FOUR!

On (or maybe I should say "in") a Roll

Amelia's room isn't that big, but yet she has come up with a lengthy list of places to nap in it. Her bed, of course, is her mom's preferred spot for her to rest. But, often Amelia prefers to sleep under the bed, on the window seat, or behind the blinds.

But, when I went to check on her the other day during naptime, I really really did not expect to see this:


Can't wait to see what she comes up with next!

Add it to the List

In case you were wondering what to get Amelia for her upcoming birthday, she spotted this the other day at Hackmann Hardware and requested it be added to her birthday list.

Check out that (gulp) price tag! Hope she's not holding her breath.

Wee Ones Workout

I LOVE our district's Parents As Teachers program (and I'm not just saying that because my educator is an occasional reader of the blog). A few weeks ago, we dropped Amelia off at school and then went to Wee Ones Workout for birth-24 month olds. I ALMOST didn't go because I saw the woman in charge unloading a sit-n-spin and a mini trampoline and I kept wondering what she could possibly bring for Henry to do.

Turns out, she had TONS for Henry. Quite unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, but I can assure you that he enjoyed himself immensely being rubbed with a feather, kicking a "kick board", rolling on a bolster, and magic blanket riding around the room. Perhaps his favorite thing, though, was a water bottle filled with shiny beads and sparkly pom poms. He was mesmerized by its beauty and hypnotized by its melody when shaken.

So, after we picked Amelia up from school (she will never know this, but the Wee Ones Workout was in the same building as her school), we came home and made our very own plastic bottle rattle.

This was right up Amelia's alley. She got to cut apart one of her thousands of bead necklaces and pick out appropriate pom pom's (no pink was her rule!) to put inside the bottle.

It was a big hit with Henry too! No surprise there!

Party Pics!

Thought I'd add these pics from Jason's birthday. Yes, it has been nearly 3 weeks, but the pictures are still pretty cute!

Amelia and I spent the ENTIRE morning decorating the house for the big birthday celebration. Seriously, I think we taped crepe paper around for like 3 hours that morning. I should have taken pictures of Amelia's "interesting" decorating.

Then we headed out to the mall to pick up a cookie cake for Jason's birthday. That was his request and I know you can make them at home, but I think there is nothing better than a cookie cake from the mall. YUM! Amelia picked out the colors, border, picture design, shape, and even the message on the cake (Suprise Daddy! is what she choose). It was fun and sooo delicious!



We met both sets of parents at our new favorite, local Mexican restaurant. Then, back to our house for cake afterwards. Do you see Amelia's "vase" of "flowers" (blue cup of dandelions) on the table next to the cookie cake box? She picked those for our centerpiece! Such a fun day!

Another Blog or Two

For a long time now, I have been attempting to keep journals for both kids. I started each one during the pregnancy of each child and haven't done much with them since. I think Henry's is a total of about 5 entries and Amelia's isn't much more.

A few weeks ago, while looking around on the internets, I came across an idea to keep separate blogs for each kids. Essentially an online journal that can be printed in to a book down the road. And so yesterday I started one for both Henry and Amelia. For some reason, I think keeping them electronically will be more successful. THIS blog covers the bigger events in our lives, but I hardly write about everyday events. I hope to write just a paragraph or two on days that something noteworthy happens.

Don't worry, you won't have to read about all of the mundane details of our lives. I set the blogs to private. Just thought I'd pass the idea along in case anyone else was looking for a way to keep things documented.

Photo Scavenger Hunt

Apparently the Easter bunny reads this blog because on Easter morning, Amelia found the following note on our bedroom door. The very door she enters each morning to greet us upon awaking.


That clever Easter bunny stole our camera and took pictures of different places around our house while we were sleeping. Then, he set up a photo scavenger hunt to lead Amelia to her basket. The first picture (above) is a painting located in Amelia's playroom that Jason painted.

Once she understood what the point of the activity was, she was off!

That crazy Easter Bunny led her up and down all three levels of our house. Here she is snatching a picture clue from one of her bath toys.

There was another clue behind the shower curtain in her bathroom.

