Easter 2016

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter this year! We were able to have our Easter fun spaced out over a couple of days to prolong the celebrating. ;)

We colored eggs on Saturday. I was actually really nervous about dyeing eggs with Nathan this year - mostly because we have carpet in our dining area. Since we're renting, I'm slightly terrified of doing anything to ruin the carpet. But we kept it simple and it went really well, and I think Nathan enjoyed it too.

The whisk trick is probably the most brilliant idea for toddlers and egg dyeing! It totally allowed him to do it all by himself!

Since Nathan's first Easter we've been getting him a new church book to take to church, so Sunday morning the boys got new church books and the matching ties and hats (well, Nathan got a new hat, Spencer's was already made, I just needed to make Nathan one to match) that I made. They'll probably get candy next weekend, now that everything is on clearance :) And it was so nice to have John home with us - he had canceled all his extra meetings for that morning, yay!

Spencer was so excited to taste his :)

Once we got everyone ready for church, I tried to get a cute picture of the boys in their matching outfits. Even after bribing Nathan with M&M's to wear his hat and sit still for the picture, these were the best I could get ;)

"Alright, let's get outta here"

Even though none of them turned out the way I wanted - I still kind of love them. They perfectly sum up my life right now with these little mischief makers. 

Church was crazy as usual - though it was soooo nice to have my Dad to sit with us and help with the boys. Spencer spit up all over his white shirt (and my Dad's suit...sorry Dad...) before church even started (so he spent most of church in the spare outfit I had in the diaper bag, which happened to be pajamas), Nathan decided he needed to pee right in the middle of the Sacrament so we're running out of the chapel in the middle of everything to get to the bathroom and Spencer had a stinky diaper that I changed in record-breaking time to be back in the chapel by the time I needed to go up for choir. And that was just the first hour. Whew! :) 

We got to facetime with family and we had our traditional waffle dinner and it was a pretty good day!

For Monday's FHE I had such grand plans to do that resurrection egg lesson where you tell the Easter story with items in 12 plastic Easter eggs, but I never got around to putting it together because Spencer decided to sleep only 30 minutes for his afternoon nap - so it didn't happen. We still managed to talk about Jesus and the Easter story, but I'm not really sure how much got through to Nathan...

We pulled out our gospel art book and showed him this picture of Christ in Gethsemane:

Me: "Nathan, who is this?"

Nathan: "Jesus!"

"That's right!, What is Jesus doing in this picture?"

"He's looking at trees!"

"Um, yes, there is a tree in this picture. But what is He doing with his hands?"

*Nathan clasps his hands together*

Me: "Is Jesus praying?"

Nathan: "Yes! But he forgot to close his eyes for the prayer!"

*He clasps his hands again and closes his eyes*

I proceed to give the 10 second version of the story of the atonement, crucifixion, and resurrection, all while Nathan is trying to drive his cars into Spencer's head. We finish up with a prayer, that ended up with us all laughing because while John is trying to say the prayer, Spencer is trying to crawl on me and whack me with a wooden spoon, and Nathan is laying on top of me (I'm on my stomach) and grabbing me around the shoulders and trying to pull me over. We end up in a giggling heap by the time we get to "amen". 

Ah well. We tried. Happy Easter! ;)

Cherry Blossoms or Bust (Take 2)

We seem to have bad luck with the cherry blossoms. Which would be why it has taken us almost 4 years before we have been able to see a cherry blossom tree in bloom in DC. We tried to see them in 2013 before Nathan was born, but we had a surprise late frost, so we missed the peak of the blooms on the only day we were able to go. We went anyway, but there were no blossoms. We haven't made it in the last couple of years due to timing and John being unable to take a weekday off because everyone always tells us it's extremely crowded on the weekends. 

So we planned carefully. (I was a little nervous about taking 2 little people to DC for the day) We found out when the blossoms were supposed to be in bloom and now that John has a few extra days off a year, he was able to take a weekday off for us to go to DC together and hopefully miss the large crowds. My mom even found us a fun Groupon to take a a little cruise around the harbor and see the blossoms from the boat.  We packed our lunches, figured out where we would park, etc. 

