Down the Rabbit Hole

I'm a fan of an April Easter.  Easter dresses are so much cuter when sleeveless and not covered with sweaters.

Plus, I'm just guessing that E.B. prefers to hop home to home on a warm sunny day than one covered in frost.

Since Easter was late, I put off bunny pictures until later.  Then Easter kind of snuck up on me so I only had a week and a couple of days between pictures and Easter.

o.O

Everything worked out perfectly, though, mostly thanks to my pretty, patient, little model.

One of my faves, and the picture that won the coveted spot on the "Happy Spring" card we sent out.

This is really my favorite picture; I adore her little feet poking out and the way the bunny - whose name is Hot Dog, by the way -  is facing the camera and Lilah's smile is nice.  It won the coveted "Easter Pictures in Frames" spot.

This one is just funny.  She and Hot Dog both seem so pensive.   Perhaps they are pondering the logic in naming a gray and white rabbit "Hot Dog."

There really is nothing sweeter than little girls running in long dresses.

 

I definitely *plan* to make a post for this dress on With Pin and Ink (should I feel ashamed that I haven't posted there since November, even though I clearly have been both pinning and inking?  Let's just say life is busy and call it at that, shall we?);  But it turned out SO much better than I had imagined and I was thrilled beyond belief with the whole thing...except for how the padded headband made Lilah's ears poke out even more than they are genetically predisposed to doing.

Lesson learned:  No more padded headbands.

I love the card; the back was the teal of the text and photo outline; I think the verse from Song of Solomon is perfect, perfect, perfect.  It is exactly how I feel in spring, and it's nice to be able to connect so personally with a verse from the Bible.  I mean, we'd all like to just "get" everything written in the Good Book, but most of the time it's a lot of "do wha?"  It's nice that these pieces get thrown in to remind you that you are not stupid and to just keep reading.

Anyway -

It was also nice to try illustrating; I mean, a dogwood isn't a hard flower and if you're going to try and learn how to draw flowers, it's a decent one to start on.

Makes me want to do one in cake.

Speaking of cake...

For Lilah's teachers' Easter treats, I decided to make these daffodil-inspired cake balls. 

 

Excuse the crappy, late-night cell phone photos like I was at the club with whatever celebrity is out partying late these days (I'm behind on my Entertainment Tonight).

My friend found them on Pinterest and they originate from the Bake at 350 blog.  I like how dynamic the orange is with the yellow, but I couldn't find an orange mini-cupcake cups to save my soul (hm, note to self, keep watch for post-Halloween sales of orange mini-cupcake cups) and I didn't want ALL yellow, so I went with the white flower, yellow middle approach.

Also, I learned that when it comes to cake pops, bigger is NOT better when you want them to fit in mini-cupcake cups, and also that the chick at 350 must have made a deal with Satan to get her coating smooth. 

There was no amount of Crisco saving these lumpy flower middles, y'all.

Finally, you can't tell, but these have yellow sanding sugar on top instead of nonpareils.

I arranged my "flowers" in ivy bowls with florist's foam, covered them in a fun, yellow knit I already had and tied them with green ribbon I also already had.  They were VERY festive.  I also flagged them with the same little verse from Song of Solomon I put on our "Happy Spring" card.

They were fun and delicious.

They were also insanely time-consuming.

FYI:  Just because a project calls for a boxed cake mix and canned frosting doesn't mean it's going to be fast.

FYI #2:  If you use Rainbow Chip frosting to bind your cake balls, you will not care how long it takes to make them because you are high on Rainbow Chip frosting.

Anyway - after the Easter Bunny showed up, the week kind of went downhill and I'm just hoping it will perk back up to save our weekend.  Lilah got sick on Tuesday, threw up at school on Wednesday, and has been out since.  I've been a little confused and out of sorts because of being off Monday and now today, and it feels like Sunday and I'm just going to be messed up like it's Daylight Savings Day or something for the next few days.

But I'm glad I got to share these pics.

Finally!

Happy Spring!!