Easter, Part 1

I've been waiting for Daddy to post all the Easter pictures, but it may take a while, so I thought I put up a few while I waited.

We headed up north for Easter last weekend, into the cold, wet, and, yes, a few snowflakes. Lovely. We managed to have a ball of fun anyway!

Saturday morning we headed out GraGra's house and then on to Great-Grandma's for my family's Easter dinner. Of course, GraGra and Papa Greg got the kids some treats (it was a theme of the weekend).

Colin was SO ready.




Nothing more exciting than a Thomas book!


Tangled! A new princess!


Then we headed down to Great-Grandma's house. The kids had so much fun! They really had a good time playing with my cousin, Becky's, kiddos. It was so fun to see the four of them playing and running around my Grandma's house, like I did with my cousins when we were little! Michael tried to get pictures of the four of them, but they were moving so fast that they were all blurred!

As per tradition, we had an Egg Hunt at Grandma's house! G wasn't so thrilled to be waiting to start!


And, we're OFF!


Both kids hunted very skillfully! And Benjamin, who is 4-5 years older than the other three, was so patient and understanding and left all the "easy" eggs for the little kids. What a great kid!


Of course, G was happy to have GraGra help out!


More Easter to follow when I can nag Michael into posting more pictures!

Watch Out Coco Chanel.

Ms. Chanel never looked this good.

Three Babies and a Little Girl

This is a picture of G taking care of her three babies (what, you don't wear purple sparkle heels while you parent?). She has one big baby and two, smaller, twin babies. She piles them all into this one baby carrier and likes to take them for "walks." And lately she likes to help them drink from their cup; one cup for three babies, mind you.

About a month or so ago, Daddy asked her what her babies' names were. Well, the big baby's name is Hop-Tim.

Really.

The one twin's name is KiKi. And the other twin? Well, it's Not-KiKi, of course! Oh my, we're still giggling over those names! And, no, we have NO IDEA where she got those names!

Seriously.

Some days this kid is just so gorgeous that I cannot stand it. Seriously.

Sorting

In the past few weeks C&G have started sorting by color! Color my early-educator heart happy. I really haven't been teaching them to sort, they just kind of picked it up. So far they sort their post-dinner M&Ms, their foam numbers/letters, and their plastic silverware set!

Proof!



Hmmm, now we can work on sort by shape, size, and commonalities!

Mens Like Garlic Bread.

We had (the old fall-back) spaghetti for dinner one night last week. I happened to make garlic bread to go with it too, which I don't do very often. Now, Colin is an certified bread-a-holic, and it turns out, garlic bread is even BETTER in his mind. His Daddy agrees. As I snapped this picture of the two of them FINISHING the loaf, Daddy told me, "Mens like garlic bread!"

AJ Comes to Visit!

Last Saturday the kids and I watched our little friend AJ for a few hours. AJ is the little brother of our twin friends, Ian and Julia. The big kids had swim lessons and we were happy to host AJ while they were busy!


As you can see in the picture, C&G were quite entranced by Max and Ruby at first, but while they ate their lunch they showed a bit more interested in our guest. They kept asking questions like, "AJ eat lunch too?" or "AJ no talking?" I think they started to get the whole "baby" thing all sorted out a bit! I'm hoping we get AJ back again for some more fun soon!

Happy Birthday, WeeWee!!

I woke up last Friday morning and suddenly remembered that, besides being "Tax Day," it was our Weasel Kitty's Birthday! Gillian had been wanting to use a can of frosting she found on the shelf for a while and so I thought "AH HA!" we'll make some birthday cupcakes!

Right after breakfast we whipped up the cupcake batter. The kids really like to help pour in the ingredients and they would LOVE to crack the eggs, if I was brave enough to let them!


After nap we settled in to decorating. Gillian had told me that she wanted to make orange icing and Colin immediately told me he wanted to make green icing....hope WeeWee likes those colors!



I was hoping that they would let me HELP them ice the cupcakes....no such luck. They seriously fought me tooth and nail when I even laid one finger on their knives!


