An Easter Celebration

I love Easter, I feel like it marks the true beginning of Spring. Unfortunately in the Midwest the weather does not always agree. This year, however the weather was very cooperative, and we were able to enjoy the usual Easter traditions plus a few of our own.

Cousins inspecting their treasures after an Easter Egg hunt.

A huge dinner-I host Easter each year and last year I decided I wanted to try a Mexican menu. It has become one of our new traditions. My husband fixes meat and toppings for burritos and tacos. The rest of the family brings their favorite Mexican dish to share. Very Yummy!!

Maria and Louisa wearing dresses inspired by the food.

Chloe taking a swing at the Pinata.


Maria enjoying the hunt.

Marcus and Lucas- I love seeing my children play with their cousins at the holidays. It brings back memories of my childhood. We always had big family dinners with all of us cousins looking forward to spending the day playing together. Lucas enjoying the day.

Maria showing off her dress.


Maria and Great-Grandma. Aren't they both adorable?

Me and my cousin Laura.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter full of old and new traditions.

Happy Celebrating

Rhiannon

Easter

We spent this Easter weekend trying to make up for missing our family by doing a little crafting and playing. Now that Aiden is starting to pay more attention to holidays, birthdays and traditions in general, I thought it would be fun to introduce him to a few of the things I remember about Easter. Yesterday, we decorated eggs and had a mini hunt around the house.

I also spent the last week or so making some little gifts to put into a basket for him. I started with cereal box notebooks:


I followed this easy tutorial from The Long Thread.

Then, I found Joel's super cool post about fishing and immediately started on that project. Mine turned out pretty cool too, if I do say so myself:
Saturday night Aiden helped me with my first Freezer Paper stencil project.


A Peep T-shirt, inspired by all the awesomeness in Dana's flickr pool.

When Aiden found his basket this morning, though, do you think he wanted to wear his new shirt? Did he want to start fishing? Do you think he started drawing in his homemade notebooks? NOPE! He played with cars. All. Day. Long.


My friend's sweet, sweet son scrounged through his toys and decided to give all the cars and car paraphernalia he doesn't play with anymore to Aiden. I passed them off as gifts from the Easter Bunny, which may have been a big mistake. We'll see next year if he expects as much. :)

Hopefully next year we can spend the weekend with family, enjoying more traditions and each other. Happy Easter all.

~Megan

Some Bling in your Basket

 Here is a quick and easy project, that will add sparkle to any little girl's basket.

 I picked up these white (rather boring) shoes at my local Walmart. Grabbed some Mrs.Glue for glitter and more and of course the final ingredient, Glitter.

I applied a generous amount of glue to the shoe.

I found myself a helpful 3 year old and let her sprinkle her little heart out. Once the glue is completely covered, shake off any excess. I did a couple of layers of glitter, letting the glue dry in between and brushing off any loose glitter before starting the next layer.

Of course we couldn't wait for Easter!!

Here are some projects that I am hoping will make it into our Easter baskets.

For Marcus-slotted building blocks found here.

For Maria-sock bunny found here.

Happy Glittering!(is that a word?)

Rhiannon

Why I Sew

I sew to avoid doing the other things I should be doing. (I'm looking at you, laundry mountain.)


I sew because it is fun.

I sew to stop thinking.

I sew to make stuff, like elastic waist pants for a newly potty trained tot.


I sew to feel a sense of accomplishment.

I sew to try something new and get out of my comfort zone.

I sew to do the same thing over again because it worked.


I sew because it's cheaper than therapy.

I sew because I can follow directions pretty well.

I sew because it makes my son proud of me.


I sew because I love it!

Why do you sew, or craft, or do the thing you do?

~Megan

A little Getaway

This week is Spring Break for my oldest. Unlike last year, we did not make any big plans. (I would have loved to visit Megan again) I had decided to take a couple of days off work and spend them at home with the kids. However my other cousin Megan (yes I have 2 of them) offered to take us to Grand Bear Lodge, a hotel/lodge with an indoor water park. So although I did not spend a week in Georgia with Megan #1, I did spend 2 days in Utica with Megan #2.

Gotta take a picture with the bear.

My kiddos loved swimming and I loved not having to apply sunscreen.

Marcus -being Marcus.
Maria got a push pop,

some vampire teeth,
a sucker,
and a gumball!!
Happy Spring Break

Rhiannon

I hope to post my easter ideas soon.

Our Weekend

This was a gorgeous weekend in Georgia with temps in the mid 70s and lots of sunshine. This is not to rub it in to my family and friends in the Midwest since I hear they got fresh snow recently. I'm just saying we are pretty lucky here and Spring will come for you, too!

We tried to take advantage of the lovely weather by going to the park and playing outside as much as possible. And by doing very little housework.

Part of our weekend tradition is to have an extra special something for Sunday morning breakfast. I love having a long and lazy morning eating something fattening while I drink coffee and Aiden and I read the newspaper together. This morning I made these delicious Cinnamon Roll Muffins.


The recipe is from Joy the Baker's blog, one of my favorite foodie sites. She has tons of recipes here, beautiful photos and she's very funny. Check it out but make sure you have some time because you may be there for a bit.


I also spent a little time this weekend thinking about Easter gifts. We'll decorate eggs and hopefully make some springtime decorations for the house and I'd like to craft a few things to put in Aiden's basket. Sure he'll get a chocolate bunny and maybe a Peep or two but I'd like to surprise him that morning with something else besides candy. Here is a short list of things I'd like to make for my little guy:

1. Drawing notebooks made from cereal boxes using this tutorial.
2. A car caddy like this one.
3. A fishing pole. (This guy's blog is amazing!)

Have you been thinking about Easter, too? What kinds of things will your kiddos get in their baskets?


Hope you all had a nice and easy weekend!
~Megan

Furlough Friday

Furlough. That's a word I just learned last fall thanks to my being employed by the State of Georgia. Sadly, I'm afraid many people are learning this word or becoming too familiar with salary cuts or lay offs or unemployment. I'm thanking my stars that I still have a job, and though it really upset me at first, now I look forward to having a day off. Today the house finally got some attention, errands were tended to and I had time free for a bit of selfish sewing.


The other day Rhi mentioned she was thinking about her summer "uniform" of simple skirts and tees or tanks. Of course I thought she was brilliant and I decided to scrounge around to find a pattern or tutorial somewhere for an easy skirt. I found one at Sew, Mama, Sew! that they posted last spring. This tutorial is for an elastic waist skirt with a ruffle on bottom. I'm not much of a ruffle girl so I omitted that part and just did a (lazy) rolled hem on the serger.


This fabric is from Amy Butler's Midwest Modern collection and is one of my favorite fabric designs. I've had these in my stash for about 2 years, too scared to cut into them because they're so beautiful. This seemed like the perfect project to use these fabrics on and a great way to spend my day off.


So, what will be part of your summer uniform?

~Megan