A Series of Events and a Few Pictures For Nana

I've been pretty scarce in blogland for the last week or so.  There was a reason.

I moved the living room furniture around last Monday.

No it hasn't taken me all week to move the furniture, but moving the furniture led to a sudden burst of project ideas, and I just had to go with it.  I got a lot accomplished and it has made me so happy.  Some of the stuff I finished were projects that have been sitting around half finished or stuff I wasn't quite happy with, and I was just waiting for the right solution to present itself.  Like our faux fireplace mantel and those brass lamps I got during my thrifty shopping trip.  Both of them got a makeover this week and now they are beautiful.  Well, actually I still have to work on one lamp, but at least I finally figured out what it needs to look like when it's through.

This week I have some sewing to do just as soon as this new fabric comes in the mail.
Another something for the living room.  Can you guess what it will be?

Besides being busy with home projects there hasn't been anything too eventful happen.

It has rained or snowed for most of it, so we haven't spent much time outside.

Brennan's been happy to wear his rain boots any chance he gets.


The Easter Egg Hunt was ok.
It was so cold that morning, and I didn't really get any good pictures because there were so many people there I was too worried about Brennan getting trampled or lost.  He was happy.  He got 8 eggs and a goody bag.


We made rainbow cupcakes.


Brennan still prefers just to lick the icing (or the batter) than actually eating the cupcake.


The Easter Bunny left a basket of goodies and lots of eggs to find.


His favorite thing was his new piggy bank.

It took a look of convincing (with lots of whining, tears and pouting) and a broken piggy leg for Brennan to realize that the pig wasn't a toy, that he just had to sit on his bookshelf.  Don't worry, I glued him back together and now everyone is happy.

At school last week, the theme was "Cowboys and Cowgirls."

Brennan was in Wild West heaven.  Copper not so much.  Brennan has decided he's a horse.  Copper doesn't agree.

Speaking of Copper.  He's turned into Mr. Destruct-o since Jason's been gone.

Because who doesn't want to deal with dog confetti first thing in the morning?  I bought him some new toys today.  Hopefully that will help.

So I think we're all caught up.  I made myself a "honey do" list list morning, so it looks like it will be another busy week.  I might even get my flowers planted in the next few days.  It got into the 60s today.


Whoo Hoo!!







p.s.  I turned anonymous commenting off today.  I've been getting some spam and some weirdos.  So from now on if you want to comment you have to log in or just email me.  That seems to be the favored way of doing it anyway.

It's Easter Egg Time

This week has been filled with Easter eggs.  We practiced hunting some more to get Brennan ready for the big egg hunt tomorrow, most of Brennan's school art projects have been egg related, he had a mini egg hunt at school this week, and we also colored eggs here at home.  Oh wait, I'm sorry, according to Brennan we dyed them, we didn't color them.  He has corrected me several times, thanks to his Happy Easter, Curious George book.  Apparently George trumps Mommy any day.  And last but not least, we had to devour some Reese's Eggs, a long standing Easter tradition.

I don't know why I never thought about it before, but I started wondering what the symbolism was with eggs and Easter.  Thanks to the internets, I had my answer in a jiffy.

I copied this from infoplease.com:

"In Medieval Europe, eggs were forbidden during Lent. Eggs laid during that time were often boiled or otherwise preserved. Eggs were thus a mainstay of Easter meals, and a prized Easter gift for children and servants.

In addition, eggs have been viewed as symbols of new life and fertility through the ages. It is believed that for this reason many ancient cultures, including the Ancient Egyptians, Persians, and Romans, used eggs during their spring festivals."

And now we know.  Or maybe you already knew, and it was just me that was oblivious.

Now then, since I've talked about eggs so far this entire post, how about I show you some?  

First of all I would like it be known that this year I was a good mommy and remembered to get vinegar to increase our egg coloring dyeing enjoyment.  I am also proud to say that this time no one ended up with green alien hands. Yay!  If you would like to read about our last vinegar-less and alien hand egg coloring dyeing session you can read about it here. 

