Baby's First Easter Basket

Happy Spring, friends!  I hope everyone is staying safe during these crazy times we are currently experiencing. Working from home with a 10 month old, I'm trying to look on the bright side and enjoying spending as much time with my baby as possible.  While he's napping and sleeping, I spend time working, but I've also done quite a bit of online browsing and shopping.  I'm looking for first birthday party ideas (which will probably postponed this month, but I can still plan!) and shopping for first birthday gifts.

With Easter in a little over a week, I thought I would share my current thoughts for Calvin's first Easter basket.  Like a lot of you, I'm buying all of these things online, so hopefully I've given enough time so that y'all can shop for most of this, too.

Personalized Easter basket - I found a lot of "First Easter" baskets, but I decided to get one that he could use year after year.  Obviously, Etsy delivered!  It looks like that one I ordered isn't available for Easter delivery, but this one from the same shop is!

Candy - When I went to the grocery store a couple of weeks ago, I stocked up on some Reese's, Cadbury mini eggs, and Junior mints eggs (our favorites) to fill eggs with.  (I've hidden them so I can't eat them before Easter haha).  I imagine Calvin will love shaking the eggs with the candy inside.

Teething egg - I've been getting targeted advertising for these on social media forever, and since Calvin is currently cutting 3 teeth, I thought this would be perfect.  I also got him the Molar magician from the same company.  They're having a buy-2-get-1-free sale right now, so I bought an extra egg to save as a gift down the road.

Carrot teether - Like I said, little boy is teething, so why not give him a few options.  Plus, this is so festive!

Wooden puzzle - Calvin is obsessed with Melissa & Doug wooden toys.

Egg matching - Another festive toy that will be great for him as he gets up.  I also like this one with the little faces.

Pajamas or personalized shirt - My mom ordered this one from Etsy.  She gets one for him for every holiday, and I love the little dino.

Books - Every holiday, we give Calvin a book and write a little note in it to him.  I have so many of these from family members as I was growing up, and I cherish them so much.  I've been asking friends on Instagram for book ideas, and they did not disappoint for Easter/Spring.  Here is the full list from my post.

Egg fillers - foam finger puppets, plush finger puppets, Snoopy stickers, chocolate bunny rubber ducks, spring flower rubber ducks, mini Easter rubber ducks (theses fit really well in the jumbo size eggs)

FYI - I know I've done a lot of sponsored posts in the past, but my posts right now are in no way sponsored or contain affiliate links, I just hope these can be a resource for other parents.

April Recap - Because Tomorrow...

Sorry, I had to.  Can you blame me?!  April seriously feels like it blew by.  I feel like every weekend I meant to do a weekend/life recap, but things got in the way.  Life happens, right?!  So, I decided to consolidate into one recap for all of April...

Easter Weekend - My parents are so cute and left us baskets when they were here to visit at the end of March.  We also decorated eggs with friends... because we're basically children haha!  On Easter, we went to church, brunch, and one of our local breweries: Low Tide.  They crafted a batch of their "Aloha Beaches" beer with edible glitter and turned it teal.  "Aloha Bunnies" wasn't one of my favorite beers taste-wise ever, but it sure was pretty!

The Masters - Mike and I headed to Augusta, GA during the first week of April for the Masters golf tournament.  No cameras or phones are allowed during tournament days, but they do have a photo station set up in front of the clubhouse, so you know we had to take advantage!

Dallas - Mike and I went on his surprise birthday trip to Dallas April 6-9.  You can read the full review here.

Golf Girls Visit CHS - My college golf team came to visit me and sightsee through Charleston the weekend after we went to Dallas.  We did everything "touristy" I could think of from eating biscuits at Callie's to drinking at the Vendue rooftop and sailing out to Fort Sumter to walking around Folly Beach.

Kickball Champs - Mike and I won our first belt!  One of our Wednesday kickball teams made it to the winter finals, and we won the AAA division.  The spring season starts this week, and we are looking forward to defending our title!

New England Wedding & Beer - Last weekend, we were in New England for the wedding of one of my college friends in Boston.  We also had a chance to stop at some of the best breweries in the country while we were in New England: Tree House and Trillium.  We will be back up there for a few weddings this summer and can't wait to try even more of their beer.  Spring has finally hit New England, and all of the flowering trees were so pretty!

Pirates Takeover Folly Beach - Last, but not least, my friends and I had our second annual pirate pub crawl out on Folly Beach this Saturday.  Seriously, I'm so lucky to have some of the best friends ever here in Charleston.  I would say the number of laughs, photo ops (one even with a bride getting married on the beach!), and conversation-starters with strangers far outweighed the number of eye rolls directed at our little, rowdy group!

Treat Yo Self: Last Minute Easter Basket

Happy Good Friday!  I hope many of you are able to start your holiday weekend early with a day off today!  We are unsure of our plans, but there will definitely be a few Easter goodies involved.  I gave up sweets/dessert for Lent, so I am just dreaming of that Reese's egg on Easter morning!  Today, I've rounded up a items for your last-minute Easter basket because, well...

