) and tried a couple of new projects that I am going to share with you today and tomorrow.

Like many of us, there are many things I enjoy doing, but am not necessarily an expert at (this is an awkwardly phrased sentence, but hey, it's early in the morning and I haven't had any coffee yet, so please bear with me).  For example, I love to make 'much ado' about the holidays, as my way of bringing something special to the table for my family.  And sometimes my enthusiasm about a craft project is, shall we say, a little overly optimistic, which results in sewing pom pom tails on bunny napkins late on the Saturday evening before Easter dinner.  With so many amazing blogs and beautiful posts that we can peruse with simply the stroke of a computer key it can be quite easy to have more ideas than one can really incorporate into one holiday and maintain any degree of sanity!  So with reluctance I finally decided to save the devilled eggs that look like little chicks with bonnets for another day, but I did manage to pack away my Dickens Village, clean and rearrange my family room and bring out all my spring decor, and sew the aforementioned bunny napkins for my Easter table.  I had seen them on an earlier blog, with taupe colored napkins and black bunnies, but I decided for my table colors I should lighten it up a bit.

I found a 12-pack of white napkins at Target, and used my new sewing machine to embroider green leaves and pink flowers at the bottom of the napkin, and then stencilled a light brown bunny on the napkin to color coordinate with my dinner plates.  I think it added a fun touch to the place settings.  They weren't as perfect as I had hoped, but I really enjoyed making them.

A table full of bunnies!

We had a lovely day, church in the morning with my daughter and her fiance, and then son #1 and his wife came for dinner.  Son #3 spent the weekend with his girlfriend's family, but the rest of us were gathered around the table again, and had a wonderful time.  I'll have more pictures to share tomorrow, but here's a nice picture of the day.

Daugher-in-law, Son #2, Son #1, Daugher and Soon-to-be-Son-in-law--- I am truly blessed!

And now here we are, a new month awaits us, and one of the nicest things about April (besides the arrival of spring, and my husband and mother's birthdays!) is the fact that April is National Poetry Month, and I can't wait to start sharing some of my all-time favorite poems with you.  I'll start things off on a cheerful note with this beautiful poem by Wordsworth, that seems apropos this morning.