He was a little excited to get started. : )

Such concentration.  He told me right away he could, "Do it myself."

Pretty Eggs.

Mixing them up.

He had to hold his mouth just right.

*Sniff sniff.*  He really could do it by himself.  He could even get them out without my help.

All done!  He was so proud of his creations.

He sat there and went through all the work of peeling an egg, and then remembered that he doesn't like eggs.

He peeled two others after this one, and was disappointed they all tasted the same.

I don't know how many times I walked into the kitchen and he was "visiting his eggies." 

Who knew eggs got lonely, ha.

That about wraps it up here.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter!

Love Grows Here

We got all of our flowers planted yesterday.  Yay!  Then it did exactly what the weather people said it would, it got cold, and then it snowed.  It has been snowing on an off all morning, but at least it's only a dusting, and the ground is too warm for it to stick.  Hopefully this will be about the end of it.  Though I did see on the news earlier this week that most of the ski resorts have extended their season until the end of May, so who knows.

Brennan was a big help with the flower planting.  Anything that involves digging, and he's all in.


Though I think his motivation went more in the direction of finding bugs and worms than the beautification of our yard.


We're really going to have to work on bug recognition with this kid.  After he got done playing with the worms, he went around to the front of the house and told me he found a ladybug.  I didn't think too much of it, and he carried his "ladybug," around for a couple minutes before I asked him to show me his bug.  As soon as I saw his bug, I knocked it out of his handed and smooshed it with my shoe while Brennan looked at me like I was the meanest mom ever. 

The ladybug was no lady at all, it was a yellow jacket!  The only reason I can fathom that it didn't sting him, was that it must have just woken up from it's winter nap and was still woozy.  It's stinger-eye coordination just wasn't there yet, thank goodness!

After the bug scare, Brennan moved on to less dangerous sports.

Bike riding,


wheel adjustments,


and tree climbing.


All done!

Now get growing!

Right after we got finished, Jason surprised us and stopped at home for a few minutes to pick up some shirts to be dry-cleaned.

Gotta love big Daddy hugs!  I don't know what the little man is going to do.  Jason is getting ready to go TDY for six weeks.  It will be the longest he's ever been away from his Daddy.

After Jason went back to work, it was getting chilly outside, so we went in and busted out the Easter eggs.


Brennan didn't grasp the concept of "don't look until I get them all hidden," but it was still fun!

A few more practice runs and we should be ready for the big base egg hunt next Saturday. : D

A Lemony Fresh Easter

We colored Easter eggs on Saturday. It was Brennan's first time coloring eggs, and let's just say he got into it, literally. By the time we were finished, both of his hands were a nice martian color green. And thank goodness egg dye is non-toxic! Brennan thought the coloring wands were bubble blowers, so they were up to his mouth more than they were in the egg cups. I didn't have any vinegar to add to the dye tablets, so I used lemon juice. I guess he thought we made him a bunch of really colorful lemonade.


Before the Mess!



Let the fun begin!



Wow!



He was trying so hard to get some bubbles.



He's a pro now. Showin' Daddy how it's done.



Two-fisted egg coloring.



Almosted finished. Brennan decided it was easier to use his hands.



Martian fingers. (Thank goodness they washed up with some Dawn.)


Oh, and if you can tell, Brennan fell earlier in the day and busted his mouth on the coffee table. The day before Easter, of course.



Easter Morning...with a mouth full of candy. He was definitely full of energy the rest of the day.

We had a good Easter. We hid eggs inside several times. It would have been nice to go outside but it was too cold and windy.

On the other hand, I guess hunting Easter eggs in the snow would have been a cinch!

Finally! - Easter Egg Hunt 2009

I am a little behind on downloading and editing pics, so I wanted to get some of these posted today. Brennan caught right on to the egg collecting, even though he thought the goal was to throw the eggs back out of the basket once we were done. And no, the green grass and colorful flowers don't belong to Florida, we were in Indiana for my Grandmother's funeral. Unfortunate circumstances to see the green of Spring, but I knew she would have been happy for our fun, and in fact, I believe she was watching over our little Easter celebration.