Sunday, March 31, 2013

Easter Sunday

Today was pretty close to perfect.  The weather was ideal, my first tulips bloomed, my children were pretty well behaved and I had a wonderful time at church this afternoon.  With all of the fun kids' activities that Easter involves, it is always wonderful to be reminded of the reason for this glorious holiday.  He is risen, and because of that we can be saved.
Our morning started out with some Easter baskets.  My kids don't know who the Easter bunny is, not that we've been keeping them from the story, but rather we just haven't brought it up.  They were mostly given art supplies and puzzles with a chocolate bunny and a new pony.
The bunnies were a hit...and breakfast.  Bad mommy moment.  Lunch was yogurt and strawberries though so I don't feel too bad about it.
Sweet smiling girl.
Lily has been on a puzzle kick lately and wanted to sit down and do her puzzle right away and Tyson was good enough to help her.  Don't ask me why he's wearing a beanie and jacket inside...I have no answers for that one.  Lily's hair on the other hand is still pinned up from the night before.
I've been working on their Easter dresses for a while.  I found a couple of dresses that I really liked, but neither of them in their entirety so I combined the elements that I liked best in each of them and designed my girls' dresses for this year.  I've very pleased with how they came out.  They are, I think, my favorite dresses that I have made for them so far.

Getting  picture of the two of them together was not going to happen though.  They just wanted to dance when they were together.
Twirling is always fun though, so who can blame them.
  





 I love her hair in curls.

Happy Easter everyone!

Easter Egg Hunt

Yesterday we had a little Easter egg hunt at the park with some friends and family.  I'm not a fan of the huge community egg hunts, they are such a hassle, we prefer our small ones.  The weather could not have been better, 70 degrees and sunny!    The girls had a blast finding their eggs,
and of course enjoying the treats that they found.
We were at Settler's Park in Meridian so we let the kids play and had a little potluck picnic afterwards.  Lily was dying to try the monkey bars, but needed her daddy's help.
 Charlotte of course preferred the slides. 
 These are the faces that I get when I ask for a smile these days...they are still super cute, no matter how silly they are.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Planting Seeds

For weeks now Lily has been watching for our Spring bulbs to bloom and she gets very excited when she sees a new flower.  Side note: I'm rather proud of how many different flowers she knows by their proper names.  Anyway, we told her that they are coming in slowly, but by her birthday in May there will be a lot of flowers in the garden.  This got her thinking about her garden bed and now she has been asking every day if she could plant some seeds for her garden.  I told her yesterday that today we would plant some seeds, and of course she remembered, so this morning we took her to the store, let her pick out some flower seeds, and came home to plant them.  Charlotte had a fun helping her daddy plant the marigolds.
 Lily is very excited about her flowers.  I think that the next few weeks will be a great lesson in patience for her.
 Happy girls with their future flowers.

Flying Kites

This last weekend grandma and grandpa Hansen came up for a visit and they brought the girls some fun little kites.  It was a little chilly, but we all went to the park to test them out and the girls had a great time.

Charlotte mostly spent her time flying her Dora kite with grandpa.
I'm not sure that Lily understood that she could stand still and her kite would stay up because she ran all over the park.
 Grandma Hansen helped her get her kite back up one of the many times that she crashed it.  
 Lily sure had fun.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Painting on the Sidewalk

Painting on the sidewalk was one of my girls' favorite activities last year and so when we had a nice day we mixed up a batch of sidewalk paint and spent some time outside.

 So focused on her "fish."
 Charlotte got bored with the sidewalk and decided to paint her hair instead.
 Lily is painting Tinkerbell.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Making Sun-Catchers

Winter seems to be especially long when you have young children at home that are just itching to get outside again.  I've been trying to find projects to keep the girls busy and entertained as we wait out the last clod days before Spring.  I found this great idea on Pinterest for melted bead sun-catchers and decided to give them a try.  They turned out to be very simple and the girls had fun sorting the beads and placing them in the muffin tins.   
 Lily loves them and talks about them almost every time we walk in and out of the back door.
 We made a couple with the girls' initials in them as well.
The blog that I got this idea from also made a large sun-catcher using a cake pan.  I think that I need to give that a try sometime soon.

Monday, March 4, 2013

On a Sewing Kick

I've been sewing like crazy these last few months and most of it has been things for this baby boy.  It has been a lot of fun to try out some new things and this baby boy is a good excuse to do so.

I started out with some blankets.  First I made this soft and silky baby blanket because I love them.  I have made similar ones for my girls and they are so soft and cuddly, I just had to make one that wasn't pink for this baby boy
 Next it was time for some swaddling blankets.  I am a big fan of swaddling and my friends have been raving about these thin cotton gauze swaddling blankets.  I checked them out, they were $36 for 4 pieces of hemmed cotton.  I don't pay for stuff like that.  I ordered the fabric online and made mine for $18.  They weren't hard, you just cut a square and hem the sides, easy as can be.
I've been seeing lots of tutorials for these self-binding baby blankets and well, I wanted to test them out so I had to make one for this little guy, just because I wanted to learn the technique.  Again, also very simple and rather cute.  I'm loving the whales!
 I also used the same flannel to make some of my very favorite burp clothes.  I really shouldn't have made them all super girly last time...oh well.  It only took an hour or two and cost about $3 to make 9 so still an awesome deal.
 I even did a little bit of applique this time around, just for fun.
Finally, it was time to get to the nursery set.  I haven't made a nursery set since I was pregnant with Lily so it was a lot of fun to come up with my design and draw it all out.  No patterns this time around though, I created all of my plans on my own and just went for it.

First challenge, colors.  Tyson painted our nursery a surfer blue shortly after we bought the house and before we were expecting Lily and it was the only color that he got to choose.  So, rather than repainting, I have worked around the color.  After looking online for some ideas I decided on something somewhat nautical (surfer blue, right?  It had to work) and then came the fabric search.  I found some online, some in local stores, and when I was all done shopping I ended up with this stack, which I loved!

I planned to make a quilt, crib skirt, and window valances.  Last night I finished it!
 I was ambitious this time around, I hand quilted and hand bound the quilt.  It took a lot longer, but I love how neat and clean it looks!
I also painted that cute little set of canvases that are up on the wall.  A friend found the image online and I just had to reproduce it because it was so adorable!
I think that it is a lot of fun to have our little nursery all put together.  There are still a few more projects in the works for this little guy, like getting his name up on the wall, but that will have to wait until I get the girls' Easter dresses sewn and Lily's birthday present finished.