Scenes From a 3rd Birthday

It's been a busy and fun week with lots of birthday preparation and celebration.  We partied for 2 days straight - on Tuesday with the friends we made up north and yesterday with family at home.  As I was up at 5:45 on Tuesday, prepping fruit for Leif's pre-museum breakfast party, I couldn't help but think back to all of the early morning preparation that my mom would do to make life special for us.  From her I've learned to start from scratch, do it myself, and that less is always more except for when it comes to food - then you want lots of variety and plenty of it. 

I was too busy to snap many photos, but here are a few highlights from our birthday festivities:

 a lemon blueberry muffin breakfast cake with banana ice cream for the party with friends

 visiting the Sesame Street stoop at the Strong Museum of Play (which we all loved)

the long requested (raw carrot) "cake shaped like a dinosaur with blueberries, lollipops in the frosting and 5 birthday candles" - the kid knew what he wanted

chasing bubbles and relaxing before dark

It's May Day!

As a child this meant a visit from the May Fairy and lots of flower picking and crafting for Mom, Grandma and others.  I'm going to introduce Leif to that magical little family tradition today.  

Find a pretty May Day flower basket tutorial on Design*Sponge (these are the kinds of things my mom would whip up).  

Natural Dyes for Easter Eggs

This afternoon, when Leif wakes from his nap, we're going to dye some Easter Eggs.  I've been dragging my feet on the Easter preparations which makes me a little sad, since it was one of my favorite holidays growing up.  My mom always did such a great job making the holidays feel magical and I want Leif to have that too.  With Easter just a few days away, it's time for me to step it up and make some magic.

Image via curbly.com

Looking for an alternative to the grocery store's dye kits, I set out to find a good resource for natural dyes.  What I found just may be the coolest looking Easter eggs ever.

 

Image via curbly.com

Follow this link to learn how to make these beautiful eggs using all natural ingredients.  I only hope that ours turn out half as cool as these did.