Easter Festivities Part II

Easter Sunday we got the kids up early so they could check out their Easter baskets before we headed off to church.  When the hubs was little, the Easter Bunny used to hide his basket and he would have to find it, so we have taken on that same tradition for our kids.  We let Jacob find both baskets since Olivia isn’t quite comprehending hide and seek yet, and he was thrilled when he found his basket first. 

Here are a few of my favorite goodies that the Easter Bunny brought for each child.

Bubbles, Color Your Own Puzzle, Superman PJs, & Happy Easter Curious George Book

Ollie's Easter Eggs Book, Flower Sandals, Monogrammed Seersucker Dress, Lamb Stuffed Animal

Mass was at 10:30 AM, and it also happens to be the most popular mass, so we had to get there about forty minutes early to make sure we got seats.  Of course that meant that the kids had to sit there for an hour and forty minutes instead of just the usual hour, so that was worrisome.  They are usually jumping around like wild animals at about the 30 minute mark during a regular mass, so I figured this could be a recipe for disaster.  Olivia was a little squirmy at the beginning, but she fell fast asleep for the last 30 or 40 minutes and Jacob was an absolute angel.  It was an Easter miracle!  Thank goodness the full moon had passed or I'm positive it would have been a three ring circus.

 
After mass we quickly snapped some family pictures in our Sunday best, and we actually got some really great ones!  Picture overload commencing in three, two, one…

Lunch at Brian’s Mom and Stepdad’s house was next (gimme all the ham!!), followed by an egg hunt for all of the kiddos.  I think we went a little overboard this year considering Jacob, alone, found at least 50 eggs. 

As always on Easter, the weather was absolute perfection.  Brian and I were having a conversation the other day about how neither of us can remember an Easter where the weather wasn’t gorgeous.  It is always, always warm and sunny with clear, blue skies. 

We went to my aunt and uncle’s house next to see my entire extended family, and they surprised me with a birthday cake.  Did I mention it was my birthday?  Probably not... I kept forgetting since we were so busy with other things all day.  Besides, once you enter your thirties, it's all downhill from there anyway...  I kid, I kid!  But no really, time can slow down now, please and thank you.

Sharing a cake with my sweet cousin, Shelby - her birthday is March 31st!

Jacob and Olivia played and played (happily!) even though at this point it was 4 PM and they were both No Nap Ninjas, aside from Olivia’s catnap during church. 

After hanging out there for a couple of hours, we stopped by my parents’ house to grab Easter baskets from them, and then we (finally) headed home where Brian’s Dad brought the kids their Easter baskets from him. 

We finished the day blowing bubbles outside, and Brian and I had some wine and cheese for dinner since we were still so stuffed from lunch. 

I have to say, this was my favorite Easter yet.  It was one of those really, really good days where everything just seemed a little sweeter.  I got to celebrate my birthday with the resurrection of Jesus, I got to see (almost) everyone that I love, and I got to rock both of my babies to sleep.  At bedtime Jacob said, "Mommy, roooock me."  A rarity these days so, of course, I obliged. 

Life is good.  I hope you enjoyed your Easter as much as I enjoyed mine.

 

Easter Festivities Part I

Hi, everybody!  I hope you all had a Happy Easter!  We crammed a whoooole lot into these last few days, and I'm whooped.  Definitely a good kind of whooped, though.  I'm going to split our weekend up into two posts, mostly to spare you the billion word post, and also, because I'm tired and ready for bed. Haha.

Wednesday, Jacob's school had an Easter egg hunt and a picnic lunch, so we got to spend the morning with our sweet little Munch.  All four of the 3-year old classes participated so there were 48 little rugrats scrambling to get eggs.  I think it lasted all of three minutes!  Jacob is very laid back like his Daddy, so when they said, "On your mark, get set, GO!" he, of course, starts sauntering around like he doesn't have anywhere to be.  I started saying, "Go pick up some eggs, bud!"  and he ended up running over to the nearest tree, which all of the other kids had bypassed in all of their haste, so he cleaned house since he had the whole area to himself.  Don't tell my hubs because I'll never hear the end of it - "I told you procrastination is a good thing," he'll say. ;o)

After the hunt was over, we all laid out blankets and ate some lunches we had packed.  The weather was gorgeous, so it was nice to get out of the office for a couple of hours and enjoy it. 

