Easter 2013

There is so much to talk about and catch everyone up on.

 

Here it goes...

 

We had a fabulous Easter weekend. Johnathon has been unable to be with us for the last TWO Easter Sundays so we knew that we wanted to keep it simple and casual this year. We colored eggs on Friday and celebrated on Saturday.

 

 

On Saturday we slept in until 9am and the girls were very excited to see what the Easter Bunny had brought them. He left much more scaled down baskets this year compared to what he has left in the past, but we all like it a little better this way.

 

He was also very creative with what he left. Instead of baskets, he left bags. Each of the girls got a new beach towel, water gun, Color Wonder pages and markers, and a new chair for outside lounging. :)

 

 

The Eater Bunny was even kind enough to leave Johnathon and I a gift as well...

 

 

We had a small lunch of ham, homemade mac'n'cheese, green bean casserole and few other favorites. We invited our friends over and just enjoyed the day.

 

L - R:

T, Allsion, Madelynn, Alyssa and K

(I think the twins are starting to slowly pull away from Madelynn in height. We'll see!)

 

After lunch we had our egg hunt.

 

 

My friend, Sarah, and I were talking about how we had a good number of eggs for the number of kids. We had bought and filled A LOT of them. Then the guys informed us that they hadn't put half of them in the yard because there were so many.

 

Guess which little girl overheard our conversation and took off...?

 

Yep, Alyssa was ALL over that!

 

Allsion wasn't far behind her either.

 

That night we offered to watch K and T while their parents when out for a date night. They have a deployment on the horizon and Johnathon and I wanted to make sure that they got a little kid-free time. The girls ended up spending the night and fun was had by all! :)

 

We woke up on Sunday and headed to Sea World.

 

While we were there we even ran into the girls' teacher and her family.

 

We also learned recently that our out-of-state background clearances have come back and we are so thrilled. There are few things around our home that we need to finish getting ready (Like a key lock on our laundry room door...more on that another day.) and we still have those darn character references, but we are getting there!!

 

xoxo

 



Valentine's Day 2013

From our family to yours...

 

 

I look at that picture and am so amazed with how grown-up and beautiful my little ladies are. I know everyone thinks their own kids are gorgeous, but look at them! I could have never imagined how fantastic it is to watch them change and grow into such wonderful young ladies.

 

This was our first year to make valentine's for school and we had a little fun with it.

 

I got this idea off of Pinterest and added my own little mix to it.

 

Plain white mug: $1 from the Dollar Tree

Hand Sanitizer: $1 from the Dollar Tree

Permanent markers, ribbon and red tags (made from my Cricut): FREE from my craft closet.

 

We made a teacher AND principal gift for a whopping $4 total.



It's very easy, actually.

 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and wash your mugs.

Use any color of permanent marker to decorate your mug as you wish.

Bake in your oven (on a cookie sheet) for 30-40minutes.

 

*The colors of the markers did change/fade a bit, but the results were still wonderful. I was very pleased. I just added a simple thing of hand sanitizer (you can never have enough in a classroom) and added a bow and tag.

 

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Both their teacher and their principal loved their adorable homemade gifts from the girls.

 

I also used this same idea to make gifts for other people. A simple white plate or saucer could be decorated to be a serving dish or cookie platter. Try to think outside of the box. I would love to hear some your ideas if you have tried this one yourself.

 

Total: $4.00

 

Alyssa took crayons for her valentine. I simply added a little print out and a tag that she had signed and DONE!

 

I chose CraZArt crayons because they were only $0.57 for a 24 pack and Crayola was $0.97 for an 8 pack.

 

For those of you wondering, I just used a glue stick to adhere the print out to the crayon box and it stayed very well.

 

Total: $13.50

 

 

I have included a picture of the print out in case you'd like to use it. Free of charge, just one mom passing it along to another.

 

I wanted to do a PopRocks valentine for Allison because she likes to dress and act like a rock star so often, but I couldn't find any ANYWHERE. I was so disappointed.

 

Instead we went with a Kool-Aid valentine and she loved them.

The heart bags I picked up at the Dollar Tree and they were 40 for $1 (I think.) and the Kool-Aid packets were 10 for a $1. Everything else I made and printed out from home.

 

Total: $3.40

I've also included a picture of the Kool-Aid valentine print out if you are interested in that. 

 

 

Grand Total: $20.90

 

Now that is a great deal!

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

xoxo