Easter/Passover with my fam

I know, I'm way behind but there are some cute pics from our Easter/Passover celebration with my side of the family this year.

Chris showing my grandmother pictures on his iphone-she was amazed!

I have no idea what she was doing but she looks mean doing it 

Buggy!

For a good month now Sadie has had a new friend...not Madi or Molly (though she loves them), we have entered the world of imaginary friends.  Ella has never had an imaginary friend or played pretend much, she's just a pretty realistic kid (like me!) and isn't drawn to fantasy. Sadie however, is proving to already like pretend play (she'll start barking and crawling on all 4s and say "Mommy?  Doggy?" and want me to pretend with her).  It's super cute because she just seems so young to understand/make up her own games and now, a little friend.

Basically, Sadie really likes bugs.  She's seen a lot more of them since spring started early this year and wants to watch them, talk to them, and touch them.  I guess bugs not being available whenever she wanted to see them brought about "buggy."  One day she started holding her hands together, carefully cupped one over the other, and would NOT separate them.  She took an entire bath that night crying, standing up, with her hands together like that.  I had no idea what was going on and she wasn't explaining yet.  But, with the recent nursemaid's elbow situation I was scared when she wouldn't move her arms down.  Nonetheless, she seemed able to move, just didn't want to.  The next morning when i came into her room she clasped her hands together and said "buggy!" And I started to get it...she was pretending to hold a bug.  She then proceeded to get really excited if I asked if she had a bug in her hands and nodded excitedly.  I asked if I could see it and she let me peek into her hands and was ecstatic when I played along and oooed and ahhed over "buggy."  Then she proclaimed buggy "all gone" and asked to get out of bed.

Since then, every day for almost a month, buggy usually shows up.  If you ask her about it, she'll hold her hadns out and let you "see" him or she'll say he's "on the wall" or "on the floor" or "all gone."  Not sure how long her bug love will last (Ella's already showed her quite a different reaction to bugs- screaming and say ewwww whenever she sees one).  But, we're capitalizing on it.  She will sit on the floor and watch and talk to a bug for a long time.  We watched an ant hill on a walk the other day for a good 10 minutes. She played with a caterpillar a the park the other day for 20 minutes.  And I took her to the Science Center for a bug exhibit and she loved it while the other kids with us thought it was gross.  It's really fun to indulge her love of bugs and "buggy" and I'm interested to see what other fun things come from this little girl who is proving to be quite different from #1.

Mother's Day 2012

This Mother's Day we went to church (we've become 8 o'clock service people-it's kind of insane but we have a WHOLE day left afterwards which is worth it), then we brought donuts to Chris' mom and grandmother and visited for a couple hours which was really nice.  Then we headed home, switched out our gear and headed to my Aunt and Uncle's weekend home on the river.  My whole fam was there and we had a good time celebrating.  Highlights: Ella and Jason (Marissa's BF) "swimming" in the jacuzzi til they were pruny, grilling and s'mores, Marissa being cutely pregnant and not sick anymore!, my 93 year old grandmother wearing Sadie's hat, Sadie having a bubble machine and half a dozen willing adults blowing bubbles for her for HOURS.  Exhausting and full day but good :-)

Mother's Day Craft

Pinterest rocks my world.  Found this idea there and it worked really well! 

1. Choose some fun clay colors. Sadly, our bright colors were the generic Michael's brand which was really hard to work with (cracked, didn't take impressions well, really stiff) so mostly used the silver Sculpey brand.  Apparenly name brand clay is worth splurging on.

2. Roll out the clay

3. Use cookie cutters (or freehand if you're fancy) to cut out whatever shape you like

4. Let the 6 year old calmy, expertly make thumb imprints on each piece of clay

5. Hold down the shrieking 1 year old and force her to put a finger, any finger on the clay

 (Not Pictured...it was kinda ugly)

6. Let Daddy take the 1 year old to bed and continue craftiness with the older one

7. Put the thumbprinted hearts on a tray and bake according to the package instructions

8. After they cool you can paint/spray with a sealant.  We decided to make them into key rings so we made holes in one corner before baking and then put a key ring in it.

9. Give them to lots of happy moms, grandmothers and great-grandmothers!

So...I graduated!!

Graduation pics are forthcoming but here are some from the party!

3 Teeth gone!

Ella lost her first tooth at school and couldn't find it so she made this to leave under her pillow for the tooth fairy!

Ella has lost 3 teeth!  The first was February 3rd then April 30th, then today, May 7th!  It's been a fun right of passage for me to relive the wiggling with your tongue, and the nasty salt water gargling when the tooth came out and the funny gaps when the tooth is gone.  It's also been fun to be the tooth fairy!  Ella pretty much knows we're the tooth fairy but I think she wants to believe so we all kind of pretend like it's real :-)  It's fun to have some wonder and "magic" when you're six :-)  So, off to play my tooth fairy role for tooth number 3!  Love having a big kid!