Mother’s Day is almost here so I’ve curated my own selection of gift ideas to share with you — based on my personal favorites! My selection includes some freebie ideas, because at the end of the day it’s about showing appreciation for our moms — and you don’t need money to do that. *wink*
Category Archives: holiday
30+ non-candy Easter basket ideas
I’ve seen a lot of mom posts on Facebook asking for non-candy Easter basket ideas recently and I’m here to tell you – DON’T STRESS!! We have two weeks until Easter and you can still pull off a fabulous basket filled with non-sugary surprises!
Ever since Grace’s first Easter I’ve always tried to stuff her basket with non-candy treats, sure I include the traditional chocolate bunny and the marshmallow yumminess that are Peeps, but I really don’t want it to be all sugar-filled. Each year it gets a little tougher to keep it fresh and not duplicate the non-candy options but the one thing I’ve learned over the past (nearly) 5 Easter seasons — KEEP IT SIMPLE AND DON’S STRESS! Kids don’t care or keep track!
The first couple of years I went all out (i.e. monogramed beach towels from PBK – but in all seriousness I do love their towels.) But in more recent years I learned to shop the dollar bins at Target and local dollar stores. Sure I throw in a few “nicer” items from time to time, but my girls are just excited to get a basket full of surprises each year.
The one challenge for me this year is that Rae is now almost 2 and wants whatever her older sister has. This means when big sister plays with legos (you know the kits with the super small pieces that come with a choking hazard disclaimer for little ones,) little sister wants to get her hands right in there too. Luckily many of the things we’re planning to include this year can work for both girls…whew!
So all that said, I thought it’d be fun to I’d share my non-candy options for anyone looking for ideas. I’ve broken my ideas down by infant, toddler (1-2 year old) and preschooler (3-5 year old) and I’ve also included photos of our Easter baskets from years past.
a season of Thanks
Happy November! The leaves have officially changed and started to fall in great big fluffy piles in my backyard. They’re so pretty to look at why bother raking them, lol.
This month I’m feeling great. I’m 3 pounds away from meeting my first goal weight (I have multiple goal weights to get down to my “happy” weight.) I’ve told myself I want to hit this first goal weight by Thanksgiving and yesterday morning I woke up thinking it was truly achievable – I even put on some old grey jeans that I haven’t worn since before I got pregnant with Rae! Unfortunately, I still can’t wear my rings. That’s a little depressing but trying to not get discouraged by it, and if I can hit this small goal weight then I’ll be thankful for that.
It’s also my birthday this week, Friday to be exact. I will be the big 3-8. Holy crap that’s almost 40! Wow, when did that happen? I don’t feel 38. Then again, I don’t feel 37. You know what they say, age is just a number. I just wish my number was 25 *wink*
This year I wanted do something special with the girls for Thanksgiving, a new tradition (hopefully) that we could carry on for years. Something to help teach them what it means to be grateful. So we made a “Thankful Tree.” Each Sunday night, after dinner, we’ll sit at the table and talk about what we’re thankful for and write it down on paper leaves to hang on our tree. We did our first one this past weekend and you know what Grace said she was thankful for? Her family. Melt my heart.
There’s still time for you to make your own Thankful Tree – I made this one in about 30 minutes.
happy halloween
Happy Halloween friends! I don’t know about you but October seemed to fly by for us. There are just so many activities from local fall fun festivals to trunk-or-treat and school parties we seem to have some Halloween activity every week. That and I probably signed us up to do everything now that I’m home and have “a little more time on my hands” (said no mom ever!)
This year Grace decided that she wanted to be a spider for Halloween – she was very adamant about it. So we got to work designing and stitching up her spider costume back in September. She’s worn it a few times now to some of the Halloween outings we’ve had and she absolutely loves it! Then yesterday I picked her up from school and she tells me she’s decided she now wants to be Elsa for Halloween and just wear her princess Elsa play dress. Seriously child, the main event is in 24-hours and you want to pull a game changer on me?!! (Insert tears of laughter/defeat here.) Luckily we compromised and she agreed to be Elsa for her school Halloween party today but still be the spider for trick-or-treating tonight. Whew, dodged that one! Thought you’d all get a kick out of that one.