Easy Easter 2012

 First, let me apologize for the poor photo quality. I have been having problems with my camera, and I am not quite sure how to fix them. If I stage the photo just right, and make sure I have tons of natural light, then I can usually get a decent photo. However, the nature of children is to be ever moving and never quite where you want them to be, so many of my pics lately have been less than perfect. One day, a DSLR. Today, problematic point and shoot....

Anyway, Easter fell right in the middle of some insane business in our house. It seems like I am always saying how busy we are, but truly this was out of the ordinary. I spent Friday finishing up JBF stuff (consignment sale) and then we babysit for some friends so they could go out for a birthday. Saturday we had an Easter egg hunt at church, which I got zero pictures of because I was manning the VBS registration table. Which, I also had to make clipboards for, did that on Friday too. Also on Saturday, Sarah and I were decorating for a baby shower. I spent Thursday, Friday and some of Saturday afternoon working on that. I am hoping to post photos soon, because I forgot my camera, but *thankfully* I had my snazzy new IPhone. I hope I got some decent shots! Anyone know how to do that?

So, all that said, (and by the way, Tuesday of that next week was Carson's birthday AND JBF drop-off, so still the craziness was not over) so I really wanted a low-key day. And I got one. It was wonderful. Joel picked up donut holes for the kids, and we surprised them with the basket above while they were still in bed.

 I filled large eggs with two donut holes each. I call those preschool eggs because they are just perfect for toddlers. I like to keep them on hand, in case I have something bigger that I want to put in an egg. In this case, it was breakfast!

 They loved it! They both love donuts, but they had never had donut holes before. Besides, having breakfast in bed is always a treat.

 I may have snuck a couple of chocolate rabbits in there, too. Jocelyn always loves candy, but especially at breakfast time!

 Of course, church was on the agenda. I was running the VBS table again, so we had to be there early. This photo so reminded me of "American Gothic". Jocelyn is definitely not an early bird, and the sun shining in her eyes wasn't helping!

 I did get this adorable photo of my two best guys. Carson has black dress shoes, but I couldn't resist pairing his Converse with his outfit. He is such a little hipster!

 After church we skipped the traditional ham dinner in favor of Qdoba. I was pretty much tapped out from all the busyness so I couldn't even think to plan something in advance. I am so blessed to have such a great family that doesn't care about those things. It also gave us time to just relax together. And stock Easter baskets.

 The baskets are always a hit, but "Baby Chewie" was Carson's favorite. When I saw the tiny stuffed Chewbacca at Target I couldn't pass it up. And I am glad I didn't!

 I won't lie. It pained me to let them hunt eggs looking like this. The perfectionist in me wanted to send them to change clothes-preferable something spring colored with a collared shirt for Carson and something not so short for Josie. But I am trying to battle that OCD so I let them hunt eggs looking like homeless children. In mini skirts and pajamas. Ugh. Jocelyn is checking to see how many eggs Carson has found.

 They were as adorable as ever. We mixed all their eggs together (Usually I separate them into sections, so they each get their own dozen eggs) and it actually made it really fun. They didn't even fight over who got the most eggs. I love those kids.

 The surprise hit of the whole day was the glow in the dark egg hunt. I had briefly glimpsed a photo on Pinterest of a glowing egg. I assumed (correctly, I found out later) that it was activated glow sticks in eggs. I took glow bracelets from the Dollar Store and shoved them in light colored eggs.

 They loved hunting eggs in the dark! I didn't even put any candy in them, just the bracelets. We didn't give them flashlights, so the eggs were actually pretty hard to find, but in a good way.

 My camera doesn't like the dark. I have no idea why it looks like it is snowing in these photos. Carson's outfit just keeps getting better doesn't it? Loving the flip flops. Oh well. Anyway, the glow in the dark egg hunt wrapped up our night. It was a really nice day.

One last photo. Jocelyn's egg hunting basket (I don't let them drag their Longabergers around the yard-those are keepsakes!) got broken after the church egg hunt. I was a little frustrated with her. She proceeded to make her own basket! It was so cute. She decorated a shoebox all on her own and tied on some ribbon she found. She was so proud. I loved it. She is such a little artist! Glad to see that creativity isn't necessarily genetic...

To Carson, on His 4th Birthday

Dear Carson,
                   Who knew four meant that you were already a little man? I look at pictures of you and know that you aren't my little chubby cheeked baby anymore. However, you are a dear and precious (often precocious!) preschooler.

    You are learning and growing so fast! This last year you learned how to ride your bike, started doing "school" work, and just today you learned to swing. You love to play baseball with your dad, but then again you pretty much love doing anything with him. You love to sit and watch "Voltron" or "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" with him, because you love to be with your "Big Daddy".


