Goodbye Tyler

Tonight, our dear doggy had to be put to sleep. He was very sick and in a lot of pain. Mommy and Daddy said that this was for the best.
We will miss our "special" dog, named Tyler. He will always be remembered for his ability to escape any barrier that was put around him, for his love/hate friendship with all of his neighborhood doggy friends (e.g. Ernie), and his tolerance for allowing any child to pull his ears and tail.

We will miss you!

Let's Play and Do Lunch!

Liz, Lauren and Ryan joined us for lunch and some fun on this rather nice spring day.

We decided to take out the beans and play with them in our water table. Everyone enjoyed pouring, filling and scooping the beans into different containers.
Since, we didn't have our Muffin Tin Monday yesterday, we decided to share our muffin tin lunch with the "Z" family. We read a fun pop-up book about colors, therefore our food included many colors!
Color Menu:
Red-cherry jello
Orange- cantaloupe and other mixed fruit
Green -peas
Blue/Purple- Fruit Loops
White- bow tie pasta

Thanks for coming over to play!!!

Introducing...Little Elsie the Cow

"Elsie"

Born: Saturday, April 25th 2009

Here is Elsie's Mommy. Her name is Rosie.
Elsie is a so cute. She seems to be a strong calf, especially since her first full day of life was spent in the rain!
Congrats Grandma Judy and Papa on your new addition to your animal family!

Dinos at the Discovery Museum

We had a blast learning about the prehistoric creatures that roamed Lake County many, many years ago. Amelia is pretending to be a paleontologist by searching carefully for fossils in the sand.

"I found a fossil, Daddy!"

After, digging for dinosaurs we went to the praire land activity room. I am pretending to be an animal crawling through this big log.

This tree stump was surprisingly fun! Once you gathered some leaves and feathers, you put them into a hole in the stump and whoosh! All the leaves and feathers come flying out!

Amelia thought this was really cool, too!

This is called a Wigwam. The Native Americans that lived here in the plains built them out of tree branches and bark and lived in them. We were confused when Mommy told us that it was a house that the Natives lived in, but I wanted to know where was the bathroom in there?


The second part of the museum was all about the history of Lake County. There were many things for us kiddos to explore. This was a neat boat that you could take a pretend ride through the Lotus Beds while sitting back enjoying a nice picnic. Amelia and I had fun jumping and climbing all over the boat. Amelia thought it was a lot of fun to dump the food and plates on the floor of the boat. Don't worry I helped clean up the mess!

We had a wonderful Saturday just hanging out with the family. For starting the day with no plans (for once), we ended up doing a bunch of fun things. After the museum, Daddy took us out to eat at a restaurant that was over looking the lake. Then, we headed home to take a much needed rest. When we woke up, we got ready to head to Nana and Papa Bob's house for dinner, to see them before they take their trip to Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia.
Wow, we were totally exhausted by the end of the day!!!

Baseball or...Bird!!!

While Amelia was finishing her nap, Mommy and I played outside in the fresh cut grass.

"Um...batter where did you go?"

"Mommy! A bird!!!"

"Why did the birdie fly away?" James asked with a puzzled face.

"Well, maybe it was the 3 year old that ran screaming right for him?"

So, we talked about how we need to be quiet if we would like to see animals and birds up close.

Poor birdie!

Another Fun Day at the JCC!

Today, our friends Hailey, Baby Oliver and their Mommy Dawn joined us at the JCC. I think they had just as much fun as we did!
Ready? 1...2...3!!!! Crash!!!!

"That will be $23.87, please."

"Come again soon!"

MTM: Letter D

Muffin Tin Monday

Letter D

For the past several weeks we have been working on a letter of the week. We are currently talking about the letter D. Today, we had a "delicious D" lunch. Really, the only thing that I had on hand was delicious Doritos! So, like always I like to use cookie cutters to make food fun.

Today's Menu:

Letter "D" Bananas

Letter "D" Cheese

Letter "D" bread

Delicious Doritos

"Darn good" ham

Delectable Carrots

Book: Alphabet Mystery

By: Audrey and Bruce Wood

This is a fun book about the missing letter X in the alphabet and the adventure of the fellow letters in the hunt to find their missing friend. This is a great book focusing the less popular letter X. I think when it comes time to discover the letter X, we might need reread this cleaver book again!

Picnic in Park

After hitting the awesome garage sales (two days in a row!) our mommies promised us a picnic in the park. Yesterday, we walked garage sale to garage sale with Nana, Heather, Joshua, Liz, Lauren, Ryan and their Grandma Sue. Some of our finds included some clothes, books, and a toy guitar!!! Today, Missy and Baby Makayla joined us. It was a beautiful day to spend the entire day outside!

