Easter Pictures, from 2013

Hey everyone, I wanted to check in and share some pictorial highlights from this year's Easter Sunday.

Above: our daughter's genuine reaction to her first jelly bean.

Saturday night I had a bit too much fun assembling her Easter basket! I might have gone a tad over board this year... and for a few reasons. This "to-do" got caught up in my general nesting to dos and thus had been in process for a while... accumulating little bits here and there! Also I was subconsciously worried that if the baby came before Easter, there was a possibility that her basket might take a back seat. Hence the extra planning. But mostly, these things are fun to do with our daughter as each year she is more capable and interested in new things.

I knit her two bunnies (that went into the plastic eggs for the egg hunt). We also found some tasty organic jellybeans and lollipops at our local orchard that also went into the plastic eggs (along with some pennies, and hair bows).

In her basket went a little potted plant for her to plant outside, 3 wooden eggs, a chocolate bunny, a no spill bubble thing, a pink sun hat, three nature/spring themed books, and a vintage wooden puzzle.

She was pretty pumped.

We spent Easter lunch at my folk's house where we had some incredibly delicious lamb, and coconut cake for dessert!

There was a second Easter egg hunt at my folk's house. It was a lot of fun to watch her look for eggs.

It's pretty wild to look back on the past two Easters and see how much she had grown and changed...! and Next Easter there will be two baskets to fill. pretty wild!

First Easter

2nd Easter

Have a great Start to your week!

DIY Easter Bunny Crayons, and other toddler friendly Easter Egg fillers

Our Daughter's toddler classroom is having their Easter party this Wednesday and we were asked to bring in 6 eggs filled with a non-food item that was also gender neutral and one that would be appropriate for her class that ranges in age 15 months to 3 years!  We were also told that we could bring in more than 6 eggs in order to earn co-op hours. So I decided to make 24 eggs! (we need co-op hours!)

So the husband and I made our very own bunny crayons and here's how we did it!

First I got the idea from a valentine heart crayon DIY on pinterest (naturally). In the Easter section at Target I found a silicon bunny mold for 24 bunnies. I already have a pretty intense crayon stash from my youth (a ridiculous amount of crayons, that I was more than happy to recycle!). We worked with the broken and stubby crayons first.

Simply peel and chop crayons, put them in the mold and cook at 230 for 15 minutes. Ours took 20-25. Remove the crayons from the mold once they are cool and solid.

 We made a lot of crayons!!! It was actually pretty fun and a very affordable craft since we had so many crayons on hand.

We filled 12 eggs with bunny crayons and then the other 12 eggs we filled with one Easter sticker and one yellow and green pom pom. Pom poms are a big hit with toddlers and it was another great use of a material I already had on hand! In total we made 35 crayons, so I'm sending in the extras to her class in order that all of the kids will have a crayon even if they didn't get one of the eggs.

Here's a list of other non-food related toddler friendly egg fillers:

~ seeds for planting

~ homemade seed bombs (can use silicon bunny shaped trays!)

~ temporary tattoos

~ stickers

~ rubber stamps

~ beads

~ hair bows

~ non toxic mini nail polish

~ plastic animals

~ whistles

~ coins

~ knit bunnies

  and for more Easter Basket ideas, check out my Easter Basket Goodies board on pinterest!

What I've Been Knitting: Tiny Bunnies

Last week, late one night, I knit up this teeny tiny little bunny for our Daughter's Easter basket. I want to have things other than candy to tuck inside the plastic eggs. So I knit one in white yarn...

And then one morning during pregnancy insomnia, I knit a little ginger friend to go along with the white one!

Here's the free pattern. You can knit any animal from the pattern, just depends on the ears!

Inspiration for a Little One's Easter Basket

Happy March everyone! I'm pretty excited to look forward to spring. With a two year old in the house it makes the seasons and upcoming holidays even more fun. And this year Easter is early as it falls on March 31st and within the window of our baby's arrival... so with all these factors I'm already planning ahead for this year's Easter Basket.

