Getting ready for Easter

This weekend we will be celebrating Easter with an Easter egg hunt on Saturday and then dinner with my parents on Sunday.  I have been trying to read the kids Easter books but they get a bit distracted...so we are getting ready by dying eggs, getting the baskets ready, and completing an art project that leaves easter grass all over my kitchen floor.

After we dyed the eggs, Grace had to eat one. She loves hard boiled eggs (she usually eats the egg but i think she really likes cracking them and then using the egg slicer thingy). She also showed Andrew the dyed eggs, suprisingly he tried to eat it too. Everything is in his mouth lately.

We have the baskets for the easter bunny ready to go.  At our house we leave out our baskets and plastic eggs for the bunny to hide and fill with candy (left over from Grace's birthday party...shhhh).  And then we go on an egg hunt around the house Easter morning.  Fun! 

I tried to get a blue basket for Andrew to match Grace's from Pottery Barn Kids, but I thought I would wait until they go on sale...well guess what?  Sold out.  Will have to wait until next year.  This little felt one from Target is pretty cute though.


The Easter Bunny that visits our house gives practical items and candy (in my book nothing is more practical than candy - I wonder who will be eating all of Andrew's?).  It is not "christmas in the spring" over here at the Malones (although it is tempting with all the great easter basket stuff in the stores).  Grace has been inundated with gifts lately with christmas and then her birthday.  She is easy to shop for too, so it is hard to control myself.  Andrew is the hard one, he usually gets gas drops or pacifiers or something really lame that he would get anyways.  Maybe for easter he will get some diaper cream or anbesol (he now has his first tooth and I think #2 is arriving any day now)?

A few years ago I bought these cute bunny ears in the $1 section at Target.  I think we have gotten $1 out of them!

Grace is way too cool for them now, but she loved them when she was 1 year old!

Grace's 3rd Birthday Celebration - Day 3

Grace loved having all her favorite people in the world (except Aunt Amy and Uncle Justin).  Sorry we didn't get pictures of everyone there, but it was a good crowd!

Special Visitor - Cousin Nolan!

The Cake

Grace was excited to get the piece with the stinger!

The Decorations

We (I) had a lot of fun getting all the decorations ready for the party.  We used the scuply bees we made in the flower arrangements and hanging from the chandelier "buzzing" over the flowers.

Candy Bar

The Gifts

Of course Grace loved openning her gifts and everyone was way too generous.  And...Andrew loved attacking the wrapping paper.

Grace loves her new pug wristlet from Aunt Sue!

Cuddling with her new yellow crocs from Uncle Mark!

Grace's 3rd Birthday Celebration - Days 1 & 2

Since Grace was turning 3, we decided 3 days of celebration were in order (not really, it just worked out that way).  Day 1 was Thursday - a "day care day".  I ordered her cupcakes with a "3" on them and brought them to daycare for snack time.  I could only stay about 2 minutes, and the whole time Grace cried.  It was awesome.

I took off work on Friday and we headed down to Kenosha with Grandma JuJu.  Stop 1 was the Jelly Belly Factory Tour (not really a factory, just a distribution center). 

Grace telling JuJu that it is time to board the tour!

You ride in a "train" around the center and watch videos about the history of Jelly Belly - not very interesting but a quick activity to do with kids. 

The best part was that we all had to wear these paper hats, even Baby Andrew.  

At the end you get a free sample and can wander around the gift shop where you can taste different flavors of the candies. 

They have this line of gross flavors, which I did not try, but this one was especially repulsive to me

We had fun and Grace got a major sugar rush from the ridiculously disgusting gummi RAT (yes, a 7 inch long, orange gummi rat, tail and all) that her Grandma bought her - i guess it was "on sale" - so it makes sense then, uh actually not.

 Unfortunately, the camera died before we could snap a picture of Grace chomping the head off. So gross.

After the tour we headed off to lunch and a quick stop at the outlets, which was somewhat disastrous.  Thank God my mom came to help me, so we actually got a little shopping done.

a toddler insult

Grace was really mad at me this morning (because i wanted to brush her hair or something absurd like that) and screamed at me "mommy, i am going to take you and flush you down the toilet" (while waving her arm around in a swirling motion - like the water going down the toilet).  Yikes.  I guess this is the ultimate insult coming from a toddler.

After her timeout (don't you love those early morning timeouts when we are all trying to get out the door?), Kevin was talking to her about why this was not nice and where she heard it from...now we say a lot of things we shouldn't around her, but definitely nothing about toilet flushing.  We were thinking of blaming it on the other children at daycare (that is the only place that Grace learns anything that is not intelligent, charming and sweet). 

But no.

She said JuJu (Grandma Julie) told her that.  After Kevin told her that just isn't possible, she thought about it and said "From mommy's parents."  My sweet little girl couldn't be fibbing, could she?  No. 

Thanks  mom and dad :)

Guest Blogger - Andrew Malone

"Hey there Mom!  How's it going?  Oh yeah, time to eat peas and rice cereal.  I'm game."

Mom needs to stop babying me, I can definitely feed myself.   Look, she took off all my clothes!  What is she, crazy?  I can totally do this without making a mess.  But then again, maybe she just wants to look at my chunky body.  And really, can you blame her?

Thank you for the diversion big sister Grace. I have attained the spoon.

 

 I snapped this great photo of myself when mom wasn't looking.  See, I got the food REALLY close to my mouth.  I even stashed some under one of my chins so I will smell really great later.

Here I am pretending to be sorry that I covered myself in peas, but, secretly, I am loving it.

Fun stuff

Grace, make your own dinner.....

Last week I attempted to make the dinner hour less disastrous by making individual pizzas.  Grace loved it but I cannot say it made the evening any less stressful.  But the pizza was good. 

Kevin and Grace had boring cheese pizzas.  Mine had spicy peanut sauce, chicken and carrots (really good)!

Family Free Day

We made the mistake of going to the zoo on Free Day.  By the time we figured this out we were already in the looooong parking line.  It was a bit crowded, but Grace still seemed to have fun.  We didn't capture many good pictures, but these are Grace screaming  telling me and Andrew that she saw a "HIPPOPOTAMUS!!!!" (yes, I did have to look up how to spell that, anyone else use Google as spell check?)  Poor Andrew just sat in his stroller and sucked on his pacifier the whole time, I am sure he couldn't see anything.  (Check out the yellow sticker on Grace's forehead, that was there the whole morning.)

Warm (or luke warm) Weather

We lucked out on Monday and had some mild temps and sunshine.  We headed outside for a long walk and some sidewalk chalk.

Portrait of Grace and Andrew