Easter fun

OK- Is this picture cracking you up? This morning was our neighborhood Easter egg hunt and the kids dressed up. I told Becca she could wear her Easter hat. Ryan insisted on wearing an Easter hat too and ran to the toy room and selected the hat below as his official Easter hat. Too funny.


The kids are practicing for an egg roll they will be participating in later today if it doesn't rain.

Grandpa's helpers

Becca and Ryan love going to visit Daddy and Grandpa at Granpa's shop. This week, they got to be big helpers and made some widgets (my term) and got to use some of the fun machinery.

Funny Ryan

Ryan is such a funny kid. He is always cracking me up. At least 10 strangers approached me this week to tell me how delightful he is. (Of course they are not around for the temper tamtrums and meltdowns.) He loves to make us laugh by making silly faces, singing nonsensical songs and just being himself. He is a character.

Ryan's birthday party

Ryan was really funny about his birthday this year. On Thursday, the date of his actual birthday, we had planned to sing Happy Birthday and let him open the family presents. He didn't want any of it. Didn't want the presents, didnt' want us to sing, didn't want us to talk about it. When we told him he was 3 that day, he yelled, "NO I NOT!" So...we decided to drop it and hope for the best for the day of the party. Happily, he had a WONDERFUL time at his party. He laughed and laughed and played all day long, and passed out stone cold at 6:15 last night. Becca was asleep a mere 30 minutes later herself. We had a small gathering this year. Just family, our next door neighbors and the two of the kids best friends, Jeffrey and Kaitlyn.



One of Ryan's gifts was a set of 4 animal tails that the kids had a blast wearing and getting to "shake their booties." So funny.

The theme of the party this year was "backyard fun." We got a bunch of hover discs, a fun roller, a new bubble machine, some foam rockets, a foam golf game and brought out all the other outdoor stuff we have. All the kids had a ton of fun throwing the hover discs around the yard, but Ryan had the most fun. His face looked just like this all day long.

We attempted to take pictures with each of the guests, but that didn't work out so well. This was the best picture taken of Ryan with any guest there. AND they were all wearing coordinating outfits!

Here is Ryan wearing his new hat from Grandmommy. Ryan LOVES to dress up and make believe he's someone/ something else. Lately, we's been wearing his cowboy boots and gardening gloves every day. I have a feeling that this great hat will soon be added to the ensemble!

About halfway through the party, Becca and Kaitlyn decided that they were going pretend to be fairies for awhile...trying to recreate the fairy party I think.

Another great dressup outfit- this one was Rebecca's gift to Ryan. The head actually roars when you press a button on top.

I think this was Ryan's favorite thing he did at the party. I have not heard him laugh so long or so loud at an activity before. He had so much fun with this. Below, you can see that he and Grandpa played a game where they flipped it over each other's heads over and over.

And here is a great picture taken while while we were all singing Happy Birthday to him. Unfortunately, my camera's memory card filled up right after this picture, so I missed him blowing out the candles on the cake.

Bye kids

I took this picture on a recent outing and (for me anyway) it resonates with me more than the pictures of them looking at the camera. Since Becca has missed a whole month of school due to the pic line, the kids have been spending a lot more time together. Many days the two of them have played for hours together, without any interest in what I am doing. (Very nice for me!) Ryan's favorite game is any game that Becca proposes (and directs of course.) They mostly play make believe games together. For example,

Becca: OK, Pretend that I'm a princess and you're a prince and a mean witch has stolen our baby puppy.
Ryan: OK!
Becca: Pretend that the witch is taking the puppy away and you tell her not to take away your puppy.
Ryan: Don't take away my puppy you mean witch!
Becca: The witch is getting away! Quick quick- we have to catch her!
Ryan: Oh no- let's get the witch!

And off they go. Hours of play like this. Sometimes they conspire to trick me by hiding things or passing secrets back and forth to each other. It's really fun to watch how close they are becoming and how fast they're growing up.

library kids events

The local library often has free story time activities for kids, and we try to catch them whenever we can. The last time we went, Becca was selected to help tell the story using hand puppets. She had been having a bad morning previous to this, and her face lit up like a Christmas tree to be able to perform and help the librarian with this important task.

One day, the theme was bats, and the blurb in the flyer stated that at the end, we would be able to meet the real Stellaluna (who is a bat.) The kids were excited and nervous about meeting and possibly touching a real bat. All through the program they kept asking me when the real bat was going to come out. To our surprise, the "real" Stellaluna came out instead- not a real bat. Still, the kids enjoyed having their picture taken with her.