Last Minute Easter Ideas - Three Easter Themes

Looking for some inspiration for Easter centerpieces and decor? Here are some images of three different Easters we hosted in our home. The theme colors were: Yellow & Green, Blue & Brown, Pink and Rustic. Hope this helps!

A Yellow and Green Easter

Some of the easter decor from around the house.

Mini Daffodils from the store, covered in mounds of moss.

I mounded various kinds of found moss on silver platters.

I dyed eggs & while they were still wet, rolled them in coffee grounds for a more natural look.
Let the eggs dry, then brush off the grounds. Repeat as necessary for desired look.

Yellow and Green eggs nestled into the moss, made a fun centerpiece.
Add mini Daffodils for a complete Easter vignette!

A Blue & Brown Easter

The moss on silver platters are back! This time with robin's egg blue shells broken on the top and filled with water and little blue & white flowers. Other various blue eggs are nestled in, including chocolate eggs.

Pull out any matching china you have. Here is some on tray at our coffee station.

The buffet had a centerpiece of brown and blue eggs and candles wrapped in blue ribbon & twine.

I used white and brown eggs and blew-out the insides before dying.

The dessert table and fun blue polka-dot napkins.

Another glimpse of the centerpieces. Notice the blue egg on the table in the upper left corner?
Those were real egg shells that I dyed and filled with chocolate and ganache. 

(Find the recipe here. Thank you Martha Stewart!)
They made fun deserts for everyone to un-peel like a real egg!

A Pink and Rustic Easter

For this Easter, I Modge Podged old book pages onto plastic eggs & mixed in with white and pink dyed eggs.

Here they are on my kitchen shelf.

Kitchen shelves decorated for easter with old Fiestware and silver.

The centerpieces were pink, white & book page eggs hanging from branches. (I hot glued little loops of twine on each egg.)

Here is the centerpiece in the Dining Room. I used some antique pink & white linens I had under each centerpiece.

Dessert plates stacked in the corner wait for their debut.

Stacks of china for the adults and less precious plates for the little ones.

Save on dishwashing! Use paper cups to make beverages easy - you can use for hot or cold drinks and
write your name on them. Use plastic silverware rolled up in napkins & tied with twine to make the buffet line quick too.

Plenty of outdoor seating as weather permits - overlooking a fun game of croquet in the back yard.
Tables are dressed up with white linens and topped with pots of pink primroses.

Kids table topped with white butcher paper, playdoh & coloring crayons.

Hope this gives you some fun ideas to try out. Happy Easter! And don't forget the TRUE REASON we celebrate this Easter. Christ rose from the dead, conquering death so that we may have life.

He is risen indeed!

Lessons from A to Z ~ Demo Day

The kids took the first swings of the sledgehammer.

Our basement remodel is now in full swing. And in the days leading up to it, the kids were so excited for "Demo Day". The day when construction officially begins with demolishing - building up, by tearing down. They couldn't wait to swing a sledgehammer, put holes in walls and tear things down - turning the hopes of a new basement and bedroom into a reality.

I however always enter this day of a remodel with mixed feelings. I too am excited for new construction and the beginning of new and better things. But with a demolition, things always look worse before they look better. Demo is messy, dirty, dramatic, sometimes dangerous and even injurious. And afterward there is no going back to exactly what it was before.

There is the underlying fear that it will stay in this state. Many a house has been deserted after it's demolition, when the cost seemed too great a price to pay. Others are rebuilt using shortcuts, with  problems left hidden behind the walls. Less valuable and left incomplete. BUT even the most valuable, highest quality improvements cannot be done without this crucial step. A house cannot be improved on without some deconstruction. And therein lies my HOPE.

We all have areas in our life that need deconstruction - it is called sin. We are ALL in need of a remodel. Starting with some demolition. Maybe we need a sledgehammer, maybe we need smaller tools to carefully deconstruct. But either way, we need to allow The Carpenter to remodel us. It is our one hope. 

So like my kids, let's get excited. Let's get messy. Let's power through the necessary demo, and continue working toward the hope of Christ remodeling us.

Let Demo Day begin.

