environmentally friendly wrapped Easter Eggs.....

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7990446.stm

Being Brits, we don't 'do' the Easter Bunny thing! Our kids get a big Easter Egg each which we hide and they have to hunt for - they aren't easy to find in Canada but luckily Walmart often sells proper Easter Eggs ie British style ones but only a few and they tend to be Nestle and Smarties or ones the kids aren't keen on - and we are particular in that they HAVE to be 'eggs' as in British style eggs ;) because thats what we grew up with ;)

Anyway....we hide the eggs and they hunt for them indoors first thing in the morning! Lloyd hid the older boys sooooo well that it took them ages to find them :)

Real Easter Eggs come with so much packaging that it always makes me feel so wasteful, so I was interested to read the above article on reducing packaging of easter Eggs....

Our kids don't get Easter baskets filled with toys or gifts from the Easter bunny - but we do a hunt for little eggs outside later in the day and we did treat them to the dvd of Bedtime Stories that we all watched together while they ate their stash of candy from the egg hunt!

Valentines....

I bought these Valentines at the Antiques sale at the Agricom on Friday....They were sent by Aunt Isabel to 'Vera Oakes' - one was sent in 1914 and the other was sent in 1916.

I have collected postcards since I was a child and I loved looking through all the old postcards at the show but didn't find too many that I wanted - I was especially keen to look for valentines though and when I saw these that were almost 100 years old and were both sent to the same girl from the same lady, I definitely wanted them! I like the idea that there is a 'story' to them :)

The Beekeepers Boots!!

Val and her hubby came over today for coffee and brought two of their crew with them (and thank GOODNESS or I would have had a very upset crew here - when we saw a smaller car than normal arrive we were concerned they'd come alone and then I would never have heard the end of it from my lot!!! How DARE they not bring friends for mine to play with!!!! ;)

Anyway, when Val got out of the car I spotted that she had some welly boots in her arms with bees on and thought perhaps she had found her youngest (or even my youngest) some really cool welly boots for Spring! And then I saw what they were!!! it's the most gorgeous ceramic pot! Hand painted by Val!!!! Isn't it gorgeous??? I think it's supposed to go outside (like the bee that Val painted for me last year - but my bee couldn't go outside either (lol) and I've had it on my bookcase ever since! Well at the moment it's sat by my computer downstairs because the workmen kept moving the bookshelves and I was worried it would get broken! But it will get put back soon! I just worried that if I put the bee outside it would get ruined by the weather or something!

Anyway, this pot is the perfect colour for my new kitchen and while it will NOT have metal or plastic things in it (I used these just to take the picture lol) I thought it would look lovely with wooden spoons in it. The white of the boots matches my kitchen cupboards and my counters are going to be black! And It means I will have bees in my kitchen :)

So Val I hope thats ok with you? I do love it so much :) Thank you so much! Now if only I can sort my Sons social life out then I can join you at the ceramics class!!!

It was nice to see you both today - and I love that idea about Northern Bear for dinner and afterwards with the kids all together!!

Easter Egg Hunt 2009

For once the weather was just PERFECT this year for Easter and we were able to have our egg hunt outside in T-SHIRTS!!!! :) How wonderful!!!!! :) No snow - the occasional puddle is all!! :) It was so lovely to be able to hunt for eggs at Easter outside - normally it is too snowy and wet and we end up repeating our egg hunt in the Summer to be sure we get at least one wonderful egg hunt on our land per year (although at least we get to have great friends join us for THAT one lol).

We had our egg hunt in the evening (after a fabulous Easter roast dinner) at about 7pm and it was just lovely - the children found the eggs and then we all went inside and watched the movie 'Bedtime Stories' with Adam Sandler - very clever and funny movie - and they got to eat some of their candies while we watched the movie!!!

It was a lovely end to a wonderful day!!!

Easter Monday didn't go as planned - we WERE going to the zoo - but we ended up having such a late night on Sunday that all the kids were tired - the weather wasn't as nice as the weekend - they had originally forecast 12c but it ended up being cloudy and then got cooler and with darker cloud but the wind was COLD and then the weather warnings came in - and they forecast snow and cold for tonight and tomorrow and it was just grey and windy all day - and the wind just wasn't pleasant - so we decided to delay the zoo a week or two.

Lloyd and I ended up going in to town - I got some new Spring clothes and we went for coffee and parfait at Starbucks. Lloyd and I washed the windows at the front of the house (oooooh SO exciting hahahahaha! But they were sooooo dirty and dusty from the work the workmen have been doing). Then Lloyd started filling up the potholes in the driveway with gravel.

Chris got it into his head that he wanted bbq chicken pizza from the Fire Hall Diner so he wanted to cycle there and get some - no matter what the weather! Crazy boy! I gave him the money and off he went!!! I told him to call and find out if they were open! He was soon back as they were closed! He ended up making a pizza we had in the freezer!

We had some friends drop by today and I finally got to show someone my new kitchen :) Yay........so nice not to have workmen here - as nice as they are lol!!! No cardboard on the floor! No mess! No dust (well not much anyway lol) and even though the kitchen isn't anything near finished, it was still nice to have friends over! I will just be happy when its finally OVER and DONE with and I can have friends over ANY TIME!!!!! You know this work started late last Summer and it's been difficult to have anyone over since then - but mostly since the work started indoors.

Abby and Sam's hopping bunny game....

Sam enjoying the back deck....

