Easter fun...a little late.

So much to catch up on! I'll try to hurry through so I can finally be up to date. Easter was pretty fun this year. It definitely gets more and more exciting as these girlies get older. They really enjoyed their Easter baskets this year and Zoey loved coloring eggs and hunting for them. She also understood a little bit about both the atonement and resurrection and the Easter bunny so that was fun. I didn't plan on having Easter baskets Easter morning but I didn't get them ready in time to do it the sat before. I think I want to keep Sunday strictly centered on Christ and try to do most of the festivities the Sat before Easter. Anyways, we had a little Easter egg hunt for the girls in CA the week before since we were down there. The day before Easter we died eggs and went to a park close by to hunt for them. On Easter Sunday the Easter bunny came and brought just a couple goodies and a toy for each girl. Zoey got a Tinkerbell doll and jump rope and Jane got a Mrs. Potato Head. I actually didn't get to see them open it because of Sunday morning meetings but it was fun to see Zoey excitedly explain everything to me when I got back. That evening I made an Easter dinner for a couple of our nephews and my sister and a couple of her friends. I had high hopes for it and of course it didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it to but I guess it was ok. We had chicken cordon bleu, potatoes, salad, and rolls. It was a busy but really fun day. The girls were cute as ever in their Easter dresses but the only pictures I have of their dresses is from the week before at my mom and dads.

I could just squeeze her!!!

Me and my girlies in their Easter dresses in CA.

First egg hunt of the year in Grammy's backyard. It was such a hot day, I LOVED it!!

My beautiful little girl. LOVE you Zoey Lanae!

We all got a good laugh from Jane's reaction to all the candy.

Mouth full of gummies.

Standing amongst all the goods

Who made the mistake of putting M&Ms into the eggs on such a hot day....Jane went to town!

One of the Supermarkets here in Rexburg had Easter Bunnies on display. The girls LOVED them, Jane couldn't contain herself :)

Beautiful yellow egg

Love little Nancy Jane's face in this picture.

Helping put the bling on the eggs.

Jane's egg I made for her. She promptly dropped it immediately following this picture...oh well. It wasn't the only casualty.

Our beautiful eggs. Andrew did the clever resurrection depiction on the far right. I thought it looked pretty good. Good enough for Zoey to know who it was :)

Seeing how many eggs she had found.

Jane's egg hunt went a little something like this...find the first egg you can get your hands on, figure out how to open it, and stuff everything into your mouth. :) As you can tell, I have many easter pictures of Jane with a mouth stuffed with candy/fruit snacks.

Jane's trail to her Easter Basket.

Zoey's trail

My girls look like Zombies in this picture....lol! Andrew took this while I was gone. It really just makes me laugh because I don't recall my girls looking like this in the morning though I'm sure they do. I have NO idea why Jane's hair was so horrific (I'm guessing Sunscreen from the day before??)

Hope everyone enjoyed their Easter as much as we did!

Fun at Grammy and Grampa's

I know a lot of these posts are catch up but I really wanted to post the pictures still. These are just some fun misc. pictures from our visit.

These pictures are backwards sorry. I always forget to load them in the right way.

Jane isn't shy with Dallin like Zoey was when she was younger.

Big hugs for Grampa

Saying good bye :(

There were some REALLY nice and sunny days in CA and we took full advantage of them. It was so nice to hang out outside. This particular day was nice and hot and the girls had tons of fun playing in the pool. Jane was drenched but didn't care. I'm sure it felt great :)

Aunty Breanna and Zoey making cake balls. Breanna was just hired on as an attorney at a law firm in Lancaster. Needless to say she was super busy while were visiting but we still got to see her.

Grampa hadn't seen "Tangled" yet so Zoey and him had to watch it together.

We LOVE the salsa at Pepe's.

Just goofy once again.

Classic Jane face :)

Eating breakfast under the table in a fort with Aunty Karlie

Cuddles with all 3 kiddos...yes that is my belly Jane is sleeping on :)

Zoey has finally warmed up to Dallin :) In fact, she prefers to play with him over anyone else. It's cute.

"Shoppin"

Our hotel room in Fresno for Time out For Women. Jane was just being herself.

so tired!

A really funny picture Karlie took of Zoey, I think those are fishy lips and two peace signs...not sure but hilarious!

Hot tub!

Grammy loves

California Poppies

While we were visiting CA last month we got the chance to see some of the CA poppies (state flower.) Unfortunately it was a little windy so they weren't fully opened but we found a good enough patch and took a few pictures.

