In this Post: Pictures of our Chinese date night and a link for ideas. Easter & Passover/ The Lord’s Supper pictures. Several recipes: homemade BBQ sauce & Easter treats, DIY natural hair and body products. Also DIY air freshener.
Hello dear ones! A couple of weeks ago the hubby and I had a Chinese themed date night completely inspired by the Dating Diva’s. You can find printables at this link: http://www.thedatingdivas.com/just-the-two-of-us/chinese-please/
We haven’t had so much fun in awhile. Now to be honest, our dates don’t always start out peppy. Usually we are both drained from the day and sometimes grumpy. By the end of this date we were laughing and smiling, the next day too!
I took a picture of the printable pictured below and sent it through my “Couple” app that Chris and I share. I sent it while he was at work so he’d get the gist of what our date would be that night.
I threw this date together in just over an hour. I literally found out my mom could kid-sit that day and then got to work. We already had Chinese food in the freezer so I picked this Chinese date night out of our date bucket.
Okay, this Sweet and Sour Chicken by Innov Asian was DELICIOUS! The Tai Pei egg rolls were so so but they worked. It was super easy to make mock fried rice. I didn’t have time to fry rice like I usually do. So I just cooked some white rice and added a bit of sesame oil. Sesame oil is the key to fried rice’s taste. I found a recipe for Chinese egg custard tarts. I liked it but Chris said it tasted like breakfast. Michael liked it too so he ate Chris’ left overs :). You win some. You lose some.
I’ll admit. I was a hog and ate most of the chicken. Next time I’m buying SEVERAL boxes of this stuff!
I found traditional Chinese music on Pandora (though once they played Lord of the Rings! How’d that get thrown in there?). I put a plastic table cloth on the bed and made it our table. We didn’t have chopsticks but I had cake pop sticks and figured they’d work. I put together a “Chinese Lantern” with a batter powered candle. The Chinese character below means “Love” and is the name of our restaurant. You can get the printable from The Dating Diva’s. You can buy cheap lanterns at the Dollar Tree but I didn’t have time.
Lantern craft here: http://www.creatingreallyawesomefreethings.com/c-r-a-f-t-10-chinese-new-year/
I was horrible using “chop sticks”. Chris being the pro and sweety he is, fed me. I did sort of get the hang of it by the end of the night.
I loved playing “Wok Tok”, Chinese version of Mad Gab. I didn’t have time to make edible fortune cookies so I made the paper kind.
We put our Wok Tok strips in the paper fortune cookies.
Then we made origami hearts. I am bad at origami too. So Chris had to help me step by step. The link is on the Dating Diva’s page. The Chinese date night was such a fun date and it didn’t involve the tv. I really like that.
Homemade BBQ Sauce~ http://www.simplyscratch.com/2011/09/homemade-barbecue-sauce-part-1.html
Necessity is indeed the mother of invention. We had one of those weeks where we counted the days til payday. We ran out of BBQ sauce. Slow cooker BBQ sauce is one of the easiest meals for dinner after Church. So I found the above recipe and made the sauce homemade. I didn’t have red wine vinegar so I mixed part red wine and part vinegar…same thing I figure. It was delicious!
Passover/ The Lord’s Supper
A couple of years ago I wrote a Passover play and we acted it out as a family. Link here:
This year we just read through it. We had a poor man’s communion: graham crackers for bread and water dyed red for juice. It’s communion not a feast so it worked.
We each held up our plague puppets when we got to that plague.
Michael played Jesus. Here he is blessing the “bread” and “wine”.
After reading the play and our Lent devotions we watched the Gospel of John on dvd. Then we had a foot washing. Michael has such a servant’s heart. He was actually excited about washing feet.
We stayed up late making cross shaped sugar cookies.
We wrapped them up in ribbon and attached invites to our Easter church service. Michael carried them in his Easter basket and we gave them out to neighbors and the staff at the nursing home we visit.
Cadbury Creme Egg stuffed Cookies ~ http://www.bunsinmyoven.com/2013/03/19/cadbury-creme-egg-stuffed-cookies/
I couldn’t find mini creme filled eggs so we used the other Cadbury eggs. Still tasted good and super easy. Chocolate chip cookie dough and candy eggs. Not hard at all :).