Last year our daughter got some great toddler friendly garden tools and fun flower crown headbands, plus a hand knit lamb by yours truly. This year we've been talking a lot about making a bird house and a bird feeder for our backyard. It's pretty much all she talks about! So with these things in mind, plus a few other fun ideas, I made a "Easter Basket Goodies" board on pinterest for gathering these and other easter themed projects and gifts. I lke the wooden eggs- having her paint them and using them year after year for an easter egg hunt, what fun! Do you have any fun ideas or suggestions for Easter traditions!?

PLUS: her first Easter at 6 months

And Easter at 18 months

What I've been knitting... bah bah black sheep

I knit a little black lamb for my cousin's daughter's first birthday... and here it is! It's a free pattern I found on Ravelry that I used back at Easter to knit a little white lamb for our daughter's Easter basket. The pattern doesn't include a tail, so I simply took the instructions for the ear and knit about 5-7 rows of the ear pattern. I also opted out of beads for eyes since the lamb's owners are still little. So I hand embroidered little blue eyes and secured the end of it into a blue bow at the lamb's neck.

Now that I am knitting toys for little ones, I've turned into a bag lady who saves every scrap of yarn from all of my knitting projects to have plush stuffing for the toys. Tip: stuff toy with like colors since they will inevitably peek through.

;)

Some pictures from Easter...

We had a great Easter with our toddler. I joked that this year was more fun, since last year all she did was "nurse" all the time! wha, wha, wha. I'll be here all night folks, don't forget to tip your waiters!

 Here are some pictures from the day.

Above: Her Easter basket all tricked out with lots of garden tools and some knit friends.

Easter morning at my folk's house...

with rake and lamb in hand.

her millie dog-esque pillow was a big hit.

not one...

but two fancy headband hats from her grandparents.

and of course a fancy dress-up skirt for gathering eggs, 

the day ended with a little hammock time with her aunt Liz

and time in the sun with her tired-looking parents... I don't think this last part with ever change! ; )

Hope you all had a great Easter!

A Love Letter to Spring: Easter Edition

HI All!!! Hope your weekend was great!?  We have recovered from our spring break trip up north to Maine and I have much to share- a little recap of our trip including videos of the beautiful Maine coast, tips on traveling with a toddler, and then Sunday's epic first day of Bee Keeping!! So stay tuned for all that this week.  In the meantime, I thought a little Easter Edition of my weekly Love Letter to Spring, was in order. Do you have any traditions I should know about!?  This year we will be giving the toddler her first Easter basket (since last year all she was interested in was nursing!) and I think we will try dying eggs with natural dies like beets, onion skins, cabbage, grape juice and vinegar (as seen above). Have a great Monday!

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DIY pom pom bunny

sharpie eggs (plus many more ideas)

DIY paint chip egg garland

grow wheat grass as a natural Easter Basket

dip dye Easter eggs

Love this egg

Easter egg shell votives

loads of great Easter egg ideas on this blog!

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fabric Easter Basket

painted rocks as Easter decor

confetti eggs

DIY message inside an egg

Decorate Muslin bags (plus more great ideas!)

phew, I think that's it for now! Let me know if you try any of these! ; )

Weekend Project: Knit Easter Eggs and More

This weekend I might start knitting up some little trinkets for the babe's easter basket. These Easter Eggs are darling and a great use for bits of leftover yarn. 

And since she already has so many bunnies, maybe I'll knit her this little lamb!?

I'm also thinking about knitting a few little birds or insects from this great book. I hope you have a great weekend! Let me know if you make anything?

Easter Pictures

Check out the Blossoming Cherry tree in my folk's backyard!

My niece Sophie in her Easter best.

The Little Miss with her colorful Aunt and Grandmother.

Her new sun hat a la "Tar-je"

And a little Easter-day Tennis!

I hope you had a lovely weekend! We've been enjoying all of the flowering trees that populate the Delaware and Chadds Ford area.  Our garden is still coming along with new additions everyday.  I'll post pictures once there is something actually sprouting up from the ground. And later today I will post my weekly "Green Living" blog post, so stay tuned!