Can somebody please tell me that I'm not the only one who seems to dye eggs at 9 o'clock the night before Easter? K texted me early in the morning to say she felt like a terrible mom -- like we should have something planned for the day to celebrate I laughed and told her that Josh was working at the baseball field, my girls were spending the day with Nana and I was spring cleaning. Not exactly festive, right?! What I thought would be a half-day of cleaning house and folding laundry, turned into ten hours of scrubbing floors and moving furniture. Josh was home by lunch and we ate BBQ at the tiny table in the playroom. He helped me finish up the housework and I was finally on my way to the grocery store by 4 o'clock, praying there were still white eggs to be found. We had plans to dye ...
easter
Easter + Labor Day
This is a sponsored post. I hosted a Labor Day viewing party with my friends and family in exchange for a free copy of the movie on Digital HD. I am in no way affiliated with Paramount or its partners and all opinions expressed are my own. Labor Day is available for digital release on Paramount's website. Have I mentioned lately how unbelievably amazing my extended family is? I love Easter for so many reasons, but being able to spend the day with this bunch certainly ranks near the top. We had a superb pot-luck lunch and spent the afternoon outside enjoying the gorgeous weather. My mom says she remembers playing a family game of softball after Easter lunch when she was a little girl. She told me earlier in the week that everyone participated -- young and old -- and that they played in the ...
The Mommy Wars
I am long overdue for posting pictures of our Easter. But, as I was uploading the photographs earlier this week, all I could think about was how our Easter baskets would be perceived by perfect strangers. Did we do enough? Did we do too much? How sad that those are the thoughts that ran through my head. I've been thinking a lot lately about the wars we wage on each other. In fact, I almost blogged about it several months ago, but convinced myself not to rock the boat. Sometimes when I'm laying in bed at night scrolling through social media sites, I have to shake my head when I see what we say about each other. Why are we, as mommies, so mean? I'm not pointing the finger, I'm guilty of it myself. We are constantly comparing ourselves and when we feel like we don't measure up, we turn on ...
Easter
Although Easter was really late in the season this year, it seemed to sneak up on me. I had been thinking about the girls' baskets for weeks and all of a sudden I had a mere days to finish them up! Luckily, I had been taking good notes and Ella had been making many requests over the previous weeks. I am not a huge fan of candy for the kiddos, although they do get sweet treats. Instead of loading up on sugar, I usually shop for things that I would be buying them anyway. This year, Ella got a beach towel and bathing suit, silver sandals for spring/summer, a cute quilted purse that she spotted several weeks ago at a local shop {thanks, Sue}, some alphabet flashcards and the movie Tangled. There was also some candy, bubbles, kaleidoscope and hopping chick. Sophie got a beach towel, bathing ...
Dye Time
What's Easter without eggs? At first I felt a little guilty when my mom volunteered to help the girls with their eggs on Good Friday while I was working. Then I reminded myself how much I hate dying eggs and forgave myself for missing out on Sophie's first experience. I'll do it next year when she can follow directions! I remember dressing the girls really cute that day, knowing there would be pictures. When I got home and saw that Garan made Ella wear a t-shirt as a smock I cracked up. Oh well. Apparently, I bought the cheapest dye known to man because there were only three heinous colors and even uglier stickers. They are lucky I didn't see this before the dye process. I might have bought something else and postponed this little shindig! Then I reminded myself that this was ...
Somebunny
Somebunny wants to wish you a very Happy Easter ...
Easter Picnic
After church, we headed to Garan's for a picnic with the family and of course, family pictures. I'll be sure to share those that K took, but we snapped this quick one in the meantime. After the photo session, we all changed clothes for vegging out in the sunshine, hunting eggs and stuffing face. How cute is this little one in the sweet dress the Bunny brought? She convinced Jared to hunt eggs while she was waiting on the other kids. Her idea of "hiding" the eggs is to throw them in various locations around the yard. Luckily, he was very agreeable. Thank you, Jared! This much be Molly's serious face... she, Stanley, Jay and Ella were gearing up to hunt eggs. Just like on Saturday, she was pretty proud of the 32 eggs she found. Unfortunately they all came home with ...
Bunny Business
On Easter Sunday, I decided to get up early to make sure we had plenty of time to enjoy each other and still get out the door on time for church. I was up by 5:30 "making sure the Bunny hid the eggs" and moving the girls Easter Baskets from the kitchen counter. I'm sure the Bunny put them there to keep little gray paws out of the chocolate! I baked apples-in-a-blanket for breakfast, ironed our Easter clothes and had a cup of coffee before I was greeted by my little princess. A little person screamed at me and as soon as I opened the door she was off to see what the Bunny brought. I did manage to convince her to wake daddy first, but as you can tell from the pictures, he wasn't quite ready to be up. From mommy and daddy, Ella got a new Bitty Baby ballerina outfit that she's been ...