Surprisingly, they did very, very well with it. They dont' have much experience with knives (obviously) but they were pretty neat and focused very well on the task. When I asked Colin where he had learned to be such a good cupcake decorator, he told me, "Oh Mommy, cupcakes EASY!"




They turned out pretty well! And Gillian immediately wanted to eat one! We convinced her to wait until after dinner though! She did enjoy it....a lot!


Colin, in true Colin-style, didn't love it so much. But, he did try the icing!


And, our Birthday Weasel? Well, she doesn't do cupcakes...not crunchy enough. However, she did like this box she found in the living room!


Happy 8th Birthday, WeeWee!!!

Egg Hunt!

Last week at Miss Melanie School (our Mommy and We class) we had a little Easter party, complete with egg hunt. As usual, the kids were THRILLED to go to school, and the extra treats were just TOO MUCH FUN!

We had some fun play time, our usual circle time, and then we dot painted some bunnies. Next up, SNACK:

(Note the poor neglected fruit snacks, he just didn't know what to do with them!)

I was trying to get a picture of Gillian's red juice mustache, but I think I missed it. They BOTH loved the red kool-aid.


After some gym time, we came back to the room to HUNT EGGS! They were naturals, I tell you! So skilled!




Look! Treats!


What a fun warm up for the holiday weekend!

There ARE other kids in our class, I promise. But, since I'm employed by the company that runs the program and some of our clients are in the class, I always feel a little uneasy taking (and most definitely publishing) pictures of our classmates!

I Tired of Ballet

Last week one rainy afternoon we were just playing around at home. Gillian decided to do some ballet for me. She was pretty cute twirling all around, but as soon as I tried to get a video of her, she would yell at me and stop dancing. I finally ended up with this video. I think it's the perfect example of Gillian's current bossiness, goofiness, and blossoming language skills.

Just as I was turning off the video, she said, "There, that's perfect!"

And of course, Colin was busy with his trains.....

Rockets! Blastin' Into Space!

Lately the kids have been gaga over rockets. I'll admit to encouraging them a little bit in this. I'm not quite sure how they started to get interested, but I know what kicked it into high gear: Discovery. So, on the evening that the Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off for its last mission, they had the clip on the nightly news. I happened to see this on the news, and recorded it because I thought that the kids might like it. It turns out that they loved it.

Seeing how much they liked it, we went on YouTube and found out that NASA TV has a very large number of clips there... including video of the whole 9 minutes from lift-off to orbit. Since the TiVo can play YouTube videos, we put the launch video up on the TV.

They liked this even better than the short clip from the news. We've watched this video probably like 30 times. "Watch Rockets Blastin' Off on Me TV!" is cry frequently heard around the house. In fact, Gillian tells us that she's been dreaming about rockets... well rockets blastin' off on her TV.

I have several large "coffee table" books about space, rockets, and photographs taken by astronauts while in space. We've started having to look at these books at bed time along with Elmer, Trixie, and other bed time favorites. Then they found To Space and Back.

Now, To Space and Back is part of our nightly routine. We look at the pictures, have a little count down (though theirs is a count up, not a count down), talk about how some of the astronauts are floating right side up and some are upside down, how they're drinking their balls of orange juice, and how the space shuttle comes back down like an airplane.

We've also had to move up from real space ships to imaginary ones. Grammy Lynn (I think) bought them some little Star Wars books at some point and one of them is called Star Wars Spaceships. We have to read this a lot too, and now they've become pretty good identifying their Star Wars spaceships...

So, here's to hoping that they keep their love of rockets and go on to become good little astronauts or aerospace engineers.

A Very Nice Weekend

This past weekend the weather took an decided upturn.

Finally.

Saturday morning wasn't very warm yet, and I was at a conference downtown until noon, so Daddy just took the kiddos to the library. BUT, we spent most of the rest of the weekend OUTSIDE!

