Easter!

Honey Pot is 3 1/2 years old.

Little M&M is 2 years old.

Easter Books

We hadn't gotten themed library books in a long time, as we've been focusing on Honey Pot's letter units and Little M&M's colors. It was so fun to go with a list and grab so many books to go along with our theme. We have really been enjoying these too! For half of the week we kept them downstairs in the living room to share and read together. Then we split them up for the second half of the week: the top row of big kid books in Honey Pot's room for bedtime readings, and the bottom row of toddler (mostly lift-the-flap) books in Little M&M's room.

Marshmallow Bunny Craft

This idea comes from No Time for Flashcards. It was a perfect start to our week of Easter activities! The kids each had to sample one marshmallow before the craft, and were given three to eat afterward. I'm proud they were able to craft without eating midway through! I printed a bunny template directly onto colored paper (because my freehand drawing skills are atrocious). Then I squirt the glue around the template, and the kids got to work!

Little M&M needed to reapply some glue. Happy to do it himself!

Adding googly eyes, a nose and a tongue.

Honey Pot did her own gluing for the facial features.

So cute!

Playdoh Fun with Easter Shapes

Playdoh is quickly becoming one of Honey Pot's favorite downtime activities. We are so happy to have received this tub of cookie cutters from Santa for Christmas. It's getting a lot of use! We cut out tons of egg shapes and decorated them with buttons, colored noodles, and other designs from our tools.

We have two silicone cupcake liners with our playdoh supplies, so Honey Pot couldn't resist making an Easter cupcake! Notice the bunny cutout on top!

And bunny faces with googly eyes were also created. Such fun!

Strawberry "Carrots"

I saw this idea floating around on Pinterest, but do not know whom to credit for the original idea. We made carrots out of strawberries! I stuck a lollipop stick into each to make it easier for little helpers to dip them.

We melted down the orange candy coating, and dipped our strawberries in. Then we placed them into our cake pop stand to harden. 

We didn't dip all the way to the stems, for fear of the strawberries falling off the sticks. But they came out pretty cute!

Yummy!

Magnetic Pom Poms

I printed this cute egg shape from Free Homeschool Deals for Little M&M to do some color matching. I put it on a cookie sheet and provided him with the magnetic pom poms. He loved it!

Easter Worksheets

Honey Pot completed some worksheets from Over the Big Moon. First some practice in completing patterns.

Then circling which bunny is different, and explaining how.

And finally counting and number recognition. I am so pleased to have found this so she could get some extra practice for numbers 11 and 12. She did great!

Easter Sensory Basket + Fine Motor Skills

As a spur of the moment activity one rainy morning, I brought out an old Easter basket and set of empty eggs. Little M&M sat for a good long while, opening and attempting to close the eggs. Putting them into the basket, taking them out.

He loved the sound it made when he opened it. "Pop!"

Pattern Block Bunny Puzzle

We love our pattern blocks from Melissa and Doug! We tried out this bunny puzzle this week.

This is as far as Little M&M got. He's still new to this type of puzzle!

Honey Pot loves doing these, and finished hers all by herself.

Egg Hunt and Color Match

Little M&M had a fun time while his big sister was at preschool one morning. I hid some eggs around the room for him to collect, then bring back to the bunny that matched it.

He had so much fun with this, and asked for more! So we brought out bowls in orange, yellow and blue too, and matched those. Though I don't have pictures of that part.

Egg Hunt and Pattern Matching

Honey Pot also had a hunt, while her little brother was napping. I hid some egg halves around the room, and she had to collect them all in her basket.

When she had found them all, she had to put them back together by following the pattern cards. I found the idea for mixed-up eggs at Make and Takes, although in their activity, the kids hunted for patterns, instead of creating them. I thought Honey Pot might enjoy snapping them back together herself! It was great fine motor practice!

There was a top and bottom of each color, so in addition to finding the right color she had to pay close attention to their size in order to create the egg properly.

She did great!

Paper Plate Chick Craft

I found the idea for this from Keeping It Simple. First Honey Pot painted a small paper plate yellow.

Then she glued on two googly eyes and a beak I cut out of orange paper.

Looking at her finished product. :) I think she liked how it came out!

Then I added pipe cleaner feet. So cute!

Easter Egg Garland

The kids also helped me create this Pinterest-inspired plastic egg garland! Love this!

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Mickey Mouse Brunch!

My whole family is planning a trip to Disney World in 2015! Each of the individual families attending these big family vacations likes to get together to plan all the specifics of the trip. So we hosted the 1st of a handful of these meetings. Since "it all started with a mouse" we decided to make it a Mickey Mouse theme. Here is how it looked!

I decorated the nearby shelf with some Mickey themed items, including a canvas drip-painting I made for my son's room in Mickey colors.

We decorated the table cloth to look like Mickey's pants. This fabulous idea originates from this link that I found on Pinterest, although there is no blog linked to give credit to! Love this! We also used our Mickey Mouse bowl as well as some table settings in coordinating colors.

We served a variety of foods for brunch such as an Eggs Benedict casserole, sausage balls and fruit. But the hit of the meal was of course, our Mickey Mouse pancakes! Let the meeting begin!

