Glimpses

We get these little glimpses of great weather....not more than a day and a half at a time it seems. But man have we had fun on these days!
Maya loves to ride the little Radio Flyer scooter while Alex rides his bike. No, we do not require her to wear a helmet for that but of course since Alex is wearing a "hat" she wants one too.
Alex was given a new to him bike by a friend in the next size up. He gave it a little try with just one training wheel but I don't think that's the way to go. Instead I think we are going to put both wheels on the big bike and take both training wheels off the little bike so he can put his feet down easily while he's learning.
The sand box is a big favorite already. That combined with the tool bench we picked up at a rummage sale last year because the wells in the tool bench collect rainwater rather nicely and that is perfect for mixing brews of all sorts.

Well written article regarding vaccinations

If you've got a minute:

Jim Carrey: The Judgement on Vaccines is In??

No pictures.

I haven't taken any pictures this week!  It stayed pretty cold and rainy on and off all week and my house is a wreck so I haven't been inspired to take pictures of anything.

Alex is starting to realize that school is almost over.  I think now that they hit "z" for their letter of the week it is sinking in!  He loves school but is excited about the idea of summer vacation too ~ so am I!  

A friend gave us a bigger bike for him to use this year and he wants to go without training wheels!  We are going to start trying this afternoon.

Swimming class is going well.  Slowly but well.  Alex very much wants to swim and wants to be able to play in the water with the big kids at the cabin this summer.....but he can't quite get over that fear of getting his face/head wet.  The teacher is great and he has relaxed a lot but still won't do the face in the water.

Maya is a daredevil.  I am allowed to take her into the pool and play during class and she loves "wimming cass".  This summer she will get a life jacket put on her immediately anytime we are near water because she has no caution or hesitation and will just go right in.

She's very chatty.  She is a bit shy though so when we are out and about she seems pretty quiet.

Her and Alex are both obsessed with the "Mama Mia!" soundtrack and sing along to most of the songs.  It's pretty funny.

This morning Alex and I walked out into the backyard to see a deer eating in the back field.  He couldn't quite see it from the house.  As we walked towards the fence the deer heard us and NINE deer went running across the field in front of us.  It was a pretty neat way to start the day!

Beautiful

Beautiful day, beautiful kids, beautiful mamas.

Today we met some friends on the grounds of the Village at Grand Traverse Commons. Sounds fancy - eh? Around here it's generally referred to as the old state hospital! Not quite as posh sounding. It's actually a pretty amazing place. There are trails and a good size natural area around the edges despite it being right in town.
We had a wonderful time looking at streams and springs and finding the "witch's house".
Streams and kids are such a great combination, the possibilities are endless when you add some leaves and sticks.

Can you find Mr. Mallard??

Look closely.....can you see him??














There he is!

It doesn't always mean trouble when they get quiet

Pretending again

The bunny brought bubbles so once again we went out to pretend it was warmer than it was.  Sunday afternoon it did get a *little* warm.  Warm enough that we busted out the hammock for the first time this year.

It was fun to watch Maya with the bubbles.  She doesn't remember seeing them before.

From there is dissolved into silliness

Easter morning

Our nest

Here is the nest I mentioned previously.  We found it at Grandma and Papa's house in the yard.   The eggs came from our trip to the rock and mineral show in Green Bay.

Crafty

Alex and I made some felted eggs also last weekend.  We used the plastic eggs from the egg hunt as a mold/frame inside the wool and machine felted them inside old nylons.  It worked great except the same agitation that made them felt nicely broke some of the eggs open.  The large one shown above is one Alex did all on his own, unfortunately it came apart and the one side slid right inside the other during the felting process.  We kept it because it still looks very cool and I love his color combination.  We had a couple other casualties as well and we cut them open and pulled the eggs out leaving the wool shell.   Alex had some fun ideas for what we could make them into.

We had been using some pieces of tulle to felt also.  Alex thought it might be fun to sew a couple pieces together to make a bag.  I gave him a tapestry needle and some embroidery floss and let him try to figure it out.  He did a great job and was making a sort of whipstitch around the edges.

Never again

I know we said this last year but really, never again.  We thought we'd try one of the community Easter egg hunts this year despite our experience last year...because this one was outside.  I don't know why they bothered to have it outside since they still roped off relatively small areas and just dumped the eggs on the grass.  So it really is not in fact a "hunt" at all but "eggs on the lawn".  The kids got some candy and some junk and seemed to have some fun just being outside with their friends.  We were there with some other families and all of us seemed to miss the memo that informed many of the other parents that this was a competitive event that required yelling and screaming at your child to motivate them to somehow win by getting more eggs.  It was actually a little scary.

But over all we got some sunshine and some fresh air and laughed a lot with some friends so it might have been worth it!

Coloring eggs