Happy Easter 2014

Here's 10 Ideas to have an Easter where everyone can sit back, relax and Enjoy--even Mom!

1. If you dye eggs, dye them early. They will keep in the fridge 7-10 days. You can use them for Potato Salad, egg salad sandwiches, salads, or other recipes, and they are easy to do ahead of time. Money Saving Tip: Use 20 drops of any color combo of regular food coloring, 1/2 c. hot water and 1 Tbsp. of vinegar and make your own dyes.

2. If you hold an Easter Egg hunt think about "experiences" you can give, instead of things. Make "coupons" for "30 minutes of extra story time with Mom or Dad" or "15 extra minutes on the computer" or even "Ice cream date with Mom" and put those in the eggs instead of candy or stuff. Your kids want to be with you, and this is a great gateway to spending time together.

3. Do a service project-remember WHY we celebrate Easter? The Savior did the ultimate service for us, so the least we can do is lift someone else up. Our Easter Bunny likes to deliver little treats to our friends that we know need a bit of uplifting. It's nothing huge--a 25 cent box of Lemonheads can work wonders.

4. Spend time with your family playing outside. Sunshine and exercise are good for the mind, body and soul.

5. Don't clean the house. Yep, don't do it. If you are having guests, wait until they leave and then clean up. If you aren't have guests then no one will see what's going on anyway.

6. Find time to share a story about your family with your kids. Easter is a great time to reminisce about your childhood and how you celebrated. It's a good time to tell about family traditions and start new ones. Take the time to share a part of you, you won't be sorry.

7. Take a walk and check out the neighborhood. We discovered a new park in our neighborhood. Okay, it's been there forever, but we'd never stopped. It's my new favorite lunch spot, and my kids love it too.

8. In my opinion holidays should be about family, fun and food-in that order. The food should rock, the fun should be abundant and create new, happy memories and your family should be enjoyed. Let the dishes pile up they can be there forever--enjoy the people around you while they are around you. We have a limited amount of lifetime--think about what's really important. And yes, we all have family members that we struggle to understand, but for the sake of the family, we can try to at the very least "smile and nod" and co-operate for a few hours.

9. Eat dessert.

10. Laugh. Stop every once in awhile (daily) and just take it all in. I know I get so focused on what I have to do, I often miss the small, simple, funny things my kids do. I miss out on conversations with friends when my mind is racing through my to-do list. I am going to get better about this. Life is full of funny things, and we all know life is better if we laugh instead of cry through it.

Enjoy the day!

Starting a Garden 2014

It's been awhile. I am catching up on the life I had been ignoring over the last six months, and WOW! that was a lot of little things to do.

It's springtime, which at our house means planting time....and this year, it's from seed--nearly the whole thing. After not being able to find the varieties of plants we wanted--Habenero and Anaheim peppers, certain tri-colored sweet peppers, and Spaghetti sqaush, as starts, we decided to DIY. No surprise, that's how we roll.

So just like Matt Damon in "We Bought a Zoo"--we bought a Green House. Yeah every day a little bit of the City Girl inside me dies, but the Urban Farm Girl has got some good things going on too.

So we started a few seeds inside in this Jiffy seed starter and a heat mat. A great idea for beginners and masters alike. There are several seed starting kits available at Home and Garden centers, and they all work about the same.

 

We selected the variety of seeds we wanted, planted them in the pods and watered.

Now in 21 days they should look something like these seedlings we started in plastic cups a few weeks ago. 

It's going to be a delicious year!