Our Easter was filled with so many fun activities! The weekend before Easter our neighborhood had their annual Easter Egg Hunt along with a petting zoo. The boys had a blast and loved the animals, bubbles, and donuts. They were particularly excited about the Easter egg hunt and were fairly competitive racing to find eggs. I had to keep reminding them to slow down and allow some of the younger kids in their groups a chance to get some eggs. Braxton got the golden egg in his group and Blaise got the GIANT egg in his group!
That same day we had Braxton’s 6th birthday party at Tinseltown Theatre in Grapevine. We rented the entire theater and watched Tom & Jerry – The Movie with some of Braxton’s closest friends. The movie was really cute and all the kids and adults seemed to enjoy it! His Mumsie and Great-Grandma came in from Oklahoma and joined in on the weekend fun. Mumsie made him Lego-themed cupcakes for his party and they were delicious!
One of Braxton’s gift from us was a bounce house. Both boys have had so much fun bouncing on it together. They get inflatable balls and play dodgeball, they play tag, and all sorts of creative games they come up with!
As many of you know, I love to cook, bake, and decorate cakes. When I saw that The Cake Boss (Buddy Valastro) was offering a LIVE Easter Cake decorating class online I jumped at the opportunity. We were sent two frosted, frozen cakes packed on dry ice as well as all of the icing, fondant, and accessories for decorating the cakes. The online class was so fun and it was as if Buddy was in our kitchen with us. Both boys were helping at first, but Blaise ended up getting bored with it (which I figured he would) and so it was just Braxton and I that finished the cakes. At the end of the class, we had a cute boy bunny and a cute girl bunny! Unintentionally, the girl cake ended up being my birthday cake and we had the boy cake for Easter dessert! The flavor of the cakes were vanilla confetti with buttercream icing, and they tasted as good as they looked! It was such a fun activity!
Braxton was out of school on Good Friday, so we decided to make a fun day of it. We started the morning making Hot Cross Buns (a Good Friday tradition!) and then we decided to make a day trip to the Fort Worth Zoo. I thought I’d check their website for any COVID related information we might need to know ahead of time, and I’m glad I did because tickets had to be purchased in advance. The zoo was only allowing so many visitors each day to keep guest occupancy numbers down. We decided to have a picnic lunch at the park along the Trinity River before entering the zoo. Once at the zoo we all had such a great time. The highlights of the day were feeding the giraffe’s and stingrays. The boys also loved the gorillas, flamingos, and snakes! Typical boys!
On Easter we watched church service online like we have been doing all through COVID. The Easter bunny stopped by and left goodies for the boys! We had a yummy dinner of rotisserie chicken, sweet potatoes, green beans, salad, and our Easter bunny cake! The boys had such a fun day and especially loved the backyard Easter egg hunt!
To wrap up Easter week, we received the caterpillars for our butterfly garden. I thought it would be a fun STEM activity for the boys. We started with 7 tiny “Painted Lady” caterpillars on 4/2. By April 12th we had 7 cocoons/chrysalis. April 19th the first butterfly emerged. The next day I actually witnessed one of the butterflies emerging and was able to get it on video. The boys loved watching that! Within a few days, all but 2 of the cocoons had ‘hatched’. I ended up putting the two cocoons that hadn’t opened on the back patio. The next morning, I walked out the door and there was a beautiful butterfly perched not far from the empty cocoon. All day he hung out on the porch. At one point I walked to the other larger back patio and he was hanging out there! I think he liked our yard with all the flowers blooming out, so he didn’t need to travel far for food! We ended up taking the butterflies to the duck pond on 4/24 and released them back to nature. They were so pretty and resembled Monarch butterflies. The boys loved this little project and had so much fun learning the lifecycle of butterflies. We even utilized playdoh to talk about their different stages.
It was a busy few weeks, I even managed to get a start on my garden during this time. More to come on that soon! We are looking forward to lots of summer veggies and fun on our little “homestead”!
Take care! Until next time! XOXO ~ Jenn