And another inside her Curious George movie.

The second to last clue led her to her easel and on it was the final picture clue showing one of the vinyl stickers in Henry's room.

And there, next to the sticker was her basket! This was such great fun for her, I might just have to steal the Easter Bunny's idea and do it again!

Money Talks

Jason recently taught Amelia that her age is "Three and three-quarters". For several days, anytime she was asked her age (which happens often given her chattiness with strangers), she would reply, "I'm three and three-quarters".

The other day, however, when she was asked the reply was different. "I'm three and three dimes," she said.

"Three and three dimes?", I said. " You mean three and three-quarters, don't you?".

To which Amelia replied, "No, I am three and three dimes. I like dimes better than quarters because they are so cute and tiny".

Easter '10

This year's Easter celebration was insanely busy, but equally as fun. I will try to keep this short and sweet (which incidentally was very different from our day!).

Our morning started at a respectable 7 AM, with a scavenger hunt set up by the BIG bunny himself (more on that in the next post though). Then it was the typical egg hunt at the ol' homestead. Amelia hunted 29 eggs in record time!

Here's Henry trying to figure out what the heck his sister is so excited about.

The Easter bunny opted to bring Henry a truck this year until his family has the chance to pick him up an Easter basket. He was "digging" it!


He also got a new sun hat. The good news is that he desperately needed one. The bad news? It won't fit him until he's like 4.


This picture was taken shortly before Amelia started hitting up Jason for a piece of candy. It went something like this, "Mommy, uh, I mean Daddy, can I have a piece of candy?". She obviously has learned who she has the best shot with!

Shortly thereafter, it was on to house #2: GG and Papa's. The Easter Bunny had made a stop there, too, apparently. He decided to do an outside hunt which was a nice change for the little one. There were 20ish eggs to find there, all hidden in the front yard. All were walked right past by Amelia when we went from the car to the house upon our arrival. She practically had to step over some to make it to the front door!

Amelia decided to take a break mid-hunt to pick some flowers. Check out those coordinating purple nails!

This picture is far from Eastery, but cute nonetheless. In case you don't know, my mom has an obsession with Betty Boop and has an entire shrine-like bathroom dedicated to her. Amelia loves to get in there and find breakable things. I went to check on her and she was (no surprise) in the room goofing around. I loved her little "busted" smile!


Handsome Henry! He looked so sharp in his button down green striped shirt and his matching argyle sweater vest. Too bad it was like 85 degrees. He shed that outfit SUPER fast by the time we got to house #3.

And speaking of house #3, this is the ONLY picture I took there. I have a really bad habit of starting out strong and then fizzling quickly with my picture taking.

House #3 had yet another outdoor egg hunt and more food to eat. By the time we reached house #4, both kids were wiped! (As were Jason and I!).

The short nap for the two little ones, did them well. The final egg hunt of the day was a nighttime one. We waited until it got very dark and then everyone headed out with flashlights to find some eggs. It was really fun, but I think we were missing 15ish eggs by the time we gave up finding anymore!

So, like I said it was lots of fun and very exhausting! We are so lucky to have such great families to celebrate holidays with. Everyone is so generous with our children and it is always a wonderful time!

Measuring the Man

In a desperate attempt to keep Henry's baby book exactly up to date, I set out to get his 3 month measurements a few weeks ago. As you may or may not know, most doctors don't require infants to come in during month 3, so these measurements were far from "official". We had a good time anyway climbing on to the table and giving it our best shot.

Mr. go-with-the-flow had no problems lounging on the hard table.

After witnessing her brother getting to spread out on the table, Amelia wanted a shot as well. We obliged and let her lounge a bit, but to get an accurate measure of her, she had to stand against the wall.

Henry decided to take this opportunity to see if we could get a handful of his sister's hair--his new favorite pastime. Luckily (for now anyway) Amelia thinks this is great fun and often puts her head of hair near his hand in an attempt to get him to grab it.


Twenty-six inches it is! Upon hearing this, Henry decided he better get going on practicing those b-ball skills (see the basketball rattle in his chubby little hand?).