Started out the day with a note for Hadley’s lunch and a festive napkin!
Finally had a reason to wear my “Mama Cita” shirt for Cinco de Mayo!
We went to our favorite Mexican joint, Cancun to celebrate the day!
Cheers everyone!
Cinco de Mayo.
holidays
Kevin’s half birthday.
Happy half birthday to Kevin!
Do you celebrate half birthdays? Why not right? It’s always fun to have a reason to celebrate something!
We made him half of a cupcake! Something super small, but he appreciated it. Today is also his anniversary of getting on at the fire department! Three years ago today he started his dream job, and he couldn’t be more happier!
Love ya babe!
Happy half birthday!
Easter recap.
Our Easter started a day early this year, Kevin had to work on Sunday so the Easter bunny came Saturday morning for the kids. The baskets pictured above (left to right) are Brady, Natalie, and Hadley. If you watched my stories on Instagram, you’ll know that Brady got a gas gift card since he’s driving now, and the girls got more “things” instead of a gift card and candy.
Hadley and Natalie were the first to find their baskets. Brady the teenager slept the longest and found his later which I didn’t get a picture of.
Hadley had mini pancakes, and a cinnamon roll on these little bunny plates and cups for breakfast.
After dinner Saturday night, we colored eggs. I don’t care how old kids get, I feel like every kid loves to color eggs at any age. I just love watching them!
Easter morning, Miss Hadley was ready since 9:30am! We didn’t leave until 11am! She was super excited all weekend, she loves holidays and getting together with her cousins and family.
After three years of being a firefighter wife, I’ve just now started to get used to being solo on big holidays / events. I gave the kids the option of either going to church, or seeing Dad before we started our day and they all opted to see Dad which I pretty much knew would be the choice. So we visited Dad at the firehouse Easter morning! We even brought my favorite Easter tradition recipe of pistachio bread. Shockingly enough, all of the kids like this bread!
We started the day out at my parents house, it was the most gorgeous day to be outside. The kids were so happy to run around, play chase, and swing on the swing!
The kids are getting so big it’s crazy! Life just flies by.
After my parents, we went to our cousin Emily’s house. I didn’t take many photos here, but the kids had a blast here too. We also celebrated Elyse’s birthday! By the time we got home, Hadley was passed out cold.
We had a great Easter holiday, the weather could not have been more perfect the entire weekend. It was sunny, warm, not humid, and just beautiful! And great to see all the family!
Easter decor.
Easter is right around the corner! I love decorating for just about anything! Easter reminds me of fresh flowers, springtime air, and childhood egg hunts. And let’s not forget to mention, brunch is the main course of food yum!
These tablecloths brighten up the living room so much!
I couldn’t figure out where to hang this wooden Easter sign with the white bunnies, so I put it on the bar cart table. Looks okay there for now. I originally had it on the back of the front door, but every time we opened it the sign would bang super loud so I took it down.
The bathroom! Changing out the shelves for each season / holiday is always fun and festive.
The fireplace is always a favorite part of the house to decorate. I could go a lot more wild with the mantle, and fill it with lots of more items but I kind of like the simplicity of it. I love to have the kids’ photos on there, and have a few small items that are festive.
One tradition that I’ve always loved even as an adult is coloring eggs. All of my aunts and cousins used to get together the Thursday before Easter at my Grandma June’s house. We would all bring fish sandwiches, or my Grandpa would order cheese pizza, and we would all color eggs. Now we color eggs at our own houses, but it’s something I still enjoy doing as an adult with the kids.
St. Patrick’s Day.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day 2021!
Hadley was so excited for school today, here she is with her magnifying glass to catch the little leprechauns.
Love that the teachers at her school take photos, here they are looking at a trap one of her friends made.
Have just a tiny bit of decor on the fireplace, the little leprechaun guy and the banner I got from Hobby Lobby a few years ago.
Made a little rainbow, with white balloons and rainbow streamers. Set the table with a green table cloth I made a few years ago out of thick fabric and some green plastic glasses.
Put some gold coins in a little tray in the center of the table.
When she got home from school, she was so excited from her busy day and the decorations at home. Simple things can make kids the happiest, and I just love that!
We made shamrock shakes for a fun little after school treat! The recipe we made is from Hip2Keto, the only thing we would do different is add a little less mint extract but other than that it was really good!
Before dinner, we did our nails green and gold!
We ate our dinner in the dining room. Hadley said we’re eating under a rainbow Mom! ♥
For dessert, we had St. Patrick’s Day whoppie pies! They were supposed to look like the ones from the recipe Olivia Wyles but they completely fell apart! But still, they weren’t too bad even picky Hadley ate one! I only made three anyway, these were the best ones that partially stayed together.
We ended the night with an early dinner, early shower, and early bed. St. Patrick’s Day wore this little lady out, but she had such a great day! Just love to decorate and make things fun for days like these!
Groundhog Day!
We haven’t celebrated Groundhog Day before with our family, and I thought why not this year? The year 2021, after the dreaded year of 2020 that changed our lives forever. The era that begins with the C word aka Covid. So why not make a random day like Groundhog Day more exciting and fun?
Last night, while watching the Bachelor with my awesome husband that pretends to watch it with me on the couch, I got busy making all the signs and things for today.
You don’t have to go out and buy all kinds of expensive supplies to make this fun for the kids. Most of the time, I use what I already have on hand for things like this. This poster was made out of two blue pieces of construction paper taped together, hand cut out the sun and cloud out of colored paperstock. To make the little groundhogs, all I did was Google groundhog images, and made my own. Each groundhog has different eyes on purpose so we could all be different.
The keep calm sign was made in PhotoShop, printed it out on white cardstock paper, cut it down to size, and pinned it on my little pegboard sign.
This poster was made out of two pieces of white card stock taped together, googled random facts about groundhogs, hand wrote them on the card stock, drew the groundhog, and was done. I did not know groundhogs hibernated for 150 days without eating!
After Hadley got ready for school this morning, we went down to look at all the signs and talked a little bit about Groundhog Day. She had already known a little bit about the day because her Kindergarten class had talked about it at school.
She picked out which groundhog she wanted, and wrote her name on it. She loved them!
Hadley and Dad picked “no”, the groundhog will not see his shadow.
When she got home from school, I had made a few extra snacks for dessert tonight. Chocolate cupcakes with half an oreo on top, and put M&M’s as the ears and teeth. Already had the candy eyeballs on hand for the eyes. I only made half a batch of cupcakes because I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to eat them. So I used the other half of the batter to make a small cake. Sort of chopped up the cake, to make it look like dirt the groundhog was coming out of his burrow. She loved all the little signs, but too bad she’s not a huge fan of chocolate cake!
After dinner, we did a little craft of making a groundhog out of a brown paper bag.
All you need is:
- brown paper bag
- green paper
- black paper
- white paper
- black sharpie
- brown & pink crayon
- scissors
- tape/gluestick
We even named our bagged groundhogs. From left to right in the photo above: Mom – Philly, Hadley – Snuggles, Dad – Darrell.
Super easy way to make a boring sort of holiday like Groundhog Day fun for the kids! Too bad Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog, predicted six more weeks of this dreaded winter!
