Easter Play Date

B had a play date yesterday and I was asked to plan the activities for him and his 2 little friends.  It's the week before Easter, so naturally that means an Easter themed play date full of Easter crafts and cuteness.  

All of these ideas I found on Pinterest...duh.  Here is the adorable website where I got all the printables from: http://BloomDesignsOnline.com/

ALL of these crafts are SUPER easy and quick...great for short attention spans!

I made these the night before for all of the kids to take home as a little goody bag.  I couldn't help myself...too cute!

The first activity of the playdate: Easter Bunny Food.  The kids loved this and you probably don't even have to go the store for the supplies.  It's along the same line as the Reindeer food that we had as kids (straw & glitter to sprinkle on your lawn Christmas Eve, so the reindeers have a snack just like Santa).  So the idea here is the same...sprinkle on your lawn the night before Easter so the Easter Bunny will come and leave you treats.  

Ingredients/Supplies that we used: Clear treat bags, ribbon, bowls, spoons, uncooked oatmeal, random variety of sprinkles and candy pearls.  (Printable tags from Bloom Designs.)

Of course, we also had an Easter egg hunt outside after a quick snack.  In order to have the least amount of drama and make it fair, each child hunted for eggs of the same color.  We hid 9 yellow, 9 pink, and 9 green eggs and assigned each child a color.  Everyone had the same amount of eggs and the same treats at the end.  It was perfect!

Good alternative treats to put inside of eggs for an Easter hunt: bubbles, stamps, stickers, tiny toys.  Most kids will be so excited to find something new and different in each one that they won't care about not having candy.

The play date was a huge success and a ton of fun for the kids...and me!

Easter Egg Letter Hunt

I love holidays.  EVERY holiday.  I love doing "normal" everyday things inside of a holiday theme.  Who doesn't love eating their PB&J in the shape of a bunny instead of a square?  Or playing a letter matching game after having to hunt down the letters inside of eggs all around your playroom?  HELLO.  FUN.TIMES.

This week I decided not to introduce a new letter to B, but to review the 7 letters we have already talked about.  He loves hands-on activities (what kid doesn't?!), so I decided I had to think of something that would get and KEEP his attention.  And since Easter is approaching, there is only one answer...an Easter egg letter hunt.

I put this activity together in about 8 minutes, right before B woke up from his nap.  All you need is:  paper, markers, alphabet letters (I used letter magnets from the Dollar Store), plastic Easter eggs, and an Easter basket.

I started by taking out the letters I was going to use, because using all 26 would be too much too handle at once for a 3 year old.  I used the 7 letters that B and I have been working on: B,M,S,A,H,T,C plus E and N (to finish out his name) and P (a letter we will be learning in the near future).  I chose these letters so that when matching them, he would have immediate success naming most of them, and excitement over a few new ones.

I put each letter in an egg and hid them around the playroom.  I also hid a piece of candy (that B had been begging for all day) inside another egg before hiding it.

B was psyched from the second I told him what we were going to do.  He wanted them to ALL be filled with candy and was initially disappointed when I told them they weren't.  However, I told him that once he found all of the letter eggs and matched them up, that we could play again and I would put some yummy treats in a few more eggs and use fewer letters.  He loved that idea and set out on a mission to find all the eggs.

He LOVED opening each egg to find either a letter or a treat (2nd round) and enjoyed naming all of the letters as he matched them on his sheet.

The sheet I made had each letter I hid written on it in the same color as the letter magnet.  That way it is a matching game of colors and letters.  Also, very helpful for the few letters he is not familiar with.

This activity is so much fun and so easy to just throw together any time of the day or year!

B was obsessed and wanted to keep doing it over and over again.  I will probably do it with him again right before Easter with some new letters and a few objects that correspond with the letters.  

I made each letter the same size as the magnet and B loved that the letter "disappeared" when he covered it with the magnet.

Kisses

"Mrs. Megan, I can kiss it for you so it feels better, ok?"

Easter Cupcakes

It's almost Easter, so I thought I would share these cupcakes I made over a year ago for my MIL (Mrs. Bunny)'s birthday party.  They were a huge hit at the party and I am still amazed at how cute they turned out!

I don't remember all the details of what I did since it was so long ago.  It was the first time I ever made sugar cookies and icing from scratch and did the "flooding" technique when icing the cookies.  It was intimidating at first, but really cool and EASY.  I really should start doing it more!

I put two toothpicks in each cookie (pair of ears) before baking them...to help secure them in each cupcake.

Green cupcake wrappers (sitting in grass) and white pom-pom tails for extra detail.

I LOVE how it looks like it has hair!

This was my first attempt (no time for practice), so I'm sure I could have made it look more polished had I had time for practice.  However, I still think they are just adorable!  (Except for the horrible lighting in my kitchen!)

Here is a good tutorial on icing cookies:

http://www.sweetsugarbelle.com/2011/07/outlining-and-filling-cookies-with-royal-icing/