   He does your hair for you, (although sometimes you do it yourself-which is too cute!) in two styles: shark hair

This is shark hair



Or dude hair:

I love that you still mimic your dad so often. It is so fun to see him teach you how to be a gentleman. You love holding doors and will stand there as long as there are people coming through.

You are a big helper in a lot of  ways. When your dad and I teach in your Sunday School class, you love to carry the big bottle of hand sanitizer around at snack time so that everyone can "wash" their hands. You also love to be the line leader. It is easy to see that many of the other kids look up to you!

You love to spend time with your friends, and have really learned how to play with others. Even though sometimes you antagonize (especially your little friends who are girls!) you still love to help and share. When you collected your Easter eggs on Sunday, you came outside to give me a piece of your candy before you even had any for yourself! I love your gentle, giving spirit.

You have really learned how to draw. Almost all of your people- even Mommy, have "shark" hair and it is just the cutest thing ever! I was so sad that the first time your drew our family it was with dry erase marker! However, I think I will have plenty of them to save in the future. This is your self-portrait:

You are really learning about the Bible, too. You love going to Cubbies (after you actually get started) and memorizing the verses and singing the songs. You know lots of Bible stories, but your favorite is "Barak and Deborah" because they fight with swords! You can repeat the whole story almost word for word.

You love all swords: pirate, knight, it doesn't matter. You carry your beloved "Swordie" around all the time- in the back of your shirt. You even sleep with it at night. I had to fight your dad on that one, he didn't want to let you. But it is so cute to see you sleeping with it down the back of your pajama shirt, while you clutch your best friend Monkey.

I just love what a boy you are! You are so sweet and loving, but you still play rough and hard. I am going to miss you sweet toddler years, but I know that there is still so much fun to come. I can't believe how grateful I am to the Lord for you. He knew that I needed you, and you are a blessing beyond my wildest imaginations. I can't believe that I get the privilege of being your Mom. I pray that the Lord will give me the wisdom to help you grow in the knowledge and love of Him every day. I love you, my little Carson boy.

                                                                                                Love,

                                                                                                        Mommy



April Foolin'

April 1st is just one of those things that creeps up on you and then suddenly it is there before you can even think about it. I love the idea of fun, playful "pranks" -especially for my kids. This year, I was finally able to do some. I think they really enjoyed it!

I got most of my ideas from Family Fun. If you have never looked at their April Fool's Day section, they have some fantastic ideas. Some are really simple, while others can involve a lot of planning and preparation. Being true to my nature, I stuck with the easy ones!

First, Joel and I planned to have some stuffed animals "eat" the kids breakfast. I had bought donuts the day before and we just emptied the box, all except for some crumbs. Then we positioned the animals on the table like this:

Jocelyn is serious about her donuts. She didn't really believe that the animals were the guilty party until we gave her a poptart to eat. Carson thought it was funny, although he was a little bummed that all the donuts were gone.

We even put powdered sugar on the animals' faces so it really looked like they enjoyed themselves! The gorilla is holding a little bit of the "last" donut.

 It really wasn't too hard to set this up- and in the end the kids thought it was really funny. I just put the donuts in a ziploc and hid them in the pantry.

 One of the things that I got from Family Fun was these adorable "doughnut seed" packets. (Update as of 3/2016: The Family Fun printable is no longer available, but try this cute, and still free, one that is similar from Printables 4 Mom)The printable was so easy to use! I glued the packets together and filled them with Frosted Cheerios. The kids gave them to their Sunday School teachers. It was so cute to see them shout, "April Fool's!"

I also got the idea for these jello "juice drinks" from Family Fun. I used strawberry jello, and made it according to the directions. I re-filled the little barrel drinks, that way the kids couldn't really see that the juice wasn't moving. I made it the night before so it had plenty of time to chill. 

The kids were hilarious trying to get the juice out. Josie said it was frozen, which I thought was a pretty smart guess. They sucked at the straws for about three minutes before Josie finally pulled out her straw and realized what it was.

She thought it was cool that she could hold her drink upside down. They enjoyed their breakfast of jello and donuts- healthy, huh? Josie loved it all so much by the end of the day she was thinking up jokes of her own! I think I will really be in for it next year...



An "Egg"-Cellent Garland

    I pared down my Valentine's and St. Patty's decor, but when I unpacked my Easter things, I realized there was nothing to get rid of! I had some plastic eggs, a tray, a kitchen towel and a wreath. Period. That was it. I am loving having a fireplace for no other reason than that I adore hanging garlands! But I had no garland. I didn't really have anything!

