Hopping To Easter

I've always loved to decorate for holiday's, but now that I have kids it's really a lot of fun to make the house festive and to make a big deal out of the holidays. My Easter decorating has been contained to the dinning room (except for the boy's doors), but since that room is the main focal point of our house, it makes a big impression.

I found these sparkly eggs at Hobby Lobby and added them to the arrangement I already had. They are too cute.
And I found this little momma bunny with her baby and thought it was perfect for our house.
For those of you who don't know, we are avid M&M collectors. Really - it's crazy! This is most of our Easter M&M stuff, but I didn't put it all out. The boys Easter baskets are hanging below and you can see Tyler's filled Easter Basket over to the side. Samuel's is hidden because he's old enough to know what it is and to want the things now.
This is my favorite Easter book. It's called My Easter Basket and it tells the story of Jesus resurrection with the items in your Easter Basket. I've read it at our church's Easter egg hunt the last 2 or 3 years and will read it to my Sunday School Class on Easter Sunday. I saw the book at Wal-Mart the other day if you want to check it out.
This is my dinning room chandelier and my favorite. The picture doesn't do it justice. It's very danty and pretty and for a mom of two boys, I need a little dainty in my life.

This is my centerpiece on the dinning room table. I want to add a table runner, but haven't found one yet that I like. I might make one for next year when they put Easter print fabric on cheep.
I made banners to put on the boys doors. I like what I did for Valentines so much, I may start doing this for every holiday. I used my Cricut to make Easter eggs for each of their letters. Then I laminated them with my Xyron and used brands with a ribbon threader to hang them.

One Tip Wednesday

So what do you do with all of that adorable arts and crafts work your child makes? A couple of years ago, I made Samuel a board to hang all of his arts work on so that he can proudly display it in his room. I bought a silver dry erase board that was also magnetic. Using red, blue and yellow paint pens, I wrote "Samuel's Works of Art." You can rarely see the words however. :) As we make things or he brings things home, we add and take away on the board. A few things are left up there all the time, others come and go. I do kind of try to keep it seasonal though. Next week, I'll show you what we do with it when it comes off the board.

One Tip Wednesday

One last thing from Samuel's room. I like to have things easily accessible and ready to go at a moments notice. Thus, I have lots of bags! Hanging on the inside of each of Samuel's closet doors are the bags he needs for school, church and quick summer trips. School mornings, I always know where his backpack is and its ready to go when I hang it on the hook. The bag behind it is our summer bag. It has sun screen, Samuel's swim suit, a towel, sunglasses and everything else we need to be outside. So if we decide late morning to head to the park or the nature center, I don't have to rush through the house to gather things, I just grab the bag and we go. And if we're at the park and Samuel decides he wants to go to the splash park, I have his swim suit handy. This bag was a life saver for me last summer!

On the other side is his church bag. It has crayons, coloring books a small Etch-sketch, kleenex, wet wipes (learned this through experience) and snacks. It's always ready to go and we just grab it before heading out the door to church on Sunday night.

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One Tip Wednesday

More organizing in Samuel's room. When we were moving Samuel into this room, I had planned on buying a chest for his clothes. But then we discussed what to do about the bookshelf that was already in there. I decided that keeping the bookshelf and using boxes to store things would give us much more storage than a small chest. It's another great way to organize his room. Some of the boxes hold toys, one has all of his pajamas, one has underwear and socks and one has all of his outside clothes like gloves and hats. At one point I had written in chalk on the outside of the box what was on the inside, but found that got quickly erased as he took boxes down to play.

One Tip Wednesday

Organizing a kids closet, or room for that matter, can make any mom crazy. As Samuel has gotten bigger, so have the toys and the size of those toys. As a person who likes organization, I don't like toys all over my kids rooms. It actually drives me crazy. While they are playing, sure, go at it. But the remainder of the time, I like to be able to see the floor! After looking at a couple of different options, I decided this drawer system places in his closet would work well. At first I just had one (each has 3 drawers), but when he moved to his big boy room, I added a second one.

This system works great! Samuel knows which toys are in what drawer and they are organized by the types of toys. The top drawer is small games and puzzles, the second drawer is a collection of small toys, the third is his Planet Heros, the forth is his Hot Wheels city, the fifth are cars and trucks and the bottom drawer are electronic type toys.

And what I like most about this system is that when he wants to play with something, I can pull out that entire drawer and set it in his floor or in the living room and when he is finished, he just loads everything back into the drawer and I put it back up.

The remainder of his closet is mostly tubs of other toys. The large one at the bottom houses his Thomas the Train Lego set (about to be Tyler's set). The rest are legos, Hot Wheels and other small toys that I don't enjoy stepping on in the middle of the night.