Easter Crafts and Decorations

 these sweet bunnies are made with vellum you and also make them out of tissue paper to make a sweet garland. You can also make a flag  garland out of fabric or  pastel colored or patterned paper or here is one made of blown out eggs.

using dyed egg shells to hold small grapehyacinths , blue bells and lily of the valley here are some other centerpieces.

and if you are really into decorating hardcore easter eggs here is the best thing pysanka eggs /aka ukrainian eggs. here is a brief history and images of the eggs. to start the eggs you take a kitska  which is a tool you warm up over a candle and stick bees wax in the top and as it heats up you can draw on the egg whatever design you want and whatever design that is it will be resistant to the colored dyes. You go from the lightest color which is the eggshell white clear down to the last coat black Then at the end of the black stage you take the egg over the candle and melt and wipe off all the wax from the eggs shell. 

 

The word comes from the verb pysaty, "to write", as the designs are not painted on, but written with beeswax The word pysanka refers specifically to an egg decorated with traditional Ukrainian folk designs, and is not a generic term for any egg decorated using wax resist. Many other eastern European ethnic groups, decorate eggs using wax resist for Easter.With the advent of Christianity via a process of religious syncretism the symbolism of the egg was changed to represent, not nature's rebirth, but the rebirth of man. Christians embraced the egg symbol and likened it to the tomb from which Christ rose. With the acceptance of Christianity in 988, the decorated pysanka, in time, was adapted to play an important role in Ukrainian rituals of the new religion. Many symbols of the old sun worship survived and were adapted to represent Easter and Christ's Resurrection.Pysanky are typically made to be given to family members and respected outsiders. To give a pysanka is to give a symbolic gift of life, which is why the egg must remain whole. Furthermore, each of the designs and colors on the pysanka is likely to have a deep, symbolic meaning. Traditionally, pysanky designs are chosen to match the character of the person to whom the pysanka is to be given. Typically, pysanky are displayed prominently in a public room of the house.
In a large family, by Holy Thursday, 60 or more eggs would have been completed by the women of the house. (The more daughters a family had, the more pysanky would be produced.) The eggs would then be taken to the church on Easter Sunday to be blessed, after which they were given away. Here is a partial list of how the pysanky would be used:

1. One or two would be given to the priest.
2. Three or four were taken to the cemetery and placed on graves of the family.
3. Ten or fifteen were given to children or godchildren.
4. Ten or twelve were exchanged by the unmarried girls with the eligible men in the community.
5. Several were saved to place in the coffin of loved ones who might die during the year.
6. Several were saved to keep in the home for protection from fire, lightning and storms.
7. Two or three were placed in the mangers of cows and horses to ensure safe calving and colting and a good milk supply for the young.
8. At least one egg was placed beneath the bee hive to insure a good harvest of honey.
9. One was saved for each grazing animal to be taken out to the fields with the shepherds in the spring.
10. Several pysanky were placed in the nests of hens to encourage the laying of eggs.

Everyone from the youngest to the oldest received a pysanka for Easter. Young people were given pysanky with bright designs; dark pysanky were given to older people.
A bowl full of pysanky was invariably kept in every home. It served not only as a colorful display, but also as protection from all dangers the colors and decorations are all symbolic and ave some meaning . so if you wanted to give one of these to a loved one it probably would not be a bad idea. Well I will update later with some ukrainain eggs of my own.

Albert Einstein Hair

I have never seen anybody who has worse bed head hair than evia she wakes up and it looks like she stuck her fingers in a toaster. I finally had  to take a picture of one of the worse naptime bed head hair days. I swear I used no hairspray and she had her pigtails in for only during church then we took them out for her nap. I can also tell you she was blessed with one gene I don't have voluminous hair . David saw her and started to laugh we both lost a gut when we saw her afro, and she would just smile  she had no idea why we were laughing but loved the attention from me and daddy.

Our Gardens

Saturday davdi went and took all the trash in the backyard and took it to the dump he did two trips and on the second trip he brought back home a truck load of dart dirt/mulch for only 20.00!! I was so excited it smelled so good of spring and of hard work. So we loaded up the gardens with the mulch and planted all of our bulbs and transplanted the rose bushes and Iris's. we made the gardens bigger and wind around more and they are also raised which looks really nice. I am so excited to see how the yard will look Evia loved taking a shovel and helping me dig in the dirt she was loving it. She also tried to put some garden gloves on and even helped me plant some bulbs.It was awesome at the end of the day when we came in it was so nice knowing we got alot of things accomplished and when I came inside I noticed all of our shoes outside the door covered in mud . It brought back memories of gardening every saturday morning and having dad wake us up with the cougars cheer only a little bit modified and it went something like this. " Rise and shout it's time to get up it is time to weed the garden" Then dad would steam roll over us or use a spray bottle to get us up. I am just so happy to have a place where me and david and evie can start making some fun family memories. So here are some pics of how the garden looks now.

this on the left side of the porch

Silly and Sweet things Evia does

Putting the glasses from Mr. Potato on her face

She loves helping me put on my makeup no matter how messy shemakes me look I still love having her do it

She tries to put on her own diapers.and fails miserably

She brings me things she finds on the floor and says yucky as she hands it to me.

She helps me do the dishes by sticking her toys and books in there as well. 

I tell her to go get cozy and she goes to titans dog bed and sucks her thumb and cuddles her lambie

She loves reading and brings me books to read if i am sitting down she comes and snuggles in my lap and we read the books together

She loves it when I make a nummy dessert and snitching some of it

When we have prayers she folds aher arms and will even sometimes squint her eyes.