We hit the "new" dinosaur playground after nap on Saturday, and Sunday morning we visited the ducks, geese, turtles, peacock, and buffalo at the park, then hit the "shaky bridge" playground! By Sunday afternoon, it felt downright HOT around here, near 80! So, we all went out and got a little yard work done, and Daddy started to clean out the garage.

It was so nice that we took the opportunity to eat supper out on the deck! Colin was especially impressed! He's still talking about sitting under the umbrella and eating! Sadly, he wouldn't even try a bite of grilled steak. Oh well, more for us.

Hooray for nice weather! More please!

CHEESE!

I haven't posted too much about Colin lately. He's doing quite well, if not being a little too impish. He's loving every chance we get to go outside and play. He's still loving his trucks and trains. And Max & Ruby, of course! He's been very interested in the birds that have moved into the neighborhood this spring, and likes to chase the robins when he can! In this picture he's wearing a new pair of PJs that make him look like a college kid! He likes them because they look like Daddy's pajamas! (Not the dinosaur part, the plaid pants part that aren't pictured!)

Piggy Jammies

Gillian is currently obsessed with these pajamas:


She asks for them every night, and is a little sad when they aren't clean. When she sees me folding them post-washing, she gets so excited and immediately requests to wear them that night! We have tried to ask her WHY she likes them so much, but she can't quite express it. They are very soft and comfy and GraGra gave them to her, but I'm not quite sure exactly why they are the current favorite!

Correction! The piggy jammies in question were a gift from Uncle Willis and Leah! Ah ha! My apologies for my poor memory!

Dr. Sissy

Check out Gillian fixing up the poor Schmo kitty. He is so very patient with her.


How about that VAT of pink medicine?? And the fact that Colin talked THE ENTIRE video. Apparently, we were ignoring him.

Children's Museum Fun

Last Friday, Daddy had the day off. And he actually took the day off. I had made plans with our good friends, The Millers, to visit The Children's Museum in the city. We've been meaning to go for a long while, so I was excited to have actual plans made! And off we went!


We met up in the parking lot, shuttled 4 two year olds, one 4 month old, and 4 adults into the museum, admired the bird sculpture in the lobby, paid, and set off to have some fun. First stop was the Mr. Rogers' Room.
It's the Trolley!!!



And, Gillian's current favorite obsession....A PIANO! It was a really neat player piano with little drums, bells, and all sorts of other instruments inside the piano. You could push a button and it would play a song while you could still pound the ivories!



Once the kiddos realized that they were free to touch, try, use, jump, play, and explore whatever they wanted, THEY WERE SO EXCITED!!! Kids in a candy store could not be happier.

Next up we went to the Art Studio portion of the museum. We were advised to go there early so that our masterpieces could dry before we left! They had several different activities set up, a paint station, a papermaking station, and a silk-screen station. We picked the toddler friendly paint station!
Ian dives right in!


Julia too!


Of course, C&G were all over that fun!


As we explored the rest of the first floor, we found lots of fun things to do!

A smart car with four smart drivers!



Then some bubble table fun!




Ian was busy making a parachute with his Dad and flying it in the air! AJ was just chilling in his stroller the whole time, AND flirting with me. I think.

We decided to skip the second on floor and head straight up to the water play area on the third floor. Luckily, it was empty save for 2 or 3 other kids. So, we got the kids in the little raincoats and crocs the museum provides. I had Gillian all ready, turned around to see what Daddy and Colin were up to, turned back around, and G had her leg over the side of the (very large) water table and she was wet up to her thigh! Oh boy! She told me, "I get in, I swimmin'." Good thing we knew to bring dry clothes!

Michael enjoyed filling and emptying the bucket more than the kids did!

Colin enjoyed himself!




After water play and dry clothes, we started to wind down our visit. We played for a bit in the "toddler" section, but really the kids enjoyed the big kid activities better! We did visit the trolley and the piano one last time before we left though!


All in all we had a fantastic time! The kids really enjoyed the whole museum and we will definitely be headed back! I would have loved to get a picture of all four 2 year olds together, but they seem to have the uncanny ability to run in four different directions whenever we try!