Josh and I just swingin' in the breeze!
The sand digger is so cool!!!

Rockin' on the firetruck?

I can't remember what that thing was suppose to be, oh well!

If we continue to stop at all of the neighborhood parks, garage sales won't be such a bad thing for us kiddos!

A Playdate with the "Z" Family!

Ryan is so silly!!!
"What's so funny James?"

It's snack time!

It can be rather difficult to get four kiddos to all turn and smile at the camera!

Thanks Liz for allowing all of us (Baby Thomas and his Mommy, too) to come play and have lunch as a "plan B" since our favorite play center was mysteriously closed today!

We played hard which resulted in napping hard once we got home and into our beds! (Mommy thanks you!)
We are looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow!!!

(Let garage sale season begin!!!)

Happy Birthdays...

Happy Birthday Dear Auntie Annie...
Happy Birthday Uncle Luke!!!

We celebrated their birthdays on Easter Sunday and Auntie Rita made each of their birthday cakes to suit their personal tastes! Didn't she do a fantastic job?!

We hope you both have a wonderful birthday today!!!

A Playdate with Joshers

"Alright boys, hit it!"

"It's story time, who wants to read first?"

Joshua, thanks again for a great play date and yummy lunch. Next time our place, just have your Mommy call our Mommy!

Easter Dinner

Easter Dinner at Papa Bob and Nana's House

Nana told us that the Easter Bunny stopped at their house too, but this time he hid our Easter Baskets and special treats around the house!!! Amelia found her basket by Nana's piano!!!"Come on Nana, let's see what is inside my basket!"

Even Uncle Luke said that the Easter Bunny left some special gifts for each of us, mine was hiding in his bedroom! This is the one of the coolest dinosaur sets I ever seen!!!

Amelia found this silver package with her name on it by the bookcase.
Inside the wrapping was a pretty princess wooden puzzle! Our baskets were filled with really fun things such as Matchbox cars, dino t-shirt, and football flyer in mine and Amelia's had a Dora and Diego dolls, a Peter Rabbit book and an adorable pink summer outfit. We both got animal crackers and cool water squirters too!

After, we had found all of the Easter gifts we headed outside to play with the animals.
"The view from up here is amazing!=)"

Since it was so beautiful outside, Nana saddled up the pony and took on pony rides!

"Look everyone! I'm doing it!!! I am sitting and riding on the pony!!!"

Nana brought April the pony to Amelia's first birthday party to give pony rides, and Amelia was too scared to even sit on April at that time! You are such a big girl now, Amelia Grace!!!

We had a wonderful dinner and had a blast spending time with the entire family! Thanks for a great ending to a perfect Easter Day!

Easter Breakfast

Easter Breakfast at Papa and Grandma Judy's House!

Wow, the Easter Bunny left things for us in our baskets at Grandma Judy and Papa's house too!

We received some cool new books, toys and a chocolate bunny each!!!

"James, I can see you!"
"Take just a little bite at a time."

(Papa was being very careful by holding on the small chocolate egg as I took tiny bits so I wouldn't choke, he such a good Papa!)

Uncle Peter and Aunt Jeannine said the Easter Bunny left two Easter bags filled with things for Amelia and I at their house too! In my bag was an awesome John Deere Tractor shirt, green camo pants and a box of new Matchbox cars (I slept with the box of cars later that night!) Amelia's bag had a pink fuzzy new jacket, a set of travel size counting books and super fluffy doggy. We also got two huge playground balls for outside fun!!!

Thanks Easter Bunny for making extra stops and leaving us wonderful goodies along the way!!! Amelia and I are having fun discovering all of our new things!!!

After a delicious breakfast, we all headed outside to play with our new pink and blue balls and to blow some bubbles!

Guess who we saw on the other side of the fence...

Papa Bob and Nana of course!!!

No, Uncle Peter is not defying gravity! Papa has been a very busy guy lately, he cut down 4 big trees the day before and Uncle Peter could not resist climbing the fallen tree. Of course I wanted to climb up there with him, but Mommy said I was too small. Maybe next year I will be climbing up or sideways on trees!!!

"Uncle Peter you are so silly!!!"

(Daddy and Uncle Peter were trying to create a little picture magic, but Uncle Peter needs to work on his terrified face!"

Just before we started to head next door for Easter dinner, Uncle Jim and Aunt Jill arrived. We were so happy to be able to see them on Easter too!

Thanks again Papa and Grandma Judy for a wonderful Easter Breakfast and all of the Easter goodies!