Behold I make all things new. ~ Revelation 21:5

The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; 

the sycamores have been cut down, 

but we will put cedars in their place. ~ Isaiah 9:10

You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, 

to be a holy priesthood, 

to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  ~ 1 Peter 2:5

Two Lego Birthdays

Another birthday party post!

In January, we have two birthdays to celebrate in our family: our youngest son's on the 3rd...

and our youngest daughter's on the 6th...

As much as I love celebrating our kids' lives, I am a bit party-weary after the holidays. So to make it easier, I try to find themes that work for both him AND her so I can use the same decor for both. Some years they share a party too. This year was all about the LEGOs!

{A BOY LEGO PARTY}

To keep things easy, I got store-bought mini cupcakes. BUT I dressed them up for our Lego Theme by topping them with candies shaped as Legos. So cute! I got them for a great deal in Winco's bulk aisle.

The kids made a Lego cup to hold the spoons for ice cream. I used our brightly colored fiestaware, and primary colored cups, napkins & decor.

I used their own legos to decorate with around the table - boy colors for my son and then I added pink a few days later for my daughter. We also had a jar of candy legos to guess how many pieces were in there. My oldest daughter made and decorated the cards for the game.

Blowing out 4 candles... while wearing a party hat made by one of his sisters.

 {A GIRL LEGO PARTY}

 I kept the boy decor up, and added some pink balloons to it.

 
I switched the "4" Lego sign hanging from the balloons, to read "9".

 I hung pretty homemade pennant banners/bunting and a birthday sign in sweet girly colors.

 
Pink and green frosting on the cupcakes, topped with more Lego-shaped candies.

 
All for our sweet 9 year old daughter!

 This was such a fun and easy party, using things we already had - brightly colored legos, dishes, napkins & balloons and a few store-bought cupcakes & candy. Lego was such a great theme!

A "Frozen" Birthday Party

This year we combined our two daughters birthday parties in to one big party. A Disney "Frozen" theme was perfect for the occasion, since the party took place in the winter AND we were celebrating two sisters. 

{THE COSTUMES}

Ironically the sisters in Frozen have very similar personalities to our two girls. So they dressed up accordingly. Our oldest, responsible, protective daughter dressed as Elsa. We found an unrelated "Dragon Princess" costume at Walmart on sale after Halloween for 90% off! For just a few dollars (and some white tulle around the waist do cover up a dragon) we had a great Elsa costume!

 ... and our youngest, spunky, funny daughter dressed as Anna. She had a Christmas dress that looked a lot like Anna's coronation dress from the movie. To make it a little more special, we swept her hair back and added pretty green ribbon - just like the princess!

{FROZEN/ELSA DECOR}

We decorated the mantel with their Frozen dolls, icy blue and white balloons and some of my wintery Christmas mantel decor. I made several of the large 3-D snowflakes (like the one on the mirror here) and hung them from the ceiling at different heights. You can find a good tutorial for making these large snowflakes here.

I made a Frozen Chandelier out of white tissue "poofs", balloons, snowflake ribbon (I already had) and a big Dollar Store snow flake.

 Here's a different shot of the "icy" chandelier...

{THE FOOD}
The table was filled with lots of Frozen treats: snowflake cupcakes, "icicles" (pretzels dipped in white chocolate with blue sprinkles) and Olaf cheese sticks.

I used as much crystal and silver as possible, including these matching mint julep cups, lined with parchment paper cut into snow flakes. I used a piece of light blue fabric I had for the runner and various Dollar Store snow flakes on the table top.

My oldest blew out candles on her snowflake cupcakes.

While my youngest daughter blew out candles on "Arendelle" inspired cupcakes. (There's a good shot of her Princess Anna hairdo!)

{ARENDELLE/ANNA DECOR}

I also decorated our kitchen eating nook in the Frozen kingdom of Arendelle's colors: green purple and pink. I bought an official Frozen table cloth for a few dollars and then matched the balloons, crepe paper & tissue paper poof to its colors.

Although I didn't use these darling banners below, I just found these and had to recommend them! If you're looking for more Frozen Arendelle decor click here for these cute banners.

{GAMES}

We played a few games, like this one below called "Do You Want To Build a Snowman?" Supplies used: toilet paper, and construction paper cut into coal buttons and a carrot nose.

