The Great Outdoors

Ah, remember not too long ago I was complaining (a lot!) about the snow and ice and cold? Well, we had NONE of that today! It was gorgeous! We spent the majority of the day outdoors taking down the Christmas lights (finally!), fertilizing the lawn, weeding & cleaning up the landscape garden out front, and other general outdoor upkeep. Ella & Lily were happy to be running around outside. They dug out the bubble stuff from the garage and entertained themselves with that for awhile. They squirted water with the hose. And they were quite the little helpers, first helping Andrew with the Christmas lights and then Lily helped me rake the landscape bed.





They also spent a good deal of time collecting worms, slugs and caterpillars while I gardened. They walked around with the various creatures sitting on their sleeves, at least until one squiggly worm maneuvered its way INTO Lily's sleeve. She wasn't so interested in creatures after that. She was pretty freaked out. Luckily, I was wearing garden gloves through all this or they would have been on their own with the slimey things. :-)



In the afternoon, they wanted to ride their bikes to the park. Well, this took forever as Ella kept getting tired and didn't want to ride. And Lily is quite the dawdler on her trike just peddling only as fast (or as slow) as she feels like. We did make it to the park after an eternity and I promptly walked back and got the car--while Andrew stayed and played with them--because there was no way the girls were going to make it ALL the way back home (yes, it is only 1/2 mile to the park).



When we got back from the park, the kids played out back for awhile. The little boy next door, Jeffery came out and he and Ella played for 45 minutes or so. Unfortunately, he and his very nice family moved and they are selling their house. Gee, hope no riff raff moves into the neighborhood. And let's hope the new neighbors will be just as nice and still let us use their swing set whenever we want. ;-)



We grilled out steaks for dinner and now everyone is calming down before bed, which will be early because 1) the kids are exhausted from all the fresh air and 2) neither of them had naps today. Whoo hoo! I love this weather! Weather forecast for tomorrow: rain and gloom. :-( At least we had one perfect day before the wet weather settles in again.

And of course the great weather provided a wonderful backdrop for me to take a bazillion new pictures. I've added some here to this post and to the April photo album.

Create your very own kid-friendly centerpiece

Hi again. It's Holly, with another installment of "Entertaining your wee ones with simple art projects".

Now that spring has sprung, your little ones will be toddling around outside. And if they are anything like my kids, they will be collecting things: leaves, rocks, worms, and PINE CONES! Have your kids happily collect these nature treasures (well, maybe not the worms or anything else that's living). Ella collected an entire basket of pine cones from our yard the other day. She affectionately refers to them as acorns. We have tried to convince her they really are pine cones. But she is having none of it. They are ACORNS to her and that's the story she's sticking with.

She brought them in and very diligently cleaned each one in the bathroom sink. A process that much to my dismay took two days. When I asked her what the heck she was going to do with all those "acorns", she looked at me like "Duh, Mom." and said, "An art project."

I asked her what her art project was going to be and she just said "Glitter". Oh-kay. Where does she get this stuff?! So we waited until Saturday (when Andrew was in charge! Ha!) and we had the bright idea to paint the pine cones and then sprinkle glitter on them while they were still wet.




We waited for them to dry, all the while, I'm thinking hmmm...what to do with some painted sparkly pine cones...er, um, I mean acorns. So I got the bright idea to display them! I put them in our centerpiece on the dining room table. And I think it turned out great! (This represents only about 1/10 of the pine cones she gathered. Not sure if we'll be painting/glitterizing all of them--or if a new art project is on the horizon.)



What you need:
Found nature objects
Paint (we used washable Crayola "Kids' Paint"--found in the Crayola aisle at Target)
Paintbrush
Glitter

You could do this at home with your kids! Since I know pine cones may be hard to come by for many of you faithful readers out there in California, you could find leaves or small rocks around your yard and do the same thing with them.

Happy Crafting!

Spring is Here!!

Yippee!!! The snow is finally gone! It's been in the 50's (and maybe 60's soon)! Whoo hoo! And to celebrate, the girls rode their bikes to the Anderson's for a playdate this week!

We had a lot of fun over there. We've been trying to play with Hope (4 years--her birthday is the DAY before Ella's!), Isabelle (almost 7 years), and Claire (15 months) almost every week. And this time, we met some more neighbors with a great play set in their backyard. They have 3 kids as well. The oldest girl will be in Ella's same kindergarten year. The kids all had a great time playing outside and the moms had fun chatting.

