Easter Fun!!!!!

So, I know this is the first post in like 8 years, but I am bound and determined to not forget important things, so even if it is on a rare occasion that a post gets written, I am still going to write.  Anyway, Easter is the reason for this post and I had to post a fun idea to engage children in the Easter holiday.  I am all for doing the traditional Easter things, egg hunting, dying, and baskets, but it was important for our family to teach our children the REAL reason that we get to do all of those fun things, which is Christ.  So, I wanted to do a countdown to Easter since our advent calendar at Christmas was such a hit with him.  Well, what I decided on was a pre-Easter egg scavengar hunt each morning.

So, what I did was get 24 plastic eggs and numbered them through 24 with a permanent marker.  Next I filled them with Jackson's favorite candy and each morning I hide one somewhere.  After breakfast, (sometimes we don't make it to breakfast before he is asking to find his 'treasure egg') we then talk about finding our egg for the day. But before we go 'hunting' I talk to him about some of the most important aspects of Easter.  For example, one day I told him, 'Do you know why we celebrate Easter? And then I told him that Jesus died on the cross for you and me and everyone!'  So the next day when I asked him why we celebrate he was able to tell me that fact about Easter.  Then, I would add something else to that on the next day. On the days that I added something that was harder for him to get, we would just repeat that fact for the next few days.  So, now on the 15th of April when I ask him why we celebrate Easter he tells me, ' Jesus came and died on the cross to save sinners like you and me, and he rose from the dead and beat sin!' It has really been a blessing to me to see him learning Truth.  

After that,  it is time to find the egg! He gets so excited and usually can tell me what number we are on before I can.  He then gets two clues from me that lead him to the egg.  Of course at this age they are verbal clues, but eventually they will be harder clues that I will probably have written out.  I do the first clue leading him to the room the egg is in, so an example, 'Go to the room where you go to sleep.' or 'Go to the room where we 'tackle' (momma's bed).  He takes off and runs to that room where I give him his final clue.  One of the clues I led him to the other day was in his play room and then I told him, 'Look in your toy where the cows, horses, and pigs live.'  He immediately went to his barn and found it sitting in the chicken nest.'  I LOVE watching him get so excited, and proud of himself when he finds it!  Although at this age I have the same candy in each egg, he still acts like he is SO surprised at what might be in it. :)  He also loves that he gets eggs with funny faces on them.


He tells me, 'I wonder what face my egg will have today.'  Then once he finds it, he makes up a story about why the egg was sad, happy, or silly.  I tell you what, this child is SO much fun and I love encouraging his little creative imagination.  So, I am so thankful that we are doing this and hopefully it will be a fun tradition for years to come!

I Heart Faces- Sun Flare

Here is my entry for the I Heart Faces photo challenge this week.  The challenge is sun flare.  I captured this shot of these two love birds as the sun was peeking over the wall.  I thought it gave them a spotlight moment as they kissed.  What do you think?

I Heart Faces

RED- I Heart Faces Challenge

I dug through some oldies for this photo, but just thought this picture I took of Jackson's very first hair cut would be perfect for this photo challenge. Check out all of the others at I Heart Faces!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!!

I Heart Faces 'Heart' Challenge

So, when I heard that I Heart Faces was doing a photo challenged titled 'Hearts' I knew I had to enter since I had just done this photoshoot of my sweetie.  This is the photo I chose to submit.  Check out the other entries at I Heart Faces!

LOVE.LOVE.LOVE.LOVE.LOVE

Well, instead of trying to copy all of the valentines pictures onto this family blog, I figured I would just post the link to Raspberry Rain's blog where you can see all of the pictures.  I did want to elaborate on this fun 'adventure' with my sweet Jackson.  First of all, Joey and I have REALLY seen a big turn around from Jackson since he has turned three.  He just seems more aware and more compliant, not as combative.  This along with him not being so opposed to my camera made for a much better photo shoot.  What I really did was give him candy and a whole bunch of red heart balloons, which he decided we magic balloons that would carry him to the jungle.  We played for a good hour with those balloons and still have them in the house.  I love this boys imagination and love that I have some sweet memories along with some fun photos to share.  Check out the photos HERE

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!!!

Fun Home Decorating

So, I have been SLOWLY working on getting some things up on our very bare walls.  It has truly been slow going considering all of the birthdays and holiday happenings that have been going on these past few months.  Raspberry Rain has also been busy getting in all of the family christmas pictures, so all of those excuses to say that I am just now really starting to work on mi casa.  Well, if there is one thing that Joey and I have decided when it comes to our style is that it must be cheap.  Haha!  Well, I guess it works well then that I love old weathered things that bring some history and stories into our home, because typically I find these beauties at resale shops or junk sales.  It all meets the cheap requirement.  Another reason that we have been slow to add things to our walls is because Joey really wants everything that we hang to be something that has some meaning or was made by us.  Now, as you can imagine, that does not make for quick decorating.  Coming up with ideas, executing said ideas, and being happy with the finished product, especially for a perfectionist like me is no easy feat.  Well,  we have this awkward large wall space by our fireplace that remained empty until now! Yay!  It makes me so happy to finally have an empty wall filled. 

This is what we came up with.  It is a subway sign that has all of the places that have been special to us on it.  It has both of our birth places, both of our favorite places to be in the whole world, our parent's birth places and even the city where we met.    

All we did was get a 4 ft by 4 ft. piece of plywood, painted it all cottage white, stenciled on the letters and numbers, and then began the time consuming task of painting this perfect grey color around all of the letters and numbers.  Side Note: You know, it was time consuming but really it was almost stress relieving to just paint. Well, once the painting was done, we got to do the fun part....using the power sander!   Ahhh....so much fun to use!  Once distressed as desired I used an antique glaze to make it look less 'brand new' in color and then sprayed the whole thing with a sealer.  Voila!  

We think it fits us perfectly and had a perfect home on this large wall.

I also just printed these pictures for our hallway this week.  I love the graphic black and white square prints.  And of course they are of my two favorite boys.  I ordered them on a thicker backing so they can just 'float' on the wall.  Super easy...cheap...and again, no artistic talent needed.  

I think they look great, but I am thinking I need three more! :)  

So, these are a few of the things that we have added to our house.  They make our house a home and hopefully there will be more to come soon.  The point of this post is to show that even if you are not artistic, you can get a little creative to personalize the little space of world you inhabit.