New Spring Crafts!

T-minus two days 'til Easter!  And I just (as in about an hour ago I was glueing on the the final feathers) finished up a couple of fun Easter/Spring crafty projects - ha! 
I had big plans for having a craft day with friends on this one, but it just wasn't coming together with my schedule/time.  I did, however, manage to coordinate some crafty time with one friend over a couple of days this week (this kind of thing ALWAYS takes longer than expected - especially when it requires use of a jigsaw, which I don't think I've used since middle school shop class!) and I'm happy about that.

We ended up with a trio 2x4 Easter animals (original inspiration for these cuties found here)

 (the rabbit is my favorite!)

and a pair of fun flowers in pots.  (original inspiration found here) You can't see the detail very well in this shot (I know, I know - I rushed the photos, but if I hadn't I probably wouldn't have managed to blog about them at all) but we cut the flowers out of bead board with the jigsaw - all by ourselves! :P - and the centers are fabric rosettes.  Now I just need to figure out where to display them...
(it won't be that hard - I haven't taken the time to set out any of my spring décor yet *sigh*)

Ready for Easter?

We're getting all prepped for Easter here!  Well, mostly prepped.  I'm not sure if any of my spring decorations are going to make it out of their boxes this year.  But all of the "important" stuff has had some attention.

We spent a good chunk of time working on Tyler's hat for the kindergarten Easter hat parade.  He wanted a fire hat and I have to say, I think the end result is pretty creative :)  We used one of his plastic fireman hats from the dress up box.  Used cereal boxes to create a hat band with "burning buildings."  The fire is obviously tissue paper, with some of it pulled through a few of the "windows."  And Tyler insisted he needed a road (electrical tape with the lines drawn on with chalk) and some cars.

I'm a little sad as I post these because the hat parade is this afternoon and my little guy won't be going.  He started throwing up around 8:30 last night and it continued every 20-30 minutes until Sam took him to the ER at 2AM.  I'm told they were quick to give him anti-nausea meds and he was eating a popsicle and flirting with nurses by the time he headed home.  He's ok, but obviously we are all exhausted and he is spending the day at home on the couch.  He was upset about missing the parade but I told him I'm sure the teacher will let him show his hat to his class when he goes back to school.

 

Anyway - I was talking about Easter prep :)  The kids really enjoy the lunchbox jokes so I printed out a set of Easter ones and a set for Spring (I used the ones here).  I also plan on putting their entire lunches inside plastic eggs on Friday - doesn't that sound fun?  Cut the sandwich in pieces so it fits in a couple of eggs and stuff others with grapes, pretzels/goldfish, etc.

 

My husband has mentioned more than once in the last few weeks "you aren't going to go overboard for Easter like you do every year, right?"  Haha.  Isn't that my thing?  Well I completely had to laugh the other day - he had the day off on Wed and did a quick lunch date then decided to finish getting Easter stuff with a quick trip to Target.  And wouldn't you know it, there was my husband saying things like "oh I think we should get them a new bat and wiffle balls" or "we need some more Robin Eggs."  So I hold him fully responsible for aiding and abetting my with the Overboard-ness this year :)  Want to hear what we got them?  Kaitlyn was trying to talk her grandma into mailing her the roller skates they use there (our old skates from when I was a kid).  I told Gma to hold off and ordered the kids each a pair, along with knee/elbow/wrist pads.  For the baskets we also got them each a pair of flip flops/sandals, a giant bubble wand (I'm still amazed by how much fun the kids have with bubbles), and a smaller toy.  We tend to use Easter as a way to stock up on things we think the kids will need for the summer.  And I have these great sets of giant eggs that I like to use for larger items.  So in one I have the wiffle balls, in another a child-size football.  Swimming goggles, sand toys, and jump ropes round out the fun collection this year.  We also have mini juice boxes and a variety of candy for the small eggs this year.  Oh - and did I mention we have been trying to stock up on dog toys for the puppy and Target had some great ones so she will be getting a small basket too?  :D

 

I took the time to stuff everything in eggs and set up the baskets earlier this week.  So now it's on to finishing up plans for Spring Break which starts with a half-day on Friday...

March

 

(I had to make it great big so you could read it)

This is my horoscope from this month's Family Fun magazine (I think?).  Once in a while they really hit the nail on the head, and this is one of them - so I saved it :)  Except so far I have neglected to make health and fitness a priority - much as I keep telling myself I need to!  Instead of working out first thing as I often promise myself I will do, my To Dos have been so big lately I jump right into the ones with the biggest priority each day and skip the workout completely.  Bad habit.  Gonna change it this week (truly - someone hold me to that!)  But the high levels of work and the stress - yup that's my month.  I'm trying not to complain because really it means I have a very full life and a successful business (which I still insist on thinking of as a hobby lol) but I do wish I could figure out how to slow things down just a little bit.

 

This month included the end of the Girl Scout cookie sales for the year (phew!), a new personal high for drying racks finished and sent out in one week, and on St Patrick's Day...

a new puppy!  We've been promising Miss Kate for years that we would get a puppy when she was 10 years old.  Since she turned 9 in October it has hit us that 10 quickly approaching so we seriously started talking about the prospect a few months ago and decided Spring might be a better option for a new puppy than fall, what with the prospect of puppy potty training and all.  And once we finally started looking into actual options online it went pretty quickly.  Very quickly actually.  As in telling the kids we were thinking about it, to having a brand new puppy by 1:00 that afternoon :)  Eeek!  I'm still asking myself if we truly knew what we were getting into.  A new puppy is almost as labor intensive as a newborn, including waking up many many times in the middle of the night and constant monitoring.  And just when I was starting to feel the freedom of having both kids in school *sigh*  But she's here to stay, hard or not - because truly how could you not be glad to see faces like this on your kids every day?

Oh and in case you were wondering.  She's 7 weeks old (well I guess almost 8 weeks now).  A golden retriever.  And her name is Bambi.