Day 4 and 5

Nothing screams Spring like planting in a garden.

Alas, we live in a garden-less apartment.  But our 12 Days of Easter activity for Friday was planting herbs.  We have room for that!!!  So that is just what we did!

Mom went to the dollar store and purchased chives, tomatoes, basil, green peppers and dill.  They are very cute little start pots and Aiden loves this!  (We have done this before and Mom totally forgot to water the plants... my bad!!)

Aiden loved it!!

 No, he didn't eat dirt.  Okay he did. 

Day 5's activity was Go See Baby Animals.  Because Mom had a Primary activity that had to be done in the morning, we couldn't go to the zoo or to Thanksgiving Point.  Therefore, we went to the store.  We have a really cool farm supply store right by our house that has a lot of farm animals inside the store that we can pet.  They even have a goat that just roams the store.  They had chicks and bunnies that the store owner let Aiden hold and pet.  He would look at the chicks and say, "teep, teep, teep!"  It was hilarious and very heart-warming!

When we arrived at the store, Aiden was sleeping.  So I just put my seat back and had 1 1/2 hour nap.  Ahhh... I love the Spring.

It was very dark and my camera ran out of batteries, so I had to use my Iphone.  Bad pictures.  Lovely time.

Tomorrow we are having a very Sunday-appropriate day and reading Easter books.  We may also decorate cookies.  We'll see...

Tonight for dinner?  Fresh veggie soup and steamed radishes.  Can life be any better than this?!

Day 2 and 3 - okay, maybe not day 2

Our grand Easter Adventure continues.  First, I have to explain that Day 2 consisted of coloring.  Aiden loves when I get out the crayons.  He loves to put them in categories - all the light ones and all the dark ones.  He loves to say the colors as he holds them up (he is AWESOME and yellow and purple, but can't say the easy ones... go figure...).  He does not like to actually put the crayon to paper.  He doesn't like coloring.  He will do one or two swipes to appease his mother, but not really his thing.  So, Day 2 was a bust.

But yesterday, Day 3, was so fun.  I bought a little egg kit from Michael's Crafts and, since it was 60% off, we just went to town decorating little foam eggs with little foam art.  One side is sticky and there was a time or two that Aiden couldn't get the sticker to the egg and we had... well, frankly, a toddler meltdown.  But overall it was so, so fun!!

Totally stuck.  And ensuing meltdown.

Finished project!

Day 1... Chocolified

The definition of fun has to be "the act of participating in creativity with a toddler."  Absolute hilarity.  My son and I opened Day 1 of our 12 Days of Easter.  And the omnipotent egg informed us that today we would be making tuxedo peeps - which includes nothing more than marshmallow peeps, white chocolate and dark chocolate.  And lots of sugar rush...

So this is how it started.  Aiden thought that separating the Peeps included removing the ears from perfectly acceptable bunnies.  

You can't see the white chocolate dripped all over him, his mouth, his onesie, the counter, but it was chocolatey fun.  For sure.

Then we buried the bunnies in the white chocolate up to their necks.  Peeps torture.  Don't worry.  They talked.  All of them.  They told us all about the Easter Bunny.  And his evil plans.  

Then they got a "coat" of dark chocolate.  They are starting to look quite debonair, no?

And finally, the buttons.  Sorry about the really bad pictures.  They are taken with my phone and absolutely bad lighting.

When Aiden's sugar rush finally wore off, he was bombed.  It was really, really fun.  I can't wait to see what tomorrow's egg tells us to do.  

Spring! Spring! Tee Hee

I am DYING for Spring.  I want baseball.  I want tulips.  I want Easter.  I want warm!    I am so excited for the Spring that I can hardly contain myself.  The last week, with the snow and cold, has made me all the more nervous for Spring.  I am prepping my tent trailer.  I am fussing over Easter preparations.  Oh, how I love the Spring.

This weekend, I created a new Easter tradition - a remake of a Christmas tradition.  I am going to do the 12 Days of Easter.  Easy because Easter eggs come in convenient 12-pack cartons, right?

So... here goes...

Decorate the cheapest eggs you can find.  I used Dollar Store number stickers and scrapbooking flowers.

Fill with goodies and age-appropriate stickers (or fun things... bubbles, mini-slinkies...) and an activity for the day. 

I found this stand at Target for $4.  Sweet.  It holds exactly a dozen eggs.  Coincidence?  I think not.

The things we are doing this year:

Tuxedo Peeps (find the recipe on Tipjunkie.com)

Decorating Easter eggs

Coloring pages

Going to see baby animals (at our local IFA store)

Easter Egg hunt (we have an annual family one, but this is just Mom and Tater...  Maybe we will invite the dog.)

Making Easter cookies

Reading an Easter book (I found Peter Rabbit on an online auction...)

Watching an Easter movie.  (sadly, Thomas does not have an Easter Movie.  We will watch a church movie instead)

"egging" a neighbor (taking a basket full of goodies anonymously)

Making "carrot" cake (pound cake... see recipe at tipjunkie.com)

Making a foam Easter Egg wreath for the front door

Easter Sunday - Having a ham and potato dinner (family tradition) and reading the scripture story of the resurrection.  I know Aiden is too young to really know, but we have a lot of Jesus pictures that will help tell the story. 

So... there ya go!  I was not raised on the Easter Bunny myth of Easter.  I must say, I never really missed it.  I loved that my mother loved Easter so much that she let us experience the spiritual side of it.

BTW - we had to say goodbye to Nama Sharon yesterday for a while.  We love having Aiden's only living grandparent here!