It was also nice to have some one on one time with this handsome thing, too.  It's so hard balancing time between two children, so it's nice to be able to shift all of my focus to just one of them every now and then.

Friday, the school had their annual Easter Parade... it's a really big deal every year - they have police escorts to block traffic while the kids parade around the streets downtown in their sweet little costumes that they spend so much time making.

This year, Jacob was a "flower garden" as he called it, and Olivia was a little bunny with Easter eggs on her shirt.  Olivia wasn't too sure about the whole parade thing... she spent the first 15 minutes trying to pull off her bunny ears, and the next 45 minutes trying to figure out what in the world was going on. 

They always load the babies on the "Bye Bye Buggy" for these events since some of them can't walk yet and it might be one of the cutest things ever.  I, of course, had to go grab her the second I saw her, though!

This was the biggest smile she could muster.

The kids had an absolute blast parading around, and they were excited because Pop and Cokie (my parents) came to see them, too.

The icing on the cake for Jacob was that he got to sit on a real police motorcycle.  Pure. Heaven. for this little transportation loving kid!

And then, when he thought things couldn't get any better, he got to meet the Easter Bunny!  Day made.

I was just happy that he didn't want to punch the Easter Bunny in the face since "the Easter Bunny took his paci" last Easter to give to another child who really needed it.  Good thing kids are resilient. 

Friday evening, we took Jacob to get a haircut, ate dinner at Panera, and we went for a walk around our neighborhood followed by some playtime in the yard.  Absolutely perfect for a Friday night. :o)

These two.  Seriously.

Saturday morning Olivia had her one year pictures… better late than never, I suppose since she'll be 14 months later this month.  (#SecondChildProbs)  Although, it may end up being as if we never even had them anyway, depending on how much of a miracle worker our photographer is.  Olivia was the hottest of messes.  We are talking full blown tantrums the majority of the hour.  I’m going to blame myself for this one, though, because I scheduled them on the day of the full moon, and both of our kids act like lunatics during the couple of days leading up to the full moon.  Are mine the only ones?!  

See these sweet little outfits?  We only managed to get pictures in two of them.  TWO.  In a full hour.  That's how bad it was.  I guess I'll just file this one under Mom Mistakes To Learn From and move on.

Once Little Miss Hot Mess Express had cooled her jets, we attended my friend’s daughter’s first birthday party.  The sun was shining, I got to spend a couple of hours with my best girlfriends, and the kids got to let loose outside.  It was nice to relax after our crazy morning.  A good time was had by all. 

Aaaallll the babies! 13 months, 12 months, 11 months, and 15 months.  BFFs for life!

Saturday evening was all about Easter preparation.  We let J dye Easter eggs for the first time and he LOVED it!  Best part is, all of the dye stayed in the bowls, so I’m going to call it a success! 

After dying eggs, it was dinner and early bedtime for the little munchies so Mommy and Daddy could prepare for the very busy day ahead!

Nighty night, friends!  Part II will be up tomorrow!

DIY Painted Striped Curtains

So.  I have been searching high and low and everywhere in between for some black and white horizontal striped curtains.  For months.  MONTHS, y’all.  You’d think they would be super simple to find.  That’s what Google’s for, right?  Nope.  I’m here to tell you that they do not exist.  The only ones I could find were a pair of panels on Overstock.com (you can find them here), but they only have 2 black stripes and 3 white stripes, and I had envisioned a lot more stripes than that.   

After months and months of searching, I gave up and decided to make my own.  Unfortunately, I’m not a seamstress (I can barely sew a button on a shirt) so I decided to try and paint some.  Pretty bold considering I’ve never attempted to paint any fabric before, aside from puff painting some t-shirts and hair bow back in the 90’s.  Y’all remember puff paint, right?! 

Anyway, without further ado, I present to you the perfect black and white striped curtains... and they weren't all that hard to make!  You can make your own in just 10 easy steps.



I found the perfect white panels here for only $42.99 for the pair.  And I bought the longer 95 inch panels (floor to ceiling) instead of the standard 84 inch panels (floor to top of window), so if you want the standard panels, they are only $35.99 for the pair.  Score!   

Photo Source: Target.com

I also stumbled upon this cool stuff called Textile Medium when I was researching what types of paint to use on fabric, and it actually turns any acrylic paint into washable fabric paint.    