The girls and I also met up with Jody and Arie this week at an indoor play area we haven't been before called Playworks. It's a lot like Edinborough's Adventure Peak but BIGGER! And it has more than just the climbing structure! It has an arts and crafts area, a tree house with video games, puzzles, and more. We spent over 3 hours playing and would have been there longer if the girls hadn't tired themselves out so much. :-)



We attend story time almost every Thursday at our local Barnes and Noble. They usually read 2-3 books and then there is a coloring sheet to work on. This week they had a special guest! Madeline from the children's books. Lily took one look at the character and started crying. She stayed all the way on the other side of the room from Madeline. Ella was excited but nervous too. She was going to give her hug, and then didn't. Then she wanted me to be right next to her holding her hand. Finally, Ella did give her a high five and I quickly let go of her hand to snap a picture. Luckily for those leary of her, Madeline only stayed for a few minutes to say hi and left.I don't know if any of you have noticed, but Ella (and sometimes Lily because she does EVERYTHING that Ella does) has her own sense of fashion style. Ella likes to wear a short sleeve t-shirt over a long-sleeved one for a layered look. Then, she likes to wear a skirt (or skort) over a pair of leggings to further the layered look. Seriously, she developed this style all on her own and has become known for it! Her gym teachers look for her to come into class every week so they can see what combination she has come up with. This started I think because we got colder weather and I had a hard time convincing Ella that we no longer wore summer clothes. So she started wearing a long sleeve shirt under her t-shirt as a compromise. And it evolved from there. Here are a couple pictures of the girls that show their style in all its glory (I might have had a hand in coordinating these particular get-ups though). Of course, now that its getting warmer, we don't have to do the long sleeve shirts anymore. ;-)




I have added Feb, March, and April photo albums to the Shutterfly site. There are some pictures of the girls driving the jeep around at Bubba's house in Wisconsin as well as Cedar Rapids pictures. And I edited the Cedar Rapids post to add pictures (scroll down).

Enjoy the nicer weather! FINALLY!!

Grandpa Milt

(Edited to add: Here is Milt's obituary in the Journal Times. There is a guest book you can sign/view if you like as well as a link to the funeral home. If you locate his page on the funeral home site, you can view a photo tribute that played during the visitation. Andrew's brother, Benjamin has actually put all this and more onto a special webpage just for Grandpa Milt.)

We learned last Wednesday that Andrew's Grandpa Milt passed away. He had been sick for about six weeks and we sort of knew the inevitable was coming. Even though you know you'll have to deal with it at some point, it is still difficult when the time comes. He was 91 and a great man who was strong in his faith, full of humor and happiness. And he will be missed dearly.

My favorite story about Grandpa Milt is from when we told him about our engagement. He had a big smile on his face and just sat on the couch pondering our news for a moment. Then he said thoughtfully, "Well that's very good. Marriage...it's a lot of give and take." And that was it. :-) His sage words of advice on marriage.

We spent the weekend in Wisconsin with family. The service on Monday was very nice with Tom giving the eulogy, Andrew doing a reading, and Benjamin leading everyone in song with his guitar. Perhaps the most poignant moment of the day came when the procession made its way toward the cemetery. Milt had been a fireman for many years before retiring. When we passed a fire station, they came out and saluted all of us as we drove by.

Quick Trip to Cedar Rapids

We spent last Thursday and Friday in Cedar Rapids, before we made our way to Wisconsin. We had a very nice visit with Nana Mary and Papi Dave, even if it was a bit short. On Thursday, Nana and I took the girls to the library to do a craft project and play in the kids section. We walked from there to Bruegger's for lunch downtown and then across the street to see Papi's office. On our way back to the car, we stopped at a corner candy store. It was great! The whole back wall was filled with jars of candy for 25 cents (these would have been a penny or a nickel back in the day). The girls picked out a couple pieces each and charmed a couple businessmen into giving them each a package of Smarties.

Friday, we did some shopping, read some books at the local Barnes and Noble, and played at the mall play area. The girls helped Nana make chocolate cupcakes in the afternoon. Then we went to the Greek Place (my fave restaurant!) to meet up with Papi's dad, the Judge for dinner (he's called Judge because he's a retired Federal Judge. That's always what I've called him.) :-) We were celebrating Nana's birthday! After dinner, Nana opened her gifts and we enjoyed the cupcakes and raspberry sorbet. Mmm...mmm.... When we sang "Happy Birthday", Lily freaked out a bit. Hmm...little sister, like big sister? Ella has not let us sing Happy Birthday at her birthday since she full-on freaked out at her 2nd birthday. However, she tolerates it on other people's birthdays. Lily didn't have a problem at her birthday this year. But I wonder if she is going to go through a Happy Birthday song boycott now.

Even though our trip was short, we had a great time! I'll add some pictures to this post as soon as I get them uploaded to the computer.

