Our Easter Trees for 2011

a parade of our 2011 Easter Trees:

(thus far)

Ava's very simple but lovely tree (it has lots of purple ornaments...because that's her favorite color)

 Ava posing with her tree... (note her drawing on the stretch canvas...and do you see my fish cloud on the wall?)

Annika's slightly larger tree with lots of green ornaments (and yes, green is her favorite color)

 Goofy Annika posing with her tree!  (ten points if you know what that photo in the foreground is!)

And here's the Family Easter Tree....

Creating Easter trees is a family tradition I grew up with.  I need to ask Mama how far back the Easter tree tradition goes in our family (my family comes from Austria and I do know many other Germans & Austrians make Easter trees as well).  I remember watching Mama decorate the Easter tree when I was little.  We'd cut pussy willow branches since they grew along the roadside in Alaska and use those for our trees.  I do miss those pussy willows! 

This is an Easter tree at my Grandparent's home in Austria ...when I was about four years old (the year before I entered Kindergarten- which translates to a few decades ago- circa 1977 or 1978!).  This Easter tree was made with pussy willow branches.

 

This year I used the branches from the freshly pruned shrubs (Weigela and Viburnum shrubs) as our tree base.  Maybe they'll leaf out for us!  We've been collecting Easter ornaments for years (thanks largely to Mama!).  The super old and very fragile ornaments are still in hiding- until the girls are older and not as likely to knock stuff over!  

:-)

I'm thinking of making a few more Easter trees.  So far this is it for our Easter decorations.  Hopefully the girls will help me decorate this weekend.  I've got a few spring crafts up my sleeve but lately - with the weather being so nice- the girls have been outside playing (so not doing the craft projects).  It's kind of weird to be hoping for bad weather but I think that's what we'll need in order to get those craft projects going!

*Today was Parent-Teacher Conference day so the kids had the day off from school.  Hooray for no school!!!!  And boo on Mommy making the kids help clean the house!  I'm such a mean Mommy, aren't I?  (please say, "no"!)  On a happy note, Annika appears to be doing very well in school and we're happy with her progress.  :-) Keep up the good work Annika!


I'm sharing this post over at Sun Scholar's For The Kids Friday linky love party!