Oh What A Busy Day!

That is how I have felt a lot lately, but in a good way! Meanwhile, my poor blog has been lonely and calling out for a new post.

I was initially derailed by our trip to Disney - 5 nights/6 days at the happiest place on earth! Weather was beautiful, kids were troopers, and my drill seargent travel companion (aka, my wonderful husband)was fairly reserved in his tactical approach to the World. Usually he drags us out first thing in the morning and won't hear of leaving before dark - not an easy thing to do with a 10 month old!

Other than that, we have been busy with all kinds of activities. I belong to the best Mom's group on the planet, I swear! This group is so active and friendly, and on any given week, we have multiple activities to choose from. Most of the kids are younger than Spencer, but he doesn't mind. And it will be great for Mallory and I when he goes to K next year. There must be 8 other babies that are right around a year old!

Just this week we hosted a pretzel making play date at our house, had a beach day with our group, and went to a play date at another Mom's house where the kids listened to a story, did a craft, and had a snack! We also managed to squeeze in a trip to the park and baby time at the library on our own.

Another great thing about this group is that I'm discovering new activities and places that I never knew about, like the beach we went to the other day. It's 35 min. from our house and is a super short walk from the car to the beach, which makes it easy for me to take the kids on my own. Yeah!

This is the only Mom's group I've belonged to, but I feel like it must be more active than most. Do you belong to a Mom's group? What is yours like?

Follow Me Fridays @ Trendy Treehouse

I am participating in Follow Me Fridays @ Trendy Treehouse this week.......go link up and join the fun!

Easter Overload!

We had a busy week here.  We spent Thursday making Resurrection Eggs, which Spencer really enjoyed.  I didn't manage to take a picture yet, but it was a fun, worthwhile activity which gave him a better understanding of the story of Easter.

Friday morning our playgroup had an Easter party at a local park.  They had egg hunts for different age groups, including the babies (there are probably 10 babies under the age of 1!).  What does an egg hunt for a group of babies look like?  You place all the babies on a blanket, then dump about 100 plastic Easter eggs in the middle - they had a blast!

I realized VERY late in the game (like on Saturday afternoon) that Mallory didn't have a cute Easter shirt.  So I quickly surveyed her closet and found this shirt, which she has almost outgrown.  I freehanded a bunny outline, traced it onto Heat & Bond, ironed it onto chenille, cut out the bunny, ironed it to the shirt, and stitched around it.  Total time = 15 minutes.  It would have taken me 5, but I spent 10 minutes trying to find my heat & bond!  I didn't get a great picture, but here is one I shot at our family Easter gathering.

Saturday evening we dyed Easter eggs on the patio.  I attempted to use stickers on a few before dyeing them, but the results were less than perfect! 

And of course the Easter Bunny visited overnight and left lots of goodies!

Then it was on to our celebrate at my sister's house with most of my family.  Mallory had fun hanging out in the shade....

....while the rest of the kids hunted Easter eggs! 

Spencer made out like a bandit.  We dumped out all his eggs today - he managed to score 2 huge plastic cups full of candy and $9.69 in change!  Daddy took him to buy a new Lego set tonight - he is not much of a saver! 

I hope everyone had a nice Easter!

Time to make new friends!

Hop like a bunny over to The Girl Creative and find some great new blogs to follow!  If you are visiting from there, be sure to leave me a comment so I can check out your blog.   I hope you will stay a while and check out what I've been up to!

Amigurumi & other fun stuff

I've taken my crochet addiction to another level and have started making some Amigurumi.  Because if there is one thing this house needs, it is more stuffed toys!  We actually had to fill a basket with stuffed animals to sleep next to my son's bed, because he could no longer fit in it with all of his furry friends! 

This owl was my first effort - I'm not happy with the way the stuffing shows through the yarn, but I think I've found a way to resolve that.  Something I read said to only crochet through the back loop, so I'm trying that with my current project.  Spencer happily took this off of my hands as soon as I was done with it.  Presenting.........Hoo Hoo!  (named by my 5 year old!)

I also made a doll for Mallory - the first doll I made especially for her!  It is from the book Amigurumi Two and it was pretty easy to put together.

I also managed to crochet a large flower to put on this headband I made Mallory - I took a couple of patterns I had, put them together, made some adjustments, and voila - I finally have a big enough flower!  Most of the patterns I found were for fairly small pieces.  Now, if I just would have written it down so that I could make more! 

 We went over to my sister's for our first swim of the season!  I only got in the hot tub, but the kids had fun in the pool.  Here is Mallory wearing her new swimsuit and her ruffle butt bloomers on her head!

And last week I finally managed to drag some of the baby/toddler toys out of the garage.  She LOVES the Little Tikes Activity Garden, which I managed to score at a yard sale a couple of years ago for $9!  I coveted it for a long time before I finally found one cheap.

Does your baby have a favorite toy?