Happy Earth Day

I was totally bummed because our Earth Day plans fell through when I discovered the Expo we were going to was on Sunday, not actually Earth Day. So I had to come up with some alternate activities.

First we learned about the earth and undertook the #1 messiest craft we have ever done. We shaved crayons on a grater in blue and green. The shavings got everywhere and somehow got a little static cling.



We used an earth template, overlayed it with freezer paper, and sprinkled the shavings on the blue and green parts of the earth. I then covered the shavings with another layer of freezer paper and melted them with the iron on low. This part was relatively easy. We should have done some more shavings so it was a little thicker, but it turned out really pretty.




Then we ventured into our next craft: learning about picking up trash and making trash collection boxes. We just painted boxes with tempra, let them dry and then ventured outside to the park. We filled all 3 boxes relatively easy.

Ava was really into it. Violet not so much.



Our findings included: a quarter (it pays to recycle! :), a pair of baby shoes, baby toys and a garter. We then played at the park for a bit. The sun is so amazing. I love it!! We've gone to the park every day. Sand seems to be the only thing that entertains my kids for a long period of time.

Although I've never been particularly into earth day, I was horrified a few weeks ago when Ava was throwing trash out the car window. I'm sure whoever was behind us thought we were terrible parents... This spurred our lesson on the earth and trash pickup. It was also nice to read about the creation and tie that into our activities.

In the Stroller

Caution: Imaginations at work.

Here is a creative use for a doll stroller.

Barbie Gets a Makeover

As a child I never mutilated my Barbies. But realizing that at 4 and 2, there may be considerable fun in cutting their hair and coloring their faces like they were wearing makeup, I guess I will forgive the girls in the P household. We didn't recycle this week because there was a ton of barbie hair in the bin. There were a few more good pictures, but there were naked barbies all over the place, and I decided to spare my readers.

30 weeks

Friday Fun

We made fish bean bags out of old socks. Another useful way to have fun with mismatched socks AND food storage.

Glorious Easter

Here is how the day ended up..

The girls had two easter egg hunts. After the second they decided they were going to hide the eggs for us and each other. It was a fun game by this point.

At great grandma Culver's.


In the morning we did the annual "follow the string through the house to find your Easter basket." Both the girls had a lot of fun with this ducking and playing around the string.

What they'd been dying for, princess umbrellas.

At Great Grandma Lucas' and Aunt Dee's.

Daddy makes use of the umbrella very well.

Another easter egg!

Finding eggs in the woods.

We are thankful for the risen Lord and all he does for us. We are thankful we can someday be resurrected and because of the atonement we have a chance to be an eternal family.

The new do'

Before ...

After...

Twas the Night Before Easter

And mom was getting caught up on posting pictures to the blog. A while ago we went to a place called Jungle Java. There is an awesome playground, but since I'm in a "delicate" (haha) condition, I would rather not climb through a pregnant woman's equivalent to an army bootcamp training facility.


Thankfully my lovely little girls would rather play outside of the jungle gym. Good thing it costs us $12 a pop to go.
This winter we also tried to go to the Plymouth Ice Fest. We were there about an hour after things shut down, and it was pretty warm. Almost all the sculptures were destroyed or melted. It was a nice try.


Here is one of the girls dresses/shirts I made for Ava's birthday. I am very proud.


I liked this picture. Violet sleeping on my pregnant belly. We know two people who are/have going to name their babies Violet. I think it is so cute!


Going through the summer stuff we found this costume. Not sure where it came from, but it's cute!

A cute one of Violet. She's pretty photogenic, I think anyway!


Violet and Milo. Two little puppies!


Best friends.

Finally, this year we really tried to focus on the real meaning of Easter because the girls are definitely able to know now. Our family home evening on Monday was fun, I just cut out a bunch of pictures from church magazines (the Ensign and Friend), folded them up, put them in eggs, and as we opened each egg we got to tell a different story, look at a picture, or read a scripture. At the end Tyler and I shared our testimonies. Then we dyed eggs.

There is a ridiculous amount of chocolate in this house. Tyler bought some sort of chocolate egg with little chocolate eggs inside them from a Brazillian store. The name of the store is Brazamerica. That's for another post. More tomorrow.