First family walk of the season

It was in the 50s today with the sun shining which means we tried to spend as much time outside as we could.

We took a walk around the block, the kids rode scooters, we went to an Easter egg hunt at a friends house, and just sat on the porch for awhile.

It was pretty fantastic to be outside.  I haven't been outside with the children since our sledding day in December.  Between illnesses and the bitter cold, that's the last time I was outside other than walking from my car to whatever building I needed to enter.

Lilly is pretty fast on her scooter and pretty fearless.  They both took a bunch of spills with no crying.

Did I mention how exciting it was to be outside?

This afternoon our friends hosted an Easter egg hunt in their yard.  They provided 620 filled eggs, hid them all over their property and divided the kids up into 4 age groups.

This is only about half the group. Our friends are good people.

On Thursday, Jack's preschool class had an egg hunt.  Each child brought in 12 eggs with each of the students names written on the egg, then each student had to hunt for their own name.  I thought this was brilliant to help 3-4 year old's identify their names. As a result every egg that Jack picked up he asked me "Which guy is this?" Then I told him it was his, and he was so happy. Then he asked me what color it was and by the end, he didn't collect too many eggs.  Most of the 18 month old's beat him out.

Lilly was in the "1st grade and up" category in the front of the house so I didn't get any pictures of her, but she had a blast which is all that matters.

This year I refused to participate in any community egg hunts and we were all much happier.  Last year by the time Easter actually arrived I think we had participated in 5 egg hunts.  This year we only did one, and that is our new family tradition.

Looking forward to more warm weather!

iPhone Update

Sometimes while Jack and I watch cartoons in bed I can trick him into cuddling or holding hands with me. It's always the best part of my day.  I am also training him to say "I love you" when I say it to him.  His normal response is "Thank you." He is going to break a lot of girls hearts.

Jack's baby hands make my hands feel old.  My hands also feel old when I teach small children piano lessons all week and I have to demonstrate next to their tiny hands.

Jack loves his superman shirt.  He wore it 5 days and nights in a row before I could pry it off his little body and put it in the washer.  I hid it in the laundry basket for a few days, and he asked me for it 3x a day while it was being washed.  He took matters into his own hands and dug through a pile of clean laundry to find it again. It's so sweet and I love that he wants to wear it so much.  He will sometimes correct us when we call him Jack and say "No, I'm superman."

I never had a mobile for Jack when he was a baby, and that was clearly a mistake.

Sometimes I can convince Jack to help me bake something, he likes to turn on the mixer and watch it mix.

Lilly was able to hold her newest cousin, baby Brooke.

Jim took Lilly for donuts one morning before school, she was so excited.

Another Superman shirt day.........

This update has been brought to you by my phone pictures.

My birthday

I still think birthdays are fun, especially when they are on a Friday and you plan lots of fun stuff to do.  My mom gave me the best present, she booked a hotel so we could get away for the night and the stayed with my children for the night.

Jim and I headed to Hershey while my mom took the kids out to dinner and then to Lilly's basketball game.

Jim and I spent the next day in Hershey.  We had lunch with my college roommate and her family.  She has three cute girls and I realized that we graduated college 10 years ago. How do these things happen so fast?  Jim and I toured Chocolate world and had a good time in general.

33 weeks pregnant on my 33rd birthday.  (This was true until I went into the hospital the following week and those jerks changed my due date and pushed it back, so in reality I was only 32 weeks, but at the time I believed I was 33 weeks and it brought me happiness.)

I also bought myself this shirt as a birthday present:

It is the greatest shirt I have ever owned and I will save it for my daughters to wear.

Jack also got an equally cool shirt from Grandma that weekend.

The kids had a great time being spoiled by Grandma.

When we got home Saturday evening Lilly and Grandma had picked out a birthday cake for me.

Birthdays with my children are the best. They make birthdays way more fun and give my life way more meaning.  This is me telling Jack that he makes my life better and this is Jack is mad because I made him sit on my lap for a picture.

Baltimore Aquarium

The Saturday after I started to feel better from my sinus infection we went to the Baltimore Aquarium with my dad.  I have no idea which Saturday that was, but I believe it was in February and I am sure it was in 2013.  I started the day out with some energy and excitement but being almost 8 months pregnant and recovering from a sinus infection quickly sucked the life out of me and I ended up taking a nap in the car which was parked near the harbor. It was still a fun day trip to beat some of the winter blahs.

Jack was pretty scared of this megalodon jaw.

