March Photo Dump

What else have we been up to this month?

Michael tries to keep the kids active at night.  If the weather is nice, they sometimes go to the park.  They've also been going swimming at the gym.  Of course, the kids love both of these options!

Typical Logan--snowman headband, pink bib, and a wagon full of fun.

Basketball anyone?

Ariel? Is that you?

Batman and Olivia

Posing

This kid.

He loves blankets.  Sometimes, he likes to use rugs as a blanket.  He's a weird one. ;)

Logan has taken to these two little friends.  The bear was given to Olivia by my dad years ago.  It's now Logan's favorite little friend.  He sleeps with him every night.  And the frog use to be Little Man's.  He gave it to Olivia, and now Logan has confiscated that as well.

We didn't have anything going on one weekend, and we needed out of the house.  So we tried out a new little neighborhood restaurant.

and then we walked around Cabela's.  The kids loved looking at the animals, checking out the boats and 4 wheels, and Olivia likes to shoot the bow and arrow (like Merida!).  Free entertainment!

Olivia got a small set of magnatiles for Christmas. They are very popular, but also very expensive.  So we started small to see how they would like them.  They didn't show much interest at first, but now they are a favorite toy around here.  Logan especially likes to build with them.  Open ended toys for the win!

We are getting to the point where we can spend more time outside.  Both of our camp chairs broke (they were old and worn), so I bought this old school lawn chair to have a place to sit while the kids play.  They thought it was the best thing ever and fought over sitting in it.

Cutie!

Every spring MOPS does a meeting called Tea and Testimony.  They send out formal invitations, have the meal catered in, and everyone is suppose to dress up.  The mentor moms decorate the tables all nice and fancy.  Then 3 of the moms from the group share their own personal testimony.  It is always a favorite meeting.  Here are most of the girls from my table!

Olivia usually only gets her kindle during Logan's nap.  She has some game apps that we've bought her in the past, but her current favorite is Starfall.com which is free and educational!  She doesn't always choose to use her kindle during rest time. Sometimes she spends all of her time coloring and drawing.  This is one of those days where Logan chose not to nap, but I let her play anyway.  She was teaching Logan how to use it.

He set his friends up at the table with him to have some breakfast.  Sweet boy!

Drawing fruits and vegetables

:)

More magnatile fun!

This kids and his shirt... I found him like this again this month.

(Don't mind the protruding ribs. He eats. I promise.)

If you are on Facebook,  then you saw this.  We were doing the little egg hunt at our church, and he was pouting because he had to wait. 

and then this! There were golden eggs that had special prizes in them. This is Michael telling her that is not a golden egg. LOL!

She's getting adventurous in her eating!  Michael and I had a salad for dinner one night and she decided that she wanted one.  So this is her eating her first ever salad.  She talked about it for a full day until it was dinner time!

Helping make homemade biscuits.

Note: Apparently I only take pictures when my kids are in their pajamas.  Geez.

"I'm an artist, after all"

Saturday morning was the first day to register for our local VBS.  So while I was thinking of summer, I started researching classes and mini camps.  Olivia has been begging to take some type of art class. ANY type of art class.  She always says, "I'm an artist, after all.  What am I suppose to do?"  Ha ha!

So after looking at some options, I got inspired to let her be a little artist in our kitchen.

I brought in our easel, and I had an extra canvas for her to use.

I put some paint on a paper plate and explained how artists used a palette.

and, of course, what one does the other must do...

If you've read for any length of time, then you know she is all about primary colors and secondary colors.  She knows if you mix red and blue you get purple.  Or if you mix red and yellow you get orange.  But some of the more odd mixtures throws her off.  So I told her the only way to know would be to actually mix paints.

They were so cute.  Olivia would come over and look at Logan's painting and tell him how good it was, and that he was a little artist too.  Then later, after Logan got down, he went over and looked at hers and said, "Wow! Good job!".  My little encouragers! They melted my heart.  They are getting closer and closer as Logan grows, and it is so fun to watch.

I think parents are doing a disservice by telling their kids they can do anything or be anything.  Then enrolling them in every little thing possible.  We don't want our kids to think that they can be good at everything (hello, participation trophies).  They can't be good at everything.  BUT, they can be great at something!  And if art is her something, then I am going encourage and help her grow that to the best of my ability.

My little artists

The finished product

She sat down to admire her work. Ha!  And then promptly told me to take a picture and send it to Boppa.  Her biggest cheerleader! ;)

Easter 2016

We got home from date night on Saturday night and set out all of our Easter goodies.

We kept the kid's baskets pretty simple this year.  They got coloring books, bubbles, binoculars, sidewalk chalk, a chocolate bunny, a pair of sandals, and 2 peeps.  Aside from the shoes, we spent less than $10 each.  I'm just so tired of the junk.  And after working Good Friday and seeing all of the materialistic consumerism I was even more thankful that we kept it simple.  Blah!

My mom always sends money (to save on shipping), so I picked out the Color Wonder stuff and the Water Wow books.  First of all, my kids LOVE these Color Wonder pages.  Logan got a pack for his birthday and they fought over it constantly.  But I also chose it because I was thinking of practical.  The big cases in the back are travel boxes that double as clipboards.  Perfect for our 18+ hour drive coming up in May.  They can color and the markers only work on the special paper. So I don't have to worry about my car.  (Of course, Olivia has already colored half of her princess book!)

And when Michael's mom asked what she could get, I once again thought ahead to our trip.  We have a kindle for both of the children to use, but we thought headphones would be nice.  In case we want to be listening to something else in the car.  Or.. so we don't have to hear the same thing over and over and over.  Which sometimes happens with those games!  Olivia has already tested it out and loves them!

Checking out the goods

"I see you!"

both of them are using them backwards! :)

Instead of putting the eggs in their basket this year, we hid a few around the house.

Logan got 10 and Olivia got 11. There were things like jelly beans, mini nilla wafers, craisins, and some recycled candy from our other hunts. ;)

and one empty egg... because He is no longer in the tomb.

He Is Risen!

We ate breakfast, got ready, and headed to church.

Our church had an Easter egg hunt after each service (hello, smart!).  So we did that real quick.  Then we headed to lunch at a local cafe.  Simple and no stress for mommy!  We had a nice, relaxing, family day at home the rest of the day.  Sweet perfection!

Dying Eggs

We did our annual dying of the eggs on the Saturday afternoon before Easter.

Last year we did it during Logan's nap, so this was his first time to participate!

They both drew on an egg with the special crayon.

Oh, this sweet baby!

Olivia focused on purple

while Logan focused on {his forced 'favorite color' of} green

Making the same face!

This is fun!

We added stickers to a few of them.

Our finished product!

Now if I could just get someone else to eat hard boiled eggs...  ;)