Holidays | Marriage Confessions Holidays | Laugh. Fight. Stay Married.

Easter this year was pretty low key for us. In light of all that has been going on over the past few weeks, we decided to take it easy. I even put hosting the Easter lunch off on my parents, so I didn’t have to cook much either! How’s that for avoiding responsibilities? We did the traditional things like dying Easter eggs…

Later, we hunted eggs, too!

But mostly, we just sat around and enjoyed being with family.

The one thing I really focused on were our Easter outfits because I really want a good family picture. We haven’t had one since the lovely Jenn Hopkins Photography took ours a while ago. So, I bought Bean and Chris matching ties, found dresses for me and Gracie, and planned to get at least ONE good family picture. But then on Saturday, Gracie face planted on the sidewalk in front of our house and got a bloody nose and giant bruise on her forehead. She survived, but she looks pretty rough.

Plus, by the time we got to my parents, the kids were ready to play, so pictures were hit and miss.

This was as close as I got. Not bad, but Gracie looks pissed off and Bean’s twisting Chris’s tie. Eh…it’ll do.

Since those didn’t work, I thought I’d try some of me and Gracie or Chris with Bean. I figured if we reduced the number of variables, maybe we’d have better luck. Not really…

Though, Bean and Chris seemed to do better.

Pictures aside, the only other must-have at Easter this year were Easter baskets. Gracie just had her birthday, and both kids racked up on a bunch of new toys, so I tried to come up with other things to get them. With summer coming up, I decided to go with summer themed baskets and pick them each up some summer items they’d be needing very soon.

Bean had a Lightning McQueen summer basket. I found him a Lightning McQueen beach towel, Lightning McQueen sunglasses, and Lightning McQueen flip flops.

I wrapped propped everything up in his Easter basket with Easter grass, then filled in the holes with eggs and some candy.

I put the whole basket in a basket bag and tied it at the top with yellow and white polk-a-dot ribbon.

Gracie needed some summer clothes like WHOA. In one week, she outgrew all of her nine month clothes and is now wearing twelve month clothes (which are a little snug sometimes around the belly!). She didn’t have any summer play clothes in her new size, so I picked her up two new little romper outfits at Target.

She also got a new pair of summer sandals (which conveniently matched her Easter dress).

The last of her goodies were new sippy cups because we are trying desperately to get her to drink out of a sippy cup. Girlfriend wants nothing to do with a sippy cup right now, so I tried a different brand and style to see if that would help. Surprisingly, it did a little bit.

Just like with Bean, I filled her basket with green grass and arranged all of her goodies. She got some Easter eggs, too, but I skipped the candy for Gracie Girl. (Don’t tell her, though. I don’t think she noticed!)

I finished the baskets around 9:00 that night and realized that I had only gotten ONE basket bag, so I had to haul myself up to Target at 9:30 and hunt down another bag for Gracie. But the morning when the kids woke up, the Easter Bunny had arrived in all his basket bag glory. I felt a little bad that there weren’t toys or anything fun in the kids baskets at first, but it ended up working out really nice. Bean loved his stuff, and Gracie didn’t care one way or another, but she sure looked cute!

17 comments | posted in Family, Holidays, The Romper Room | tags: Easter, Family, parenting

A few weeks ago at my favorite place, Target, I ran across these adorable aluminum mailboxes in their $1 bins. I scooped up three of them and thought that I’d use them sort of as stockings for Valentine’s Day. I had all these plans to decorate them with puff paint and stickers, but it’s 9:37 on Valentine’s Eve and I’m tired. So, I Sharpie’d their names on the mailboxes and called it a day. I still think they came out really cute.

Chris and I agreed to keep Valentine’s Day cheap and sweet this year, so I did most of my shopping in the check out aisles at Target. In Gracie’s little mailbox, she is getting a new rattle/teether. She has a ton already, but she loves these suckers! I also picked up this adorable bendy flower that I wrapped around the mailbox flag. I stuck some candy in there for her, more for show than anything else. Although, I kinda want to let her try a piece of one of the jellybeans. I bet she’d flip out!

Bean got a Finn McMissle toy car from Cars 2. He has all the other character cars, so this completes his little collection. He’s going to be so excited. He also got a new box of crayons, which he really needs. He goes through Crayons like a mad man. His Grandmomma sent him some Angry Bird bandaids, too. I think Chris might steal some of these from Bean. He was pretty excited when they arrived in the mail today. Bean got some chocolates, too. It IS Valentine’s Day, after all.

Chris even got a mailbox! I stuffed his with my traditional gift of silly themed boxer shorts. And, of course, candy.

I think all total, I spent $20 on everyone’s gifts. Turns out that cheap and easy is totally doable!

I set up each mailbox on the living room table so that we could all open our gifts tomorrow morning before school. Under each mailbox, I put all the Valentine’s Day cards that family and friends have mailed the kids over the past week.

This is a new tradition for our family. Truthfully, Chris and I have never done anything really intentional for Valentine’s Day before, but it has been a lot of fun to plan and collect little odds and ends for each of them over the past week. I hope they all have as much fun opening everything tomorrow morning as I had putting it all together!

15 comments | posted in Fun with Mom, Holidays, Parenting Ideas, The Romper Room | tags: Valentine's Day gifts