One of my favorite small businesses, Megan from Home Sweet College Home shared a great blog post with the five essentials for any Easter basket: something useful, something nostalgic, something sentimental, something tasty, and something decorative.  I definitely used this as my inspiration and have a little of all five below.  The best thing about all of these items are that they are from Target, and I am obsessed with Target's "Order Pickup" option.  They'll do the shopping in-store for you, and you just pick everything up at customer service! 

useful - Whenever I give an Easter basket, I love to put it in something the person can use again.  No exception for my own basket.  I would love one of these fruit baskets for my kitchen, but this laundry basket and this storage cube are really cute, too.  If you don't need a basket, how about some adorable dish towels from Hearth & Home?!

nostalgic - Okay, so I know there is also a "tasty" category, but I also had to start with candy here.  I can still remember Reese's Eggs sitting in my nona and papa's candy dish when I was younger, and Chicks, Ducks, and Bunnies bring me back to thinking I was smart buying half price candy after Easter to bring to all of my golf teammates.  Last but not least, this is the perfect category for a little egg decorating, too.

sentimental - I struggled with this category a little, but who doesn't love seeing their photos.  This photo frame with the wooden clips is great!  Or, if you're looking for something to make you smile and keep you moving, I love this motivational print!

tasty - Alright, now this is the category y'all were waiting for.  Oh, the Easter candy!  Giving up sweets for Lent wasn't honestly as bad as I imagined it would be, but oh boy, I can't wait for Sunday.  Ever since I wrote this post with M&Ms, I have had a bags of M&Ms caramel sitting in my dining room, and it has taken so. much. self. control.  Other favorites of mine are robin's eggs, Sour Patch bunnies, Dove eggs, York eggs, and Peeps.  Even if you aren't a Peeps fan, they make great s'mores!  Also, if you buy one of everything, you can make a delicious Easter candy milkshake like I did last year!

decorative - Spring decor is some of my favorite (maybe it's my love affair with pink - haha!).  I love this cross, these nesting eggs, this bunny pillow, this egg wreath, and this flower garland, which would be perfect all spring long. 

And if you need any more Easter inspiration, you can click here to check out my whole Easter craft and recipe round-up!  I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Kitchen-Themed Easter Basket

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser, Mars Wrigley Confectionery US, LLC. All opinions are mine alone. #SweeterEaster #CollectiveBias

Easter was always my favorite holiday growing up!  Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas and my birthday, but looking all over the house for eggs was just so much fun on Easter morning.  My mom would always leave an empty Easter basket on the coffee table and let me search high and low for eggs all morning.  Truth be told, there were a few years where we'd find plastic eggs in crazy places like the back of the utensil drawer and in a glass in the cupboard months after Easter.

The real reason I always loved Easter wasn't just for the candy eggs but also because it's my unofficial start of spring!  Growing up in New England, Easter was the first holiday where I could wear a pretty new floral dress and spend time outside.  Easter still says "spring is here" to me, and I love sharing this holiday with my friends and family.  This year, I put together a kitchen-themed Easter basket to gift to my neighbors.  It has some of my absolute favorite baking tools and accessories, as well as some of my favorite Mars candies, and I'm so excited to show you how to put together one of your own - let's hop to it!

1. I love to start with a basket that can be used again.  We all have a ton of those colorful, woven Easter baskets that we can bring out once each year, but when gifting, I love to pack in something versatile.  To go with my kitchen theme, I chose this metal utensil holder.  I love reusing these for picnics and summer parties, plus it looks great in the kitchen.

2. To go in the basket, I chose a variety of spring-themed and colorful kitchen essentials: cookie cutters, sprinkles, cupcake liners, dish towels, straws, and kitchen utensils (whisk, spatula, and scraper).

3. After layering all of the kitchen items into the basket, it's time to add the most important items of any Easter basket: candy!  In addition to finding all of my kitchen and baking essentials at Walmart, I also purchased some Easter treats: DOVE® Solid Milk Chocolate Bunny, M&M'S® Caramel Laydown Bag, and STARBURST® Original Jellybeans Laydown Bag.  Ready to shop for some Mars chocolates?  Hover over the photo below to click through to walmart.com to purchase!

4. In addition to sharing whole bags of candy with my neighbors, I also bought this adorable bunny jar for some of the M&M’S® candies.  Sharing these candies out of the bag made the basket even ore colorful!

And now my basket is ready to deliver to our neighbors!  I love the combination of useful items and something sweet in the basket.  The STARBURST® Jellybeans and M&M’S® candies are perfect to enjoy on Easter as a treat, mixed into delicious baked goods, or to decorate your favorite cookies!

How will you be celebrating Easter this year?  What's your favorite part of an Easter basket?

Life Lately

Happy Friday, y'all!  Mike's family is headed into town this weekend, and we can't wait to do all of our favorite Charleston things with them.  Here's my five on Friday:

1. Running: Over the last few weeks, we participated in a few 5ks for great causes.  The first race was actually a walk, organized by Water Mission, to raise awareness for the global water crisis by carrying buckets of unfiltered water in solidarity with women and children across the world who make walks like this everyday.  We saw firsthand how water filtration systems work to help distribute clean water around the world.

