That Time of the Year

I always know it's going to rain when the lilacs are just about to be open enough to cut some. We snuck out between showers to catch our annual pics of Ethan in the lilacs. I told him they are my favorite flower and he said "mine too!"

School Work

This is art from letter "Y" week, they filled in the letters with yarn.

I was pretty impressed by this. He doesn't like using multiple colors or cutting things out himself. One day when I picked him up his teacher took me over to show it to me, she said he was very careful and took a lot of time making it.

This is Ethan's Gorilla for the letter G.

These are flowers for me :)

And an Otter- they do these worksheets every week.

Outside

Sunday

After finding some bagels for breakfast, we headed over to the Empire State Building. None of us had done the tour before, so we thought we would check it out. The visibility was great and it was nearly as terrifying as I had anticipated. I'm not much for high narrow places or elevators, but it was ok. We found some bbq for lunch across the street from Penn Station, then put Amber on the train back to Providence and headed home. We played outside for a little while until it started raining then came in for movie night since we're all pretty beat.

Saturday

Saturday we drove in to New York where we met up with Candace and Andrew. We headed for the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, then on over to Union Square Park to check out the market. We soaked up some sunshine and had some burgers and shakes. After wandering around a lot we went back to the hotel so we could get Ethan and Amber settled in for the evening before a group of us went out for dinner. They had pizza in the room.

More Birthday

Friday morning Ethan and I made James a nice breakfast of cornmeal cheddar waffles and sausage. Then we gave him his presents from Ethan, three mini golf holes that they get to build together. Then it was off to work and school.




The museums opened for the season Friday, so James got Amber from the train station (she joined us in NY for the weekend) and picked up Ethan and we all met for dinner in Woodbury. We came home to have some lethal chocolate peppermint birthday cake.

Happy Birthday James!

Happy Easter!

We spent Easter in North Carolina this year for the first time since the year before Ethan was born. We had a great time. Not only did we get to visit with Grandma and Pa, but the Alexanders made the long trek up from Georgia to spend the weekend with us. We packed in as much as we could, and with the help of James and Jonathan, we even got some time to visit without little interruptions. We had lots of fun family time too. On Thursday night, we all arrived in time to go out for dinner.

Friday started out on the rainy side, so we dyed our Easter eggs then. The kids had fun seeing what happened if you used multiple colors, blocking colors with rubber bands and stickers, and playing with the dinosaur egg holders.
After the eggs, it cleared off and we headed to the zoo. It was quite busy, but we managed to check out their new dinosaur exhibit and see the gorillas and elephants before heading out for lunch.
Later we ordered pizza for dinner and took a tour of Grandma and Pa's property. We visited the ducks and Ethan instructed everyone where to walk. Then he showed his friends his Leapster Explorer.


Saturday morning the guys headed back to the zoo with the kids. The ladies went to the potteries. They managed to see all the animals they missed on Friday as well as revisit the dinosaur exhibit. The number of people made Friday look like the place was empty. When we finished with the potteries, Barbara and I were planning to meet them inside the zoo- when we saw that the line to get in was all the way across the bridge and up to the second parking lot, we decided we would meet them back at the house instead.


Later that afternoon, which turned out to be sunny and beautiful, we headed to the mini golf course. It was fun to watch the kids- Ethan had a hard time keeping the golf club on the ground, not realizing he could do some serious damage if he hit someone with it. 18 holes is still a little long for him, but he's getting the hang of it.

After dinner on Saturday, we did some cake decorating. We made a bunny cake and some mini bundt cakes. The Easter Bunny came and filled baskets. The three crocheted baskets were from me, not the Easter bunny. Those are bunny egg cozies you see inside.

The kids were all thrilled with their goodies from the bunny. Once they went through their baskets we did a bunny hat craft to try to let it warm up a little before we headed outside for the egg hunt.
 
They all had a lot of fun finding the eggs. The Easter Bunny hid them in the grass, which sounds easy but they were actually hard to see.
 
The bunny put seeds in the eggs he hid outside so the kids decided to plant them. They also had some fun blowing dandelion seeds.
 
After lunch, our friends headed back to Georgia. We spent some time outside playing. Grandma and Pa got a kite for Ethan and I am not sure who had more fun flying it. We also played ball a little and planted some pansies.