Easter Traditions (old and new)

I've been dying Easter eggs since I can remember, and even as an adult who has done it over and over, I still get excited about the tradition.  A little of it is the fun of creating and a little of it is the excitement of the season.  We actually dyed Easter eggs as a family this past week, this was Leeland's 2nd time dying Easter eggs and he was so excited to do it.  Hayden sat in his high chair having Cheerios-- he'll get in on the action next year.  Leeland doesn't have the greatest patience (Does any almost 3 year old?) so he just likes to dunk the eggs in and out of the cups.  Just like last year, he had one egg that got several dunks in several colors, all in good fun!

Not so patiently waiting for the dyes to be made.

 Checking on his eggs

 Cheerio monster :)

 The classic white crayon

 We ended up with a nice assortment of eggs! They were later made into deviled eggs and egg salad sandwiches. 

The "overly dunked" egg.

The new tradition that we started this year was "Resurrection Rolls." I'm not gonna lie, when I first read about them here, I thought the idea was a bit cheesy.  But when you're trying to get a point across to a preschooler, it totally works and I'm glad we gave them a shot.  We made them tonight, and in a perfect world I guess they should be made on Sunday, but we had the time tonight and were all together as a family, and Leeland walked all over the store with the bag of marshmallows today anxiously awaiting making the rolls, so it happened tonight.  And I'm glad that it did-- this whole weekend is dedicated to the Lord and His sacrifice for us, so what's a little extra teaching on the "wrong" day gonna hurt?

So the rolls... All you need is a tube (or 2) of crescent rolls, melted butter in a bowl, cinnamon sugar in a bowl, and large marshmallows.  (An after thought... wonder how peeps would turn out? Might have to try that next year.)

We also read a storybook about Easter to better explain.

 So you take your marshmallow, roll it around in melted butter and then roll it around in the cinnamon sugar and place it inside the crescent roll being careful to seal it up well.

 Seriously, seal it up good or you might end up with an oozer in your oven.

So the story behind the rolls is to teach the resurrection.  You explain that Jesus was crucified and buried in the tomb-- the imagery here is your marshmallow in the crescent tomb.

Bake them at 375 for 11-13 minutes, they'll be golden brown, and while you wait, you eat the remaining marshmallows.

 Cut into it when it comes out of the oven and....

... The marshmallow is gone.  "He is risen!"  

And then you get to eat them and enjoy the buttery, cinnamony goodness that they are.

Leeland really loved it!  He loved helping make them, he definitely loved eating them, and he kept saying to himself "I learn about Jesus".... Such a sweet kid.  I only pray that he, (and Hayden) get so excited about learning about Jesus as they get older.

Sew crafty lately

Yea I know, cheese ball title, but if you've been a reader for a while, you probably know that's pretty common around these parts.  I was tempted to put "so" but that makes me think of the e-card/meme floating around that says, "I'm so crafty, I make people." (like babies... like pregnancy... which is equally as awesome and cheeseball-ish.)  All this to say, that I have been up to some stuff, crafty stuff!
I made a burlap wreath for our front door which I adore!  I've had the mustard yarn wreath on the door since October and wanted something new and semi-spring/summer. I think this suits that! 

I really really love it!  I think it will carry us into Spring and Summer.  The bow is red and white and reminds me of a picnic blanket. It's super simple and I've pondered on adding more stuff to it, but I think I kind of like simple.  What do you think?  I've even thought that maybe when Memorial Day rolls around I'll add 1 or 2 US flags to it?  We'll see.  For now it looks great on our door.

In other news, I also just finished up 4 adorable pillowcase dresses.  I'm not typically one to toot my own horn and am not much of a bragger, but I DO have to say that out of all the dresses I've made up to this point, these 4 are my favorite! (Especially the floral ones.)  These dresses are going to 2 sweet little girls, who are sisters.  They are my Brother-In-Law's nieces.

All of the dresses tie in the back to keep little hands from untying them.  The floral ones feature a cute heart applique, and the chevron ones have a contrasting fabric at the him and at the top.  They wanted two of the dresses to match and two to be different for the sisters and I think it turned out well that though the floral ones are different, they still complement each other well.  I really really love the beige/tan floral fabric! I'm seriously considering making myself a pillowcase style shirt out of it.

Now tonight I will be busy crocheting a hat for my sister and then I will be all caught up in the craft world!  It's really nice to let the creative juices flow and appreciate the "business." 

Some firsts!

Lots of fun stuff happened this past weekend, we had some good quality time together as a family.  One of the things is both boys' 1st Easter egg hunt! It was SO cool too-- the one we went to was sponsored by a local church and the eggs were dropped by helicopter!  YES, a real helicopter! Leeland was in heaven. 

 The helicopter is so cool, right!? Hayden was in his own little world for the hunt, happy with his 1 egg.  At the end of the hunt all the kids exchanged their eggs in for candy.  I really liked that twist!  Most hunts the eggs have candy already in them, this way though, no matter how many eggs a kid got, everyone still got equal amounts of candy.  Not to mention I'm sure it's beneficial to the church to be able to re-use the eggs again next year.  We had so much fun though and will definitely be doing this easter egg hunt again next year!

Another first this week-- Mr. Hayden had his very first peanut butter and jelly sandwich (or part of a sandwich, like a quarter of one is all he ate.)  And yes, I took photos!

I think he liked it!  He had some more the next day with lunch and covered his face in peanut butter.

And Leeland insisted I take some photos of him too.

 Leeland looked at me the other day and said with a complete straight face "Momma, brother's growing up!".... Yes, yes he is Leeland, and so are you little man!

Like a new room (after photos)

If you haven't seen the before photos of our living room, you might want to take a peek here first.  It hasn't been a huge transformation, but just with a simple change of furniture, it feels like a whole new room.  I'm kind of amazed at the transformation.  I guess we could've went crazy and painted and really made it different, but that costs money and time.... and honestly, I'm a big fan of the tan for now.  But here are the after photos--

We knew we wanted the TV on the wall, so we turned the media stand that came with our furniture into toy storage with some bins.  I tried to avoid and fight the whole toys in the living room thing for a long time, but I have 2 small children.... since it's unavoidable to have toys in the living room, they can at least look nice and neat put away when not in use.

Yea, that's an electric fireplace... don't judge-- it works very well!

 The couch/love seat look very dark in these photos, they aren't black, they are a chocolate brown.

I can assure you my photo wall over the couch isn't as crooked as it appears in this photo. (Haha!) And I still need to whip up some accent pillows for the couches.


Well, what do you think?? Does it look totally different to you too?  We are SO excited.  I was kind of sad to see the sectional go, it was our very 1st couch as a family and a couple, and it was pretty darn comfy!  But I'm happy with our new furniture too-- I feel like we have a living room we can be proud of, lots of hard work to get to new furniture.  The next thing on our house wish list is a bigger kitchen table so that we can have guests over to eat with us sometime.