Happy Easter!

Easter was filled with highs (sweet times together!) and lows (a stomach bug!!), but overall it was a great time to celebrate with family.

Leo and I dressed up in Bible times clothing and participated in a Passover Seder meal with the whole kindergarten.  My sweet assistant loaned him a costume and he woke up at 6:15am because he was so excited for the day.

I surprised the kids with Parlor donuts on Good Friday!  We loved having the day off together.

Family time!

The big kids and I ran some errands.

We dyed eggs.  No one needed help this year.

The weather was all over the place.  Welcome to Spring in the Midwest!  We were thankful to have such a beautiful sunset on Easter Eve.

I made carrot cake.  Yum!

I put together Easter baskets for the kids.  I love collecting things they will love!  I always try to do a mix of practical (new pjs, new outdoor games, art sets, hair stuff, etc) and fun (Needohs, rubix cubes, cross necklaces, fun socks and their favorite candy).  The baskets were a hit.  I also try very hard to stick to the rule that their gifts must fit in their basket.  If it doesn't fit, I'll save a gift to give them later.

A jellycat bunny, Needoh, headbands, pickleball set and more for Olive.

Bath bombs with a surprise inside, burger rubix cube, Needoh, Marble drink and Peelerz for Fletcher.

New books, mini cars, finger puppets, favorite candy, bath bombs and fresh colored pencils for Leo.

I hope you had a really nice Easter weekend with the people you love!

Easter Basket Wreath

My Easter basket wreath needed a little refresh this year.  I love the basket wreath, but the flowers were looking a little sad after several Spring seasons.  I opted to refresh the wreath for about $5 instead of spending $50 on a new one.

The Dollar Tree has a lot of pretty silk flowers for Spring.  Some are cheap looking so you have to do some digging to find the best ones.  I found some picks that had greenery, flowers and speckled Easter eggs for just $1.25.  I grabbed four of them and headed home to refresh my wreath.

Before:  Cute bute a litle sad after using it for more like five Springs now that I think about it.

After: More flowers, Easter eggs and more greenery.

I'm really happy with the wreath refresh!  I saved money and my wreath looks nice and festive.

Easter Weekend

We had a really sweet Easter weekend!  We did all of our favorite traditions and the weather was so nice.  That doesn't always happen in the Midwest for Easter.  I think that it helped that Easter was so late this year.

We celebrate Easter at school with our classes.  My kindergarteners participated in a Passover meal and the boys learned all about Jesus's death and resurrection.  Leo even drew it all out for us.  As always, we edited our traditions to work for us this year - no photos with the Easter Bunny, Olive passed on most Easter egg hunts and opted to help Leo instead and Saturday night church for Easter.

Olive wanted to do a photo shoot for Mr. Mitten's first Easter.  He LOVED it and now thinks all Easter baskets are for him to sit in.

We dyed eggs.  I decided to use Solo cups for our egg dye.  That was a game changer!  No more dyeing our cups funny colors.  Just dye eggs and toss the cups.

Give me all the deviled eggs and egg salads.

The tomb.  Stone rolled away.  Jesus is alive.  He also drew out the scene of Jesus riding into town on a donkey and the crowd shouting Hosannah as well as Jesus dying on the cross.  He's learning so much!

Easter best.  Give me all the matching polos and pastels for Easter.

My goal for our Easter baskets every year is to do a mix of practical (new water bottles, Spring pajamas, new shirt and new Bibles) + fun (Squishmallows, knife, fairy garden houses and games).  And everything must fit inside the basket!  The kids loved their baskets so much.

I love this crazy crew.

Full disclosure.  Olive and I decorated our mantle for Easter on Saturday.  I'll leave it up this week and take it down.  There just wasn't time to do it sooner.

Mr. Mittens really had the best first Easter ever.

We made Resurrection Rolls for Easter breakfast.

We did an Easter egg hunt in our backyard.  Spring is in full swing!

Olive helped me bake the cutest sugar cookies!

Classic Leo.

He survived on Reese's eggs and sugar cookies all weekend.  Throw in maybe a roll or two.

My MIL put together an Easter feast with every food you could possibly want.  And a bunny cake.

Olive didn't want to hunt and Leo was happy to have the help.

Fletcher's "He is Rizzin" shirt was a big hit all week.  9 year old boys are so fun!

Kevin and his brother loved hiding the eggs in hard spots for the kids.

Nanny picked out the yummiest candies.

