Dress-Up

Dressing up in Mommy's boots.



The letter Q.



A preview of the show in June...all dressed up for dance recital pictures.



Just when we think Luna has found every possible spot to take a nap in the house, she finds a new one. I guess M's crib just looked too comfy to resist.

Easter

School time! M is playing with the How to Build an A pieces and creating his own alphabet letters.



D and her N's (we skipped printing the M's as she said she didn't want to try them).



Fun times at the cabin. M is using the pegs from our furniture as a microphone while he belts out a tune.



Steve and D invented a game where he threw the balloon and if she didn't catch it before it touched the ground, she had to run upstairs to the loft and back down. She loved the game.



D loved making her O's (can you tell?)



Finding goodies Easter morning.



Dressed in our Easter best!

Letters and Stickers

D and the letter L.



D is doing really good with her puzzles. Here is a new Snow White one she did at the cabin (our favorite indoor pasttime there).



D and the letter M.



M showing us what he plans to use our new mudroom storage bench for once the doors are on.



My sister gave us the Elmo costume in a bag of hand-me-down clothes for the kids. I hope it will fit M by Halloween (grow, boy, grow!), but as you can see it fits D right now. She wore it off and on all day and insisted I call her "Elmo" whenever she had it on.



D's first attempt at writing her name.



D and M in front of the vegetables we planted. D is also modeling a dress that used to be mine (isn't is just screaming 1970's!). She was so excited to wear it when she found out it was mine. I'll be so sad the day she figures out she doesn't want to wear hand-me-downs anymore!



I know I should really be more suspicious when things are "too" quiet in the house, but it's still a new phenomenon here and I'm so happy to have 10-15 minutes to get dinner prepared uninterrupted that I'm a little reluctant to bother their playtime. Although, of course, putting stickers all over the door isn't half as bad as it could be, right?

(Pre) School Time

Fun times at the cabin. Getting ready to talk a walk outside.



D loves reading books to M, which is a good thing because he is obsessed with books lately. He will walk around the house all day long carrying books that he wants to read.



School time. D has been working on her cutting skills. She loves to cut and is currently trying to practice cutting in a straight line.



M is sorting his bears by color. He loved doing this and kept on sorting them, then mixing them up, then sorting them for about 20 minutes. I was afraid he would only want to sort the blue ones (he is partial to blue--he only plays with the blue Mega Blocks for some reason), but he enjoyed doing all of them.



D's future profession? Rescuing cats from trees? She insisted on wearing this "birthday" hat when we went out to Red Robin for her birthday last Monday.



When I went to get D up from her nap, I found her wearing her princess ensemble. She must have changed before laying down.



D and the letter K.

Birthday Girl

He looks so cute the way he's all curled up when he's sleeping!



D turned 4 years old on Monday (4 years! I can hardly believe it) and we had a birthday party on Sunday to celebrate. She is very much into Barbies and princesses right now, so I wanted to get her a Barbie cake. Unfortunately, they cost $40 at the bakery at Target, which is a little out of budget. I searched online for how to make one and it turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. D really liked her cake and was very excited to have a new Barbie.





D opening some of her gifts. She is modeling the piggy backpack from the Yanez family and the Raggedy Ann doll my sister made for her.



Time to blow out the candles!



Grandma let cousin K and D eat the frosting shirt off of Barbie. Yummy!



D gave us a fashion show and modeled her new duds. She's ready for when warmer weather comes our way.









D loves her Raggedy Ann and wanted a picture of her before going to bed.



D opened more gifts on her actual birthday.





Steve and the kids decided to do an art project while I was out for the evening. Looks like they had a good time with the finger (and foot) painting.

Ballerinas, Princesses and Fairies (Oh, my!)

M had some strange sleeping positions this week. Notice his leg sticking out of the crib. Today, he apparantly wanted to get out of his crib instead of nap, so he decided to somehow get out all on his own (first time he's gotten out of his crib), open his bedroom door all on his own (first time he's opened ANY door), and go into his sister's room to wake her up. I hope this was just a fluke!



We went to Cabela's last Sunday. They have some amazing displays! The kids loved looking at all the animals.





D traded in her ballerina outfit from last week for this one, which she insisted was the princess outfit. If we called her a ballernia, she promptly corrected us. I overheard her asking M one morning, "Do you want to play with the princess today?"



That just does not look comfortable.



D and her J's. Good job!



D decided to trade in the princess dress for the fairy outfit. Ironically, this is the one ensemble she didn't wear the fairy wings with.



I can't remember where D got this toy from (Halloween maybe?). You blow into it and it makes a whistle sound. She just found it in her room and has been walking around with it in her mouth and whistling for the past two days. She is posing with the pink bunny the magician at Champps made for her. M had a blue bunny, but he promply untied it and let all the air out. I think it lasted him maybe 3 minutes. D has kept a very close eye on hers after seeing what M did to his.