Easter Ideas For My Husband and Kids

I have been saving and printing Easter ideas for my family, and decided to blog them. I usually wait until I have made them to share, but I figured maybe someone else could use the ideas this year if I post early enough. I will have to put my own pictures up of the finished product when I complete them.

I love this Easter egg bouquet found here:

 http://www.thedatingdivas.com/just-the-two-of-us/love-note-egg-bouquet/?inf_contact_key=b8734b16dbd3cfdd5b8d7ebbeb48e9e8f0331b17ace686d52fd751b6ef7a53e2

It combines candy and Easter eggs - with love notes inside each egg.  She even has printable love notes and banners to help this craft along.  You could even hide the eggs for a scavenger hunt (egg hunt I guess) instead.  But the notes are definitely for husband only!!!  (I am really loving this website!  Signing up for their emails was a good thing for my family and marriage)

I also love this pop bottle dressed as a bunny found here:  http://www.thedatingdivas.com/erika/love-no-bunny-but-you/?inf_contact_key=07b983525b2156bb23a79ea348eefda80938e4ea2b487490b7f6f91918e0c3f1

I am thinking about making one for my husband and kids.  It would be something different than what they usually get, and they all LOVE pop!

This link has a fun printable bag topper to do a bag of cotton candy and then label it bunny cotton tails.
http://www.thedatingdivas.com/food/easter-family-fun/?inf_contact_key=7bf5f819d22bf8f0760ae59df66afc3cd0e59b7e2059fb314386a8b1ad609548

It also has a fun pin the tail on the rabbit game to print out.

I also have Easter treat ideas on my Pinterest, and a cool Easter egg garland to make (out of plastic eggs).

The garland can be found here:  http://eclecticallyvintage.com/2013/02/spring-mantel-and-colorful-diy-egg-garland/  along with other cute decorating ideas.

 

 I thought I had a lot of time until Easter, until I realized that March ends a week from today. So, I decided I better get busy!  :)

Frozen - A Scavenger Hunt

We bought the movie Frozen today.  (For those of you who are hesitant because of some of the controversy out there, I saw it with Leilani, and I thought it was a good - clean - movie.)  I am going to wait and give it to the kids next week for spring break (only Leilani has seen it, and she LOVED it), and I found the cutest scavenger hunt that someone made up to use on a blog called "My Sister's Suitcase."   You can find it here:  http://www.bombshellbling.com/frozen-scavenger-hunt/

I am going to cut out the cards (love free printables!), set them on a scavenger hunt, and they will find the movie at the end.  Hurray!  A fun, easy activity to keep them entertained.  Just thought I would share in case anyone else wanted to use it.

St. Patrick's Day 2014

I had a good time with St. Patrick's day this year.  I have been inspired by Pinterest lately.  I made a cute "pot of gold" appreciation for my husband, cute notes that went in my kids' lunchboxes, cute notes for my primary class, and two decorations for my house.  I also did Elisabeth's hair really cute in "shamrock" style. 

 

 My Husband

 I found this cute and easy printable to use for my husband's gift.  I downloaded it here: http://www.thedatingdivas.com/holidays/st-patricks-day/your-free-march-printable/   Technically you are supposed to sign up for their emails to have access to this printable, but I can forward you the email with the password if you are interested.  Just let me know.

 

 After you cut out the hearts, you are supposed to write something that you love about your spouse on each one.  Then you punch a hole in them and tie them together.  I used a small metal ring that I had around.

 You finish it by filling a container with gold wrapped candy - because the last heart says "you are my pot of gold" - and putting the stack of hearts in it.

 

This is how mine turned out.  I was pretty lazy with the container, but my husband loved it anyway!

My Kids

 I found these printable St Patrick's day notes here: http://blog.chickabug.com/2013/03/free-printable-st-patricks-day-school-lunch-notes.html  She has plain ones to write your own notes with, and printed ones that you have to finish the sentence.

 I used the already printed ones, and then personalized it for each kid.

I attached one of these gold candies from the dollar store, and slipped it in their lunch box as a surprise.  They were pretty happy.  Benjamin and Elisabeth came running to the car excited and thanking me when I picked them up.  The two older girls were more nonchalant about it, but you could tell they liked it.

My Primary Class

 For my primary class, I used these free jar lid printables that I found here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Computer-is-My-Canvas/131615706876321?id=131615706876321&sk=app_208195102528120  ( I think you actually have to "like" her facebook page to access her free printables, but it is totally worth it!  She has lots of cute ones listed, and adds new ones periodically).

