Parent Tea

Each year, the kids puts on a special program just for the parents complete with songs, artwork and slideshow.  It is such a sweet production and this year the kids were more excited than ever and kept everything a secret! They sang three songs and said the prayer for the entire group.  Their art projects and the names they come up with are absolutely precious and hilarious!

"The Colorful Worm by Max"

"The Flying Birdhouse and Sun by Kate"

Oh The Places He Will Go...

Peter has been anxiously awaiting the arrival of his new car from Germany.  This has been such a fun project for Peter.  He has spent years thinking about this car, months making careful selections, weeks planning his visit to the dealership in Germany, days driving on the autobahn and countless minutes waiting for the call that his car had arrived.  It has been a very exciting process - one that makes him, and Max, giddy with excitement!!!

Anna - 2.5 Years

Our sweet little girl is 2.5 years old!  Anna is fun, dramatic, lively, girly, creative, high spirited, affectionate, passionate, charming and loving.

Anna loves everything fiercely.  Whether it is a stuffed animal, rubber duck, princess figure or baby doll - she has a kiss, hug and cozy spot for each one.  She always has a bag filled with a special friend for the day and all of its necessary accessories. She carefully tucks in her bunny each night and kisses and hugs all the loofah sponges (shapes liked animals) in the shower.

She loves playing with Kate and Max.  She is constantly dressing up in her ballet and princess clothes and emulating Kate.  She loves to sing and dance especially if she has an audience. Anna will literally copy every word out of Kate's mouth. She loves chasing Max around with a sword or lightsaber and patch on her eye.

She wants to be involved in every activity, craft, game, story time and adventure we come up with.  She is spending more time completing craft projects.  She will listen to multiple stories in a sitting and always looking for more. Whether we are chasing geese, blowing bubbles, riding bikes or climbing rock walls, she is right in there never missing an opportunity to be involved.

Anna loves to show off what she knows.  She knows all her letter sounds and can identify some letters.  She knows "A" is for Anna, "K" is for Kate and "M" is for Max. She likes counting to ten forward and backward. Occasionally, she attempts skip counting by tens. She scribbles on a white board and is quick to explain her "drawings" to us. She is starting to ask what specific words mean as she hears them.

We are working on potty training with some success.  Kate has made a progress chart and Max is in charge of adding stickers as they are earned! So at least she gets a lot of positive attention for her achievements.

Anna is doing well with her diabetes regimen.  She continues to have large ups and downs with her sugar levels but takes it all in stride and knows a lot of medical terms! She definitely prefers her strawberry shortcake band-aids over all others. :)

She loves playing soccer, like Kate and Max, and is eager to start swim lessons and go to the pool this summer.  She also wants to do ballet and explore gymnastics... 

Our little firecracker fills our days with so much happiness, laughter and warm hearts.

Easter #2

 We had an exceptional Easter Sunday.  In addition to the Annual Egg Hunt, the kids found Easter Baskets left by Flufy Ears (Kate named him herself) the Easter Bunny, we played hard with Mimi and Pop Pop and Daddy cooked an amazing ham dinner.  It was a really relaxing day filled with fun, food, friends and family.

Kate made a basket for the Easter Bunny and he left her a thank you note in return.

 

The kids had fun looking for their baskets.  Anna followed the kids lead and was thrilled to find her own basket with a little help from her sister. Max did not waste a minute getting started on his lego project. Kate has not stopped talking about the note from Flufy Ears.

 Quality Time with Mimi and Pop Pop

Fourth Annual Egg Hunt

Since 2011, we have organized an egg hunt with our neighbors - The Mudd Family! Each year, we run into challenges with the weather but everyone is so excited and flexible that it is always a memorable event. We had to postpone the egg hunt to Easter morning because of the weather Saturday. We are so fortunate to have such a fun, flexible group of friends, neighbors and family to make this event such a success. 

 We start with lots of play time for the kids and a potluck brunch.

We gather the kids to get a picture, explain the rules and scavenger hunt and line them by age so the little ones get to lead the way to our backyard - baskets in hand.  Little ones get to get as many eggs as they want, ages 3+ have a scavenger hunt to complete and there were 32 golden eggs hidden which are then turned in for prizes.  The prize bin is monitored by a couple of middle school girls. There are a few older girls who opt out of the egg hunt but LOVE helping the little kids. It is the most fun organized chaos ever!

I absolutely love this tradition!