Busy Spring!

Holy cow have we been busy!  This boy turned a year old over a month ago and we had a little Peter Rabbit party for him and the Anderson side of the family.

I think this is one of my new favorite pictures of Marek!  We were dumb enough to let him open gifts of new toys that he wanted to tear into, only to then put him in the high chair for cake and this is the result.  He is MAD!  Can you blame him?  I want to print one of these and hang it on my locker at work!

Here he is a little happier after his birthday sugar rush.

Easter has come and gone and we spent the holiday weekend at my sister's house with her family and my parents.  We picked these pussy willows the day before tax day and they were just starting to go to seed.  They came with us and wound up in her centerpiece.

When I was growing up, these were the consummate sign of spring that we'd have on display in school.  I can remember actually making a pussy willow branch as a craft activity in school by gluing Sugar Smacks cereal onto a branch.  You don't see these anywhere now.  It might have something to do with the name.  Next year I will remember to pick them at least a week earlier.  And to bring a garden clipper.

I wanted to make a little something for Easter for my nephew and nieces and found this super cute  tutorial on Pinterest.  Yes I finally joined but I'm not convinced it is awesome yet.  I filled Marek's carrot with a little fleece bunny that he can't choke on, but everyone else got candy.

For his Easter basket, I also made him this carrot pouch with more fleece bunnies.  The pattern came from Modern Textiles.  I lined it with crinkle paper I got on Etsy.

I also made him this bunny lovey from another tutorial found on Pinterest.  I put crinkle paper in the ears for added interest.

I had walking pneumonia last month and missed a few shifts at work and money was tight so I made pillowcases for my sister's kids' Easter baskets.  My nephew got this Harry Potter themed case.

My middle niece loves bright colors so she got this butterfly one.  I used this magic pillowcase tutorial and once again had great results.  What a great pattern!

My youngest niece loves mermaids so she got this one.  I was particularly pleased with this combination.

We went to the egg hunt at Lisa's church but Marek was too young to participate.  He played with a few empty plastic eggs and I took his picture.

While we were there, we attended a Pow Wow honoring local Native American graduates of the Class of 2019.  It was very interesting to say the least.  I was not familiar with these "jingle dresses" and started visiting with a lady who was selling simpler versions of the ones worn by the dancers.

The jingles are made of crimped chewing tobacco can lids!  I couldn't believe it.  How cool is that?  We didn't stay for long, but I wish I'd asked permission to take pictures of individual dancers in their costumes.  They were handmade and beautiful.

Marek has outgrown his car seat and Target just had a car seat sale.  This model was recommended to me by a coworker and normally costs $169.  It was on sale for $129.  If you trade in an old car seat, you get 20% off that price and Dave's niece gave us her old car seat.  I'd rat holed away $80 worth of $5 gift cards collected from various deals in the weekly flyer over the last several weeks.  In the end, I only had to spend about $22 of my own money!  I found the same model on sale on Amazon for $137 and purchased it using my Shopkicks money and Dave's parents generously reimbursed us because they wanted to buy him a car seat.  We got 2 car seats for less than the price of one so we can have one in each vehicle.

He is a big boy and can ride in the cart without his car seat, but he very quickly learned he can do this!  Stinkpot!

Dave and I went to Las Vegas the following weekend for his national bowling tournament and Marek stayed home with my mother.  The weekend after that we went up to Duluth for another bowling tournament and stayed at my brother's new home.  Marek got sick and threw up a few times in the night because of course he did.  It may as well have been Christmas because someone always has to get sick when you're out of town visiting.  He got over it quickly and learned how to do THIS.  He is standing up and we are officially in trouble.  He can reach and get into all kinds of stuff!  Then this last weekend we traveled to Rochester and stayed with my sister to be with my mother who had surgery and after returning home, I got sick.  I am looking forward to staying home these next couple weeks and doing household things and getting the garden in.  We've been on the move way too much and it's time to stay closer to home for a while!