   When I went to the store to find something, I realized why my decorations were so sparse. Everything is cheesy, or ugly, or ugly AND cheesy. So, I realized if I wanted anything new, I would have to come up with something.

  At Target, I was looking at Easter eggs and I saw something interesting: there are two small holes at the top and the bottom of the egg. Which meant only one thing (besides that they are not a suffocation hazard): they would be perfect for stringing! My idea was very simple: a bunch of eggs on a string. And it worked!

The supplies: does it get any simpler? I bought a bag of 48 eggs from Target, super deal, they were only $2! I already had the string (It is the "innards" from 550 cord, also called parachute cord. It is nylon so it was easy to put through the holes, I didn't even need a needle! You could also use embroidery floss.)

See the holes? Almost all plastic eggs come that way now, so it should be easy to find them anywhere.

I shoved the string through the bottom half, pulled it through and then through the top half.

Then snap the halves of the eggs back together. It truly is so simple even a child could do it. I didn't glue or tape the eggs in any way. They hold together just fine without anything.

 Simply keep repeating until your garland is the length you want. I didn't fuss with making sure that I used the same set of holes, and mine came out just fine. (Picture that if you are holding the egg horizontally there is are two set of holes: one on the top and one on the bottom- it doesn't matter if you put them in the upper holes on the bottom half and the lower holes on the upper half, it works out fine.)

If you were wondering how I hang my garlands, I use the 3M removable hooks. I have had these up since Christmas and they work so well. However, the hooks looked really bare. So I bought some ribbon at Hobby Lobby ($2) and made really simple bows. I just sort of stuck them on the hooks.

I didn't want it to be too explicitly "Easter" so I chose this geometric pattern. I figured the eggs were plenty Easter enough!

And there you have it! Now that I have discovered there are holes in the eggs, I think there are a lot of creative things you could do with them. You could hang them individually from the ceiling,  or make a swag with varying lengths of strings and ribbon.

I may try something different, because out of my 48 eggs, I had twenty left over! For right now they are looking festive in a white dish on my table.

I promise all my post won't be about seasonal decor, especially since I am running out of holidays for a while. I have been in a funk lately and I just really am trying to not stress about blogging (or lack thereof). For now, I hope my quick, simple projects appeal to you!

A Little St. Patty's Pretty

 I tried going simple with my Valentine's decorations, and that made me really happy. Still, I love to give a little nod to even the "not-so-important" holidays. My decor for March is St. Patty's, and it is even sparser than my V-Day stuff, but I still wanted to whip up a little wreath.

I had been wanting to try one of the yarn wrapped wreaths that I had seen in a multitude of places (my friend, Sarah, had made one, too.). I decided spur of the moment to do it one night. I was pleased to find that I have become crafty enough that I didn't even need to purchase anything! I had a styrofoam wreath (I don't recommend the kind I used, an extruded foam wreath like this one, would be much neater. That kind doesn't shed like my Goodwill find, however Hobby Lobby wasn't open at 9pm on Saturday when I decided to make this!) yarn, my trusty floral pins, and some felt, buttons and ribbons all on hand!

I started by wrapping yarn around my floral pin and shoving it in the wreath, at an angle so it wouldn't come through the front of the wreath. I left the end attached to the skein of yarn initially but later realized it was too much of a pain to try to move that whole thing around the wreath. I ended up pulling out a big wad and working in sections.

One thing I decided to do was wrap a shorter amount of yarn in sections around the wreath. Because of the type of styrofoam I was working with, I couldn't slide the yarn to fill gaps. Having those pieces that weren't part of the later strands gave me something that I could move a little.

I didn't worry about how the back looked. I concentrated on the front, so the back definitely had gaps. That is something else that I am sure would not have happened on extruded foam, it would have been easy to slide the yarn, since the surface is smooth. However, it didn't affect the final product. When I would reach the end of a piece of yarn , I would wrap it around another floral pin and shove it in.

It only took me about an hour to wrap the whole thing, My wreath was about 12 inches, and I wasn't aiming for perfection. I am sure if you were more precise, or had a larger wreath, it would take longer.

My plain brown wreath needed a little "something" to make it feel St. Patty's and actually, these clovers, from Pinterest, inspired the whole thing. The blogger made barrettes with her clovers, but I spruced mine up by sewing a button in the middle and attaching them to my wreath (with floral pins, of course).

I turned a little ribbon into a bow, and added it. I decided to leave it at that! This is another wreath, like my burlap one, that will easily transition to a different season. Because I didn't hot glue anything it will be a snap to remove the clovers and replace them with other seasonal accents. But for now, I am really liking the bit o' green it is bringing to my front door!