Tasha Tudor Day

We have started a new tradition in our household: 

Tasha Tudor Day! 

Tasha Tudor is a world renowned American children's book author and illustrator. Many of her books can be found on Melissa's book shelves, and Abigail, Quinn and Laura have fond memories of reading them when they were young. 

She is very much Melissa's hero (and mine too, since Melissa introduced me to her work), residing in an old new England farm house with goats, chickens, and many adorable corgis. She believed in hard work, imagination, and the beauty and joy that could be found in making things with your own two hands.

Because of our love for Tasha Tudor, we decided to celebrate a day in her honor! We would dress and go about our lives in an old fashioned way. 

And let me tell you...we had so much fun!

The day dawned bright and sunny, and us girls put on our favorite old-fashioned dresses. 

Mine is a vintage German dirndl dress that fits me to a T! This was my first time wearing it, and I couldn't have picked a better occasion. 

I started out my morning by raiding Melissa's table cloth stash..

Quinn, being the helpful husband, had already hung up a long clothes line for me to hang the tablecloths on.  He had helped me plan a special picnic for everyone that day, and it required the perfect setting!

Tablecloths are one of Melissa's favorite things (right up there with dishes, ovens, chocolate and coffee), so we had plenty of beautiful floral printed cloths to hang up.

They would create the perfect backdrop for our picnic!

Abigail came out to help us then. She wore a lovely dress Quinn had gotten her as a Christmas present several years before. Paired with a pretty white lace apron, she looked simply stunning!

Together we hung paper garlands in the blossoming apple trees. I had sewn them all up the night before so we would have them ready. 

Melissa came out then (wearing a dress patterned all in spring flowers), and together we grabbed our trugs and flower clippers and headed down to the flats to find flowers. 

The flats were a-glow with green sea grasses, shimmering in the sun. The mountains looked wild and far-off as we skipped around with bare feet. 

Buttercups, shooting stars, lupin, and sweet pea flowers covered the ground. 

The beauty that surrounded us was amazing, we could have spent our whole day down there!

We filled our baskets to the brims with flowers. 

It was hard to leave the beauty of the flats, but the flowers needed to be put in water and we needed to start on making lunch for the picnic!

We may have stopped on the way back up to the house to take a ride on the swing though...

Once we were back up at the house, we laid down a quilt under the apple blossoms and started cleaning the flowers. 

I had extra cones from my May Day gifts, so we filled them with flowers and hung them in the apple trees. We even had enough for two vases as well!

I used a bundle of extra sweet pea blossoms to make Abigail a flower crown.

Now she looked even more fairy like with that flowing golden hair of hers!

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Melissa had started the soup for our picnic lunch. Abby and I looked through her Tasha Tudor cookbook and found a bread recipe to try.

The recipe was for a large batch, making four loaves of white bread all together! 

But I have a large family, so we decided to make the full recipe and share what we had left over.

Abigail and I took turns kneading the bread (which is always the funnest part). 

It came out of the oven looking absolutely beautiful! And let me tell you, we ate every last bit of it with honey and jam and butter (all except for the loaf we gave to my family of course). 

Our picnic was the prettiest picnic I've ever had the pleasure to be a part of, and I think everyone else would agree with me.

The apple tree blossoms smelled so sweet as we sat underneath them. 

The tablecloths blew in the breeze...

And the picnic food was beyond yummy!

We all sat together on the quilt we had brought out. We ate, talked, and basked in the warm sunshine.

Melissa remarked, as we stretched out on the quilt after all the food had been eaten and put away, "Yes, I think Tasha Tudor would have been proud."

I think she would have been, too.

Easter with the Zahasky's

The Zahasky family celebrated Easter a bit early this year, so we could have a more restful Sunday (and so Quinn and I could go see my huge extended family as well!), so our celebration happened on Friday!

It started with Abigail and I walking up the road with our faithful trugs in hand to fetch more blueberry brush for a new egg tree!

This pretty church egg was painted by Melissa, isn't it lovely?

Paul and Quinn were busy working that morning, so Abby, Melissa and I got the house ready for our Easter party!

We used Melissa's favorite dishes (that she's never used before!).

Melissa had been up late the previous night putting together a lovely tablescape. 

