Surprise Eggs and the Handprint Wreath

Ok, so before I post craft #2 here are the final pictures of the mystery craft. I found these aawesome eggs here. I went to The Good Food Store (our more expensive version of Central Market) and got some yummy chocolates and jelly beans (no nuts here for our nut free school). Just for the record chocolate covered ginger is yucky- this did not end up in the eggs. So glad I tasted it first (well, the kids tasted it first). So, we ended up with dark chocolate raisins, chocolate covered cranberries (OMG these were yummy!), malted milk balls, chocolate covered coffee beans aka buzz bombs, cinnamon chocolate covered espresso beans (these were extra special yummy too), and last but not least jelly beans. I also made some for Jarrod and his got dark chocolate almonds and chocolate covered peanuts.

Now on to the kids craft from yesterday-
I found this craft and thought it would be a great craft for the holidays. I love handprint crafts! So, here is our handprint wreath. Mia and Jude did bunny handprints and Coen did chick handprints. It was much easier to paint his whole hand than paint a few fingers and palm over and over again. I found this project here and tweaked it a bit. My bunnies all face the center, I only used 3 colors for the bunnies, and I didn't use plastic eggs - I splatter painted some cardstock and cut out eggs instead. Here are the pictures-

Easter/Spring craft

I decided on Sunday (after we cleaned the garage out and I got my craft table back in order) that I would do some cute crafts with the 3 kiddos I have at home this week. I picked out 3 really cute crafts that I had stuff in hand for and we did the first one today. I found it on a blog that I check daily for cute/fun things to do. This craft was in her grouping of pics, so I drew my own based on her picture and had the kids get after it with the watercolors. They did a great job! Coen even did his painting by himself. I did his gluing. You can find the inspiration for this craft here. Here are some pics of the kids hard at work and the finished products.






I am also working on a fun teacher gift that I will reveal later (on Thursday). Here is a sneak peek.

kids blog

I updated the blog address to include coen. The link on the side now works again. Due to illness the kids won't be posting until we all get better.

The kiddos...

The kids are posting again on the Fantastic Fanchers. It is a private blog, so if you want to read it I need to know so I can add you.

Today is all about Coen.

Monday-Coen
Tuesday-Mia
Wednesday-Jude
Thursday-Emma
Friday- Kaitlyn

The PukeMonster....

is obviously feeling better

Funny stuff

Jude- Mommy my nose is burnin!
Me- I am so sorry. Why is it burning?
Jude- because I am going to achoo.

If anything is missing, check the trash can. Coen's new favorite thing to do is throw EVERYTHING in the trash. It is his favorite place to put toys, the contents of the diaper bag, the fridge magnets and his sippy cups (when he is done drinking from them).

Mia- Mommy, what is a contraction?
Me- I don't know, what kind?
Mia- A contraction!
Me- Use it in a sentence.
Mia- Con....trac....shun
Me- That's not a sentence. Where did you hear it.
Mia- Kaitlyn said it.
Me- There are 2 different kinds. What was she talking about?
Mia- Oh. (walks away)

On a not funny, but really cool note-
Emma entered in a Music Last A Lifetime contest at school. She had to write a paper about what Music Lasts A Lifetime meant to her. So, on Thursday night she wrote her paper and turned it in. (it was due Friday) She did a really good job of coming up with everything - she wanted our help, but we just led her to come to her own conclusions. We thought she did a great job. Yesterday she came home with a Music Lasts a Lifetime goodie bag b/c she WON the contest (for the 1st grade- their was 1 winner for each grade)!!! She was so excited and we are extremely super duper proud of her!!!
(Click the image to learn more about Music in our schools month)

The last few weeks...

Have been kind of crazy. Jarrod's parents were here for 2 weeks, so we were really busy. Jarrod and I were able to go on a couple of dates (3!) and it was tons of fun to be able to go out just the two of us. The kids had a lot of fun and are missing Grandmom and Grandad a ton.
Last week we got a ton of stuff together for the house. I am working on getting us less cluttered and back on our old routines. Me being pregnant (with Coen), having an infant and just being tired is finally done. Coen is at an age where he can handle playing on his own or with the siblings and I have weened him to nights only, so he isn't as clingy during the day as he was. He still has his moments were he wants to hang out with me or snuggle, but he is enjoying his freedom too.So, here's what we did last week-
We were blessed to be able to finally replace our washer and dryer (hallelujah!), so that came last week.
I got us a duvet cover for our bedroom and finally covered the quilt that the dogs mauled. The duvet really brightens up the room.
We got rid of the king bed and set up 2 of the twins in the old guest room (now the boys room). Kaitlyn is sleeping in what will one day be Coen's bed b/c Jude didn't want to be alone. She has been sweet enough to let Jude in bed with her to snuggle when he wakes up in the middle of the night or really early in the morning.
I have taken down the toddler bed and we will be giving it back to the people that loaned it to us. It has opened up a ton of room in our tiny bedroom. Jarrod is already talking about another bookshelf in there. We have a ton of books and not enough shelves. I have gone through them a ton and pulled out books we don't need anymore and that we don't read. We have trimmed them back a lot. We actually have enough shelves, but we had to use a set of shelves for the DVDs that used to be housed in an inset bookshelf in the wall of our old house. So, if we had something for the DVDs we could put all our books up.
I also finally recovered my desk chair. I had picked out some fabric that was not good for chairs (wish the person that was shopping with me had told me that before I bought it) and it pretty much got mauled during the move and then even more so by the kids when they noticed pieces tearing. I guess you just can't help but pull on small tears and make them bigger.
Now, I am on to setting up a laundry system and cleaning out things.

**** I also updated the VDay post with cupcake pictures****