A Great Treat For My Egg-Cellent Teacher

What better way to say thank you to your teacher than with chocolate. Seriously. I work in a school. Chocolate it always good =o)

I found these great printable labels over on Detail-Oriented Diva. I love when I can find printables because I'm so not capable to creating anything like this.

My kids filed up plastic eggs with Easter candy and put them in an egg carton. 

We tied on a ribbon and added a tag.  Viola!  Some treats for an Egg-Sellent Teacher!  Cool, right? 

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Fun Easter Lunch for the Kids

I had all these grand plans to do great things this Easter. Some of them got done but a lot of them are still in my "to do" pile. Crud. At 6am when I was getting ready to pack my kid's lunch for school I remembered I wanted to pack their lunch a little differently. Lame-o planning on my part. I quickly checked out my recyclables in the garage (for craft projects, of course) and found 2 egg cartons. I filled the egg cartons with plastic Easter eggs and filled each egg with a small portion of my kid's lunch.

I made a pb&j sandwich and cut it into small cubes. A peeled cutie orange in a couple of eggs. Two quarters went into one egg for them to buy milk. A few pieces of candy for dessert went into a few eggs and a couple of potato chips.

I wasn't sure what my kids would think. But at this point I'm thinking this looks pretty cool.

When I dropped my kids off at before school CARE my daughter went into her backpack to get out her notebook. She looked up and had this strange look on her face and asked "what's this?" I told her it was er lunch and she screamed "NO WAY!" and then threw her arms around me. I can't believe I almost didn't do this thinking I didn't have the time. Yeah!

Wouldn't your kids love to sit at the table on Easter as you served them breakfast or lunch in this?  Thank you Gluesticks for this great idea!

Happy Easter!

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Look What's Going In The Mail

I love snail mail. I love getting it! I love sending it! I love everything about mail (except all the bills that I get. There's nothing I like about that!) With all the changing technology it's so easy to just send a text or an email. I'm guilty of that. But I've always been a letter or card sender. I'm not sure where I got it from. No one in my family really sends letters or cards anymore. But my kids and I do. We send holiday cards and we still send traditional thank you cards out. So when I saw this idea I about dropped out of my chair. Brilliant! I shouted! Then I quickly shut up because I didn't want my kids to see what I was looking at.

How cool would it be to get a filled Easter Egg in the mail? Totally cool, right?!?! And not if you are just a kid. I sent these off to my niece and nephew (who are both in their twenties) and some friends (who are in their forties) and to my kids. Heck, I couldn't leave them out.

They were easy to do and hardly cost anything. I figure the reaction that will come from opening up the mailbox and finding an egg in there is worth a couple of dollars.

What you will need:
* plastic eggs. Big ones, not the traditional egg sized ones. I bought these at the Dollar Store and they were filled with Pop Rocks. I dumped the Pop Rocks out (and will use those at our Easter Egg Hunt.


* Easter grass. Or you can just shred colored paper.

* Candy. You could go cheap and buy Dollar Store candy but I don't like the no named chocolate. So I bought Twix, Snickers, Tootsie Rolls, etc. You don't need very much candy in each egg.

* A little note saying who it's from.


That's it!

Fill the eggs. Add an address label and tape shut. Then take them to the Post Office and watch their faces when you drop these on the counter and say "I'd like to mail these please."


I think each egg was about $3 (with postage).


A huge thank you to Adventures in Creating who made these great Easter treats. And to Givers Log for coming up with this great idea! Brilliant!!!

Of course I had to mail some to my kids! That wouldn't be right if they missed out on the fun.

They were so cute when they opened up the mailbox. Totally worth the $3, don't you think???

Now I'm wondering what I can mail next......

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Dye-ving Dudes

Do you dye Easter eggs? Some people do and others (I've heard) think it's just a big mess so they avoid it. We are one of those that do. My kids love dying Easter eggs. But what the heck do you do with all those eggs? We hard boil some. My son loves hard boiled eggs. But the rest we blow. What's that, you ask? We blow them. Seriously. We blow the guts out so I can use the insides when I bake and then we use the shells to dye.

If you haven't blown eggs with your kids before you seriously need to do it. It's a hoot. My daughter gets all serious and blows like a mad man. Sometimes she just spits all over the place. Other times she blows so hard her face turns red and she starts to shake. Either way, I'm on the floor laughing. But she does it!

It's really easy. Just poke a small hole in each end of the egg and blow!

So we got out all of our eggs and our Easter egg dye and got to work. But then I saw these adorable Dye-ving Dudes in the current issue of Family Fun and I quickly gathered the materials needed to make them. Totally cute, right??? The tutorial is found here.

We couldn't help it. They were calling our name.




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Adding Some Color to the Holiday

I have so many great memories about the holidays. And I'm not just thinking about Christmas but all of the holidays. I remember at Easter time hunting for Easter eggs with my brother and sister. Laughing and giggling about who was going to find the most or oohhing and ahhing over what treats we found. I remember sitting down at the dinner table and using the good China and silver and thinking everything was so fancy.

Family traditions don't have to be expensive or even fancy. Some of the best family traditions I remember (and am passing along to my children) are the ones where we didn't go anywhere or do anything fancy. But we spent time together and it felt special. Whether we were making homemade ice cream in the backyard or hunting for Easter eggs. I remember then vividly and very fondly.

One activity my kids and I do every year is color Easter eggs. I hard boil some of them (but since my kids won't eat them hard boiled I don't do a ton.) And we "blow" the rest. I was about rolling over watching my kids do this. It can be messy, but it's fun and then you can keep the Easter eggs out on the table and don't have to refrigerate them.

Blowing eggs is easy. You poke a small hole in one end of the egg.


Then poke another hole on the other end, a little bit bigger than the other one but not too big. Put your mouth over the smaller hole and blow! The insides shoot right out and the egg is hollow and ready to color.


We bought the cheap egg coloring kits. You can find them anywhere, including the Dollar Store. Follow the directions on the box to mix the colors and have at it! My kids love it. It's a little messy but you can line the counter with newspapers or paper towels. I use large cookie sheets to catch all the spills.


After the eggs are dry the kids can decorate them. Stickers are great and easy but some don't stick very well. I'm kind of simple. I like the eggs colored, no stickers or anything else - just bright colors.

And don't forget about all the community Easter Egg Hunts going on. They started last weekend but there are so many planned for this weekend. We're planning on going to two of them on Saturday! Most events are free so take your kids and enjoy!



Enjoy and Happy Easter!