I added the words "in primary" at the bottom, and glued one of the gold candies from the dollar store on it.  I actually handed these out in my class on Sunday, since it was the day before, but I don't think the kids cared that it wasn't actually the real day.

My Crafts

 

 I bought some wood frames at Goodwill to paint and frame some of the free printables that I have found online.

 I found these two St. Patrick printables that I really liked.  I found the "kiss me" one here:  http://www.thetomkatstudio.com/photo-styling-ideas-for-hgtv-st-patricks-day-decorating-craft-ideas/  (she has other cute ideas too)  and the St. Patick subway art here:  http://todaysfabulousfinds.blogspot.com/2011/02/st-patricks-day-subway-art-prints.html (she has the same subway art available in several color combos)

 This craft went fairly quickly.  I painted the frames, and popped the artwork in.

Quick and easy!  It doesn't get any better than that.

Elisabeth's Hair

This is how we did Elisabeth's hair.  I didn't take a picture in the morning, I forgot, so this is how it looked at the end of the day.  A few of  the rubber bands had broken, and the hearts falling out a bit, but overall not too bad.

It was supposed to look like this, but I am not a pro obviously.  Elisabeth recently got her hair cut, and it was really hard to do the heart shapes on her short hair.  I needed to wet and gel her hair first, but we didn't leave enough time.  Also, when we put her hair in a ponytail, it didn't leave enough hair for the hearts, so we had to do a half pony tail instead.  Oh well, it will be fantastic next year.  People still seemed to think it was cute.

We have never really celebrated this holiday much, but I think I will from now on.  I already have some cute placemats saved for next year, and several ideas in my Pinterest folder.  It was kind of fun to make the day special for everyone.

Benjamin's Baptism

Benjamin was baptized on Feb 1, 2014.   He had been looking forward to that day for a long time.

 

We made it to the church early so that he and Alan could get jumpsuits and change.  We didn't figure out until the night before that Benjamin didn't have any plain white underwear (they all have characters on them).  We went shopping around town, and the best we could do was white with a light gray waistband, and even those were hard to find.  I guess plain white is not a popular choice right now.

After they were dressed, we had to take the traditional pictures that the girls took when they were baptized.  We like the pictures of Jesus around the church.

I loved how excited Benjamin was about everything.  It was a very special day for him!  He was VERY excited about his new scriptures and his new scripture bag.  He also had on his new tie tack - a sword and shield to remind him of the armor of God with a CTR to help him remember to choose the right. The baptism was different this time for me, because I didn't help anyone change and get dressed after they were baptized.  I just went in to wait with everyone else while everyone got dressed.

Benjamin had both sets of grandparents there, some aunts and uncles, and lots of cousins too.

 (Many of the kids are eating cupcakes and cookies because we had refreshments in the gym afterwards)

 Benjamin was baptized with two little girls in his primary class.  He and Lilly (the one on the left) were born a day apart, and were in the hospital together.

They have grown a lot since then!  :)

Here is Benjamin on Sunday with the family members who were in his confirmation circle.  He was glad that Uncle Chris and Uncle Kelly were there along with his grandpas, but he was not enjoying the pictures in the sun!

 After church I made the kids take some pictures together.  They are all pretty well trained by now, but they still goof around a bit!

As long as I get what I want, they can do what they want.

My dad was able to get a family picture of us after the baptism too.  I am sure that we will all look a lot different by the time Robert is baptized.  It will be fun to compare the two pictures.  It is weird to think that I could have married kids or even grandkids by then...I guess we will see what the future holds!

Benjamin Turns 8

I can't believe that Benjamin turned 8 last month.  It seems like yesterday that he was turning 2.  They tell the truth when they say time goes by fast, so enjoy every minute of your kids' childhood.  I am trying to do that, but it still seems to zoom by.  It wasn't as hard for me as I thought it would be to have Benjamin turn 8.  I think Robert helped with that, because it isn't my baby turning 8 anymore.  I still have a ways to go before I reach that milestone now.  Before it seemed like my kids were almost all grown up.

 The kids had activities on Benjamin's birthday, but when everyone got home, Ben opened his presents.  He was pretty happy and wanted to open them all right then.

 However, we hadn't eaten yet, so we decided to go to Papa's pizza  - even though it was already 8pm.  We get birthday coupons each time it is someone's birthday, and we decided it would be less crowded to  go that night then to wait for the weekend.

 We all enjoyed the pizza treat.  Our tradition is that the birthday person gets to pick the flavor pizza.  Benjamin is a pepperoni only pizza guy, but none of the other kids complained!

 Robert thought the play area was so much fun!  It is great to have lots of siblings to play with you.