I was so excited to show Jack and Lilly the aquarium and I think they had a great time.  I became pretty bitter with the aquarium when I discovered that one of their main attractions was shut down, the ray tank.  Instead of having the ray tank filled with sand sharks and rays it was empty and holograms of rays and sharks swimming on the floor. I seemed to be one of the only people who had a problem with that.

The aquarium might have been the most crowded I have ever seen it, despite their closed main attraction and as a result there were not a lot of pictures taken.  In fact I had the camera over my shoulder and it knocked into the head of a small girl.  She was fine. Also the aquarium is really dark and not prone to great photo opportunities.

Lilly loved to see all the different types of fish on display, but Jack was extremely nervous and wouldn't get too close to the glass.  He held my hand and kept his distance.

Here is the only photo that was taken with my dad for the day.

It's always a good day when you can see sharks.

After the aquarium we ate at a delicious Lebanese restaurant and then drove back home. I love the aquarium and I look forward to returning after the sting ray tank has been remodeled and when no one else is visiting.

February is over!!!

This post is brought to you by my phone pictures.

I was so focused on illnesses this winter and my low iron and my miserable pregnant self that I completely forgot to focus on the fact that I DESPISE February.

(Our front yard and driveway)

Luckily for me I didn't remember how much I loath February until today, March 4.  Now it's over and we can rejoice that surely spring will be here soon!!

Seriously though, this was an awful February.  Snow and slush, lots and lots of doctor visits and antibiotics for 50% of our house.  I might be suffering from February PTSD.  The sun doesn't come around here too often in the winter.  In fact, one afternoon Jack found the sun and started jumping up and down saying "The Sun! I FOUND IT!"

Now I am just going to post my phone pictures from the last month and pretend like it's one cohesive story.

That is a pile of books.  Jack let me read him every single one of those books in one sitting AND he listened to each story.  This is major news. It was such a big deal to me that I took a picture of the pile of books.

That is a picture of our newly cracked TV that was broken during a Wii incident.  At the beginning that was the worst of the damage, however that crack and pixel damage has spread throughout the rest of the TV and the TV has now been rendered useless.  However the sound still works for when we like to listen to our movies.  (Jack was jumping on my arm while I was trying to take that picture which is why they are so blurry.)

Before the TV was rendered useless Jack and I did watch Tangled.  It was a nice break from Cars, Cars 2, and Toy Story.

As you can see Jack is quite the zombie in front of the TV (and iPad).  I work really hard to limit his screen time for that very reason.  Remember the pile of books??

Here is sweet Lilly in her Valentine's day outfit. It's pretty obscene the amount of sugar these kids receive at school parties.  Each kid was handed a variety of 3 cookies, cupcakes, brownies, jello with whip cream, and apple slices.  I am happy to say that I brought the apple slices! Then they received a bag filled with Valentines, most of which had candy attached to them.

Jim brought me flowers for Valentines day (tulips, one of my favorites).  He planned to make dinner but out of the blue after school Lilly spiked a fever of 102.5.  Jim and I had bad colds as well, suffice it to say we picked up take out that evening. She ended up with strep throat and a fever for 3 days.  Then I went on to have the worst sinus infection of my life.  I was ready for emergency surgery to have my sinuses removed, but apparently that's not a thing.

On one of our many sick days I baked something and enlisted the help of Lilly and Jack on the counter.  Surprisingly, Jack stayed to help the longest.

The bear was not as helpful as you might think.

Due to the excessive amounts of sickness we have had to cancel date nights, piano lessons, babysitters, weekend trips, church and school, and pretty much anything else we planned.  If I planned it, it was cancelled.  We are all teetering on the edge of insanity.

Strep throat sick day.

Jack is an excellent homework assistant to Lilly.  He reads her book over her shoulder with her.

Sorry if the picture below is disturbing, but it's just my iron via IV.  My iron gets very low during pregnancy and these treatments always seem to help my energy levels.  It was hard to tell a midst my antibiotic and sinus infection if it helped this time around but after three treatments I do feel better this week. Hurray! I like to make regular jokes about Wolverine and how I hope I am getting infused with adamantium.  You really have to have the right audience for that joke.

Jack's sick day.

Jack found comfort in my pashmina at breakfast.  If he would wear clothes he would find that he wouldn't need to borrow his mother's pashmina at breakfast.

In an attempt to prepare for the baby's arrival, Lilly organized her books by color.  She is quite the designer.

Don't despair over this post, February is over and things are looking up! I had a great birthday and the children had a good weekend.  There is not enough wood for me to knock to tell you that we're feeling better, so I wont!