Easter Morning

Guess how cool we are. Go on, guess.

We are so cool that the Easter bunny comes on Saturday for us.

Yes, we're that cool.

It's because of me. I'm so cool that the Easter Bunny came on Saturdays when I was a kid, too. All the other kids on the block were so jealous that we got all our goodies a day early, which is especially awesome in kid-dom. I like it now because 1) we don't have to worry about rushing off to church right after the kids have eaten their weight in candy, and 2) it helps separate the secular from the spiritual.

The boys were pretty excited, of course. First they had to check out what was in their baskets. I put little toys and a small stuffed animal in each. (No candy - that's what the egg hunt is for.) They also each get one bigger gift; this year I decided to get them toys to play with outside. A good idea in theory except for that it was snowing today. Stupid un-ending winter.

Anywho, Spencer got a t-ball set and Josh got a bubble lawn mower. Tres fun.


The inevitable fighting occurred. Bats were swung, balls were thrown at heads, mowers were stolen. Not surprising, and easily forgotten with a hunt for Easter Eggs!


The boys hunted for eggs and ate candy with a frenzy usually found in sharks who haven't eaten in a month. Josh was especially adept at cracking open an egg and stuffing the entire contents in his mouth within seconds. Spencer was better at actually finding the eggs; he was quite disappointed to learn that that didn't mean he got to keep all of them. (Sharing with a kid brother is hard.)

Lance spent the morning the same way he did last year.


He is a total stick in the mud. Yeah, I went there.

Here are a few cute clips of the kids. The first part is of them trying to get to the eggs that are trapped in the baby-proofed cabinet. (The Easter Bunny knew they'd freak out about it!) ((The Easter Bunny has a weird sense of humor.)) The second part is trying to convince Josh that he should eat a real breakfast instead of candy. It didn't go over so well.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Easter Egg Tragedy

Last night we dyed our Easter Eggs. I'm not quite sure why we do it with the boys, other than it's tradition and I'd feel like a bad momma if I didn't. And they really like it. But it sure is messy, and I feel like I end up doing most of the work. (Kind of like carving pumpkins at Halloween.)

The boys did have fun. We had a little stamp for the eggs, and they loved stamping their eggs chests, anything within reach... Spencer stamped a little too hard, cracked his egg, and nearly had a melt-down. But all was made better when we let him take the eggs out of the dye all by himself. (A real 'big boy' moment!)


The best part was when Josh was putting stickers on his egg. The egg slipped out of his chubby little hands (big surprise!), and landed on the floor with a loud crunch. Spencer would have burst into tears, but Josh just said, in his cutest voice ever "Uh-oh". Too cute.

We put the boys to bed and I got work on my 'grown up' eggs. Who knew the boys' eggs would turn out better than mine? (Cracks and all...)

Remember last year when I made these cool patterned eggs? They were awesome, if I do say so myself. So I decided to follow Martha's lead again and make these cool wax-resist eggs. Pretty, right? And the instructions made it sound pretty easy.

So I set up my little egg waxing/dying station. I decided to melt the wax in my electric fondue pot, which is pretty clever, if I do say so myself! But then I learned that I probably shouldn't use a plastic spoon to stir the wax, which was not so clever. (But kinda funny.) I started the eggs. Things were going well.


And then I got to the part where I had to get the wax off. The instructions said to heat them in the oven for five minutes and then use a paper towel to wipe the wax off.

No dice.

The wax wouldn't be wiped off. It just stayed or got everywhere. And then the dye on the shells got all funky looking from the heat. I tried just peeling wax off, but that didn't work either.

I spent a dang-blasted hour on the eggs, and they were supposed to turn out like this:


But instead they turned out like this:


@%&$#!!!! Dang.

It's totally tragic.

Okay, I know it's not that big of a deal. But it was a lot of work for the results I got. Plus, I always use dyed eggs to decorate the table for our big Easter dinner.

I can make homemade flapbooks, but these eggs threw me for a loop. Something's wrong here...

Martha, you totally let me down!

Peep Show

Peeps seem to be a common theme this month. Whether you like to eat them, explode them in the microwave, or put them on display, you'll love the Peeps Show Diorama contest at the Washington Post. See them here, and then vote for you favorite.

Imponderables

• Why does Spencer freak out so much if Josh says "No." when he asks for some juice? (Josh says 'no' to everything right now.) Why doesn't he realize that I'm the one who decides whether or not he gets some juice?
• Why can the boys not leave each other alone? One will be sitting down, being good, doing his own thing, and the other will come up and smack the other on the head. Retribution, escalation, and tears soon follow.
• Why do I bother buying Easter candy when I know - I know - that we will be getting plenty of it from family and friends? (At least this year I didn't buy my favorites, like mini KitKats and Cadbury Mini Eggs.)
• Why can I not find a cute dress that actually looks good on me? I literally tried on 12 dresses this morning: a third just looked terrible, a third were too short, and a third were too large in the bust. (If I nurse anymore babies I'm going to have the chest of a 10 year old boy. Attractive.)
• Why can Josh not resist crawling under the dressing room door, escaping, and running away, giggling, when I am down to just my skivvies? (How does he know?)
• How does such a little amount of couscous cover such a great amount of surface area when being eaten by a toddler?
  
