Spring is finally here, and I think it is finally here to stay. I am not convinced it will stick around long before summer shows up, but I am keeping my fingers crossed. Last week we had a wonderful visit with Grandma & Grandpa.
Today we spent the morning outside just enjoying the beautiful weather!
The azaleas were just beautiful!
The girls had a great time playing ball.
The teacher…
The student…
I can do that!
Because Jason and I are both engineers, we are both quite aware of the preponderance of males in engineering. In our opinion, much of that is because boys are encouraged from a young age to take things apart and to put things together – to “do” engineering things – while girls are not. So, we are determined to at least expose our girls to various engineering games/toys. If they don’t like it, no worries! But just in case they do…
To that end, Jason gave B this toy/kit for her birthday:
She loves dinosaurs, so it seemed perfect! We were quite encouraged by the fact that she asked him every day after her birthday “can we build our dinosaur today Daddy”? Every day! So, a few days after her birthday they sat down and got to work. After dinner the first night, they completed the legs and the head:
The second night they took care of the body:
The third night they put everything together.
Jason fine-tuned a couple of things after B went to bed, so the next day she had this to play with: wooden_trex_robot.mp4
Hooray!
Five? FIVE?? You can’t be serious! Unfortunately, she assures me this is true (tho she also told me she didn’t “feel” five yet).
While she started the day at school, she got to play hooky after lunch – Jason and I took her to a local tea house for afternoon tea (from her perspective, a tea party). She was very excited about this…so excited that she wore herself out during the morning and had to take a little nap to get ready for the actual party.
No worries tho, once she woke up she was ready! The tea shop provided some fun accessories so we could dress properly for High Tea…
This is probably my favorite picture:
Even Jason tried to dress the part…
After tea, we headed home to open presents before going back to school to get M (B rightly surmised it would be easier to open presents without M’s “help”).
One of the first things she opened…
Of course, she then had to wear it while she continued to open presents, and even while we walked to get M. We drew the line at dinner…that thing is not very washable…
Her Orlando trip book…
What, doesn’t Snow White carry a sword?
Ahhhhh…the teenage years are coming…
The next day, the birthday celebrations continued…I mean, who doesn’t want a birthday weekend?? Here is the birthday girl getting ready for Saturday morning Daddy time for her and M:
Of course, we needed some fresh balloons since the orange and pink ones had started to droop.
That night we went to dinner with Hawke – B picked “the place with the grits that I like and the french toast that I don’t like.” And yes, I knew exactly what she was talking about. I made a reservation for 7, but didn’t tell them anything about her birthday. Somehow, they “knew” to make it special – they gave us one of the private rooms, which was JUST PERFECT! The kids could even run around a little while we finished eating. I should have gotten a picture of our waitress, who was inadvertently dressed like Snow White. Per B’s request, she even sang Happy Birthday! To top off her nearly perfect birthday dinner, Hawke gave her a much coveted new doll.
After dinner we headed back to our house for the requested raspberry cupcakes with princess decorations.
Make a wish!
You’d think that might conclude the festivities…but you’d be wrong! Steve (Hawke’s Dad) and Jason finished the play house on Sunday (that Jason had started with Poppa the previous weekend) – this was a Christmas gift for both of the girls. It turned out great!
B declared it was not done until we put flowers in the flower boxes…
By the way, it’s not a play house…it’s a castle…
Think we are done yet? Nope! Since we took her to tea on her birthday, she didn’t get to do cake at school. Because some of the kids “don’t like princesses” B chose to get a cake with half princesses and half Star Wars.
♪Happy Birthday♪
Now we are done! I was so proud of her – not only was she very good for all of her birthday celebrations, she even did a great job of remembering and appreciating that the Orlando trip gave her most of her birthday gifts. She is growing up SO fast!
Bear with me – we had a wonderful Easter week and long weekend with lots of activities (and of course lots and lots and lots of pictures…)
The fun started when the girls’ Easter package arrived from Mim & Djadju Monday night.
M talking to her eggs…
These baskets set the tone for M – her eggs all had puffs in them, so she assumed all Easter eggs she encountered from then on out should also have puffs!
Tuesday, we headed to the girls’ school so B could participate in her egg hunt (it was quite chilly!).
Tatie Kat arrived Wednesday night and gave the girls more Easter goodies! Unfortunately, I failed to get a picture before the girls attacked…it was really quite cute! I did manage to get a picture of some of the goodies Jason and I got, that I decided to use as my Easter centerpiece:
Friday Nana & Poppa arrived! School was closed so we decorated eggs in the morning with Hawke.
M while the older kids decorated eggs:
B’s decorated eggs (mostly princess with one of Hawke’s Star Wars eggs)
Friday after naps we made cookies:
Flour face!
The finished cookies!
Shortly after we finished the cookies, and just as we were sitting down to a delicious homemade dinner by Tatie Kat, Jason arrived back home (he had been in CA for over a week). Yay!
Saturday, I spent the day doing my own thing (taking long overdue advantage of my spa gift certificates) while everyone else met up with Hawke and went to an Easter festival of sorts. There was an Easter egg hunt, rides, and face painting, among other things. The egg hunts were a little too crazy for my girls, but the rest was fun!
B entertaining/tickling M 
M mostly amused herself by watching B and giving high-fives.
That night, Jason and I had a date night while the girls spent more time with the visitors. Win-win!
Sunday morning brought more Easter surprises (tho, for some reason, I don’t have any pictures of M from this). A mere sampling of B’s surprises:
M got a dancing bear-bunny that she absolutely LOVES to dance to. Pictures don’t really convey this, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
After naps, we headed over to Hawke’s house for Easter dinner and a private egg hunt. M was up first. She did a great job, tho she really only wanted to sit down and eat the Puffs she was sure were in each egg.
Checking out her loot:
Then it was the big kids’ turn. They kindly posed for a picture first.
We hid 80+ eggs for these two, so it took them a while…
M enjoyed watching the big kids run all over.
They were quite pleased with their loot!
Apparently, the egg hunt didn’t enable them to burn off enough energy, so they headed to the trampoline to play.
It was a GREAT Easter!