These flower arrangements are her own creation! 

Abigail and I helped Melissa in the kitchen (though she did leave us near the end with clear instructions to NOT look outside while she happily skipped around hiding eggs for us to find later), and soon, Paul and Quinn were home and we were ready for the festivities to begin. 

But first some important things needed to be done:

Against an old stump in the backyard, Quinn and I had secretly put together a little place to remind everyone what the day was really about.

Three crosses were made from willow branches and stood as a reminder of Jesus's crucifixion.

As the family stood around the crosses, I read the story of Jesus dying for the sins of the world.

 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Luke 23: 34

Thankfully, that wasn't the end of the story. As I finished reading, I handed the Bible to Quinn and we walked the family to the other side of the stump.

A cave was there, with a big stone having been rolled away from the entrance. Candles were lit all around, and a white sheet was all that was left in the opening.

Jesus had Risen!

Quinn read the exciting news to all of us:

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words.

Luke 24: 1-8

After we prayed and thanked God for the miracle of Easter, we headed inside the house to share communion as a family and pray again.

Quinn's stomach may have been growling the whole time though! Hardly any of us had had any lunch or breakfast that day with all the preparations that needed to be done and we were hungry! 

But as the food was carefully put in the oven to bake, the Easter egg hunt began!!!

Everyone chose different ways to gather their brightly colored eggs:

I used my trug,

Quinn used a straining spoon he grabbed from the kitchen in his excitement to start,

and Abigail used her apron pockets!

While we hunted, Melissa walked around with Paul watching us and laughing when we excitedly found one she had hidden well.

She also pointed out a few eggs for Paul (I think because she wanted the chocolate truffles inside for herself)...

An amazing time was had by all!

But the best part was still yet to come...

dinner!

As we counted our eggs and found the sparkling wrappers of truffles and brightly colored jelly beans inside, Paul had turned on the grill was busy getting food ready!

Quinn really enjoyed his egg-collecting method, though he says it did get rather hard near the end from too many eggs having to be balanced on top!

Cedar was happy to have everyone outside running around the yard. She also liked us yelling and telling her to chase away the ravens who easily found our hidden Easter eggs and went after the candy inside...

However, she did not like being cuddled so fiercely by Quinn!

Yummmmm!

...it was almost time to eat!

Because we had all been so hungry, after dinner we couldn't imagine eating another piece of Easter candy. But as we were all getting up to start cleaning dishes, Melissa said to Abby, "Go upstairs and get the dessert!" 

We were all a bit surprised! We didn't think we had any room left for a yummy dessert. but as Abigail climbed the stairs, a shout of surprise and joy resounded, and I went right up the stairs after her.

The sight that met our eyes was like a fairy tale! Melissa had put together Easter baskets for all of us, even Paul! 

They were overflowing with candy, and with pretty ribbons and pussy willow and flowers, it was hard to take them all in at once!

Along with all the chocolate, Quinn found strawberry plants for planting and books on how to build Hobbit holes in his Easter basket (something he's been very interested in).

Paul found garden plants in his as well, plus a white chocolate Easter bunny, that Quinn and Abby were a bit envious of!

Nestled in among a vase of flowers, Abigail and I were delighted to find Madame Alexander dolls in each of our baskets! 

Abigail was given Heidi (along with the classic which she had never read) and I was given a doll named Degas, after the famous painter. 

As I pulled my doll our of my basket, Abby excitedly said, "Mom, you have one just like that!" and it was true! Melissa then shared the sweet story about how she came to love her own first Madame Alexander doll.

When she was young, there weren't big stores in Juneau to buy things like presents. Everything had to be ordered through something like a Sears catalog. One Christmas, because of bad weather or something else, the Christmas presents had not yet arrived by Christmas Eve, and Melissa's mother had nothing to give Melissa for Christmas the next day.

Her mother went to a local drug store and they just happened to have the doll you see above! Melissa was so excited about her present that Christmas, and she now says that she really was lucky, as nothing so nice as a Madame Alexander doll was sold in the catalogs! 

We spent the rest of our Easter eating candy and relaxing on the couch. 

Abigail and I played with our dolls (you're never too old!) and Quinn made plans for building his own Hobbit hole.

We hope you had a happy Easter, we sure did!