As we gear up for Easter, we were surprised with two boxes of Easter fun. When Paul got home from Tae Kwon Do, the kids were thrilled to open up their fun surprises. A big thanks to Zach for our first box of fun....
Books are always lots of fun....
And then it was onto the fun sent by Aunt Jean....cute packages filled with all sorts of goodies.
Cool book about a slimy frog - right up Paul's alley!
Checking out hew new garden spade along with a ladybug book for our Little Ladybug!
What a fun surprise for the kids...and hopefully we can ease into this weekend filled with candy and presents and excitement. Big thanks to our good friends Karen, Mark and Zach....and to Aunt Jean! Hugs to you guys!
This was "Dancing" theme at Paul's pre-K this week. I love that they have themes and this one turned out to be a fun one for Paul. On his daily sheet, the teacher listed all of the dances the kids did that day....including some great ones like the Chicken Dance, The Hand Jive and the Twist. Each daily sheet is pretty standard for each kid but at the bottom of Paul's sheet it said that he specifically enjoyed dancing to Kung Fu Fighting. Sooooo...after dinner we put on the song and Paul showed us his killer dance moves. I apologize for my distracting laughter...I was literally crying. Like serious tears streaming down my face.
After that fun, we moved on to the Bunny Hop and some other random fun.
I would say our foray into dancing was pretty successful!
We make it a point to hit up a church sponsored fish fry at least once during lent each year...and tonight was the night! Fun to celebrate a random first with Lillie and this was her first American fish fry. When you miss a lot of traditional firsts, you find nontraditional firsts to get excited about! Hey there sweet girl.
Paul had crazy man hair...he wanted a mohawk but his hair is way too long so it got funky.
And they had ice cream for dessert....Lillie wanted to leave so she had already put her coat back on....and then she saw the ice cream that daddy brought back to the table and decided it was worth staying for just a little while longer.
Someone was being pretty silly.
We headed home and Lillie proceeded to fall out of the car (since she refused to let me help her down) and smash her face on the concrete floor. Her nose was bleeding everywhere but in the end I think it scared her (and me) more than anything. We got her cleaned up and calmed down. She has been clutching a family picture from Christmas and pointing as each family member and saying their names....it is pretty cute how obsessed with this crumpled picture she is.
We were blessed with a quick but fun visit from Miss Jessica last weekend. She popped into town briefly and I got to spend a fun evening with her over wine and chatting! She spent the next morning playing with the kids and then we met her friend Kurt for lunch. The kids were so well behaved and we all had a lot of fun. Check out Miss Lillie giving her some snuggles!
After lunch we had to say goodbye to Jessica and then we headed over to the mall to spend some time in the apple store and at play place. Check out my cheeseballs!
Paul loves his marble madness game....Mimi bought it for him at Christmas. We got to spend some time playing one night after dinner. It's a tough game!
Everyone seems to be settling into our life as a family of four. Lillie started preschool one day per week. We finished up our second week and things are going great! She is enjoying her time with the other kids and seems happy with her teachers. She is eating and napping and all of the things that tell me she is comfortable. She still has her moments but we are confident we made the right choice to start her in this program. There is also the lovely benefit of giving Jason a mental health day each week. We will increase her to two days per week sometime over the summer and she will be at three days per week starting in the fall. We are blessed to have a learning center with leaders and staff that we love and trust.
It is late March and we have hit the official first day of Spring...and yet it is still pretty frosty out there. Everyone has clearly hit their winter weather limit and we are itching to be outside. Paul decided we needed to get out for a bike ride...in 33 degree weather. So we bundled up and I took all of my kids out for a walk. This will be one of the last rides on his bike - he has outgrown this one and will need to upsize a bit. His helmet is also a bit too small so we will be ordering a new one of those as well. We added the new horn that Pa bought for Paul.....it is sad to think that his first bike is already too small.
Let's go mom!
All three of my kids....we had fun but it was cold!
