Easter Treats

I made some Easter treats for Kinsley's friends at school and I also put one in my Easter buckets for her friends and family. My co-worker also asked if I would make some for her and her family (which I did).

To make the carrots I brought disposable cake decorating bags (12 inch). I filled them approximately 3/4th fill with goldfish crackers and tied a green ribbon around it. It's as simple as that.

I wanted a unique way to present my carrots and I came up with the idea of the carrots being in the ground so the kids would have to pull them out so to say.

So, I got a shoe box and measured and cut 2 inch holes. I used a circle cutter to make a perfect circle.

Once all my circles were cut, it looked like this:

To see what it was going to look like, I put the lid back on and put a carrot in one of the holes. Being that I was happy with it, I wrapped the entire shoe box with brown paper. After I wrapped the lid, I turned it upside down and used an X-acto knife to cut out the brown paper that covered my holes.

Once I was done, I put all my carrots in the holes and added a sign and a bunny rabbit for effect. The one below is the one I did for my co-worker.

This is the one I did for Kinsley's school. My boxes were smaller so I had to break them up into two boxes.

I slit a hole in the box and put the sign in the hole and added flowers around the sign.

Originally I was going to paint over the sign and write "get your carrots before the bunny does", but I ran out of time and thought it was cute as is. Instead I added a sign in front.

Teacher Appreciation Month

April is Teacher Appreciation Month. In Kinsley's class a parent is taking a week and doing something for the teacher. I took the first week and decided to give them 2 small gifts.

In Kinsley's class she has 3 teachers. One of the gifts was a mason jar filled with jelly beans. I made the "thank you" tags and tied it around the jar. Simple but sweet!

The second gift was a watering can filled with little treats. I attached the tags I made that said "Thanks for helping us grow".

Teachers do a great deal for our children (especially at Kinsley's age) and it is important to let them know that you appreciate them.

The tree is gone!

Finally the tree is gone. Keith and his dad just recently took it down and I am so happy it's almost gone. We are still working on getting the stump out - it was supposed to be done already but we had to reschedule.

In the picture below you can actually see how BIG the tree really is.

While Keith and his dad were taking down the tree, Mrs. Potter and I were playing with Kinsley behind our house. We are very fortunate to have two playgrounds literally right behind our house.

Every now and then I would sneak a peek through the gate to see how the boys were doing. Here they have the top half of the tree down.

YAY! It's all down!

Now for the clean up. You can see the gate open in the background... that's where they would dump the tree remains. Now that's an easy clean up.

And this is what remains (for now).

Also, we have JASMINE growing all over our yard! I love the smell of Jasmin!

"Night Night Maverick"

While I was messing around in the Kitchen, Kinsley went and grabbed her blankets and a pillow and drug them into the kitchen. She then made Maverick lay on the blanket and go "night night" and would cover him with the other blanket. If he would try to leave the kithchen she would chase him and yell "NIGHT NIGHT...NIGHT NIGHT" and guide him back to the blankets. It's so funny to watch her with him. And he is so wonderful with her (and for that I am thankful).

Easter Buckets

For Kinsley's cousins, close friends and neighbors I made these Easter Buckets. Since they are mostly little ones I wanted to stay away from candy. I figured they would get enough of that on Easter as it was. I made the Happy Easter tags for each bucket and filled them with varies toys and activities! I hope everyone enjoyed them as much as Kinsley did.

Update

First off, let me apologize for not updating my blog the last 2-3 weeks. It's been a little hectic in our house. Kinsley has been sick with something the last 2-3 weeks. It started with a stomach bug... then came the congestion, cough and ear infection all at the same time causing her temperature to go as high as 103.6. Now we have a possible tooth coming in mixed with congestion and a slight cough. Of course that means Keith and I have been sick at some point in the last 2-3 weeks and ontop of that Maverick managed to hurt himself the other day (nothing major). With that I have had project after project (which is partially my fault). Since I am the class mom for Kinsley's school, I have a lot more responsibilities as a parent. We have 2 of the 3 teachers birthdays that I am having to organize collecting money for gifts and going out to get them. April is also Teacher Appreciation Month that I am having to organize with the parents. I did gifts for the teachers for the first week, and I am making the other moms take week 2-4. Also, it is Easter this Sunday (YAY!) and I am 90% done with my Easter "buckets" for Kinsley's friends in our neighborhood and outside of school, along with her very special cousins (12 total). I also have Easter treats I made for Kinsley's friends at school (which I had to make and extra set for one of my co-workers who kindly asked me too). I also had to stuff a billion Easter eggs with candy for Kinsley's class Easter Egg Hunt which I am volunteering for tomorrow. Like I said, this is partially my fault. Of course in every project I do I end up doing some sort of "arts and craft" project with it. This is what I enjoy, but 30 projects at once is a little much. At least after Friday I will be all done. I will also be sure to post pictures of all my projects. I will also post pictures of the tree in our back yard that Keith and his dad took down. I am so glad it's almost gone. When I say almost, we still have to get rid of the stump which we decided to hire someone to do this time (Keith did it in our old house and it was a HUGE chore).

As you can imagine, I have been a little busy the last 2 or so weeks. I will hopefully have some time this weekend or next week to post a few updates of Kinsley as I am sure that's what you really want to see.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Yard day

Keith, Kinsley and I had a very productive Sunday. We were up at 7:30 and go go go for the rest of the day. It was a great day. Any time you can spend time as a family and get your to-do list done, it's a great day. We went grocery shopping, cleaned house, washed both cars inside and out, washed both dogs and their beds and did the rest of the laundry in between. Then it was lunch time and after Kinsley went down for a nap. While Kinsley was napping Keith and I did a bunch of yard work. After she woke up she came out and helped us with the rest of the yard work. After we were done with all the cleanup I went inside and starting making the Friendship Bread that was given to us by our neighbor. Keith started on dinner and by the time we were done we were exhausted. It was a nice surprise when Mr. and Mrs. Potter stopped by after dinner. We even got to enjoy all our hard work in our courtyard.

Also, Friday was the official start to our addition. Although it will probably be about 2-3 months before they start building, I paid my first fee and signed the paperwork. We have to wait for the city to approve of us building before we can begin. So here is what our yard looks like now and I will kinda give you an idea of what we will be doing.

This tree will be gone... soon! This is Keith's chore that he probably isn't so excited about:

The addition will be approximately 400 sq ft that will be built on to the back of the detached garage. This picture shows you the back of the garage.

This is what the back looks like now. It's an eye sore. Those tool sheds will be gone and replaced with one tool shed that will be built as apart of the addition.

This corner will one day (hopefully sooner than later) have Kinsley's play house and garden. My plan is to put the play house in the middle and have a small garden on either side and surround it by a white picket fence. I'm not sure that I have Keith completly on board yet, but I am determined to give Kinsley a play house. I remember when I was little my aunt had a play house on her property and I played in it with my cousins for the longest time. I want Kinsley to have those memories too.

Last weekend Keith and I did some work in the front yard. This is what it looks like now:

Here are a few of the flowers we planted this weekend:

This is one of my favorites:

This is our new lemon tree:

We also planted some flowers in between the steps up to the deck:

Kinsley took a little break and went for a swing while Maverick laid close to her:

Most of the pots and accessories were left by the previous owners. This was one of them:

As well as this one:

Here is the view from the top of our stairs outside our sunroom/den:

Keith and I have big plans for our backyard, and this is just the start. Once the addition is done (apx 6-7 months) we will finish planting and landscaping. I am sure I will provided plenty of updates along the way until it is done (if it is ever really done).