Easter Ideas for Toddlers

I love celebrating each holiday with my daughter, despite the fact that she's young and doesn't quite understand everything yet. I love making memories with her that she can one day look back on. Easter is no exception. This year Stella is 13 months and still isn't old enough for candy in her Easter basket, so I had to get creative. Here are some fun ideas for you moms of toddlers.

 

(By the way - how cute is Stella's Easter basket?! I found this piece of cuteness at Dollar General. They come in various sizes and colors. Who doesn't love polka dots?)

Easter Basket Ideas - 

Cheddar Bunnies - These lovely snacks are the perfect animal shape for Easter. They're similar to goldfish crackers, but they're organic. I bought them at Target.

Sippy cup - You can never have too many sippy cups, so I snagged an extra one at Walmart and added it to Stella's basket.

Shoes - Easter time is a great time to find some super cute shoes for your kiddos! My girl will be rocking out some pretty sweet kicks this summer!

Clothing - At Walmart they have a small table in the baby section that has individual "mix and match" pieces of clothing inexpensively priced. I got Stella a couple shirts and a pair of shorts for just a couple dollars a piece. They have this for both boys and girls.

Little People toys - These are the perfect toy for toddlers. You can find individual characters at Walmart and most stores in the toy section.

Small ball - Stella is obsessed with toy balls, so we found a small Hello Kitty ball for her Easter basket.

Bubbles - Obviously this one requires some adult supervision, but it's a fun activity your child will enjoy during these upcoming sunny afternoons.  

Easter Egg Ideas -

Fruit snacks - Fruit snack pouches fit perfectly inside an Easter egg. It's a fun way to give them a yummy treat, but still avoiding candy.

Socks - In this house you can never have too many pairs of socks for the baby. She is constantly taking them off and losing them. I found some bright fun colors that will be perfect for Easter!

Finger puppets - I found a set of 5 Garanimals brand finger puppets at Walmart that fit great inside our eggs.

Alphabet Magnets - Celebrating Easter and learning at the same time. :)

Hair bows - Obviously this one is geared towards little girls, but hair bows are a wonderful surprise to hide in an egg.

Toy cars - For the little man in your life. :)

Your child's favorite snack - Puffs, Cheerios, yogurt bites, ect.


I hope this list gave you some inspiration. Happy Easter! :)

Foods That Increase Lactation

Breastfeeding mommies, this post is for you! First of all, I know first hand how difficult it can be to work breastfeeding into your life, so you are awesome just for trying! Secondly, I'm well aware of the pressure you can feel to produce a decent amount of milk for your precious little one. So, to help you out I've decided to share with you some of the tips and tricks I used to get my milk production at its peak.

Make sure you're getting plenty of nutrients to eat. Believe it or not, when I first had my baby, I'd get so caught up in her routine that I'd forget to eat. Even if you have to write it on your to do list, make sure you're eating! :)

Along with eating, drinking plenty (10 - 12 glasses) of water is so important! I took my giant hospital cup and filled it up to sip on throughout the day. When it was empty, I'd just fill it up again. It made it easy for me to keep track of how much water I was drinking, because it has a measuring system on the side.

So now you might be wondering what foods to eat. Well, there are actually specific foods that are known to increase milk production and they actually worked pretty well for me.

- Carrots/Carrot Juice (Carrot Juice is best, but if you're like me and you don't have a juicer, then eating carrots is fine!)

-Sweet Potatoes

- Hummus

- Asparagus

- Spinach

- Almonds

- Oatmeal

- Garlic

- Mother's Milk Tea (This stuff worked miracles for me!! I HIGHLY recommend it if you're trying to boost your milk!)

- Fenugreek (This is the same supplement that is found in Mother's Milk Tea. You can find it at drug stores in the vitamin section)

These foods and supplements worked wonders for me. I hope you have success with them as well!

Create a Scrapbooking Tool Caddy

This is my go-to caddy with all of my handy tools that I use for scrapbooking. Recognize what it is? It's a utensil basket that I got for less than $5 at Dollar General. :) It's PERFECT for holding my favorite tools. The space intended for napkins is the perfect fit for my Scotch tape gun and the side sections intended for silverware are perfect for scissors, glue sticks, rub-on tools, a crop-o-dile, ect. That's a few bucks well spent!

DIY Pen Holder

My craft corner is done in animal print, so I wanted my pen holder to match. I took an empty soup can, washed it out and cut animal print scrapbooking paper to fit around it. I taped it on, used hot glue to glue some coordinating ribbon on, and wa-lah! :) Easy and effective.

Creating a Scrapbooking Inspiration Binder

Although I am a very creative and expressive person, I do have moments when I sit down to scrapbook and I think to myself "Now what?" I sit there staring down at various colored pages and don't even know where to start. That's why I created my inspirational binder. When I have "creativity block", I grab it and thumb through it to muster up some inspiration. I made this binder from the giant stack of scrapbooking magazines I had. I went through them, tore out all of my favorite pages and then threw the magazines themselves away. I took the pages that I kept, slid them into page protectors and put them into a binder. This comes in handy not just for inspiration, but also ideas on different scrapbooking techniques, tips and page layouts. You can learn a lot by reading a few scrapbooking magazines. :)

Scrapbooking Organization: Die Cuts and Punches

I've been scrapbooking for several years now, so I've accumulated a lot of random die cuts over the years. To organize them, I separated them by category the best that I could. I separated them by tags, embellishments and sayings.

This organizer contains projects (mini albums that I'm working on), shape die cuts and my punches.

I use stickers a lot more often then I use die cuts, but when I need them, they're right where they belong. :)

Organizing Your Scrapbooking Stickers

 I have A LOT of scrapbooking stickers, so keeping them all stored in one container would be extremely frustrating for me. To make it easy, I broke them down to 6 categories: Love, Travel, Baby, Seasons, Words and Misc.

When I'm working on a scrapbook, this method makes it so easy to grab the appropriate stickers for that particular project.

I bought these tubs at Dollar General for a dollar each, so it's cost efficient as well. Happy Scrapping!