So Mother Nature, let's bring on some warmer weather. Last year at this time it was warm enough to require Jason to mow the lawn once already.....yeah, we still have patches of snow in a few places.
On our way out of town last weekend, we stopped by for some fun with GranJo....she surprised the kids with a tent in the living room and a picnic planned! You can tell everyone is getting a little cabin fever this winter and the kids were thrilled! Paul enjoyed peaking out of the tent...both sides that is!
Chilling in the tent....
I think it is fair to say that the kids really enjoyed this fun idea. They don't get to eat anywhere outside of the kitchen table at our house so this seemed like quite the treat.
GranJo's sewing machine was out on the table and Paul remembered the time that he got to "help" her with a sewing project. So they cranked it up "sewed" on some paper. She even let him run the floor pedal. He was pretty steady with it and his facial expressions were priceless.
And this concludes the massive amount of fun we had in the Quad Cities last weekend.
We had the opportunity to plan a weekend trip to spend time with our friends the Craney and Lipic families. We are blessed to have met them while traveling 4 years ago to bring home our almost 5 year old Korean cuties. Unfortunately the Lipics had to cancel due to Mark's back injury. We were very disappointed but look forward to a time that we can see them soon. We met the Craney Four at the hotel on Friday afternoon and then headed down to grab a bite to eat and then hit the hotel pool. The kids were SO jazzed to see each other (and the adults too). This was our first chance to meet Nicholas and their first chance to meet Lillie. This sums up the craziness that having four high energy children together looks like.
Paul and Lillie checking out the view from our room.
The first of many attempts to get all four children looking in the same direction with a minimal smile on their face. Paul wins for biggest grin in this one!
Some good snack sharing!
A little swimming pool fun!
Saturday morning brought some cruddy weather and a trip to the John Deere Commons to check out the tractors. But first they had to check out the children's play area.
Smiles from the littlest ones!
And then the stink eye....she is such a sassy girl.
SO happy to be driving the golf fareway mower.
It is hard work to get buckled in for safety!
Checking out the cool electronic wall.
What boy wouldn't be smiling after climbing up in all of these tractors!
Puzzles...check!
And then it was a bit of fun with the face cutouts.
Awesome group shots in the scooper of a big tractor. Controlled chaos.
Reaching to shift gears!
Little ladybug along for the ride....
And then it was off to the Children's Museum...it was loud and filled with kids and OUR kids had a blast! First playing checkout in the grocery store.
And then loading freight onto a barge....with plenty of other activities in between!
All of this playing made everyone pretty hungry so we hit our favorite QC Mexican place for some grub. Right in the middle of lunch the fire alarm started with a piercing alarm....and it went on and on....and on and on.....until the fire department came and helped get it turned off. The kids weren't fans of the noise (neither were the adults).
And you too can experience the shrill alarm and how terribly annoying it is.
Back to the hotel we went to get some rest and digest our food before our big Korean meal. We love this little out of the way place that serves both Korean and Chinese. It is nothing fancy but the food is good and the owners are SO nice to us! Little ladybug hanging out before the food arrived.
She devoured about 8 pieces of gimbap.....and they were BIG pieces.
Gram, Pa and GranJo joined us for dinner....so nice that they could meet our dear friends. We were quite the spectacle at a huge table in the middle of the small dining area.
Thankfully the other tables cleared out so the kids could just sort of run wild after dinner without bothering anyone.....rescue bots anyone?
Love these boys...they are so much alike in so many ways.
Wonderful doting owner....
Another attempt at a group shot...this one in jammies! Nicholas was clearly replaying the "loud noise" pose from lunch!
And it makes perfect sense to run crazy before bed, right?!? This was a total riot watching 3 of the kids racing around and Joseph just hanging out playing.
With the time change, we all slept late on Sunday morning and just hung out until checkout time. The big boys shared a love of the Leapster and took over our bedroom.
The boys had so much fun with their imaginative play time....too cute.
We are so blessed to have these wonderful people in our lives. We missed the Lipic family a lot this weekend but look forward to the next time we can ALL get together!