• Why oh why did I cave in and let Josh have a Fun Dip after lunch today? (Okay, I know the answer to that one - because Spencer chose that from the haul he got at preschool today and I didn't want to hear the shrieks of Joshie anguish that would be imminent if he didn't get one too.)

Homemade Flapbooks

Josh has been going through a real flapbook craze - he loves 'em. So I figured that I should get him one or two new books for our semi-annual trek to Utah next month. Then I found this on Sk*rt. How awesome is that? (Answer: very.)

So I decided to make my own.

Because I needed another project. (No, I did! I was bored! And it was a good excuse to ignore the housework that I don't like. Which is most of it.)

I had 70 free photo prints through CVS.com, which, in my opinion, is the perfect price for any project. I also had lots of scrap card stock paper that needed to be used, so I didn't need to buy an old book. (See tutorial.) I used three layers of card stock for each page, which is just about as thick as a board book.

I went around the house and snapped a bunch of pictures. Then I searched our old picture files for 'faces' I could use. I used Photoshop (*angelic choirs singing*) to make everything look good and to make the faces the right size. I also erased everything behind the faces and filled it in with a color to make them less distracting. I made the covers and text pages on Photoshop as well.

I cut all the card stock into 5x6 pieces. (A one inch margin for the binding.)

I decided to follow the advice of the tutorial and used spray glue. It was really good for making everything smooth. But it was really messy and got all over my hands, so I don't think I'd use it again.

I used an Exact-o knife to cut out the windows. I taped the faces to the back of the windows. The cutting and taping took a while, but then again, I'm a perfectionist!

Then I took everything to Kinkos to get the books bound. (Two boys = two books, otherwise TRAUMA on the plane!)

Total cost: spray glue - $3, binding - $8 = $11. Not bad, for personalized books!

I'm quite pleased with how they turned out. Here are a few of my favorite pages.


What do you think? (I'm almost afraid to let the kids play with them!)

Basket Cases

Grandpa Viggo & Grandma Joy -

Thank you so much for the fun Easter basket. The boys were thrilled to open it and cried all evening when we wouldn't let them eat all of the candy. (A sure sign of gift success!) Lance and I are hoarding the good candy (truffles, chocolate, etc.), and I'm sure the boys will finagle their way into eating the rest.

We can't wait to see you next month! We love you!

Josh helps open the basket

The boys were both so excited to have new bunnies!

I think this cookie was the cutest thing in the basket - almost too cute to eat!
Super-excited Josh!

Egg-nose Spencer

Egg-nose Josh (whatever Spencer does, Josh does too!)

It's Here! It's Here!

My blog book arrived today. I totally love it. But before some pictures, a brief review of the process.

I used Blurb.com. You download their free BookBuilder software and then it 'slurps' all of your posts and photos into the software. And then you build your book. Pretty easy, right? Well, it's a bit more difficult than that, at least if you're a perfectionist like me. A few items of note:

• BookBuilder has specific set templates that you have to use. I really wish that you could design your own templates. I had to do A LOT of rearranging of text and photos to get things to look the way I want. (They start by putting every post in the same template, but I didn't really care for that template!)
  
• Your computer has to have a lot of memory, or BookBuilder will close all the time on you. Very annoying!
  
• There are lots of glitches with the software, most of which are too complicated to explain unless you've used the program. But, in Blurb's defense, I did have the Beta version and they are now on a new version. So perhaps these have been fixed.
• The binding in the very center of my book seems to be broken or cracked. I've emailed them about it and will give updates on what happens. (For what I paid for the book, I feel like it should be perfect!)
  

Anywho, it really was a lot of work. But I think so worth it. I consider blogging my form of journaling, so having it in print form is great. (Anything really personal I do write down - I just don't broadcast it to the world!) The quality (beside the binding) is excellent; it really does look like a book you could buy at a store.

Without further ado, my book!

The front cover

The inside cover flaps.

Copyright and Title pages

Some of my favorite pages, just to show layout. Yes, each page is a light blue.

I'm definitely doing more of these photo "bleed" pages next year - they look so great!

And finally, how it looks on my bookshelf!

I really am quite happy with it. I hope to enjoy it in years to come, laughing at all the goofy things I've said and loving all of the pictures of my kids and family. You can make any type of book in Blurb, and so I think I might try making vacation, wedding, or even cookbooks in the future. Maybe even a baby book, although that's a pretty lofty aspiration!

Final verdict: Blurb - love it! If you're serious about your blogging and about using it for journaling or personal history, it's totally worth the time, effort, and money.

p.s. Do I put this post in next year's blog book? Whoa - that's kinda like an M.C. Escher picture.