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PAW Patrol / Puppy Party!

Little M&M just turned 2! His favorite TV show is currently PAW Patrol, on Nick Jr, so I chose this as his party theme. Take a peek at how we prepared, and what went on during party time!

Invitation

I created this invitation in Photoshop Elements. Then I printed and mailed them out. Please pardon the areas where I've whited out personal information!

Decorations

This sign was hanging on the door, to greet our guests as they entered. I created it in Photoshop Elements. The picture of Marshall, which I found via Google, is attached with pop dots!

We also created a big ol' fire hydrant for the bathroom door, so all of the pups knew where to go!

Nick Jr. provides the wonderful printable for this birthday banner. DONE.

They also give you a printable to create your very own Lookout, just like in the show! We set this up on the mantel, which is pretty close to our next feature. Keep scrolling, and you'll see why!

At every birthday party, I like to have a photo display of some sort. Remember the giant #3 we displayed at Honey Pot's Little Mermaid birthday party? How about the vellum frames we hung on the window for Little M&M's Hot Air Balloon party? Or the simple Elmo frame we made for a single feature photo at Honey Pot's Elmo party? I am very proud of this year's display. During the show PAW Patrol, when Ryder is giving the pups their mission, he displays some images on a big screen TV. I recreated that screen, with each of the pups' badges and Ryder himself, and put Little M&M's photos on the screen. Want one too? Keep scrolling...the links for all of my most popular printables are at the bottom!

So while the slideshow is playing, Little M&M's picture changes, but Ryder and the badges stay the same. Love how this came out. True fans of the show can appreciate it too, so I'm glad we had a few young fans at the party.

**Update**

I've put together a video to show what a slideshow would look like with this template:

Inspired by my niece's Daniel Tiger 2nd birthday party, my sister and I created these fan decorations with some PAW Patrol characters. Each fan required six sheets of construction paper. Super simple to do, and they look awesome.

Party Food

In addition to grown-up beverages, we offered water bottles, with labels I made in Photoshop Elements. For this and other labels from our party, please scroll to the bottom of the blog post for download links.

Here's the food table! Keep scrolling to see each item's description!

First the napkins, for which I created a simple "wipe your paws" sign. It was such a cute idea; I had to do it!

Next, the puppy chow! I included three varieties of puppy chow and served them in dog bowls from the Dollar Tree. I found tons of recipes from Something Swanky and narrowed it down to three. We chose to make lemon...

cinnamon churro...

and S'mores.

We also served "fruit kibble" and "pup-corn." I found these ideas from here, although they don't link to a blog post.

We served Tostitos with salsa and guacamole, but couldn't come up with a clever name for them!

Of course, "dogs in a blanket."

A favorite recipe, cheesy bean dip, was served with a label called "puppy slop."

And the CAKE! We found the inspiration from Just Deanna. It is two heart cakes, formed into a puppy shape with just one cut. So cute. We made one chocolate and one vanilla puppy. Here is one of them. The tongue is just made from paper.

Here's the birthday boy, blowing out his candle!

Party Activities

Nick Jr. offered a free printable game of Pin The Badge on Marshall. They offer Skye too!

It didn't seem as popular as Pin the Nose on Elmo, from Honey Pot's party, but a few kids were interested. So they played, and then we quickly moved on to the hit activity of the party!

For our craft, we did a puppy adoption, which I've seen all over Pinterest in my research. However, we added an extra element of fun by providing blank white puppies that they could decorate with fabric markers! Both come from Discount School Supply. What a hit this was!

First I made a sign to explain the craft; although, ignore the part about brads. We just tied the ribbons in a knot. This way there were no small pieces for littles to lose.

There were twelve puppies total, and I just placed them in a basket. On the right side of the shelf is just a few spools of ribbon from my scrapbooking supply. We used these for collars and leashes.

The printable for these certificates of adoption comes from Chickabug!

Even some adults wanted to partake in the craft!

Here are a few of the final products. The kids just loved them; not just to decorate, but to play with too!

Attire

I must give a shout out to this Etsy shop, The PartyBots, which created this awesome PAW Patrol shirt for Little M&M! He is in love with it! I whited out his name along the bottom, but it's personalized!

Party Favors

Here are the party favors! I made labels with each child's name and called them "Doggie Bags."

Inside each doggie bag was the following: a puppy coloring book ($1 each from Target), puppy stickers, a mini frisbee, the child's adopted and decorated puppy craft, and a treat bag with the child's favorite puppy chow from the party.

Here's a close-up of the mini-frisbee. I made a label for each that says, "Thank you for CATCHING [Little' M&M]'s party!"

Thank you for checking out my son's 2nd birthday party! It was tons of fun! Now onto planning Honey Pot's 4th! How did this come around so quickly?!

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Want to use some of my Paw Patrol printables? Just click below!

Food Labels, blank, 1
Food Labels, blank, 2
Ryder's Screen, PNG
Water Bottle Labels, blank

Do you have Photoshop Elements? Download the following layered files
and personalize them for your own party!

Food Labels, 1
Food Labels, 2
Ryder's Screen, PSD
Invitation
Water Bottle Labels

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