My Little Sidekick...

Sara (who turns TWO today!) and I flew to Seattle last Thursday to attend a memorial for my uncle who passed away last week.  It's just the two of us and we are both enjoying this one on one time together.

The big kids stayed home with Jim and they're having their share of fun as well.

But for now, it's just me and my girl until we fly home tomorrow.

She catches on...

Does your youngest child catch on quickly too?  When each of our older children were turning two we didn't have things like helmets and scooters for them to play with.  Infact they were three and five when they got their first scooters.  But, now that we've had some time to play outside Sara has gravitated to what her sister does.

And that's, you guessed it.  Ride the scooter.

I mean, look at her go!  I have to say she's pretty good at it too.  Yes, it does have three wheels and all, it's not like she's having to balance but there is not an ounce of tentativeness in her.  It's just go with gusto. 

Way to go girlie.  So proud of you.

We had some fun this weekend...

Jim had the students on a weekend leadership retreat, so what did we do?  We packed up and joined him of course.  This is the first time we've been able to do this and the kids had a fabulous time.  I did too.  Lots of outside fresh air time and the kids got to eat hot dogs and hamburgers and share a bedroom, with a sink in it; boy did they think that was cool.

Jim and I went on plenty retreats when we were in college and our campus ministry director's wife (whew!) would usually bring her family of three little kids and pal up with other wives in the ministry.  There are no other wives here for me to pal up with like that but I love that we are sort of reliving our college years in some way by bringing our kids to these types of functions.

I could stare at these pictures all day.  I absolutely love them.  The one of Sara's hand on the swing is one I took of Ella Jane when she was just about the same age.  We have it hanging in our entryway but when I went to look for the file of it, I was out of luck.  I have no idea why I can't find that but if I do, I'll post 'em side by side.  So cute.

And Matthew on the turn thingy?  It has a name but it escapes me at the moment.  He loved this thing and was on it every chance he got.  Never photographed it but he was often times laying down in the middle, hands behind his head, eyes closed, smile on his face.  This boy can make me crazy sometimes but when I see him like that, I think I'm getting a peek into that sweet sweet spirit of his.  So thankful for the glimpse.

"Run Mama!"...

These are words I am hearing a lot these days.  Now that the weather has turned we are doing a lot of walking to and from preschool, and pushing the stroller to and from preschool, and running with the stroller to and from preschool.

Soooo.......

I am hearing a lot of "Run mama!, Run!" from Sara.

And...

"C'mon mom!, Run!" from Ella Jane.

I can't help but oblige.

At the end of the day, this mama is plain worn out.  That and taking care of our family for the past two weeks while a stomach bug has worked its way through all of the kids and hubby too.  But, in his defense, he took care of himself.

We're back to health now (thank goodness) and back to enjoying popscicles on the deck and tempted to let the kids stay up way past their bedtimes now that it's light out so late.  When we're all sleeping past 7:00am we know we're tired!  Loving school days but looking forward to having kids home for the summer.

We love our nature center...

Some of the things we have been a part of recently have been The Owl Prowl; where we learn about the owls in our area and then go out in the dark and call for them (and they really do call back!), made bird houses for the bluebirds in our area (although ours still remains empty), snowshoeing, pulling sleds (of course) and now Easter Egg Dying! 

Apparantly the juice of a few berries can go a long way.  We dyed eggs using remnants from cranberries, walnuts, onions, and rose hip.  Some gave great color, others did not.  I liked the walnuts the best.  It gave a real 'bird's egg' look to the egg.  And it was just pretty.  If it wasn't a hard boiled egg I think it could be a deoration.

While we waited for our eggs to be dyed we did a few crafts like the flower you see in Matthew's hand above.  Ella Jane is hard at work spelling her name here which is why her mouth is open.

We colored...

and said "Ta Daa!" (this really is what she is saying here)

And perhaps the most favorite craft of the night was of course these little jelly bean carrots.  Does her face not crack you up?  When I pulled this picture up I just loved it.  It still makes me smile.

We are almost never out at night because the kids go to bed at 7:00pm (and this event took place in the evening) but this was well worth the extra effort!

Dying Easter Eggs...

We're off to our Nature Center tonight to learn how to dye Easter eggs without using the store bought dye.  Sounds like it'll be interesting and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you through pictures and stories.

In the meantime, we've been having some wonderful spring weather which reminds me that I need to get on the ball and update my header.  No more mittens and snow for us! 

And now that it is so warm we are taking advantage of the fact that we live really close to our elementary school (a few blocks) and preschool (a mile).  Unless it's SUPER cold or we're running late we walk Matthew to school in the morning's.  And now walking Ella Jane (and picking her up) to her preschool has become a regular part of our week.  What a great way to fit in a little exercise and Matthew gets the independence and experience of riding his bike on a sidewalk.  It's been a great start to the season.

Because I love the colors...

I love how bright the snow is when the sun is shining and how vibrant Ella Jane's hat looks.

Back when we had snow I took to pulling the kids in the sled.  A friend let me onto this idea and boy did we have fun with it.  We even had a snowfall once where the plow didn't come to our neighborhood until close to 10:00am.  We had a whole street full of snow to traipse around in.  (usually they come in and salt the roads during the night so by the time you're ready to go out the pavement is already exposed).

A few steps back...

To when we had snow...

I took all three kids to our Nature Center and pulled them on the sled.  Lately we've been spending a lof of time out there.  It's such a fun place to be. 

We had a lot of fun, but I may have gotten the sled going a little too fast and tipped it a teeny tiny bit.  Which caused a few tears.  Well, a lot of tears because Sara was the one that went toppling off.  Fair enough.  If I had snow in my face and down my coat I'd probably cry too.  I'm not very tough that way and I hate being cold.

But I didn't get any pictures of that because I had to scoop up poor Sara who had decided she'd much rather be at home than out in the wilderness.  We managed to pick ourselves up (literally) and get going again but not before we had a few more meltdowns.  Oh well, it still was a really fun day.  I'm looking forward to doing it again next year.