The weather

Just thought we could all use a comparison:

LAST YEAR on March 27th:



And on APRIL 1st THIS year:



What the heck?! I sure hope SPRING comes soon. This is just craziness. If only this snow was April Fool's. I had to shovel another 4-5 inches this morning! On top of the 4 inches I shoveled yesterday. Conveniently Andrew is out of town on a business trip in nice, warm, snow-free Atlanta, so I get stuck with the grunt work.

An Egg-cellent Easter Egg-travaganza

We had a really nice Easter this year. It was our first one in Minnesota. And well, in true Minnesota fashion, it snowed ALL weekend long! We usually go to Wisconsin for Easter, but a number of things kept us here this year. We had a visit from our friend Phil (a fellow Racine resident). He and Andrew attended the college hockey tournament that found the Gophers in the finals! They lost to Denver. But it was still a very good showing for the UofM. Easter weekend was also the original turn-in date for our Honda so we figured we had better plan on staying here in case we needed to wait until the last minute to turn it in.

At any rate, we decorated eggs on Saturday. The girls had a blast! They each did one of each color and Andrew and I each did one striped one. I tried to teach them that the longer you leave the eggs in the coloring, the brighter the color. But they really were having none of that. They would drop it in and leave it in for about 2 seconds and then proclaim: "It's done!". Since I was in charge for most of the weekend, with Andrew at the hockey games, we spread out the decorating so that it would take up more time. We colored the eggs in the afternoon and then waited until after bath time to decorate them with stickers and whatnot.




And I had the Easter Bunny on my side when it came to bedtime. Hee Hee...They knew that the Easter Bunny came at night while they were sleeping (just like Santa). Knowing that, they both willingly went to bed right away after I reassured Lily multiple times that the bunny would not be coming into her room.

She kept asking me, "The bunny no Lily's room, right?"
Me: No, the bunny won't come in your room.
Lily: Ella's room?
Me: No, the bunny won't come in Ella's room either.
Lily: Mommy's room?
Me: No, not Mommy's either.
Lily: Okay.
Me: The bunny will just stay downstairs. He won't come upstairs at all. And even if he did come upstairs, he is cute and cuddly and not scary at all. But he won't come by your room. Okay?
Lily: The bunny only downstairs. Okay. :-)



It was cute in the morning. Ella woke up first and went right to Lily's door and woke her up and then they both came in our room to wake us up. They searched for all the eggs. Ella was a little too eager and didn't give Lily much of a chance, but they both had fun. They each liked their basket and gift. Ella got a little Princess drawing desk and Lily got a new tea sea (both of which were around $10! Whoo hoo!). Can you believe the bunny also brought Ella tape and Lily floss! :-) They are obsessed with those.

After running around and getting ready, we took the girls to a very nice service at church. However, we got there a little late and ended up sitting in folding chairs set up in the lobby. But we could hear really well. So it ended up being okay. They have a full church band and two choirs (adult and children) so the music was great. We also discovered that Ella's little friend from story time, Gretchen was in the children's choir. She ended up standing right by us as they waited to go up and sing.


Top: The girls in their Easter outfits. Bottom: Playing in Emilee's room.

We headed up to Cindy and Shawn's house right after church for a meal with the Engelhart's. Boy, was it a good meal too! One thing about the Engelhart's, there's always PLENTY of food. And it lasts all day long. So you can just keep eating, and keep eating. Yummy! Traditionally, they have an egg hunt outside. Aunt Linda and Aunt Karin go out and hide the eggs really well. Then, the grandkids (all of us adults now) go out and find them. They have a separate egg hunt for the great-grandkids. The eggs always have money in them. A few cents up to the golden egg with $10. Even with the snow, they still had the egg hunt outside for us "big kids". And Andrew cleaned up! Out of 106 eggs, he got over 50 of them I think! We don't need to divulge how many (or how little) I found. We missed the kids' egg hunt because we were outside. But I was told Ella and Lily had a good time. :-)


Top: Andrew counting his eggs. Bottom: Doing an egg check to see how many we were missing still. We ended up finding all but 8 of them. :-)

In the evening Gramma Clare and B-pa stopped by to give the girls their baskets from them. I swear the girls ate more candy on Easter than they ever have in their life! More than Halloween even!



And here is how the day ended:
Andrew was putting Ella to bed last night and she said to him:
"I like Easter. I want it to be Easter tomorrow."
Andrew: "Well we could hide eggs again."
Ella: "Yeah, me and Daddy hide eggs, Lily and Mommy find then."
Andrew: "Sounds good to me."
Ella: "Wait. No, me and Daddy hide the eggs, Lily finds them, and Mommy takes pictures."

LOL! :-) I guess my picture taking is not so subtle.