Double egg hunt

My kids scored two Easter egg hunts this year, one at grandma and grandpa's ranch with their cousins, and a second upon returning to our home with their dad.

Sidewalk chalk city

In honor of the first day of spring break, the kids drew a chalk city on our back porch to drive their hotwheel cars on. It is complete with school, office building, doctor's office, lake, park, and several houses. Oh yes, and it is located just off I-90.

Chocolate covered cinnamon bears

This is the second time I've made these, now, so I thought that I'd post the "recipe". I melted 1 c. chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet) with 1 T. vegetable shortening in the top of a double boiler, stirred, and then tossed in a handful of bears into the chocolate. After making sure they were completely covered in goodness, I used a plastic for that I had broken the middle 2 tines out of to retrieve my dipped bears. The hard part is waiting for them to cool (on waxed paper). I rushed these by putting them into the fridge, but they seem to work better if allowed to cool at room temp. They are now ready for a road trip up north!

Fancy bag

Since Riley is an uber-fancy girl (so unlike her mom), I had to make her an equally fancy church bag. This one is based on the popular placemat method, but I then covered it in pink feather boa. She loves it, and someday I hope to cough all of the pink feathers out of my lungs...

What I've been up to

Riley's primary teacher just had a baby this week (named Logan, if you didn't guess), so I made this fluffy towel (for post-bath drying and lotioning) that I saw on another blog. Also made an I-spy blanket for Carson. Today I had a wonderful treat of chocolate covered cinnamon bears. Yummy and easy to re-create. Will try on Monday...

my growing pumpkin

I can't believe that she is already almost 1 year old. *sigh* too fast!

Captain Underpants birthday

For E and M's combined birthday, we had a Captain Underpants Birthday Party with such games as "The underwear toss", "Cafeteria sign", "George and Harold's comics", and "Diapers of doom". Classy, I know. What made it even better was the 1 hr of sleep Kiechel and I got the night before due to the flu fairy visiting our house. Baths and laundry at 1 and 3 a.m. All better now, phew!