Easter, 2012

This year for Easter, I wanted to try a Pinterest inspired way to dye Easter Eggs...Kool-Aid eggs! I'd heard great things about it, especially how great it smelled, so I thought I'd give it a try. We chose flavors we knew would give us vibrant Easter egg colors. 

As far as dyeing eggs goes, this was probably the most stressful year for me just because Eli wanted to do it all by himself without any assistance. He did allow us to help him a couple of times, but for the most part he did it all. I do have to say though that he was very careful about what he was doing.

Thanks to the eggs we dyed at Avery's birthday party, we only had to dye a dozen eggs ourselves. Here we are with our completed eggs. The Kool-Aid colors worked really well!

After we dyed Easter eggs, we sat down at the table, and Eli and I did his Resurrection Eggs. I found these last year after Easter at Lifeway and they were 90% off! They had two packs left, so I got one and my parents got the other one. I'd used them before for children's activities at church, so I knew how awesome they were. I was so excited to be able to share the Easter story with Eli this way. He sat and listened so intently during each egg. I love that we'll be able to do this year after year!

Early then next morning, Eli woke up to see what the Easter Bunny had left for him this year. I'm glad the Easter Bunny got my message and left some summer pajamas for my little man. He's just growing so very fast these days!

The Easter Bunny also left him some candy, some sugar free gum, a book about Easter, and a new Toy Story TAG book.

Eli was very excited about the Toy Story TAG book. He immediately left to get Buzz so they could read it together before church.

We got dressed for church and I managed to snap one picture of Eli before we left. He looks so grown up here!

We got to church a little early, so I had time to take some more pictures.

The Hargon girls walked up right about then, so they jumped in for a couple of pictures, too. Hannah wasn't really into taking pictures with Eli at first, so Marlie jumped in and took one with him. Eli loves both of these girls so very much!

My friend, Diane, is just precious, and I love this picture of her with her girls.

I do the art portion of Eli's Sunday School class, so I was able to take a couple of pictures of him in Sunday School. I decided to go easy on the craft on Easter Sunday because I had no idea how many kids might show up. They kids did seem to enjoy their Easter coloring page though :)

These are all the kids in the 2 and 3 year old Sunday School class. This was their serious picture.

This is what they did when I told them to do a silly face. Haha! This made me laugh :)

After church, Hannah was in a much better mood and let me take some pictures of her with Marlie and then some with Eli. I'm so glad, too, because they all turned out so cute!

We went to Josh's grandmother's house for lunch, but before we ate, I had to take some more pictures of our little family.

Eli and Zue-Zue

Our family-Easter 2012

Daddy and Eli

Eli and Mommy

Not everybody was willing to stop what they were doing a take a picture for me. Addison was NOT in the mood at all. She quickly let me know what she thought of me and my picture taking :)

After bribing the kids to eat our Easter lunch, Peyton, Eli and Addi were ready to find some Easter eggs. They waited patiently for the adults to hide them, and then they took off in search of the eggs.

After finding all the eggs, they sat down to look at and to consume their candy. I knew that they'd go crazy for candy, so I only filled about 10 eggs with candy. They rest of them were empty. Mamaw came to the rescue though and brought each of the kids some chocolate Easter bunnies, which they promptly gobbled up!

Chocolate candy coma

Addi was starting to warm up to the camera, but she still wouldn't look straight at me and smile. Lisa was able to get her to smile by telling her not to smile...whatever works!

While I was having my Addi photo shoot, Eli and Peyton were throwing balls on top of Papaw's roof and letting them roll down. Occasionally, a ball would get caught on some pine straw, so Reggie would hoist Peyton up there to get the ball down. Eli watched Peyton get up there a couple of times and when a ball got stuck again, he asked if he could get it. Josh held him up so he could climb up there and Eli loved getting it down. I snapped a picture because I couldn't believe that Eli wasn't the least bit scared! 

When it came time to get down, Reggie told Peyton to jump to him. Peyton was a little scared so he sat down first and then jumped. I wish I had a picture of what happened when Eli did this, but I was so scared I didn't have time to snap anything. Eli decided he didn't want to sit down and then jump. He walked up to the edge and jumped right down into Reggie's arms. I think my heart stopped! This is the kid who said he wasn't going to jump off the diving board and yet he can jump off a house?! Oh dear, his teenage years are going to be an adventure for me!

