Bladen's Dinosaur Blankie

This poor blanket has been 2 months in the making. I bought this fabric over a month before Craiger was even born with Bladen in mind. Bladen doesn't have a blanket to call his "own" like the girls do so I wanted to make one for him. I found some DINOSAUR fabric online & ordered it. When it arrived, there were about 10 holes in it where the employee had accidentally sliced through 2 layers of it with a pair of scissors. I was FURIOUS! But what can you do? Sometimes it's more of a hassle to send it back. It was cheap fabric so I wasn't going to go through the trouble.

FINALLY I patched up the holes with an invisible stitch & some invisible thread & they actually look great. You can't even see where the holes were.

My friend kept telling me all this stuff you had to do before you put silk binding onto this type of fabric, but I'm totally lazy so I just started sewing.

Bad Idea!

It was a mess! It was crooked & bunched up all over the place. It looked awful. Usually when I mess up, I just leave it because it's not too horrible, but this was BAD! No, this was TERRIBLE! So I picked out EVERY SINGLE STITCH & started from scratch. This time I did it the right way:

First, I pinned it like crazy. I used every pin I own. Then I tacked it down by hand (hand sewing) to doubly keep it in place. Then I zig zag stitched it at my sewing machine's SLOWEST setting. And that did the trick. It was perfect!

Hooray for finished projects! It looks adorable & Bladen loves it. He carries it around with him everywhere now. I'm glad he likes it!

Coloring Easter Eggs

Coloring Eggs

is always a favorite at Easter time. It's a lot of fun to dip the white eggs into a mug of food coloring & voila! You get gorgeous pastel colored eggs for hiding!

The kids are pros at this now. This is the first year we used just basic food coloring, boiling water, & vinegar. I think I liked our colors better than ANY egg kit we've ever used. The mint green & dusty rose colors were BEAUTIFUL!

We did get a

TIE DYE

egg kit from Walmart too. Six of our twenty-four eggs were tie dyed. We simply put droplets of dye straight onto the egg surface & then swished it around with a plastic bag. When the colors mixed it made even more colors. I think our favorite was when we used the primary colors: red, yellow, & blue. There were oranges, purples, & greens when it was finished.

Lorien was the only one that stuck around to do all 24 eggs. Cadence & Taya got bored after about 15. ha ha ha. Lorien is so sweet. She finished them off all by herself.

And so we had a full two dozen eggs for the Easter Bunny to hide for us. They were beautiful!

Great job girlies!

Egg Hunt

On Saturday our family was invited to a BBQ & Egg Hunt at a friend's house. I love Easter Egg Hunts so I couldn't wait to get out there & get the kids searching! We all had to bring a side dish to share so I made a strawberry banana trifle.

I've never made a trifle before so it was fun experimenting. It had strawberry angel food cake, strawberries, bananas, whipped cream, & chocolate pudding. It turned out pretty & tasted pretty good too.

We started out with a nice game of

Red Rover

with the kids. I was surprised how many of them had never played before. They loved it!!

And then the hunt began. There were over 500 eggs hidden all around the park & the field behind the park. Bladen didn't quite understand what he was supposed to do.

Luckily the girls are egg hunting pros!

Taya found 4 eggs & then fell in the field. She started bawling & declared herself DONE with the hunt. Silly girl.

Once the eggs were found it was time to look at the LOOT!

Cadence & Lorien were sweet enough to share their surplus off eggs with Bladen & Taya. Taya found her 4 & Bladen found 3.

(The older girls had about 25 each)

After the hunt we had a wonderful BBQ. Mmmm. There's nothing like hot dogs, frog eye salad, & homemade potato salad to brighten my day. It was FABULOUS!

After lunch we all just hung out & enjoyed each other's company. The kids enjoyed their time with one another & the adults enjoyed their adult time.

Poor Taya couldn't find anyone to play with so she entertained herself with her new friend:

"Mrs. Easter Basket."

She even rode on the teeter totter with Mrs. Easter Basket as well.

All the kids were on a major

SUGAR HIGH!

Bladen was crying for chocolate NOT jelly beans! Craiger was fussing to eat. Taya was playing with her basket like it was a person. . .

Cadence held her basket at all times so nobody would steal her candy.

And poor Bladen was just worn out beyond words. He literally just swung in a swing until his little eyelids couldn't take it anymore.

You know it's time to go home when your little guy falls asleep in a swing!

Lorien's Kindergarten "Egg"stravaganza

Lorien has truly been blessed with an outstanding Kindergarten teacher this year. Ms. Fairman is SO involved with the kids & makes learning SO MUCH FUN for them. She does a class party almost every month for them & asks the parents to be completely involved with the parties. I signed up to do the Easter "Egg"stravaganza party back at the beginning of the year so it was time to plan! We had a blast. A few mom's got together & stuffed 300 eggs with toys, money, stickers, candy, & other fun knick knacks for the kids & then hid them all over the playground. Each kid got to find 10 eggs. They were having a blast!

I also love how Ms. Fairman allows siblings to be a part of all the class parties. Bladen & Taya LOVE going to Lorien's school to play with all the kids. It's great for all of them.

I've grown VERY attached to this class over the span of the school year. This was my first year teaching music on my own to an entire class of 30 kids. It was scary at first, but I quickly got the hang of it & now that the year is almost over, I'm crying at the thought of being done. It's been a great year. I love my little class of music lovers!

Since I volunteered to do this party, I bought an Easter craft way back in January so I'd be prepared when April rolled around. I bought some cute little Easter magnets that the kids could color. . . very simple, yet fun. The kids loved them.

Vincent was so sweet. Bladen was following him around the entire day. Vincent even gave up his seat so Bladen could sit & enjoy what was happening. What a good kid.

Lorien's friend, Tyler, was sweet enough to give Taya a special little Easter egg surprise. She was SO happy!

And Bladen spent most of the party stealing red vines out of the giant tub. I think he ate about 10 of them by the time we were done. Silly boy!

The party was a huge success. I had a blast & the kids did too!