The Day I Went Dumpster Diving (well, not exactly diving, but...)

Ok, so I admit it.

  I went dumpster diving. 

Never, EVER in my life have I done such a thing. 

 I mean, up until a year or so ago, I never shopped at yard sales or thrift stores either (think about all the fun stuff I missed out on)....so you can imagine my thinking about people who "shop" curbside.  LOL! Not that I think there anything is wrong with it, I just never did it until.....

A few months back I was driving around the block waiting for an open parking spot in front of a store (yes, I was being lazy, but in my defense it was still winter and freezing outside), when I spotted this little wooden children's chair sitting beside a dumpster.  It looked fine, just a bit beat up.

As I got closer, I saw the reason it was there, the seat was missing.  The frame looked fine.  So I thought what the heck and threw caution to the wind and tossed in the back of my van.  Rich is very handy with things like this, so I figured he could cut a seat out of some scrap wood and I could paint it and it would be good as new.

I laughed all the way home at myself for doing such a thing.....

I told Rich what I did and showed him the chair and just as I thought, he said it would be an easy fix.

It needed a bit of tlc (some sanding and a bit of wood glue).  And now here she is all primed and ready for her new seat and a fresh, fun coat of paint and she'll be good as new.

Can't wait to show her off when she's finished!

Easter.....

Before the chaos begins......

Our weather was kind of wonky this year (plus our yard looks more like a hay field), so we did the egg hunt inside this year.

The big kids hid the eggs and the little kids found them.

(Zach's alien eggs)

(Mommy's pretty pink sparkly glitter egg)

(yeah, he went there...)

(Sarah's egg that she named - Jerry)

(Um, yep they ditched me)

(yeah, we're lame and left the tv on...it was paused while they were watching Holes)

Fun day....even though I had to work that afternoon (but at least I didn't have to deal with hyped on sugar kids all day long).

Nathan's Earth Day Crafts

Nathan made a few crafts to celebrate Earth Day. 

The first two were trees.

One tree, we used brown paint to paint his arm and hand.  And split peas for the leaves on the tree.

For the second one, we used scrap paper that looked like tree bark.  And split peas for the leaves on the tree.

The third craft we made was the planet Earth.

Sarah drew a picture of the Earth and Nathan painted the water blue....

and used split peas for the land.

I bought a bag of split peas for another project and had a bunch left over, so I thought this would be a great way to use them up (no one in our house likes split peas).  But alas, we still have over half a bag.

Cute Cupcakes for Easter

We made all these cupcakes last year....but I thought I would share them again, because they were so darn cute and pretty.  Sarah just asked me if I would make some of the bird nest ones again this year. 

Here's the recipe for these adorable little chickie cupcakes.

The recipe for these bird nest cupcakes can be found here.

These are just cupcakes with colored icing to match the Peeps.

One of My Favorite Easter/Spring Crafts from Last Year ~ Hatching Chick

This is a fun little springish/Easter craft for kids, you can use construction paper if you want, but we used foam board, because it's more fun!

Take a piece of foam board (you can find it all over the place, but the Dollar Tree is the cheapest place to find it).  Cut it into an egg shape.  Next, cut the top of the egg off.  Then cut it to look like it "hatched". 

Make a bird shape, I just free handed this part, but you can probably use your child's foot to make the shape if you want. 

Glue on some googley eyes and cut out a beak and glue that on too.  Decorate the egg, we used foam stickers (but you can color it if you use paper). 

Next, glue the chicken to the back of the egg and use a brad fastener to attach the egg shells together. That's all there is to it.

that shirt doesn't fit him anymore - sniff sniff...

Cute Little Bunnies

I got the idea for this project from the Handprint and Footprint Art blog.

We made two crafts using the idea from the link above.

Bunnies Hiding In Grass

The first idea was a Bunny Windsock. 

 We used foam board to make the ears and whiskers, wiggly eyes, a ribbon to hang it with and another ribbon for the ear, a button for the nose, paper plate for the face and green crepe paper streamers for the grass, that the bunny is "hiding" in.

We glued the ears to the back of the plate and added some pink to the inside part of the ear.

We used clothes pins to the help set the glue on the ears.

And glued whiskers and the button nose to the plate.

We cut the crepe paper into strips and glued those to the bottom of the face.

Nathan glued on some wiggly eyes and drew a mouth using a red crayon.

I used a hole punch to make a hole to hang the bunny up and made another hole in the bunny's ear to tie a ribbon for some flair.

For the second project, Nathan painted bunnies and used his handprints for the "grass"

We used blue construction paper, white, pink and green paint, wiggly eyes and a button for the nose.

Nathan painted some bunnies on the construction paper.

Then, he glued the wiggly eyes and button nose on each of his bunnies.

I painted both of his hands with green paint

(he said.....cool Mom, I look like the incribable hulk! haha)

He placed his hands on the bottom of the painting to make the grass for his bunnies to hide in.

Not quite like that in the link....but super cute nonetheless and a different spin on the craft.

Nathan is very proud of his little bunnies (as well he should be).