Easter pictures

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to take the kids to have their pictures taken with a real bunny and chicks. Of course I jumped all over this because I know in the (not so distant, probably) future, Samuel will balk at me wanting to take cutesy pictures of him like this. Becca is a HUGE animal lover so she was in heaven patting the bunny and chicks. Samuel, while he had fun looking at the animals, was most amused when the chicks pooped on the floor. 100% boy, I tell you.

Many thanks to Abbie from Keepsake Portraits and Designs for doing such a great job! There's a good chance that if you read this blog, you got an Easter card made from one of the images from this session. Here are some of the other shots from that day:

Messy

Yogurt: it's not just for eating anymore.

Recent Pictures

Here are some pictures of the kids from the past few weeks:

Becca playing in the big box of rice we call the scooping box:

If you look closely, you will see she is trying to eat some of the rice here. She is WAY more of a biter/taster/eater of non-food items than Samuel ever was. We are constantly telling her not to eat things like crayons, paper, etc...

Samuel working on spelling names with some blocks:

Becca wants to do EVERYTHING that Samuel does. In this picture, he climbed up on a chair to reach something on the counter, and Becca decided she needed to be up there too:



Here they are watching a movie on the computer. Becca has become obsessed with Little Einsteins lately and asks all the time for "annie? june?" However, she only wants to sit still for the theme song, then she gets bored, or asks you to play the song over and over and over again. Thank goodness for shows being available through disney's website or through netflix. It makes it easy (although hardly enjoyable to the adults) to play the theme song 500 times in a row.

Cousins

I took the kids to South Bend this week to see Meg, Lilly, and baby Zach. We attempted to get a picture of all 4 kids together, but that was easier said than done. Becca clearly did not want to sit on the couch to have her picture taken. Here is what we ended up with:

Becca did not want to sit on the couch because she was in love with this little play kitchen that Lilly has. She wanted to play with it for almost the entire time we were there. She loved opening and closing the microwave and saying "ding dong, ding dong." I am definitely going to look for one of these at garage sales this summer.

Here is a picture of Samuel and Zach. Before we got there, I kept reminding Samuel that Zach was going to be really little and that we would have to be very gentle with him. So then Samuel asked me - "is he bigger than a banana?" Um, yes, I think he is.

Family Fun Night

I have been awful about posting on our blog lately. I think it's because we have been the house of germs for the past few weeks, with everyone getting colds/ear infections/coughs, etc... and there is nothing fun to write on the blog about that. Darn you preschool, with your insistence on sharing everything - including germs!

We did manage to go to Family Fun Night at Samuel's school last week. It had a carnival theme with lots of different games set up where the kids could earn tickets. At the end, they could cash their tickets in for little prizes. Here are some pictures:

Making a mask by scratching off the black part to reveal colored paper underneath:

I'm not really sure what these were, but Samuel seemed to like them:

Visiting Clifford:

This one is hard to see, but it's Samuel in the bounce house. I think this was his favorite thing:

Choosing his prize at the end of the night:

Snow!

Fort Wayne got about 10" of snow this week. In the almost 4 years that we have lived here, that is probably the biggest storm we have seen. Usually we do not get that much snow at once. Schools have been closed the past 3 days, and people were advised not to go out unless it was an emergency. (I know some people reading this in New England or MN are probably scoffing at 10". I'm sure you get that by Halloween each year.)

Anyway, here are some pictures of the kids enjoying the snow. Well, Samuel was enjoying it. I took Becca out once and she was fine for about 3 minutes and then she realized how cold snow was, so she wanted to go back in.

We borrowed Meg's idea for playing with snow inside, and Becca seemed to enjoy that a lot more:

Today Samuel built a big snow fort with his cousin and grandmother:

While they did that outside, Becca and I hung out inside and played with playdough. She is obsessed with playdough lately, but she can only play with it for about 5 minutes at a time because she looks at it and looks at it and looks at it, and then it's like, must. eat. playdough. now. So then it has to go away. Today I found a recipe for homemade playdough and I made that for her. I figured that if she ate it, it would be safe. In case anyone wants the recipe, here it is:

1 cup of flour

1/2 cup of salt

1/2 cup of water

Mix together. Add food coloring if you would like.

The homemade playdough was a big hit. She did try to eat it, but it must have tasted really bad because she didn't put it in her mouth again, and she played with it for almost 20 minutes.

Tiny Dancer

I put Becca's hair in tiny ponytails today for the first time. No easy task! She squirmed and wrenched her head away every time I tried. However, I did eventually get them in there, and she looked so cute! You can see them here as she plays/dances in the playroom: