Top Ten Tuesday--Candy-Free Easter Baskets

Perhaps you are like me and have yet to gather your Easter supplies--don't worry there's still time. Here are my Top Ten Ideas to fill those baskets with things Other Than Candy. Since Leo had so many food allergies--especially in those first years, I couldn't put any candy in the Easter basket--I've been filling our baskets every year with stuff you can't eat. Here are my favorite basket-stuffers:

1. Clearance stocking stuffers.* After Christmas is a great time to get small toys for cheap from the stocking stuffer aisle. T will be getting a small princess and a Polly Pocket from there this year.

2. Clearance toys.* When toys went on clearance at Target (was that the end of January?), I got a few more toys, like a Power Rangers phone that will go in L's basket.

3. Sand and water toys. I remember it must've been L's second Easter I filled his basket with sand toys--in fact his Easter "basket" was a big sand bucket. Hopefully your stores (like Target and Kmart) already have a sand and water aisle going, I know mine do and the toys are cheap!
4. Money. Since I couldn't fill plastic eggs with jelly beans and m&ms, I thought of other stuff to stuff them with, including coins. Put 4 quarters in an egg and that equals a trip to the dollar store!

5. Socks. This was always a feature in my basket growing up (later tights and hose as we got older) so they always make an appearance in my kids' baskets, often stuffed in plastic eggs. The funner the socks the better.

6. Stickers. Alone or stuffed in an egg, what kid doesn't love stickers?!

7. One big item. Sometimes rather than filling their baskets with little "junk," I like to buy a more substantial toy. I think this year it will be a lego Batman set for L (his current obsession). T will get a set of generic barbies I got on clearance (see #2 above).
8. Something they need anyway. This year I plan to put a cute t-shirt in each basket. I usually just buy the cheapest tees for their summer wardrobes (Walmart for $5 or less) so it's a treat when I splurge on character shirts (a whopping $8). This year it will be Lego or Angry Birds for L and Disney princesses for T. Other ideas might be a beach towel, summer hat, water shoes etc. that you would buy anyway, but can pep up a basket.

9. Crafts. My kids love crafts so I usually throw in something crafty. This year I have a little clay thing to paint for each kid.

10. Dollar stuff. The dollar store or the dollar area of Target is where I go for "filler." I might get bunny ears or a hat. It's where I buy the plastic eggs I stuff. I also might buy a chocolate bunny for each kid if I can find one without corn syrup (plain chocolate is really the only candy L can eat). Bonus if it's more than one thing for a dollar--like 2 decks of cards or 3 pinwheels--one for each kid!

What non-candy items do you like to put in your Easter baskets?

Top Ten Tuesday is now hosted by Many Little Blessings. Go here to join the fun.

*Sorry these two ideas don't help when Easter is 2 weeks away, but next year you can be on the lookout when clearance comes around.

4th of July recap

In the past, I've not gotten too excited about the 4th of July. I had a wonderful 4th of July tradition growing up--the annual block party--so much fun! But as an adult, and especially here in Phoenix where it's Too Darn Hot to do anything, we haven't really celebrated Independence Day.

Then when I was in Walmart recently, I thought about buying 4th of July shirts for the kids. Usually, I've been against this because hey, they've already got red and blue clothes. I think this year was different for 2 reasons. 1) With L's tonsil surgery, I needed to look forward to something coming up after the whole ordeal would be over. And 2) my parents live here now and I knew we'd be going over to their place to watch fireworks on July 3rd.

As I was looking at the kids' shirts, I saw they had matching adult shirts. And CHEAP! The kids' sizes were $3 and the adults' were $3.50. And of course Hubby and I can wear our shirts in future years. I was sold! Here are our 4 matching shirts (girls in red, boys in blue) we wore to the "party" on July 3rd: On an earlier whim, I bought 2 4th of July hats from the dollar area of Target. I was only going to get one but remembered my kids don't share, and bought 2. Then the day before the celebration I went back to Target for the flags (3 for $1).

I was "in charge" of desserts for party night. There were tons of ideas around the web for fun patriotic desserts, but L wanted cupcakes, so that's what we did. These are gluten free yellow cupcakes (Betty Crocker) with cream cheese frosting (also Betty Crocker), with blue and red sprinkles (applied by L) and I bought the package of cupcake wrappers and festive pics from Walmart for $1.88 (for 24). Easy peasy.

The celebration at my parents' was lots of fun. My sister was also in town for a visit so the more the merrier. We did typical picnic foods (burgers and brats) but indoors. We had bubbles and glow sticks and planned to go on their patio when the sun went down, but there was a lightning storm! We were afraid the fireworks show would be canceled. Anyway, we played inside with the glow sticks and the kids had a great time and finally, the fireworks began. It was a great show and a super easy (and cool!) place to watch it. We ventured to the patio for just a minute when we thought the lightning had died down, but both kids thought it was too loud, so inside was athe best place to watch from. This is a picture of the kids watching the fireworks through the window (if you click to enlarge, you should see their silhouettes):

We celebrated on the 3rd because that's when the fireworks were scheduled, but I thought that worked super well. On Monday the 4th, we relaxed and got things ready for the week ahead.

As long as my parents live in this house and the church keeps putting on the fireworks show, this should make a great tradition.

Oh and I should mention I was worried about the kids being up late. Turns out T is a night owl like me, she had tons of energy late into the night (relatively speaking--the fireworks started at 8:45). We left right after the fireworks ended and I made it my goal to have the kids in bed by 10:00. I came pretty close. Staying up late is another reason I'm glad we celebrated on Sunday night and not Monday.

How was your 4th of July?