Easter Bunny

Name: Chocolate Cake
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 15
Ingredients: 1 1/2 cup flour; 3 tbsp cocoa; 2 tsp baking powder; 1 cup sugar; 3/4 cup milk; 3/4 cup melted butter; 2 eggs

Easter Books We’re Reading

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

I love reading holiday themed books with my kids, Easter books are hitting our bookshelves now. We have some favorites that we love reading. All three of my children love books (like these classics, and our favorite winter books). This is how I raised them, I always have a couple books on the go myself, and we spend as much time as possible at the library.

Easter Book for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Easter Books We’re Reading

I started reading to my kids the moment I found out I was pregnant with Austin and haven’t stopped yet.

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Let’s start with everyone’s favorite Little Critter. I love how easy these are to read, great for beginner readers.

Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter is celebrating Easter in this classic, funny, and heartwarming book. Whether he’s dyeing eggs, searching for baskets, or snacking on sweets

Little Critter is very excited on Easter morning. He wakes up to find a present from Mom and Dad—a bunny named Egg. But there is much to be done before Little Critter can go out and play.

Berenstain Bear books are one of my absolute favorites to read with my kids, they have great lessons presented in a fun way.

On Easter morning, the cubs find the best surprise of all in their Easter basket: a tiny baby bunny. When the Bear family goes on an Easter egg hunt, the bunny has an idea of its own. It wants to find other Easter babies!

The Berenstain Bears are back in this Easter adventure! Spring is here, the sun is shining, and the Berenstain Bears are getting ready for the Easter parade!

All three of my kids love Lego: books, movies, and my girls love building with their Lego.

There’s never a dull moment in LEGO(R) City, not even on Easter!

It’s Easter morning, and all the animals have come together to join in the Easter Parade. Follow the Easter Bunny as he leads ducks, chicks, rabbits, and more springtime animals as they wear their Easter best, carry balloons, play instruments, and march in the parade .

Peter Cottontail is out sick, and there’s only one dinosaur who’s up to the task of delivering his eggs on Easter: T. Rex! All T. Rex has to do is work on hopping—without the wiggle.

Gauge is a big fan of Pete the Cat, so we have been enjoying these often.

When Pete wakes up Easter morning, ready to check out his basket of goodies, he discovers the Easter Bunny needs a little extra help.

Sing along with Pete the Cat in his fun adaptation of “Five Little Monkeys.” Fans of Pete the cat will love rocking out to this classic tune with a groovy Easter twist in this hardcover picture book.

We have two girly girls so Pinkalicious is right up our alley.

When Pinkalicious wakes up on Easter morning, she finds a note from Edgar Easter Bunny that sends the Pinkerton family on an eggsciting Easter scavenger hunt!

Easter Holiday Books

We try to find books for every holiday and season. It’s a great way to get them excited about it, get you excited about it too. Plus, its reading. Reading out loud to your kids has great affects long time. Encourages them to be life long readers and learners.

I have books all over our house to encourage reading. My girls have a small bookcase in their room full of books they find interesting. We have books for all three of them in the living room. Books are everywhere.

What type of books are you reading right now?

Top Easter Gifts – Ideas to Get You Started

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

What do Easter gifts look like in your house? Big and splashy? Small and simple? We tend to go both ways. One year there are a trampoline in our backyard from the bunny, one year a bike. But we try really hard to not go to big and flashy.

Top Easter Gifts - Ideas to Get You Started

2020 Top Easter Gifts Ideas

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Gifts from the Dollar Store

I’ll be transparent: I go to the dollar store first. That is where I start shopping for Easter gifts for my kids. Its the price range I love. Plus, I’m not too worried what XYZ get chewed by the dog, or when the wind blows it into a field two miles away.

Bubble wands – these disappear throughout the summer, all summer

Pool toys – balls, dive sticks, loungers – these blow away, or we take them to the public pool and sometimes forget them

Easter baskets – they get broken and throw out within a day so I’m not wasting money on them

Plastic egg fillers – I only get them from the dollar store, small fun things

Gardening tools – Time to start thinking about digging in the yard

Gifts from Other Stores (ie: Amazon)

Amazon is my go to “place” to shop from now that my kids are older and notice what I am putting in the shopping cart now. Delivered to the door in a box that I can stash away. Here are some ideas for kids Easter gifts I’ll be buying this year:

Sports Equipment – a soccer ball, a baseball bat, etc.

Bubbles – I just don’t care for them from the dollar store, plus they are still really cheap from somewhere like Walmart

New Outfit – I always get my kids one spring/summer outfit

Chocolate! – Need I say more? We don’t give a lot but you need chocolate for Easter

Seeds – Kids love to watch things grow, maybe some fast growing peas/beans, something that they can eat too

Subscription Based Gifts

Bramble Box – let their imagination take them away

Green Kid Crafts – learn something new, like about space!

Little Passports – explore the USA or the World

Fillers for Plastic Easter Eggs

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Once again in our house we do somethings different than Hubby and I did when we were children. The Easter Bunny hides plastic Easter eggs filled with surprises. The Easter Bunny doesn’t break the bank, but brings lots of fun and surprises.