 The other kids thought the play area was pretty fun too.

 We celebrated with the rest of the family on Sunday.  Leilani made Benjamin's birthday cake.  She made a basketball (as he requested) with a hoop and backboard.

 He had lots of fun, and received nice gifts (the bullets in the picture were not his gifts, though).

Last year, Grandma Bevans started giving the kids the same amount of money as their age.  She gave them $1 bills last year.  This year, as you can see above, she is giving them gold dollar coins.  (I guess anyone else in the family reading this won't be surprised now - sorry!)

Uncle Jeff gave Benjamin one of his puzzle kits.  Ben is excited to put it together.  We are supposed to have a "friend" birthday party this year, because Benjamin has never had one, but it hasn't happened yet.  If it does, I am sure I will post pictures.  We have thrown some pretty spectacular birthday parties in our time!

Two Little Lovers Sitting in a Tree

I saw this idea on Pinterest, and it really appealed to me.  I decided that I wanted to make it, and since it was a few days until Valentine's Day, it worked out perfectly.  I put it together in just a few hours at craft day, and I think it turned out really cute!

The original idea can be found here:  http://www.thedatingdivas.com/tara/two-little-lovers-decor/   I modified it a little bit.  The tree is cut out of paper that is printed with the lyrics of YOUR special song, whatever that may be.  Ours happens to be "Can You Feel the Love Tonight."  So the first step, if you wanted to make one of these, is to find the lyrics to YOUR special song and type them up.  You can find lyrics to most songs at this website: http://www.azlyrics.com/    Go through the lyrics and put special words or phrases in bold, italics, or different fonts to make them stand out.  Once you are done, copy and paste the lyrics all over the page.  It should look something like this:

(only without the tree yet).  I tried it out with different font sizes, but I found that the smaller font (11 for me) fit the most words of the song on the tree.  I also played around with the margins, so I could get the words and phrases showing on the tree like I wanted them to do.  When I was done with my lyric page, I printed it out on white cardstock. 

 

 The next step is to put the lyric paper into the printer and print out the tree template on top of the lyrics.  The tree template can be downloaded here: http://www.thedatingdivas.com/tara/two-little-lovers-decor/  (which is the same link as above, just scroll down the page a little bit and download the pdf file).  It will look like this:

There won't actually be any words on the template.  I just printed mine out on scratch paper first, so I could hold it over the words and make sure I liked the words that were in the tree outline before I printed them all together on the cardstock.  It will look like the picture with the words and tree above once it is all printed out.  Then you have to cut the tree out.  I just used scissors, but the website recommended an exacto knife.  They also have a print out for the hearts on their website.  It will look like this printed out:

It also has instructions for the craft on this sheet.  After you cut the hearts out, you need to ink around the edge of the tree and hearts.  This helps them to stand out on the white page.  Inking is pretty easy.  A make up wedge and a black ink pad works fine, although I actually have wedged ink pads. 

 

This is how the cut out items looked when I was finished inking them.  You just lightly dab the ink all around the edges. Obviously I did not do a perfect job, but it still looks cute all put together.

The next step is to glue the cutouts to white cardstock, and then attach the larger hearts to the tree with ribbon or twine.  If you use glue dots, it makes the cut outs stand off the page a bit for some dimension.  I actually use both glue dots and a glue stick.  I used red ribbon, to loop around the branch and glue under the hearts.  The website used a red/white twine. The twine looked cute, but I didn't want to go shopping - I just wanted to use what I had on hand.  I like how it looked with the ribbon too.  Once it was all glued together, I put it into my frame.  I did have to trim the cardstock a little bit to get it to fit.

 The smaller hearts are actually glued on the outside of the glass.  This makes it pop out a bit.  I wrote our names on the hearts with a sharpie pen, and then used glue dots to attach the hearts onto the glass over the larger hearts.

The website has another download to print out a tag to  go with the framed picture.  I printed them out, but they were way too big for my liking.  If I had taken time, I probably could have shrunk one of the tags down to the size I needed, but it was easier to just re-type the words myself.

Instead of a tag, I just glued the words in the lower corner of the frame.  That way it didn't detract from the tree and hearts, but it still gave my work of art a title :)

I really liked how it turned out, and I will be putting it in our room.  To my husband's credit, he actually did notice that the tree was made out of the words to OUR song without any prompting on my part.  My ten year old daughter noticed that too, which impressed me, because I didn't know my kids knew what OUR song was.  I guess I know that my parents' special song is "More."  So maybe I shouldn't be so surprised that my kids know mine.