Here are the supplies that I used to paint two 95 inch curtain panels:

• 2 – 95 inch white curtain panels from Target.com
• 2 – 8 oz. bottles of Delta Ceramcoat Textile Medium (I purchased mine from Joann Fabric, but you can find it here if you heart Amazon as much as I do and want to shop online.)
• 4 – 8 oz. bottles of Delta acrylic paint in black (I also purchased from Joann.)
• Painter’s tape
• Measuring tape
• Pencil
• Small paint tray and roller
• Drop cloth to protect the ground 

Step 1 – Iron Your Panels

I ironed both of my panels before painting them so I could have a nice, flat, wrinkle free surface to work with.  If you’re anything like me, you may be overly excited to get started on the actual painting and want to skip this step, but trust me, you’ll be glad you didn’t once you start rolling on that paint. 

Step 2 – Prepare Your Work Space 

Lay out the drop cloth to protect the ground, and then lay the curtain panel on the drop cloth.  My drop cloth was only wide enough to paint one curtain at a time so that’s exactly what I did.  Note, I taped the edges of the drop cloth and the edges of the curtain panel to the ground because there was a slight breeze and I didn’t want the wind to catch them and ruin my freshly painted curtains!   

Step 3 – Decide How You Want Your Curtain Panels to Look 

What do you want your stripes to look like?  Thick?  Thin?  White at the top? Black at the top?  I knew I wanted a black stripe at the top (excluding the very top thin strip containing the grommets), and a black stripe at the bottom, and I wanted all of the stripes to be pretty thick, so I decided to go with a total of seven stripes – four black, and three white all the same size.  

After making these important decisions, it is time to do the math (Did somebody say math? Zzzz.) so you know how thick each stripe needs to be:  

95 inches (total panel length) - 5 inches (for the strip containing the grommets) = 90 inches (total curtain to measure for the stripes) 
  

90 inches divided by 7 stripes comes to 12.857142 inches per stripe (of course it couldn’t just be a nice even number), so I rounded down to 12.5 inches for each stripe, which means that the bottom stripe will be slightly thicker than the others.  I worried about this a little, but it is not very noticeable to the naked eye, I promise. 

Step 4 – Measure, Measure, Measure 

Now you know that each stripe will be 12.5 inches wide, so it’s time to pull out your handy dandy tape measure and mark each stripe.  I made a small tick mark with my pencil at each 12.5 inch increment down one side of the panel, and then I did the exact same thing down the other side of the panel. 

Once I had my tick marks down both sides of the panel, I used the tape measure (you could use a 2x4 or any other long straight edge) to draw a straight line between the tick marks on each side of the panel. 
  

Step 5 – Tape Your Stripes 

Next, you will need to tape your stripes.  *Be sure to tape outside the lines for the painted stripes.*  This will result in every other stripe looking thinner while your tape is down.  This picture below better explains it as it’s hard to put into words.

Also, please note that if you run out of painter’s tape, regular masking tape will work in a pinch.  Oops. 

Step 6 – Pull Up and Retape Your Stripes Once You Realize You Did It Wrong the First Time 

Optional step that you hopefully get to skip ;o) 

Step 7 – Mix Your Paint 

The Textile Medium instructions say to mix 1 part Textile Medium to 2 parts paint.  Therefore, I mixed 1 bottle of Textile Medium with 2 bottles of paint.  This made the perfect amount of paint to do 1 thick first coat and 1 thin second coat for one panel.

Protect those knees!  Bathtub kneelers are also good for projects that you have to kneel to do!

Step 8 – Paint! 

This is pretty self-explanatory.  Take your roller, dip it in the paint, and go to town!  As stated in Step 7, I painted the first coat really thick, and then added another thin coat right after.  I didn’t wait for it to dry in between or anything, and it turned out great. 

Step 9 – Let Dry and Peel Off Tape 

Finally, go tackle some other projects (or just rest if you’re not me) while your panels dry.  I let mine dry for about 3 hours and then I peeled off the tape.  

Step 10 - Hang 

So what are you waiting for??  Hang and admire your work! 

 

I hope this tutorial provides good, clear information without overwhelming you.  If you decide to take the plunge and try these, let me know how yours turn out... I would love to see!

P.S. This is also a little sneak peek of my office that I'm making over.  The big reveal is coming soon!