The following weekend, we participated in the Doughnut Dash 5k for the Race 4 Achievement Scholarship Fund.  We ran a mile and a half down the greenway to Krispy Kreme where we ate a dozen donuts as a team, and ran back.  That's my kind of race! #caloriesburnedcaloriesearned

The final race, to benefit the Lowcountry Food Bank, was the Food Truck Rally 5k.  I really enjoyed this trail run through Middleton Place Woodlands, and afterwards, we were rewarded with a finisher's medal (that doubles as a bottle opener!) and tons of food truck food.  Mike met me at the finish line with delicious sandwiches from Cory's Grilled Cheese and Bac'n Me Crazy. I received complimentary entry into this race to publicize the event on my blog.

We don't have any other races on the horizon, but I'm really hoping Color Me Rad or one of those color-throwing races makes its way down here.  It's been forever since I did one of those in Connecticut!

2. Golf: I almost had a hole-in-one a couple of weeks ago, which was cool!  I heard it hit the flagstick, but it just popped out.  We also went down to Hilton Head earlier this month for the Heritage golf tournament.  It's one of the best Lowcountry parties of the year, and I love when the event overlaps with Easter, because they have the most fantastic sunrise service on the 18th green on Easter Sunday morning.

3. Charleston Blog Society: This month's event was at the Escapada Living Signature Store, and I am seriously obsessed with their summer line - give me all the OTS looks, bright colors, and tassels!  I got a couple of pieces while I was there (helloooo awesome discount) and can't wait to share them soon.

4. Unicorn Frappuccino: Of course, I tried it.  It was...fine.  I honestly had no idea it was supposed to be mango until I read a Buzzfeed article hating on it.  Mike and I split one (so much sugar), I thought it was some super sweet berry.  I'll stick with my unicorn toast!

5. Springtime: If you checked out my Wednesday post, you know I'm having a serious love affair with spring.  We've been spending all the time we can outside: lunch at Vintage Coffee, happy hour at Revelry, walks on Folly Beach, reading books (check out my Blogging for Books review below), and fire/outdoor movie night with friends!

This month, I read Our Man in Charleston with Blogging for Books - phew, it's been a while since my last review!  I was a history major in college and as y'all know, currently live in Charleston, so I thought this would be a perfect choice for my next read.  Now that spring is here and weather is perfect for reading outside, I finally got around to finishing it, and I'm so glad I did.  The book centers around a British consul before and during the Civil War named Robert Bunch.  Even taking an American history class focused on The South in college, I had never heard of Bunch, but his story is amazing.  It truly shows how instrumental slavery was to the Southern states' economy and how the Confederacy would go to any lengths to preserve this terrible institution.  The book is very informative and keeps you engaged with the story.  Here's a link if you'd like to check it out for yourself!

Linking up for Oh hey, Friday, Five on Friday, High Five for Friday, and two doses of Friday Favorites

Easter Candy Milkshake

Happy Good Friday, everyone.  I hope many of you who celebrate Easter are looking forward to a fantastic weekend at church and spent with family.  Mike and I are actually headed to another golf tournament this weekend, and I have to say that I am most excited for the Sunday morning Sunrise Service on the 18th green before the day begins.  The views out into the harbor are beautiful, and it's such a great way to start the day!  

With Easter also comes that magical bunny and all of his treats.  I always loved searching all over my parents' house for eggs, and then unwrapping and eating the candy all day.  I have to say that my love for Easter candy has not dwindled over the years.  Mike and I might have gone a little crazy at the grocery store last weekend and bought a ton of goodies for ourselves.  I thought that it would be fun to take as many of those candies as possible and make them into a delicious milkshake!  Truth be told, this milkshake needs to be eaten with a spoon because of all the delicious candy pieces, but I have to say, I think I got the crazy candy combination just right. 

Here's what we binged on at the grocery store.  The only thing I didn't use in this shake were those Chicks, Ducks, and Bunnies because it kept making the shake way too sweet.  Anyone remember when the SweetTarts used to be giant?! I miss those!

To make my milkshake, I scooped 3 large scoops of vanilla ice cream into my blender, along with 3/4 cup of milk.  Then, I crushed up my favorite candies: Kit Kats (chocolate wafers), Reese's rabbit (peanut butter), and Robin Eggs (malted mill balls).  I poured a whole bunch of each candy into the blender and pureed together the whole thing.  After pouring it into a glass, I made fresh whipped cream to go on top by mixing together a cup of heavy whipping cream, two tablespoons of powdered sugar, and a few drops of pink food coloring with my hand mixer.  I garnished the whole thing with a Peep and a few of the leftover candy crumbs.

Now doesn't that look like the perfect Easter dessert?! How fun would it be to have all the kids in the family bring over their favorite candies to make their own, unique milkshakes?  I bet Cadbury eggs or pastel M&Ms would be delicious!  If you're looking for even more Easter food and decor inspiration, check out my Easter round up and Easter basket ideas!  Have a great weekend!