The girls' party guests split into 2 teams and had to make the birthday girls look like snowmen by the end of the song by the same name.

So cute! We also played "Pin the Nose on Olaf" (thank you Pinterest!). The girls were blindfolded, spun around a few times and then tried to pin paper carrot noses on an Olaf. Whoever was closest won a Frozen Play Pack with crayons, stickers and a little coloring book.

The Olaf cut out was made from poster board, outlined in sharpie & craft paper for the arms, coal buttons and each girl's carrot nose. 

We also played "Scoop the Snowballs", a common cotton ball game played at showers. (Each player takes turns getting blind folded and has 30 second to scoop as many cotton balls from one bowl to another, using a large mixing spoon.) Then it was present time!

One last touch: our Frozen themed tree! Since this party was in early December, I partially decorated our tree - using only our snowflakes, icicles and other snowy white & silver ornaments we had. I topped the tree off with another Dollar Store large snowflake. It was a fun and easy touch for our wintery Frozen backdrop. After the party was over, I finished decorating our tree for Christmas.

We had such fun at this party and didn't spend much at all for a wonderful time! Hope this helps inspire your next Frozen Party!

Lessons from A to Z ~ Quieres Jugar?

This Thanksgiving we took Abby & Zoe on their first International Mission trip to Tijuana Mexico, through our church Resonate. 

Our team of 27, made up of mostly college students and 2 families, partnered with Centro Shalom Church, staying in their compound at night and venturing into the barrios during the day.

Our team (and our family!) split up, using our gifts to do different tasks: I lead one of our house builds. 

The girls joined the VBS team in the barrio. 

And Chad led the cooking crew, splitting his extra time at VBS, the build, and speaking at the Thanksgiving Church Service. 

At first, I was a little concerned we weren’t together. But we were each so excited to be using our gifts in different ways. So the girls stepped out with the VBS team into the barrios on their own two “missionary legs”. 

Armed with a few Spanish phrases like,“Quieres jugar?” (Do you want to play?) 

And handing out “Invitations especial” (Special invitations) for VBS, the girls made fast friends.  

Minutes into meeting, they knew the children’s names and were playing a   rousing game of tag. With shacks and dirt as far as the eye could see, the girls didn’t hesitate to do what they do best—make friends and share Christ. Unhindered, unashamed, uncomplicated and totally having a blast. The girls reminded me that this is what missions is!

This is what Christ modeled for us: walking into communities, meeting people where they live, calling them by name and giving them a very “special invitation”. As a believer, the girls were such a good example for me. But as their mother, I was overwhelmed with JOY at seeing my daughters, my sisters in Christ, thriving at doing the very thing Christ has commissioned them to do.

Missions is that simple! Find someone who wants to play with you, then share with them the most special invitation ever. Quieres jugar?

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” 

Matthew 28:18

Lessons from A to Z ~ A Lesson From Hagar

Every weekday morning, I drive the kids to school. We have 4 minutes in the car together. And I use that time to pray out loud for each of them. I pray over anything specific they have for the day—a test, a project, friend issues. I pray that they will be a blessing to their teachers and peers. I thank God that He loves them so much, that He wants to use them in their school, and that He is with them through the day. And then I open the car door and send them off to their own little worlds of elementary and preschool. Worlds I am not a major part of. I don’t follow them. I can’t see or hear them. But God does.

“You are the God who sees…” ~ Genesis 16:13

I was reminded of this verse last month as I spoke on Hagar at our annual Women’s Breakfast. Her story is a powerful one and can be found in Genesis 16 and 21. In both chapters, Hagar encounters God in the middle of the desert when she is most desperate and alone. She is reminded that: God SEES you, God HEARS you, and God has a PLAN for you.

I love that. I pray this over my children so they will remember this as they enter school: that even where I can’t follow, God is with them and has a plan for them. This has been such a comfort as we work with them through heartbreaking friend drama, frustrating subjects and disciplines that seem oh so hard to master. He sees them in class, He hears them on the playground, and He has a plan for each of them. 

Like Hagar, I pray our family can all say “I have seen the One who sees me.” (Genesis 16:13) Have you seen Him in your life?