Then my parents did an egg hunt just for Leo since he's the littlest.  He loved it.  He found the eggs quickly and his day was made when he found cars in his eggs.  All the kids got Easter treat bags from Mimi and Papaw.

The cousin crew is growing up!

I hope you had a great Easter weekend!  And if it didn't turn out so great, I'm wishing you a wonderful week ahead.  We've had those years so I'm extra thankful when we have a sweet holiday weekend.

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday, Friends!  I hope this week has been a good one for you!  It feels like Spring in the Midwest and we are enjoying the sunshine and warm temps.

Did you catch my blog posts this week?

Rainbow Charcuterie Dinner Board - this would be so fun for St. Patrick's Day!

2 Tips to Make Your Salads Extra Delicious - they are easy!

15 Easter Amazon Favorites for Toddlers to Tweens - art supplies, Squishmallows, egg crayons, moon shoes and more.  Let me help you build your Easter baskets!

Now onto my favorite moments of the week:

1. Look at these Easter cuties!!  My kids love Squishmallows and I can't wait to give them their baskets.  I think they're going to be excited about their color changing markers, new rolls of art paper, kites and books.  I linked everything in my Amazon post this Wednesday.

2. Dreamy lamp!  I've been on the hunt for probably 2 years for a statement lamp for my kitchen.  I finally found one.  This dreamy Ralph Lauren lamp was splurge and I smile every time I walk into my kitchen and see it.  It was totally worth the wait.  More on this later!

3. Happy Spring.  I picked up these darling bunny towels for my kid's teachers this week at HomeGoods.  It's a two pack.  The front towel has a bunny head and the back towel has a bunny bottom.  Wouldn't these be so cute in anyone's kitchen for Spring!?  I can't wait to put a cute plaid bow on them and send them to school for our teachers.  They were just $9.99 and seem like great quality.

4. I bought myself some clovers.  I love to grab these at the grocery stores in the Spring.  They bloom the cutest little white flowers and will be perfect for my table for St. Patrick's Day next week.

I'm not sure what I'm fixing for our St. Patrick's Day dinner, but I know that this rainbow charcuterie board would be perfect!!  I linked my blog post at the top of this post if you want to know more about my boards.

5. This is my favorite jean jacket!!  I love the little puff sleeve and I'm wearing it as often as possible.

6. Visiting Great Grandma.  We popped by with a treat to see our favorite Grandma this week.  The kids loved catching up with her and we all had a nice time.

7. I made the yummiest lemon bundt cake!  I tried out my favorite new bundt cake pan that I got for Christmas and it made the prettiest cake.  I'm making another one ASAP because it was so good.

8. The kids got invited to a skating party for a friend.  We went, they skated and Fletcher can't wait to go back.  He loved it.  Olive loved the skating playlists and we all had a good time.

9. Backyard boys.  These two would live outside if they could.  They built a hut and are proud to say that it's still standing after a week.

10. Off to church.  I got the church by myself last weekend which felt like a big accomlishment.  The older two fight over who loves Leo the most.  They always want to hold his hand and for him to call them their favorite person.  I hope they're always best buds.

11. If you need a fun, Eastery meal to serve your kids, try this one.  My kids love an egg carton lunch.  I put lots of bites of lots of things and add in some Easter candy.  They think it's the best and it's so easy to assemble.

12. My favorite salad of the week included thick cut bacon and grilled chicken.  It made my regular lunch salad so much more delicious!

13. Leo's favorite thing is having control of his window and opening it to enjoy the nice weather.  I love seeing his little hand out in the sunshine.

14. Kevin had a fun trip to Las Vegas this week with some family.  They golfed, gambled and made some good memories.  He loved his first visit to Top Golf, saw a magic show, ate delicious food and he bumped into his all time favorite professor/mentor from his days at University of Utah.  They were at the same hotel, the same time frame for totally different things and it was a wonderful surprise reunion in the elevator.  I love those kind of surprises so much.  It's a good reminder that God cares about every little detail of our lives and that great teachers are so important!!  

He brought back Las Vegas souvenirs for all of us!

15. Hot Wheels cars are definitely Leo's favorite.  Any grocery store trip is better when you get a new car or two.  It's the best $2 I spend all week.

16. Pretty Pearl.  She doesn't get as much air time as the other cats, but she's so sweet.  She loves me the most, is my shadow all day long and loves to sleep on my side at night.  You'll likely never see her if you come to my house because she's shy, but she perfectly friendly and sweet when it's just us.

Have a wonderful weekend!!  I'll see you back here on Monday!

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