Peyton and Eli went from jumping off houses to climbing trees next. Those boys had so much fun just being boys together.

What a busy, fun-filled, wonderful day celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and spending time with family! I'm so thankful that I serve a risen Savior. He has blessed my life in more ways than I can count. I am so grateful for all that he's done for us! Happy Easter!

Classroom Christmas Projects

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in my classroom! We only have 3 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas and I'm trying to fit as many activities in as I can with my first grade kiddos. We have been super busy creating ornaments and gifts to give their parents for Christmas, and I love how they have all turned out! As you'll be able to tell, I'm in love with any craft that uses kids' handprints :)

Back in the summer, I debated creating a blog dedicated solely to my classroom, but let's be honest, I'm not so great about updating this one, so having to update two probably wouldn't have worked. Ultimately, I decided since the title of this blog is "World of the Wilson's" and teaching is part of my world, I'd just include anything classroom related on this blog. It's a little glimpse into my life as a teacher.

I thought I'd post a couple of the crafts we've done so far in my classroom in case anyone (the five of you that read this...haha) needed an idea for an ornament that was super easy and affordable. First, my kids made Santa handprint ornaments for their parents. I do this every year with my kiddos, but in the past, we've made it into a card for their parents. This is the first year I've made it an ornament to hang on the tree. It's so easy to make! All you need is paper (we used manilla construction paper), paint, googly eyes, and glittery snow confetti. I painted each kid's hand red at the top of the palm and down the length of the thumb for Santa's hat, peach in the middle of the palm for his face, and white on all the fingers for his beard. I pressed their handprint on the paper and when it was fully dry, I trimmed around the handprint with scissors and laminated it. I used a hot glue gun to attach two googly eyes, a red bead for his nose, and glittery snow for his beard. I hole punched it at the top and threaded a ribbon through it. I wrote their name, the year, and their grade on the back, and then proudly displayed it on the tree in our classroom. It'll stay here until they take it home to their parents next week.

The next ornament we did was a Pinterest (I HEART THAT SITE!) inspired craft. I originally saw a "pin" that used kid's thumbprints to make reindeer. I had some old ornaments that I wasn't planning on using and I had exactly 17, which just happens to be how many kids I have in my room :) I took them to school and had the kids dip their thumbs in brown paint and then make three thumbprints on the side of the ornament. I let that dry, then with a Sharpie added antlers, a red bead for the nose, and googly eyes. I wrote their name on the bottom and then Merry Christmas around the top of the ornament with a Sharpie. Last, I sprayed them with a clear acrylic sealer which added a little bit of shine to the ornaments. This is the final product! I think they're just adorable!

The big gift that they're giving their parents this year is probably one of my favorite things ever. I wish I could claim credit for it, but the preschool where Eli used to go did this with one of their classes, and I saw one and just had to re-create it for my class. I tweaked their design just a little bit and made it my own, and I LOVE how it turned out. I found these red chargers from Wal-Mart for $0.98 and bought enough for my class. I used acrylic green paint and painted my kids' hands and then stamped them on the middle of the plate with the fingers pointed down. I used their thumbprint dipped in brown to make the trunk. I painted on a star and then poured gold glitter on top of that. I sprinkled green glitter on top of the green paint while it was wet. Once their handprint dried, I used beads to make ornaments. I found a cute font (Kwekel) and wrote "Merry Christmas" and their name around the edge of the plate. Then I sprayerd the charger with a clear acrylic sealer. I attached a label on the back with their grade, class, and the year, then wrapped it in individual clear plastic bags. I hope their parents love it as much as I would if Eli made one for me :) (In fact, I'm doing this with Eli's class the Monday before they get out for break.)

That's it for now. I have one more ornament that we're doing, but I'm going to do a tutorial on that one because it's so easy and so pretty to make. I love this time of year! I can't wait to do more fun Christmas themed activities with my kiddos at school and my little kiddo here at home :)