Peep Smore’s ~ http://eclecticrecipes.com/peeps-smores-for-easter
This was fun and probably the only way I’ll eat Peeps.
The bunny got smooshed!
Michael had a race and invited my barbies. Yes I kept them. They come in handy for picnics, pretend movie theater, and playing store. Chris and I were the race car drivers.
This Ken doll is the same one from Toy Story 3. Yes, I’m getting old but he was passed down from my older sister. I had to buy him more pants and apparently modern “Ken’s” wear skinny jeans. He barely fits. Like his hat? So Fred Astaire ;).
No “Poo” method. Eat lots of cheese! JUST KIDDING! I mean no SHAM”POO”. This is a method that’s going around that involves using baking soda water to wash your hair and vinegar water for conditioner. You can go four days before needing to wash hair again and there’s no toxic chemicals (like most shampoos have).
So I tried this method and added peppermint and vanilla extract to take away the vinegar smell (which goes away when dry anyways). Michael said I smelled like Gingerbread! It got my hair clean but it was also drier than normal. Though my hair tends to frizz when I blow dry anyways. I don’t think I’ll use this method all the time but it’s handy if we run out of shampoo or don’t have anywhere to go that day.
Everything you need to know about “No Poo” found here:
http://www.pistachioproject.com/2010/01/going-no-poo.html
You can see above that I also made some homemade body wash. Again, necessity is the mother of invention. I ground up oatmeal in our coffee grinder (sorry Chris). Then I added coconut milk, honey, brown sugar, a tad bit of oil, and vanilla extract. I added water for the body wash but shouldn’t have because it became too runny. I used the same mixture minus water for a face scrub. I smelt good and my skin was smooth after. I kept them both in the fridge so they wouldn’t spoil. They’ve lasted a couple of weeks without spoiling.
Homemade air freshener ~ So this does give a good smell but the purpose was really to eliminate pet odor. Vinegar takes away cat urine odor. So I mixed vinegar, water, and peppermint extract to make a healthy air spray. I’ve started using vinegar to clean with ever since a bleach wipe burned my hands. A little baking soda and you have a great bathroom cleaner. So this air freshener can double as a cleaner. Unless you’re allergic to peppermint. Then just take it out. Vinegar evaporates quickly but it takes bad smells with it. Also you can mix lemon juice with baking soda and sprinkle it on the floors or around and in pet cages. On another note, shredded paper is great when you run out of kitty litter or Guinea pig bedding. You have to change it more but it’s not toxic and you can add baking soda for smell.
Time to dye eggs….
Why buy a kit? Jars of boiled water with a couple spoonfuls of vinegar each and then 15 drops of food coloring. You can use a whisk for the dunking but we didn’t have one. Salad tongs work too. Oh and as you can see in the background ….bleach works for dish washer fluid if you run out. Just rinse your dishes really well first. Ha ha! All you can learn waiting for pay day ;).
Mmmmmm Easter basket
I love my Mom’s yard. It’s so big and flat. It was supposed to rain but the Lord heard our prayers and Easter was a lovely warm day. Chris and I hid eggs. I finally got to wear my new spring dress.
By the way, watch out for ants and wrap your candy if you put it in plastic eggs. Those silly plastic eggs have holes in them! We had to knock ants out of the eggs!
Chris likes to make them hard to get. Briar bushes below. It’s an obstacle course! he he he
Mom and my step Dad Kim have an interesting pump house thing in their front yard. They thought it’d be neat to put a purple blanket on it to look like Jesus’ empty tomb. You can see we hid an egg on it. We quickly took pictures and prayed it wouldn’t rain. The sky was cloudy.
Mom and my step Dad Kim. By the way, Mom has an interesting blog about Hand writing analysis. Check it out and encourage her to blog more: http://lorettalittlefield.wordpress.com/
Me and my guys~ Chris and Michael.
We all look like Easter eggs. You should’ve seen all the colors at church…esp Men’s shirts.
Nana and Michael on the hunt.
Grandad says hello
Mmmm goodies
Thanks Mom for the lovely Easter dinner! We finished our Lent devotional. Mom had a Super Book video about the resurrection. I took a nap. Everyone played outside. My parents are fit :). I enjoyed the show lol.
Well, God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover
PS: If you try the recipes or date night ideas please leave me a comment with your experience :). Thanks!
amberdover 