Tickling the flowers, playing monster and hide and seek and hearing her squeal with delight when I catch her

Hearing cars pull up and thinking it is da da or me ma and papa coming home

Finding a nickel or quarter lying around the house and bringing me her piggy bank, she loves to say the coins names and put the money inside the bank but when the money is in the bank she gets upset and tries to open the bank.

Helping momma craft by pulling out all of my recently folded and organized fabric, and then bringing it to me to fold again.

Her lambie is her constant companion.

When I was not feeling well she brought me one of her blankies and a her lamb and laid next to me.

when she has bad diaper rash she took a shower with david and he called me in a few minutes later to find out she had fallen asleep on his shoulder while in the shower.

Saying cheese and having her give me a big goofy grin.

.Putting her toys in the toilet, or getting stuff out of the garbage can

  Spinning around in a circle till she falls down or gets dizzy enough to run into the door frame 

Eating bubbles in the bathtub, and washing her hair.

She love flash cards and lately has said  mirror,farmer, airplane,octopus,pigs, shovel, sun,heart oval, brother ,sister

Helping momma plant seeds aka rocks.

Dancing to music from you tube.

She loves brushing her teeth she mostly just chews on the brush but when I take it away she starts to cry.

Seeing a picture of her canadian cousins and saying their names especially coco then she looks around trying to find her.Here are some of the things my sweet little lady does I hope it made you smile.

Fixing the yard

saturday we got motivated again and started cleaning up the front yard we tore out the two lilac bushes and transplanted one of them to another part of the yard. the big one had termites and ant that had eaten most of the root system . we decided to get really ambitious and dig up the old patio and move it by the garage so we would have a little more privacy. That area will now be our bbq pit and rib making area david was really excited so was I. Evia was trying to be helpful and help move small rocks she was also playing peekaboo from the front porch. The other day she conquered her fear of going down stairs and would climb up and down them while we were working. Another cute thing evia would do she would pick up dirt in her hand and move it somewhere else like david was doing with the shovel. but once she realized her hands were muddy she would start whimpering and reach out her hands to have me wipe them off. We also have grape hyacynths and tulips starting to sprout  and evia would go up to the flowers bend down  and say "tickle ,tickle" while she was running her fingers over the leaves,so she was tickling the flowers it was so cute.

And while david was leveling the ground for the concrete slabs I was digging them up and moving them over to him, I also dug up the borders that contain the gardens I did not get to pressure washing them yet or resetting them up the way we wanted.

I did not get a finshed shot of the patio befoire david  civered it with some of the construction ,materials but here is what it looks like he also made a window well and he started to fill up the hole where the old patio was. It was so nice to hit the grinding stone hard again and get something accomplished.

Late night target excursion

About a week ago we had eaten dinner and were watching a show when somebody knocked on the door. It was a man from queststar gas he told us there was a gas leak and they were evacuating the neighborhood.This was about eight o clock and we were so tired Evia is getting her 4 canine teeth coming in and she was very sick with a deep cough and cold.She had  been up at 2 o clock in the morning and had not taken a nap all day . needless to say she wasn't very happy when we woke her up by the time we left which was like ten minutes they had trucks, and large digging equipment and had cautioned taped the neighborhood off. So david looked at me and smiled and said so where do you want to go? So at 8:30 at night we were one of the only people in costco never had I seen that place so quiet so we got evia a book since  she was feeling so crummy and we stayed till they closed around nine oclock nine thirty. Then we went to the new target that opened up by home depot we killed time by looking at fun spring stuff,cute clothes and david had fun running with the shopping cart evia thought it was hilarious. we eventulay returned home about eleven or eleven thirty. and when we got back we saw that they were digging up the main line and guess where that was about two feet from our front fence! I was just greatful that they were being thourough and checking everywhere it turns out the gas pipe had popped all the gas caps on all the houe in the neighborhood so each house had to be checked out and made sure it was safe to enter. they guy who was checking out our place was there for another hour then  he left clearing the building. It was  a very awkward situation at first but it was a very fun night just me david and evie being night owls.

Island Park 2011

This year we stayed at a cute little cabin called neils nest pardon some of the pictures. I left the camera in the car and when I went to use it  the lens fogged up. Before we headed up though I had my IUD taken out it was killing me so I was pretty sore during the trip. It was fun to be all together in the same hosue we had fun breaskfasts and dinners and the next day we went skiiing by some of the other cabins.

Now david and nate  are definatly brothers because before we left we found a bike trailer online and david managed to invent some ski attatchment sto put on the bottom of the wheels. so he made a sled  evia did not like it at first but she was so tired she eventually fell asleep. and it turns out nate made one for baily to ride in as well it was the smartest thing to do for the trip . the trailer was sheltered from the snow and evia could move around in it if she wanted to.

some of the biggest hits of the trip were these. Rex bought this bubble toy  taht you can stand in and then somebody can roll you down hills etc.. it was hilarious to look out the window and see this bright blue ball go down the hill the only bad part was the bubble cells started to pop so the bubble boy ball was short lived. the best part for me was when paul and jo watched evia for a little while  while me and david made a huge snow cave  david eventually was able to sit up on his knees and not touch the ceiling . I wish we could have slept in it it would have been fun but evia hates the cold and was teething most of the trip.we eventually ran into the porch of the house as we dug the cave. I haven't had that mush fun in the snow for a long long time. we also tried to make a snowman but the snow was to powdery.