Garden of the Good Shepherd - Week Six

We had our sixth Garden of the Good Shepherd party to celebrate the Easter season over the weekend! This week's theme was "Oh, What a Beautiful City!"

Here is a close-up of the city section on the Garden of the Good Shepherd calendar. The girls added pictures of the city walls, temple, thrones, a bride and groom, and crowns. Among the corresponding readings were some which compared us to the bride and Jesus to the groom... many of the readings were from Revelation this week.

The Throne

I would have made two of these, as there were two thrones pictured and two kids to eat them, but as you will see in a minute, we had plenty of sweets this time! This was made by cutting a pop-tart (really a Nature's Path toaster pastry - Big Lots had them on sale!!) into two pieces for the seat and the back. Then I cut some thick pretzel rods which we had left over and attached them using melted white chocolate chips to make legs and arms on the throne.

The Temple

We made Shirley Temples, much to Cecilia's delight!

The cute little umbrellas were also found at Big Lots! I love Big Lots a little too much lately... spent $50 there a few weeks ago, and I never thought that was possible to do! ;)

The Crowns

I made crown-shaped sandwiches... just cut them freehand, as you can probably tell! They were basic PB&J on whole wheat bread.

And, because I wanted an excuse to make this cake, I made a crown cake. I already had the crowns taken care of with the sandwiches, but this chocolate glazed pumpkin bundt cake recipe has been sitting in my recipe binder for months, and I finally decided to give it a try!

The City Gates

The girls built their own city gates using cheese cubes and pretzel sticks.

The Bride and Groom

Chocolate-covered bride and groom strawberries - yum!

Here are the grooms... a bit tricky to make in this heat, but putting them in the fridge as soon as I could helped a bit!

The brides were just made with melted basic white chocolate chips.

A few more images from our lunch party:

Caroline builds her gate...

...and Cecilia builds hers.

My plate - we used our wedding china to further elaborate on the bride and groom aspect of the theme.

The whole table - I think this has been out most sweet-filled Garden Party yet!

Caroline went a little nuts with her gate-building and made some of the pretzels into a bride a groom standing under an umbrella...

Ironically, Cecilia had been playing with this bride doll a lot this week - so I encouraged her to go find the groom, too, so I could get a photo!

To see more Garden Parties from week six, check out Catholic Cuisine!