We got to DC in good time, but as we got over to where we had hoped to park, the trouble began. There was no parking! At all! This seems to be a recurring problem for us. And even though it was a Thursday, it must have been someone's Spring Break because the city was sooooo much busier than I had expected! We ended up driving around for an hour trying to find a place to park. I was getting really stressed, mostly because while Nathan has been doing wonderfully with his potty training, we had been in the car for almost 2 hours with no potty break! We finally found a place to park (on a positive note, it was free!) and a potty, but it was about a mile and a half from where we needed to be for our scheduled harbor cruise and by the time we'd snarfed down our lunches and gotten the boys in the stroller and started bookin' it to the marina, we only had about 30 minutes to get there. We just weren't going to make it. We certainly power-walked for a good 20 minutes before deciding to cut our losses. But we had parked along the water and there were several cherry blossom trees over there, so we were, in fact, able to see the cherry blossoms in bloom! 

So while the day did not go at all as planned, we managed to make the best of it. Nathan loved seeing the water and the boats and airplanes that were all over the place. The weather was gorgeous and it was so nice to just be together as a family for the day. 

I'd like to say it got better, but by the time we got back to the car and on the freeway to get home, it was rush hour! So it took us 2 1/2 hours to get home. :( The boys did amazing though, they were troopers the whole day and during all those long hours in the car. And we can say that we actually saw cherry blossoms this year. So maybe we'll try again in another couple of years...and take the metro instead of trying to park the car ;)

A Birthday Project - Felt Playmat

Whew! My big birthday project for Nathan this year is finally finished!

I had actually wanted to make this for him for Christmas last year, but I think he'll enjoy it even more now that he's a little older. I bought the pattern on Etsy HERE.

I think it turned out so fun!

It's really big - almost 2 yards long!

I think the cones are my favorite :)

We've got a boat...

An airplane...

And a helicopter! I love how detailed this one is.

The pattern included several buildings. The hospital has a helicopter pad at the top.

A couple of gas pumps. You can pull out the nozzles and fill up with gas. :)

The car wash is my favorite building!

You can see the little scrubbers inside here :)

The fire station.

The police station.

A towing and repair shop.

A nifty bridge goes over the pond.

And there's a hangar for the airplane.

All the buildings conveniently fold up flat for storage.

I think he's going to love it! I'm so excited to give it to him in May :)

And MORE felt fun!

I've had these projects finished and pictures taken for a couple of weeks now, but I just hadn't gotten around to posting them yet. So I'm finally here with my next installment of felt toys.

**And please forgive me my poor photography/lighting. The best time to take pictures is during naptime and I have yet to find a spot in the apartment with good lighting...**

First up: The Blue Plate Special!

This one was sooooo fun to make! It was huge, but I love the finished project! I had already made the tomato soup and the milkshake, but there was plenty to do to finish off the whole pattern.

Apart from a burger and fries, we have grilled cheese to go with the tomato soup, spaghetti with meatballs, garlic bread, meatloaf, and mashed potatoes

The hamburger is one of those ones that if you can get the whole thing in your mouth, you get your picture on the wall or something, and we can't forget the fries! ;)

The banana split is definitely my favorite from this group.

Order up!

Ever since I found this pattern, I have been so excited to make these. I got to go back to my pastry school roots and make French Macarons!

Don't they look just like the real thing?! Although they don't quite make the 1/3 cookie, 1/3 filling, 1/3 cookie ratio (little skimpy on the filling, yes?), I absolutely love them and I love the colors I ended up using.

Yum!



Last for this post is a very cute little picnic lunch set. It was pretty intense putting the picnic basket together, but I love how it turned out! It even has a matching picnic blanket to go with it!

The juice box is actually my own design, but I thought it went perfectly with our picnic lunch!

All packed up and ready to go!

Can't forget cookies for dessert!

I'm switching gears a little with my next big felt project. I found an adorable pattern for a car playmat that I am working on for Nathan's birthday. Can't wait to show you!