Easter Creations

So I'm not exactly that artistic or a great baker or anything, but I'm actually proud of how my Easter cupcakes turned out. In case you're unsure, they're supposed to look like flowers. (PS. This came from a mini Betty Crocker desserts cookbook).

This was the plate we took to the Bachmanns.

This one we ended up keeping - yum!

Here are a few more we kept. I have to hand it to Target - every holiday they have a new, fun jar of sprinkle varieties!

Here's a close-up of the blue flower. It didn't turn out as well as the yellow or pink, mostly because the sugar was more coarse than the other two colors. But I still liked it. Basically, you make cupcakes as normal, then using kitchen shears snip a marshmallow into five similarly-sized pieces. Then you roll the pieces in colored sugar (shown below) and the sugar sticks to the center sticky part. Then you arrange them with a little overlap to try and mimic a flower.

Sweet! Haha.

Happy Easter Again!

(I can't lie - this was taken the day after Easter. We were all really tired after a long night of teething. But he's still super cute, isn't he?)

Happy Easter!

This Little Piggy..

Dyeing Easter Eggs

Here's Jake, happily chatting with Daddy and super excited about the eggs!

I won't lie, it took a lot of willpower to let him try to get the eggs out with minimal help. We're entering a new phase of wanting to be independent, but with egg dye I get a little nervous.

Our lovely eggs soaking in their dye baths.

Some of the finished product.

I had to get a picture of this. Note that there is basically NO DYE on his hands at the end of the process. AWESOME!

Birdies Class & The Aviary

We went to another Zoo School class this weekend - all about birdies!

Jake painted a picture of a bird with feathers and paint.

This was Jake's favorite station by far - the duckies in the water!

Jake also enjoyed matching and sorting the birds by color (surprise, surprise!)

And the puzzle station, a perennial favorite.

Jake also made a bird costume, but he wasn't too interested in that. He also got to pet a real chick, which he was very interested in.

Next, we decided to go to the aviary at the zoo. Ryan took Ben while we were in class, but Jake and I had never been before, plus it seemed very fitting given the class topic. Also, it was raining cats and dogs outside.

We saw a bunch of penguins (Jake and Dad estimated 30 - "Mom, we saw 30 penguins!)

I don't know what kind of birds these were. But the cool thing about this room was that the birds were flying and roaming free. Not cool if you're Grandpa Earl though.

I don't know what kind of bird this was either, but as Dad said it rivals Ben's yelling/screaming for loudest noise ever ;)

One Thing I'll Miss about This Place

As many know, there has been occasional drama regarding our residence this year. Ultimately, I think that a family with two young boys and an occasionally yappy dog needs it's own living space separate from other people. There are certainly some things I'll miss about this place however, this being one of them:
Last weekend while we were eating breakfast, Jake looked out the window and said "Look Mommy! A rhino!" At first I had no idea what he was talking about, but when I looked out the window there it was - no, not a rhino, a deer! In fact, there were five of them up on the hill that abuts our backyard. One of them even ran right past our window before it sped out across the street and took a flying leap into the field. It was pretty cool. I know, they've got ticks and bugs and are a pain when you drive, but they sure are pretty.