A few crafts

This last week I was able to get three crafts/projects done. It felt great! I go through spurts...I do a lot of crafting/sewing and then get sick of it. It's been a good 6+ months since I've even thought about crafts and even longer for sewing projects. What got me motivated was some cute baby boy fabric I picked up at Walmart. I really wanted to sew a blanket for this baby. The second project I did was also for baby brother, an ABC book. I found the panel at Walmart for like $3, I was so excited. The third project was covering our kitchen table. I got the idea to cover it with fabric and then clear vinyl to make it easier to keep clean. Andrew helped me staple it and it turned out pretty good.

I love the animal print! It's just a cotton print and the back is a really soft sateen velvet type material. I was deciding between it and some of those super soft baby materials but Zoey has a baby blanket with the velvet material and it has held up really well with washing etc. The one thing I loved about the velvet material was that it was super easy to sew with, no annoying stretching that makes lining up hard (you know what I mean?) I had gotten 1 1/4 yards and was super happy with how big it ended up being. I think I'll be using it as his bedding quilt type blanket. Can't wait to wrap him in it!

I love the cute prints. I was so surprised to find this type of fabric at Walmart. I need to go snatch up a few more panels for gifts. Instead of batting I used some leftover fleece that so it turned out to be super cheep.

Front of the book, it's not perfectly lined up but I still like how it turned out. If I do it again I want to try and sew the middle pages a tad smaller so they don't poke out farther than the other pages. Oh well.

Close up of the table cover. I guess it's like a permanent table cloth. I was worried it would look too picnicky but it's fine and so easy to keep clean. No more digging out dry play dough from the cracks and esp. no more ugly permanent marker lol.

What do you think? Too shiny/restaurant looking? I just picked a cheep semi neutral fabric, but it may be fun to try some different prints after awhile.

Birthday Ideas

Zoey's Birthday is fast approaching! I can't believe she's almost three, holy smokes! I still don't know what we're doing for her party but I'm excited to plan it as it draws near for a few reasons....1) since she will be 3 she will really be into this party. She's already talking about it and giving me ideas, etc. 2) Planning it will help give me something to do as I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of this baby boy! 3) My parents will be visiting the end of June so it will be fun to do a celebration with them here.

So here are some ideas I've comes across in my blog/google travels....

I would make this cake but in more girly colors...pinks.

LOVE this cake but not sure if I'm in over my head with it....maybe I'll have to try out the icing technique to see if it's even possible. I can also imagine a cute cupcake version of this...

Carnival Themed Birthday

more carnival ideas

I love the idea of having a carnival. I've got a funnel cake maker and a snow cone maker that could come in handy. It would also be fun to have cotton candy. The invitations on martha's page are also really cute. The idea of having people guess the number of animal crackers in a jar is cute too. This is a top contender I think.

Strawberry Shortcake Birthday

Ballerina Birthday

I thought of this as an alternative to a princess party. This way the girls could still dress up...I dunno. With a ballerina theme there's no real option for the boys (like if it were princess theme, it could just be a royal party and boys could be princes)

Of course there's the Princess or Fairy/Tinkerbell idea

I like the rapunzel hair idea...it would be a cute "pin the bow on rapunzels hair" game. Not sure if I love the idea of having a princess party but there are some really cute ideas out there and Zoey really does love dressing up.

I've got one minor problem that I need to work out. I want to be able to invite all of our friends, boys and girls. Lots of ideas involve girly things so what is the rule on this? Is there a way to make it gender neutral yet still girly or do 2/3 year old boys even care?

Today was somewhat productive in the house keeping department. I decided early in the day to follow a friends advice and just pick a few chores to get done throughout the course of the day. Amazingly it worked quite well for me. I usually have the goal to just get everything done, like a whirlwind clean up, but honestly I've only conquered that once that I can remember.

So, today I chose to organize the food closet (pantry) and scrub the toilets. I also was hoping to get some laundry done but didn't make it a goal because I was trying to be realistic :) Well, I got my two jobs done! It felt great if I do say so myself. I even got the laundry done (but not folded) and some organizing in the office. I was surprised at the energy I had after accomplishing my two jobs. I was even able to mop the whole kitchen floor BY HAND. My steamer broke a few weeks ago and the floor has desperately been needing a good mopping. Today I broke down and scrubbed it on my hands and knees. I felt like Cinderella....only 30 weeks pregnant to boot. Phew, that was a chore. I should have asked for a new mop for mother's day instead of a dress.

This is the dress I got only in the color "twilight mauve." Sort of a plum color and I love it! I think it's way cuter on and it's a perfect pregnant dress that I don't have to worry about being too short or bunching in weird spots from carrying little girls. That's a pain. Does anyone else with children have that problem? You think something's modest until you're holding your squirmy 1 year old in church and realize your skirts getting pulled and yanked in all directions. It's nice to have a one piece to put on that I can relax in. Hope you all had a great mother's day as well!