Easter 2011--The Whole Shebang

Right before Easter, Nana and Papa came up for a visit. Adam couldn't get off work to go with me to my first OB appointment, and I was a bit nervous about going by myself. Nana went with me to the doctor, and Kenly had a special date with her Papa. Since Easter was just around the corner, we decided to fill the weekend with lots of Eater activities.


Last year I didn't let Kenly help with coloring eggs. Adam and I did it and let her be an observer. I don't mind a mess, but I don't want everything to change colors permanently. I read a tip in a parenting magazine that assured me that even toddlers can color eggs "mess free" by using a wire whisk to dip the eggs. I was blown away with how well Kenly was able to color a dozen eggs. She had the time of her life watching the white eggs magically transform into works of art.




She was showing her Daddy how pretty her eggs turned out in this picture.
Papa drew her a picture of a bunny on this egg when she wasn't looking by using a white crayon. Kenly loved the "magic" picture.
Her works of art. I tend to be a color purist when it comes to eggs, but I must admit that I liked Kenly's eggs much better than anything I've ever produced.
Kenly loves this princess umbrella that she got for Christmas. Sometimes it makes its way out of the car, and when it does, I have to fight to get it back downstairs.
Nana and Papa brought Kenly an Easter basket full of goodies. One of her favorite gift was a Leap Frog contraption that helps her practice writing her letters. She's getting good at writing a few. Just this morning she produced a recognizable Z and and O. Can I just say that I haven't met a Leap Frog product that I don't like?
We headed to Fletcher Park for a community Easter egg hunt. I thought it would be crowded, so we left a bit early. It was a good thing because every family in our town had the same idea. I've never seen so many kids in one place. In Kenly's age group (1-3), there were at least 100 kids waiting to hunt eggs. An entire baseball field was covered in plastic eggs filled with candy.
Kenly got so excited while waiting to start the hunt. She kept finding eggs.
Getting some loving from Daddy.
When they finally blew the whistle, Kenly took off to find as many eggs as she could. Within two minutes of the whistle blowing, the whole hunt was over. Kenly found six eggs, and she was over the moon with pride. I had to resist the urge to give one mama a piece of my mind. She allowed her child to collect about 12 eggs before the hunt even started, and then she hunted eggs stealing them from the little kids who were trying to get just a few eggs. In what universe is that right?

This picture best captures the pandemonium.


The park mismatched the eggs to make them easier to find. What a genius idea.

My baby bump is showing a bit in this picture. We are working on being a family of four.
Nana and Papa really enjoyed watching Kenly run around.
After lunch, we hid some eggs for Kenly in the backyard. She never tired of hunting eggs. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that we hid/hunted eggs once a day for at least two weeks. It never got old for her. Nana and Papa left after lunch on Saturday.
On Easter morning, Kenly found where the Easter Bunny hid her basket, and she had fun exploring the goodies. She received Leap Frog's Letter Factory DVD. She loves it. She now knows all of her letters sounds. She's even trying to sound out some words. I strongly recommend it to any parent who is trying to teach his/her child the letter sounds. She effortlessly learned every sound.
We all got in our Sunday finest and headed to church. Kenly wore this cute ladybug dress that Nana found at a consignment sale. This picture is grainy, but I love that Benny Bunny had to be in it.
Kenly spent some time throwing stick into the creek.
Daddy took a few pictures of the girls all dolled up.
Nothing beat performing while standing on the bench by the creek.
While we were camping, the lady at the site next to us gave Kenly this cute ladybug clip that is in her hair. She was excited to wear it with her sundress.
Easter was a blessed time of remembering the freedom we have because of Christ's ultimate sacrifice.

St. Partick's Day

Kenly has become a real fan of decorating the sliding glass door in the living room with seasonal window clings. We spent a good deal of a morning positioning and repositioning these St. Patrick's Day clings.







Earlier in the week we tried a stamping craft that we found over at Silly Eagle Books. We tired to follow the directions using a few of the many lids/caps I've collected over the past few months, but all of ours had ridges that kept us from making a complete stamp. I tried using cardboard and the foam stickers, but we had a epic craft fail. We had a few successful shamrocks, but for the most part we struck out.
The Tuesday before St. Patrick's Day Kenly and I decided to add a bit more flare to the living room for the leprechauns. I drew a rainbow and cut up paper for her to make a rainbow mosaic. She normally loves gluing scraps of paper to make designs, but she was downright surly during this craft. Truth be told, I mainly fussed at her while I made the rainbow. She whined about everything and wanted to do something different. It was a miserable experience.


Here's the finished product. Do you know what we found at the end of our rainbow? A stomach virus. A vomit fest of epic proportions. Looking back now I understand why she fussed all day long. She was probably beginning to feel the effects of the impending doom that was lurking just around the corner.
Yep. On Tuesday night, March 15th (Beware the Ides of March), Kenly woke up at 11:30 vomiting. Adam and I both were up a good deal of the night trying to make the little girl feel better. For the next two days I don't think the washer and dryer stopped running. The carnage was ugly. Adam's birthday was the 16th, so he got a sick kiddo and a worn out mommy. Poor guy. Needless to say, we didn't do the green milk and the lurking leprechauns on Thursday. We cuddled, watched TV, and read books.

Here are a few of the decorations we managed to put up for the holiday. Shamrock garland bedecked the hall door.
We changed the Valentine's Day tree into a St. Patrick's Day tree. It's now an Easter tree, but that's a whole new post.

The worst part about Kenly being sick was not being able to fix it. At times she got so furious and filled with rage because she didn't understand what her body was doing. I hate feeling helpless where my child is concerned.

Valentine's Day Suncatchers

As I was reading through a few of my favorite blogs the other day, I came across this craft idea at Elle Belle's Bows. We recently gave in to the temptation of sushi, so I had two take out lids to start the program. Kenly was feeling poorly this week, so we took some time to craft instead of resting all day in front of the television. (Side note: We do limit her TV intake all the time, but all bets are off in times of sickness. Sometimes the opiate of television is the only way I can get her to slow down long enough to truly get well.) But I digress.

We transformed clear take out lids, pipe cleaners, hot glue, Elmer's glue, and tissue paper and into works of art (in our eyes at least).

First, I cut the tissue paper into small pieces and glued the pipe cleaners to the lids with hot glue. We created three suncatchers each with a different Valentine-like message.
Can you tell she's excited to "make craft"?
I even gave Kenly a pair of scissors to try her hand at cutting the tissue. No great success story to tell, but she had a blast trying. She felt very grown up.
I squirted huge blobs of glue on each container and let Kenly "paint" the glue over the entire surface. This was her favorite step by far.
We quickly placed the tissue on to the thoroughly glue-saturated take out trays. Kenly didn't like the way the glue felt as it dried on her hands, so I did most of the paper arranging. After they dried, I glued cute ribbon to the backs to make hangers.
An up close look at our workman ship.
We think they look great in the windows. Kenly can't stop talking about them. She reads these two all the time. She'll says, "That one says 'I love you' and the other one says 'kisses and hugs.'"
I think she's proud.
Adam thought we made purses, but upon closer inspection he realized his mistake. This craft was a great, low-key way to pass a morning while we were sick at home.
Thank you Elle Belle's Bows for a great way to spruce up our home for Valentine's Day.