Emotions

Hayes is going to be an actor like his dad. He already makes faces and fakes emotions on demand. Below are his excited, crying and grumpy faces, in order. He has the hardest time holding the grumpy face because he wants to smile. It's really cute.

Hayes loves to help--with everything! He especially enjoys cooking with Mom. He was very excited to put the ingredients into the breadmaker for the evenings' dinner.

Grandma and Aunt Tricia's Visit

One of our few outings was to a local park we had never been to before. Aunt Tricia reminded the kids about Pooh-sticks and they never wanted to leave the bridge.

This is the first time the girls have ever ridden a tire-swing. Lolee finished a little before her big sister.


The park was a castle theme, with cool windows and turrets all over the place.

Hayes just loved the swings and the bouncy horse. He would have stayed forever if the rest of us hadn't been on the verge of freezing to death.

Grandma brought the girls these adorable Easter dresses.

As is typical when Grandma comes to visit, the children all want to sit by/on her, and be the closest. Hence, this is how Grandma ate every meal:)

One of the warmer days of her visit, we ventured outside, and the kids re-discovered the magic of bubbles. Even Hayes could blow them! We were very impressed. (Note Lolee's hair; I was very impressed with myself:)

We spent Sunday afternoon watching home videos from a year ago. It's always amazing to see the changes a year brings, and yet how many things stay the same.

Spring Break Activities

We discovered one day that Hayes really likes cucumbers--as long as they have a plentiful amount of Ranch dressing on them. He also likes broccoli and carrots, but he only eats the carrots until he gets to his fingers, then he puts the rest down. This habit is probably to protect his chubby little digits, so I may need to get him some longer carrots:).

We introduced Lolee and Hayes to pudding finger-painting one day of break. They got quite a kick out of the mess we actually encouraged them to make.

We tried to spend as much time outside as possible during Dad's time home with us. We discovered that Hayes loves the stroller, and will take a nap there despite his lack of desire to sleep during the day anymore.

We also found that the swing will knock him out. :)

12 new containers of playdoh make for a great evening of family fun. You would never know that we did a low budget Spring Break from how much our little ones enjoyed it. As far as we could tell, they thought it was the greatest thing ever! It was awesome!

Red Cedar Gymnastics

One day of Spring Break we went to this very fun gym that has an area for smaller children and open gym time one day a week. The kids loved it!

Lolee's favorites were the trampoline and just hanging from the high bar of the uneven bars.

Hayes, of course, needed the most help, but he loved everything.

I was quite amazed that I got this shot of Elyabeth in action. Not sure what to do with a lot of the things there, Elyzabeth watched the other kids and found lots of new things to try.

Spring Break Begins

David started Spring Break Friday afternoon. Lolee has never been to a movie theater, so to celebrate a week of freedom we took them to see A Hotel For Dogs. I left with Hayes about 2 1/2 minutes into it, but the girs quite enjoyed it.

Hayes loves to wear other people's shoes, as I have mentioned before. I thought Elyzabeth's Sunday shoes complete with onsie was especially cute. Probably good blackmail someday if I ever need it:)
We had preschool at our house last week. We did "L" for lion and lamb. This is Lolee making her lion. It was a little too involved for any of them to finish. Oh well.

I was very impressed with myself for coming up with this idea for their snack. In case you can't tell, they are lions made of oranges, apples, raisins and cheese (we didn't have any stick pretzels). The kids thougt they were great fun.

Ice Flow

Our sump pump hose is not buried and has been running as temperatures temporarily warmed up. They didn't stay up, and now we have this major ice flow in our front yard. It looks pretty cool.

Lolee Eating her ice cream

Lolee loves ice cream. She asks for it at least four times a day. We let her have some for dessert Sunday night and she had to make sure she got every last drop--from the bowl and off the table.