The tooth fairy has been busy at our house!!

Painting eggs.....

I think egg painting pictures are on just about every blog this week....but here are ours anyway :)

Playing Jelly Bean Bingo on Easter Morning!!!

Nothing like a healthy breakfast!!!

And this was NOTHING like a healthy breakfast!!!! ;)

Chocolate and pop for breakfast on Easter day :) YUM!!!! Thank goodness it's just once a year!

I'm running off to Mexico with Tim.....

Anyone want to join me???????

scrapmap.com/mexican_1009.html

OMG wouldn't this be heavenly????

Easter brunch....

Lloyd and I had brunch out on the back deck on Easter Sunday and it was soooooo lovely! It's the first time we've used the new deck and it's a REAL sun trap! It was gorgeous out there! We had the patio table out there, Lloyd cooked eggs and toast, and I took out croissants and jam, juice and coffee.

The BEST thing of all of being outside then though was that we heard our very first frog of the year - YES Tanya!!!! they are awake!!! AND they are HORNY!!!!! Our frogs are horny :) CROOOOOOAAAK!!!!!! ;)

Most of our kitchen things are still boxed away so we still don't have any glasses out or anything, but it was lovely to be outside in the sunshine - the weather this Easter was just GORGEOUS :) I caught the sun!!!! (we won't mention whats coming the next couple of days - I'm just going to pretend it's a bad dream, and focus on the lovely heat we've had and the fact that next week it's going to be in the low 20's!!!!! Woohoo! the next couple of days are just a BLIP!!!

What are you reading????

I currently have two books on the go...'Keeping Faith' by Jodi Picoult, which I'm really enjoying. It's about a non-religious couple who are divorcing and their young daughter, Faith, starts to develop Stigmata and hears God. It's really interesting. I loved the movie Stigmata with Gabriel Byrne a few years back too. I'm not religious at all but I do find things ike that extremely interesting. On Friday I sat and watched most of 'The Passion of The Christ'. I do believe that a man called Jesus Christ lived and did die on the Cross (as many people did back then). I'm getting off track lol.....

I also picked up Stephanie Meyer's (of Twilight fame) book 'The Host' after having read an excerpt of it on her website. So far it's ok.....I want to finish Keeping Faith before I get too far into it though. It's about soul's, seekers, host bodies and Healers so far......It definitely seems much more of a book for adults and NOT a teen romance this time! Although I could be wrong as I haven't heard anything about it and I haven't read much yet but from reading the cover and what I've read so far it certainly doesn't seem anything as 'simple' as Twilight.

Filling a sunny afternoon....

Today instead of swimming (which would have been the healthy choice lol), while Sam was at Prek-K, Abigail and I pottered around Baseline and Broadmoor.

Firstly we went to the scrapbook store where I treated myself to a few more Glimmer mists and the cutest bee stamp that matches the butterfly stamp I have!!

After that we headed to the thrift store where I found a really sweet old Avon pot with an Easter bunny on it - I thought it was the cutest thing and the green around the rim of the egg basket matches my kitchen so NEXT year it will look lovely in my kitchen somewhere :) This year I am NOT decorating as we are in such a mess with the renovations everywhere. NEXT year will be different!

I also found a cute jug to display and a couple of books.

After there we ran to Save-On for some elastic bands for a guitar Abigail s making....as well as a some more hot cross buns for the work men as well as us for tomorrow...some eggs for the kids to decorate tomorrow....and cream for the butter chicken tonight!

After that we still had time left and what was looking at us from across the parking lot?????? Only the Marble Slab Creamery!!! I had never been before so off we went! Abigail chose white chocolate ice cream in a white chocolate covered cone with mix-ins of nerds, bubble gum balls and sprinkles!!!!! OMG!!!!!

I chose a child sized cup of maple flavoured ice cream with skor mix ins!!!! We sat outside to enjoy the gorgeous +14c temperatures (yes notice NO SNOW is left in sight woohoo)!!!!

The ice cream was nice enough I guess - I was quite sad that they have pistachio listed on the wall but didn't actually have any but then again there has been a recall in the US so maybe thats why???? They did have a good choice though and I didn't think the prices were too extreme. I really just wanted a cup of coffee while Abby had her ice cream and was shocked that they didn't do coffee!!!! Wah!!! So I had to have ice cream :( they do cans of pop but I'm not really a pop drinker.....I wanted coffee!

Abigail loved it though and I will dfeinitely go back in the Summer with the rest of the kids - but I think I MUCH prefer our usual ice cream place at the train!!!! It's more fun - more relaxing and more of an 'experience' and 'day out'!!!! Plus they have more choice if you don't want 'ice cream'!!! :)

I guess now that Laura Secord has gone though, this is one of the only places to go for ice cream apart from the burger/ fast food places like DQ and McD's.....

I started a tradition!

Last year I grew 'Egg Heads' and names and in cress seeds with Susannah's grade 4 class. Susie came home this week and told me that this years grade 4 class are again growing 'Egg Heads' and names in cress seeds :)

It's nice that something I introduced to the school has been continued :) It was obviously a big hit!

Here is a link to a site with a similar idea:

www.allfreecrafts.com/easter/egg-heads.shtml

You can cut the 'hair' once it has grown and eat it on salads or in egg salad sandwiches :) YUM!!! You can also grow cress on layers of damp kitchen towel on a plate or tray or on damp cotton wool and you can sow it in the shape of your name!!!