playing ball and a new dress

The kids and I went out the other evening to enjoy the nice weather.  Josh played ball a little while Anna and I watched. 

 

 Anna's new dress

 

"mama made"

 everything has to go in the mouth....

 sharing his toys with Anna

Easter egg hunt

I hid eggs around the garden so that Josh could go on an egg hunt.  some were brightly painted, others were the camo green ones that he painted.  

finding his first egg

 

And another....

hmm.. there's got to be one here someplace...  

(it's turquoise and towards the bottom left of the pic behind the flowers)

Still looking....

 

Looking harder...

 giving up and moving on to another egg...

 

Let's try to find this one again....

 

Finally!  

 

Anna looking for her egg

 Josh showing Anna all the eggs he found

Look at this nice basket!

 Can I eat these?

Clapping to the music coming from the ice cream truck driving by

Happy Easter

Easter baskets and gift boxes, all ready for Easter morning!

New books, front loader (made from recycled plastic!), organic stuffed doll....

I think he likes it!!

A "green" easter

This year, we're trying for a "green" Easter.  It seems silly to celebrate spring with plastic baskets, plastic grass, plastic eggs and plastic toys.  So, I tried to find better alternatives for the kids this year.  



For our eggs, we dyed them all using various foods.  We tried black berries, blueberries, cherries, kale, chili powder and turmeric.  The kale wasn't working so well, so I eventually tried mixing the blue berries and turmeric together.  These didn't dye as quickly or as brightly as the chemical laden egg dyes at the store, but I feel much better about eating something that has been colored with real food. 

 

after an hour in the dye

 We ended up putting the eggs in the dyes and leaving them in the fridge overnight.  Here's our final result:

We are also using real grass in our baskets, grown in organic soil. I think we're going to need to trim it before we fill the baskets tonight, lol!  

 

Painting eggs

Josh and I painted some wooden eggs to use for our egg hunt Easter morning.  He really had a good time painting them. 

 We started off with some very pretty colors

Then, eventually, all the colors became mixed together.  Apparently it's  more fun to paint this way. 

 First round of egg painting

 Josh either wasn't satisfied with his colors, or decided he didn't want to stop painting, either way, the eggs got another coat of paint....

 Final batch of eggs

 Anna watching us paint