Decorating Easter Eggs

On Sunday we decorated Easter eggs and it was so much fun this year now that Ethan is almost 3! We did it while Sofia was napping so we could have some one-on-one time with Ethan. I had picked up two different dying kits, a traditional egg dying kit with Frozen stickers and an egg spinner kit.

Michael worked on dying some eggs solid colors so Ethan could put stickers on them after they were dried. Ethan and I used the egg spinner. Ethan loved it. It's basically like a salad spinner that you put dye in and then spin the egg around. Ethan had a blast pushing the button over and over to spin the egg. The eggs came out really cool too.

After we spun some eggs Ethan decorated some of the solid eggs with the Frozen sticker kit we bought. He loved making the Olafs!

We had so much fun and it was great that Ethan was so into it this year! Our eggs came out great!

Of course my favorite part of decorating eggs is smashing all of them and having egg salad for lunch, yum!

Easter Crafts

On Friday I did three fun crafts with the kids. One, we all participated in and then the rest it was just Ethan and I so we did those when Sofia was napping. Our family craft was a fun canvas with all of our fingerprints to make a carrot patch. I added pipe cleaners for the greens and painted a little bunny and added a pom pom tail.

I think it came out really cute!

The other two crafts I did with just Ethan. We painted an egg that I had put tape down to divide into sections with wet chalk. Ethan really liked this one and it looked really cool except that the tape stuck to the paper. I would use a glossy paper next time.

The last craft we did was make a bunny with a paper plate and cotton balls. Ethan loved gluing the cotton balls to the plate. I helped him make the ears and he glued all the face parts on.

Our week in pictures: 3.22.15

1. All smiles for Easter egg hunting at Grandma and Grandpa's!

2. Unfortunately it's not always smiles around here. Ethan having a tantrum in the garage because he didn't want help getting out of the car. 

3. Amazing Sunday dinner prepared by Michael with my new favorite veggie, honey balsamic brussel sprouts, yum!

4. I finally got our family gallery wall back up after the walls were painted 2 months ago!

5. Our beach vacation countdown calendar!

6. He is getting so big. For some reason being potty trained and wearing underwear makes it seem like he's 5!

7. Ethan's new hiding spot in the ottoman full of Sofia's toys!

8. My smiley girl!

9. Ethan loves accessories just like his Mama!

10. This happened again this week, let's just pretend it didn't.

11. Fun Easter crafts!

12. Saturday morning cuddles with my littles!

13. Little bunny butt!

14. She is so tall!

15. My favorites!

16. Easter cards from family have started arriving!

17. A fun new crown headband we found at a craft fair for my princess!

Destination: OBX

We were all over the board this year when figuring out where to go on vacation. First we were going to do a bunch of little weekend trips, then we were going to Atlanta, that changed to Disney, then to Naples, Florida. We could agree on one thing, we wanted to go to the beach and then we decided we wanted to go somewhere we had never been before.

We decided on the Outer Banks in North Carolina! We have friends and family who have vacationed there before and love it. It looks pretty enticing doesn't it?

The Outer Banks is a 200 mile-long island with beach towns up and down it. It's one of those places where you can do nothing but go to the beach or fill your day with a bunch of activities as well. 

The hardest part was finding somewhere to stay less than 60 days in advance. Most families book beach houses a year in advance and a lot of them go to the same house every year. We really lucked out though and found an awesome beach house. It is ridiculously too big but because it was last minute and it's off season, we got a great deal. We really wanted to be on the beach and have our own pool so I'm super excited that the beach is literally our backyard. 

Ethan is so excited and I know he is going to love it. He remembers the beach and the ocean from our Florida trip last year and asks about going to the beach often. I've been showing him pictures of the Outer Banks and some of the fun things that we are going to do there. According to him, he is most looking forward to playing in the sand with a shovel and seeing dolphins!

They have boat tours that take you out to see dolphins swimming and playing in the water. I know Ethan will love it since he loves dolphins and whales so much!

The Outer Banks is home to the largest sand dunes on the East coast and I think Ethan is going to have fun climbing them!

There is also an aquarium, children's museum, lots of fun downtown areas with restaurants, shopping and cool places to go shelling. You can supposedly find a lot of sea glass and shark teeth that wash up too!

Most of all, I'm just excited to get away and relax and have an adventure in a new place with my little family. I'm excited for Sofia to go to the beach for the first time and wiggle her little toes in the sand. I can't wait!

Ethan has been asking every day since we told him about our trip, "We go to the beach today?" or "We see dolphins today?" He is very excited so I made a countdown calendar so he could get a better idea of how many days were left.

"That's a lot of days Mama!"

Scootering...

I mentioned earlier this week that Ethan's motivation and reward for Ethan being potty trained was a scooter. He was so excited and has been having so much fun with it. He was a little tentative with it and wasn't really riding it at first. I was trying to show him how to do it but he wasn't really getting it. I pulled up a youtube video of a kid riding a scooter and showed it to him. He literally watched the video and then got on the scooter and rode it.

This is what he was doing with the scooter before he watched the video!

And after!

He has been on it almost every day since and gets better and braver each time! Here are a couple videos of him in action!

Of course, as he gets braver that means he's more likely to get hurt. He got his first road rash this past weekend. I still don't know how it happened since he's wearing a helmet, but his face got all scratched up. He took it like a champ though!

Wordless Wednesday: The grabbing has begun and Ethan is giving Sofia side eye!