A Week of Easter Crafts

Easter is my favorite holiday.  I like it even more than Christmas.
To get our Easter spirits going, we have been making Easter crafts to decorate the house all week long.  And having so much fun doing it!
Painted eggs – plastic eggs on which I hot glued white beans and then turned the kids loose with the paint.

I love how they turned out.

String Eggs – this is one that I remember doing in YWs back in the day.  It is embroidery floss dipped in glue and wrapped around a balloon.

Let it dry overnight, pop the balloon, and voilà – pretty eggs.  We hung them on some dead branches we found in the woods.

Paper bunny and chick banners to go over doorways.  Cute and simple.

Paper 3-D egg chandelier.

Bunny and egg silhouettes decorated with buttons.

A jar of paper tulips.

Accordion paper butterflies.

Now our house is full of spring time and all the pretty colors that go with it.  I think we’re ready to get started on our weekend of Easter celebrations!   

Spring Time!

I love this time of year.  And I bet you do too!  So many things growing and I know I’m crazy, but I actually like the warm weather!

During the winter we planted a few things and are now harvesting some.  Like our crazy looking carrots -

aren’t they  weird looking.

And this kale tastes DELICIOUS! 

If you have never had kale you should try it out.  Our favorite way to have it is tossing it with a little olive oil, a little lemon juice, then salt and pepper, place it on a single layer on a cookie sheet  and baking it in the oven at 425 until it is crispy and starting to brown (maybe 15 minutes or so).  So yummy!

Our herbs are doing really well.  Did you know that cilantro makes this pretty little flower?  I didn’t.  I love it.  It smells really good to.

Our oregano is growing like crazy.  So I threw some on the dehydrator,

and now have my own little bottle of dried oregano.  I think I might make some of these up to give as teacher gifts. 

Happy Spring! And Happy Easter!  Someone shared this song on Facebook the other day and I loved it.  Hope you enjoy it too!

Layton’s Birthday – Part 2 – Busytown Mysteries Party

This past Saturday we had a small family birthday party.  Really really small.  Our kids were the only ones there.  And it was nice!  I think I’ll do more parties like that!

Layton and Mandy have been watching Busytown Mysteries on Netflix and LOVE it.  I have to admit it really is a cute little show.  So of course Layton wanted to have a birthday party theme of what he is most interested in at the moment.  Which is fine by me.  I’m just shocked it wasn’t CARS!

We didn’t do anything fancy, just a few little decorations,

cupcakes,

little goodie bags, which included everything they would need to be a good detective,

and then they played a Busytown Mysteries board game.  And have played it every day since then too :)

And then it was candle blowing time

and most importantly present time!

His most favorite present was of course his bike!

Just look at him go!

Layton’s Birthday–Part 1

Layton’s actual birthday fell on the 1st day of spring this year.  We had his party a week and a half later, but we still wanted to do something special on his real birthday.  It also happened to fall during spring break, which was really nice.

Because it was the first day of spring, we thought the perfect thing to do would be to plant some flowers.  And so we did!

Then we met Nana, Grandpa, and Chloe at the movie theater to watch:

And fell in perfectly with our first day of spring activities!

Then Layton took a little nap and woke up to a birthday cake!  His one main request was that it be VERY colorful.  So I did my best!

He was very excited to see it and to blow out his candles.

He then opened one little present that made him ecstatic.

He and Dallin had a great time putting it together.

And what else should one do on one’s birthday than play in the sprinkler!

All in all, I think he had a pretty awesome day!