Easter Celebrations

 We had a really nice, really busy Easter this year. We went to Dad's on Saturday to celebrate with the Grossheiders. All I wanted was a nice picture of the kids with Grandma. Sadly, this was the best we got. At least I now have a picture of all three of my children with her.

 Later Clarey asked to sit on Grandma's lap. We go visit her often and Clarey loves to play with her. We had a nice day. It was so good to see everyone that was there!

 Easter morning couldn't have been more perfect. It was a truly beautiful day.

 Isn't that the most adorable little girl you've ever seen? Isn't she wearing an absolutely adorable bonnet? I made it! I'm so in love with it. It was so simple and she actually liked wearing it. I see more in her future...

 And what handsome boys! I love it when they're all dressed up. Levi was showing me a bb he found in the yard. Yes, this is the only picture I have of him (alone) actually looking at the camera.

Of course Levi smiles when he's being held by his Aunt Anna! (I should have had her hold him for all the pictures...) Could he not be their child? Just sayin'...

 What holiday is complete without a meltdown? Clarey picked up one of his eggs and ate all the candy in it before I could stop her. It's not like he didn't have 300 other eggs full of candy. This is the perfect argument for the importance of a nap.

 Sooooo, Levi's still angry about the egg. Gotta love Clayton's enthusiasm, though!

Grandma Arnold with her birthday cake. We celebrated her 80th birthday on Easter Sunday. It was made and decorated by yours truly and was enjoyed by all.

Happy Easter!

Easter Cookies

We're in full swing getting ready for Easter. Because we haven't in a while, we made sugar cookies. The kids really enjoyed rolling and cutting the dough.

We cut out eggs and carrots.

After we baked them, it was time to ice!

Clarey was taking a nap, which made it a lot easier on me!, so it was just the boys.

To keep it simple, I iced the cookies and the boys decorated them with sprinkles.

Aren't they beautiful! They can hardly wait until Easter when we get to eat them!

No Fail Sugar Cookies

1 c butter, softened

1 c sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

3 c flour

Cream butter and sugar. Add in the egg, salt and extracts. Beat well - until fluffy. Slowly add in the flour. Mix until combined. Roll out and cut into desired shapes. Bake at 350º for 9-10 minutes, just until set.

I like to roll this out between two sheets of parchment paper, waxed paper or plastic wrap and chill the dough until it is very set. It makes it much easier to cut out the shapes for the kids.

Toba Garrett's Glace Icing

1 lb powdered sugar

3/8 c white corn syrup

3/8 c milk

Combine and mix well.

I used half a recipe for this batch of cookies. This is a great smearing icing. It covers really well. It is NOT good for piping or intricate designs on cookies. It dries with a nice shine from the corn syrup.

April Showers

This was our morning. It was rainy and wet and chilly. The April showers had come. So we found lots of fun things to do inside.

Levi wanted to play with Play-Doh and a tractor. He rolled it flat and then made tracks.

Clarey liked using the Easter cookie cutters in the Play-Doh.

I found a fabulous website, PreKinders.com, that had free pattern block printables. We printed off a butterfly, a turtle, a rabbit, a flower, a caterpillar and some others that I can't remember. The boys worked so hard figuring out what pieces went where to make the shapes.

Clayton easily filled in the puzzles. Levi had to think about it a bit more.

We sorted the pattern blocks in a muffin tin so that Levi could find the pieces he needed more easily.

Clarey enjoyed putting the pieces in the muffin tins. Of course, since it was a rainy, stay-at-home day, my children chose not to wear any clothes...it's all about choosing the battles.

Once Levi was no longer interested in figuring out the puzzles, he decided to play with the pattern bears.

He matched the colors and then built a fort out of the pattern blocks. It was the perfect activity for a rainy day.

Clarey's Ice Rocks

Tuesday when we dropped the boys off at school, Clarey played in Aunt Sherri's room for a good little bit with clear rocks. She just loved them. As we were walking through Hobby Lobby 20 minutes later, she spotted some "ice rocks." For a $1.47 I couldn't turn her down.

We got them out this morning and while she was content to play with just the rocks, I thought she might enjoy the contract in textures between the rocks and carpet samples. I pick these up any time I'm in Lowes or Home Depot. I have all kinds... We use them for all different things... They cost nothing.

She really enjoyed placing the rocks on the carpet and was very deliberate about what rock went where.
She didn't enjoy me taking pictures. "No, Ma. No!" That's what she's saying here. So I left her alone to play with her ice rocks.

Research Project: A Lizard Mystery

This morning, the boys found a dried up lizard on our deck. They were convinced that it had just crawled up there and died. No lizard in it's right mind would crawl onto our deck - it's where the cats live. I finally convinced them that one of the cats probably killed it and brought it to the door as a gift.

I was busy baking cookies, doing laundry, putting Clarey down for a nap. The next time I looked out the window, this is what I see. They had gathered their Herps books from the Missouri Dept. of Conservation and were trying to identify this poor, little, dead, dried-up lizard. While those books are wonderful and have spent many hours occupying and enlightening my boys, they aren't a complete guide.

So Clayton found another resource. "This is DEFINITELY NOT our lizard."

Having no luck with the printed word resources available in our house, Clayton came in and very matter-of-factly declared, "This lizard is not in ANY of our books. It's time to use the internet." We had to do a bit of searching and found in a very roundabout way the Discover Nature section of the Missouri Department of Conservation's website. There we found the field guide to lizards. And in the field guide, there are 13 lizard species in Missouri, we found the broad headed skink. It was a perfect match to our dehydrated lizard. We read all about it. We learned that it eats insects and is Missouri's largest forest dwelling lizard. We also learned that it likes to live in trees and will often make it's home in abandoned woodpecker cavities. As I type, my boys are searching the trees in our woods for abandoned woodpecker cavities for broad headed skinks. The cats are with them. I'm not sure how much luck they'll have.

Super Sudsing Dinosaur Eggs

After seeing on Pinterest this fabulous idea from the blog Red Ted Art's Blog, I just couldn't resist making soap dinosaur eggs. The warmer weather has turned my kids into little mud balls and we already had our Jello egg mold out for Easter - the timing was perfect!

We gathered our supplies: melt and pour glycerin soap (bought 40% off at Hobby Lobby), a pourable measuring cup, tiny dinos, and our Jello egg mold

Can you feel the excitement?

Levi was really fascinated by the texture of the soap - before it was melted and after.

First we put our little baby dinos into the mold. Having never done this before, I started off by just making 3. One for each child.

Levi was really, really interested in this project. Clayton was semi-interested - he had already moved on to something else at this point. And Clarey, well she thought the solid soap was ice and wanted to eat it so I had already moved her and given her something else to keep her occupied.

After we melted the soap in the microwave, very slowly - per package directions, I very carefully poured it into the mold. A very tiny funnel would have been helpful. Levi just couldn't get enough of feeling the soap. The melted soap was so different from the solid pieces.

Then we had to wait. This was the patience portion of the lesson. Only an hour. But to Levi this was eternity.

After the soap had cooled, we unmolded them. Look! One is already trying to hatch!

The kids thought it would be easy to hatch them. They'd just pick away at them like they've done with other eggs. If only it had been so easy...

I gave them a tub of water in a very deep sink and let them play with these super sudsing eggs. My younger two played so nicely together for over 30 minutes as they squished and tried to grip and made bubbles and worked so hard to get those baby dinosaurs out. Clayton played in the bathroom sink, not wanting to compete for water. This did make for some very quiet time in our home. And I did get a lot done while they played. Yes, I did have quite a bit of water to clean up off the floor once they were done, but it was well worth it.