Odds & Ends - April Style

I don't know where the month of April went.  I guess I must have been a little busy, but I didn't really think that I was!!  Now, to what I was up to in April!!!  I'll start with a couple things that I wanted to accomplish.  I tried the first of what I hope will be a lot of pulled pork sandwich recipes in search of my ultimate one!!!  This one was from Sisters Stuff Blog and you can get her recipe here.  It was delish.  We added some Famous Dave's sauce to it prior to serving.  This is my pic of it -

I did get the Guest Bedroom all in order - but it is just not picture-worthy!  You know - organized chaos!!!!!  But, I am pleased with it and now can get at everything.  I also purchased 2 of the Wilton donut pans from Amazon and made some Vanilla Donuts for the Royal Wedding Viewing Party.  Picture and link to recipe are later in this post.

And -- here is what else has been happening this month --
One of my YaYa girlfriends and I went to Toledo to the Libbey glass outlet.  I didn't get any pics there, but I bought some Easter glasses, some silverware to bead, and some tiny sorbet glasses to use at my daughter's tea (you'll see that in late June).  Everything was on sale, too!  After shopping she treated me to lunch at one of the Tony Packo's restaurants.  (If you aren't from northern Ohio then you might remember Corporal Klinger on the Mash TV show mentioning Tony Packo's many times.)  We went to the one next to the Toledo Mud Hen's stadium.  This was only a block from the glass outlet.  I had the original hot dog special and some chicken & dumpling soup -

One of the highlights of Spring is my YaYa's Palm Sunday Brunch.  This is how the YaYa's began.  7 years ago my BFF Barb (and her husband) decided to host a brunch on Palm Sunday for 3 other couples.  Afterwards we started talking about making those 'fun fur' scarves that were popular then and planned to get together a couple weeks later and work on them.  By now the husbands were not part of the plan - just us gals!!!!  That began 7 years of mostly monthly get togethers.  We plan a couple events ahead - sometimes we might do something twice a month and there was one year where we were never able to find all four of free the entire summer!!!  We do things such as watching a DVD movie to a weekend journey to Frankenmuth, Michigan - with everything in between.  We have taken to scrapbooking our adventures.  At the beginning we did not take any or few photos, but it didn't take us long to start "over photographing" our visits.  We are caught up with the scrapbook as of this year's Brunch which is amazing in itself!!!  We always celebrate "our anniversary" by gathering on Palm Sunday at Barb's with our husbands!!!!!  Here we are with our mimosas -

We had a very quiet Easter this year, but almost all of my decorations made it up!!  The blog post prior to this has all my decos for you to view.

Saw these darling little babies the other day in my daughter's housing development.  Aren't they adorable?

Of course -- I had to have a Royal Wedding Viewing Party!!!!  There were 5 of us that were here at 5AM in "casual clothing".

I printed paper dolls of William & Kate and put them on the TV trays.  You could choose to sit on the bride's or the groom's side - bride's side was filled first!!  I also had some of the British-themed hand sanitizers from Bath & Body Works for everyone as a little gift!

Here are the Vanilla Donuts that I made for the first time.  I think I might need to make these a couple more times to perfect it (need more frosting - couple minutes less cooking than I did due to my gas oven), but I am sticking with the recipe and some others that I have seen her post.  You can get the recipe at Alli-n-Son's blog right here.

And, I used the toppers from TomKat Studios that I found here.  She always has great toppers for holidays and events!!

I also had quiche, coffee & juices.  We had a great time watching the wedding and all the hoopla -

How do you like our tiaras????

Yesterday the YaYa's headed to Chardon, Ohio and the Geauga County Maple Festival.  We had a great time eating our way around the festival.  Here I am with Deep Fried Snickers -

We shared a bucket of assorted deep fried vegetables -

And, then shared a bucket of french fries -

We all brought home pure maple syrup as a souvenir!  We are hoping to go to many more festivals this year.  I am proclaiming this the "Year of the Festivals"!!!  LOL!

Well, I am starting "eating right" this week - no joke either!!  So, those fried foods will be very minimal in my future!  I am working on being healthy!  The YaYa's are starting to walk once or twice a week and I'm sure I'll be doing it more, too.  I will be busy with getting our outdoor area all ready for summer.  I'll have lots of flowers to plant in pots and I want to re-paint some of my outdoor furniture.  The weather is just now starting to be cooperative.  Lastly, I need to make more beaded silverware and crosses for my "stash".  I will post pics in the May Odds & Ends post (if I get some finished).  Those are my commitments - we'll see how I do!!!

Back to the Royal Wedding.  Lucy feels that the crown should be worn this way -