Happy Mother’s Day weekend to all the mothers out there! I was excited to celebrate my 2nd Mother’s Day this Sunday. I spent a wonderful day at home with my 3 boys (yes Gus counts!). We spent one day last weekend with my mother-in-law to celebrate and next weekend we’re going to go to the zoo with my parents to celebrate with them, so that left today just for us.
Since we didn’t spend the actual day with either of our mothers, I wanted to created something special for both grandmas. What I came up with was a flower pot with the grandkids’ hand prints on it! Eric’s mom’s flowerpot had all 3 boys’ hand prints (Tyler and my 2 nephews) while my mom’s only has Tyler’s.
The first step was to paint the terracotta pots with white house paint.
I used two terracotta pots that I got from Hobby Lobby. I wanted to paint the pots white so it would be easy to see the hand prints against the pot. I tried some tempura paint to begin, but after 6 coats or so, it was still soaking into the pot and I was getting no where. Eric suggested that I try our Behr Premium Ultra paint that we use for trims and doors. I washed all the tempura paint off, and started in with the house paint. It worked perfectly. I was able to cover the pots pretty well after 3 coats. It still wasn’t perfect, but it was white enough that we could easily see any paint color that was used on it.
I used a spray sealer from Krylon to coat the pots to keep the hand prints from running when the plants were watered.
The next step was to get the kids wrangled and paint their hands to put them on the pots. My nephews (and of course my brother and sister-in-law) were here visiting in the middle of April, so it was the perfect time to work on this. Some kids were more cooperative than others (Tyler was not a fan of anyone messing with his hands at all!) I used plain old washable paint for this step. My sister-in-law helped me decide what the design would look like. She also had the fantastic idea of having the kids put their hand prints on construction paper and creating a flower from that. Then we would glue it to a stick and put it in the flower pot. Unfortunately, I remembered to have one child do this extra step, and then I even forgot to take that to my mother-in-law. I’m getting forgetful in my old age!
Once the hand prints were dry on the pots, I was able to paint their names either above or below the hand prints, as well as “Happy Mother’s Day 2013” around the top lip of the pot. Eric even got in on the design by telling me I had spelled Mother wrong the first time around (I got “H” happy!). Thank goodness for washable paint. On my mom’s since I had more room I was able to write “Love, Tyler” on the back. The last step was to spray the pots with 3 coats of Krylon clear sealer. This was a mandatory step since the paint is washable and plants have to have water!
The finished product. My mother-in-law’s is on the left, and my mom’s is on the right.
I think they turned out pretty well! The grandmas like them! My mom doesn’t have hers yet, but she has seen pictures of it. I’m glad that we were able to give a heartfelt present that will remind the grandmas of this Mother’s Day.
The amazing chocolate stuffed french toast with raspberry syrup that Eric made for me!
As for my Mother’s Day, it was much better than the first when we were all sick! Tyler slept in until after 7am, which was amazing! Eric made me delicious chocolate stuffed french toast with an amazing raspberry sauce. My wonderful husband and son gave me a gorgeous petunia hanging basket and some of my favorite M&Ms, coconut! We then went to the local nursery to get plants for our garden as well as flowers for the flower beds. We had Chinese food for lunch, which usually I never get since Eric is not a “fan”. Most importantly, I spent the rest of the day with my boys. I was even able to get most of my plants in the ground. It’s too bad I didn’t realize that there was a possibility for frost tonight before I planted them though!
It was a fantastic day. I love my guys and how sweet they are to me. I’m certainly one lucky gal!
Family, Food, and Fun 