Happy Family Times--a new weekly link party!!

Have you done something fun with your family? I know it is something we all strive to do more of. Kelly over at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are starting a new weekly link party--Happy Family Times--to share those activities in hopes that we all may get some new ideas. So if you all danced one night, went for a walk, or something and you posted about it, please link it up here!!

This week we did a few things as a family that we enjoyed. The first is we went to get pictures with the Easter Bunny at my church. It was a church fundraiser and I had signed up to volunteer at it. Hazel and I headed over early and Steve met us there. In the past Hazel has been completely afraid of the Easter Bunny (and Santa) so all of pictures with either are family shots or have at least one of us in it. Hazel insisted that I dress up with a dress and hat like her today. Our friends at church thought we looked so cute and had to take pictures before we saw the Easter Bunny.

Showing off her white gloves

We fell in love with her dress at KMart. It really is a bit big for her so I'm hoping it may still fit next year as well. Daddy actually missed the picture taking because Hazel decided she was ready before he got there. (I'm not really sure what took so long for him to get there since he was home from his run before we left and his showers only take five minutes.) They also had crafts to do while waiting. Hazel did those first and then she worked on the crafts I brought for her--knowing we would be there all morning.

We will share some of our crafts later this week. After Friday and Saturday, I think we have enough crafts to post all week long. Hazel drew pictures for everyone there--our minister, our friends and the Easter Bunny. The Easter Bunny who at this time happened to be the same college student as last year when she cried to see him dressed as the Easter Bunny got a hug from her after she gave him the picture. A HUGE step for her!! Unfortunately I didn't have my camera on me to get the picture.

On Sunday after church we went to McDonalds. You may remember we went last week because we thought Elmo was going to be there, but the sign had been wrong and we saw Dora instead. Well, Elmo was there for lunch this time so the family went for some quality time with Elmo. Unfortunately, Hazel decided she wanted to wake up at 2:30 a.m. and was a bit tired by lunch time (as were Steve and I). She did not have the energy she had with Dora, but was so much more excited to see Elmo.

And we survived another week of eating McDonalds or as Hazel calls it Old MacDonalds. She did not like her lunch there this time, so besides seeing the characters I don't see us going very often. Here is a picture of Hazel, me and Elmo. Unfortunately Steve is not great with the camera. Sorry!!

Now we want to see what you have been doing!!

~ please link up (family time oriented giveaways are ok, but please no Etsy shops)
~ use our button so others can join the fun

Button Code:

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~ we'd love for you to follow us Crafty Moms Share and Happy Whimsical Hearts
~ check out our Happy Family Times Pinterest board where we will be pinning some of our favorite ideas

Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

The Conductor--Book and Craft

Recently we got out of the library a book called The Conductor by Laetitia Dervenay. It is a wordless book that combines an orchestra conductor and a grove of trees and lots of magic. The conductor climbs to the top of the tree and begins to conduct. Soon the leaves begin to swirl and then take flight looking like birds. After the conductor finishes, bows and climbs down the leaves return to their place and the trees are no longer bare, but full again. It is a fun book. We made the leaf birds as we call them. Some of which looked like this but in black and white in the book.

I cut out the body of the bird from black paper (well I used black with gold sparkle) and some leaves from green and brown paper and gave them a slight fringe edge. Then gave Hazel a glue stick. She came up with this:

I cut out another and glued it myself. This time I made the leaves a bit smaller, so you could see more of the shapes we were using. The picture at the top of this post is mine.

This is where I link up...

Easter Egg Wreath

I've been seeing so many different Easter egg wreath lately on-line. I decided to make one. I bought a styrafoam form at the Dollar Tree and a package of different sized plastic eggs at Target (I think). A few of the eggs I decorated with flowers or glitter and a few Hazel decorated with glitter glue. I wrapped the wreath in sparkly green ribbon which was on clearance after Christmas at Joann's and then just glue gunned the eggs and some flowers on to fill all the spaces. I think it came out pretty well. What do you think?