Fillers for Plastic Easter Eggs

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Easter Family Traditions

Our Easter Bunny doesn’t hide boiled eggs that we’ve decorated or chocolate covered tin foil eggs (how it was in our homes when we grew up). When we talked about how it was in our families, Hubby put it like this “So the Easter Bunny took your eggs and then hid them on you, what a dick!” I can’t help laughing about it now. So we do it our way.

I put a number of different things in our plastic Easter eggs, makes not only finding them fun, but discovering what is in them as well.

Things I use to fill plastic eggs:

hair clips
spare change
candies
small chocolates (in wrappers)
stickers
temporary tattoos

This year I also headed over the party area of our dollar store. The stuff for filling treat bags are also great for filling Easter eggs. You might not need 5 or 6 of everything there… but you’ll have extras!

Some of the things I grabbed were:

slime in little plastic containers
slinkies – the extras will come in handy as theirs tangle
balls
candy necklaces
dress up / cheap jewelry

If you don’t have a dollar store near you (*gasp* I don’t know what I’d do without one) Walmart and Amazon also have a really good selection of party favors, and the prices are usually really low. My favorite thing about shopping online with Amazon would be that my kids don’t see anything I buy.

Our Easter Bunny is not consistent. Last year he brought a trampoline, the year before Austin got a bike. This year, compared to those years, he’s bringing nothing! He is bring lots of stuff just nothing expensive. He gets them what they need.

Bunny Chocolate Cake

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Last week I started going through my recipe box cooking or baking, whichever the occasion called for to update some of the crappy pictures, so far I have update Lemon Cookies and my Stir Fry Sauce. Then, because we were going some where and I wanted to take a treat with us, I thought I’d do Thumb Print Cookies. Then after already getting butter and an egg in the bowl I realized I had no brown sugar. So I turned it into chocolate cake.

While this post isn’t necessarily about making the chocolate cake… I’ll still share the recipe. It is the best, fluffiest, cake I’ve ever had or made.

Bunny Chocolate Cake

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What you need:

1 1/2 cup flour
3 tbsp cocoa
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup melted butter
2 eggs

How to make a Bunny Chocolate Cake:

Once I had made the cake and had it cooled off, Hubby took over.

This is what he made. Isn’t it cute? For last minute I think he nailed it.

Couldn’t believe how easy it was.

Start with round cakes.

Step 1:

Instead of free hand cutting, he used a large mixing bowl or salad bowl to cut in to one of the round cakes.

Step 2:

With the two pieces cut off he lined them up where he wanted them, cutting the end off so the EARS would fit nicely against the HEAD.

Step 3:

The first round cake that he cut? Here is the middle piece, in place at the bottom creating a great BOW shape.

Step 4:

Decorate that Easter Bunny. I had bought an extra can of frosting for Austin’s birthday that we used, hence the white, and added a little neon food color for the bow and eyes.

He flatten and rolled marshmallows into shape for the eyes, whiskers, mouth and nose.

I think it was cute, and we know it was tasty.

A shame that the group I was baking for had to be postponed. Oh well, more for us!

Chocolate Cake

Yield: 15

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 35 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup flour
3 tbsp cocoa
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup melted butter
2 eggs

Instructions

Mix together the butter, eggs and sugar for 2 minutes, until light and fluffy.
Add in cocoa and baking powder.
Alternating between the two add in the milk and flour.
Bake in pre-heated oven at 350 for 35-40 minutes, until cooked in the middle.

Nutrition Information:

Serving Size: 1 grams
Amount Per Serving: Unsaturated Fat: 0g

Have you ever tried making a cake in a specific shape before?

Cotton Tail Easter Bunny Craft

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

This is a very simple fun but Easter craft that I did with my kids the other day. There is very little needed, which I’ll be honest is my favorite kind of craft. If I have to go buy stuff for a specific craft I probably won’t do it. But when everything is already in our house then we’re doing it, like this Cotton Tail Easter Bunny Craft.

Cotton Tailed Easter Bunnies

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What you need:

cotton balls
glue sticks
scissors
paper
crayons

All you need are some cotton balls, crayons or paint or such, paper and in our case as we cut them out, scissors (these are my favorite scissors for kids, they are smooth cutting and not expensive).

This craft starts with a bunny. A template worked best for us, because I can’t get that shape right more than once… even that was a big stretch for me. I have two per page. More fun and cuteness per page.

We colored them however we wanted. I guess I forgot to specify that we were coloring the backs of bunnies, because Austin gave eyes to her bunny. Not a big deal, she was being creative and doing her own thing (which I completely encourage). Her little bunny was going to be looking at it’s cotton ball tail.

We then glued on our cotton balls, aka cotton tails. Austin quickly discovered how much easier it would be to put the glue (stick) on the bunny instead of the cotton ball. Learning is always happening around here.

These little guys are hopping around my cupboards and kitchen pantry door with their Easter eggs, decorating my kitchen. Hole punch each ear, and you can string them around as an Easter banner.

I think this is the first year we’ve really decorated for Easter with our crafts. It seems the older my girls get, the more excited they get, and therefore the more excited I get.

How does Easter work for you? Small things or bike like things?

Easter Bunny

Easter Books We’re Reading