Park Play Date

Today was more like summer weather than spring.  It reached 80*, as did yesterday, which is pretty warm compared to what we've been use to, but we're not complaining.  We met up with several moms and kiddos for a play date at the park.  It is so fun to meet up with everyone! 

 I joined a mom's group when Miles was 15months old.  The group is structured differently now, but we still hang out with a lot of the same people.  There have been many babies born, some on the way, and many were tiny babies when we joined.  It is so much fun watching them all grow up and play together while we sit and chat...and brake up the occasional fight.  A lot of middle names were brought out today, if you know what I mean, but they all played together really pretty well and we had a great time catching up!

Isla took a few minutes to warm up (she's been playing shy lately), but then explored with the best of them!  She's really been hamming it up for the camera, as well.

Miles was hard to capture today.  He was off and running with the big boys the whole time.  He had a blast and was exhausted when we left.  His cheeks were pretty darn pink!

Isla liked the motorcycle side car.  My little climber plays it on the safe side at the park, which is nice.  I'm guessing she's more comfortable at home and that's why she loses her fear of heights/falling???  At the playground, she is far more cautious, but still explores.

She was soon joined by Ryan, who just turned two.  Ryan has a big brother who is a year older than Miles.  Ryan loved driving Isla around :).

Then Isla hitched another ride with him in the swing.  That is Kelly in the background, Ryan's mom :).

They enjoyed the tandem ride for a few minutes, then I think they felt a little squished and wanted out.  We had a fabulous day at the park.  We brought plenty of snacks, water, sunscreen, and iced coffee and stayed for three hours!

I also snapped a quick pic of our "pretty piggies".  I bought some kid nail polish for Isla's toenails.  I LOVE IT!!!  She does to :).  It is water soluble, so it will rub off in the tub and I touch it up frequently to keep her piggies pretty.  If you ask her about her piggies, she'll hold her foot up for you to see.  I had to completely repaint them a few days ago.  She sat down on the stool in the bathroom and held out each foot for me to paint.  She will even keep her hands off to let it dry.  Such a girl.  Makes my heart sing :).

Home Improvements

With the nice spring weather, comes some yard work.  Last year, we (my Dad) did a lot of work on our sprinkler system to get it up and running post dog.  This weekend, Ben's parents gave us a new lawn mower since the dog did a number on our old one as well!  Goo news!  The mower works great!  So do the sprinklers, but we haven't had to turn them on yet due to all our rain, which is nice. 

We've done quite a bit of clean up in both the front and back.  The kids can now play in the yard.  We have quite a bit of work to do in our garden area in the back (boxed in area on the right side of this pic).  We hope to actually grow vegetables this year!

I've also one some work in the front.  It looks so nice and clean now, if I do say so myself.  After a lot of raking and some mowing, it's coming along.  We need to do some grass seeding some day...

In each of the flower beds, I put some planters with geraniums.  I added bark to clean it up a bit and I love how it turned out!

Spring Day

We've actually been getting some nice spring weather here. A little hit and miss, but we'll take what we can get! Most of the nice days have fallen on my days off (not while I'm sleeping), so that is nice. The day after Easter, I took the kids downtown to meet Auntie Annie and Grandma Mo for breakfast before Anne headed home. After breakfast, we went to the park since it was nice and sunny. This was Isla's first real experience with a play ground. Everything was just her size, so she had a lot of fun climbing around.

Then we wandered over to the wagon park for a few rides down the slide for Miles.

We also took a peek at the falls that are pretty full!

LOVING the spring weather!

Easter 2012

I'm a little behind, obviously :).  Here are pictures from this Easter!

We spent the day with my family as Ben's parents went to North Dakota to be with Danny for his Easter break.  We spent Friday night out at The Hunger Games with Auntie Annie, who came from Bellingham for the holiday.

We started the day meeting my family at church.  Isla had a great time snuggling with her grandparents.

Dancing.  Wrapping herself in her blankie.  Warming up to Auntie Annie.

Bruce Wayne (aka Miles) spent the morning in the nursery playing.

After the service, we went to my parents' house for brunch and an egg hunt.  Isla enjoyed the chocolate :).

And enjoyed showing off her first black eye.  We're not sure where she got it, but she's a climber.  Climbing with no sense of fear = falling quite a bit.  Frequent falling = frequent bumps and bruises...usually on the noggin.  Thank God for skulls!

Miles was VERY excited for the egg hunt.  While we were at The Hunger Games the night before, he "practiced" hunting for eggs at my parents', making my mom hide plastic eggs so he could find them.  When he woke up Easter morning, he came in our room and said, "Mommy, Mommy!  I see footprints!  I see footprints out the window in the street.  They're from the Easter bunny!  Do you know what that means?  It means while we're at Easter church, he's coming to lay his eggs for us to find".  The kid cracks me up!

Ahhh...some spring flowers!  Auntie Annie did a great job hiding the eggs.

Isla was happy to be outside with her little basket.  It took her a few minutes to catch on, but she eventually got the hang of it.

Miles started in right away.  He put several eggs in Isla's basket to help her out.  He especially thought the pink and purple ones were for her :).  Such a good big brother!

The kids also played in the sandbox with Auntie Annie.  Isla loves digging in the dirt.

Then we enjoyed a wonderful brunch of ham and au gratin potatoes (from scratch!) an asparagus.  It was all wonderful.  It was a beautiful, sunny day.  We even got home in time for me to head out on a 9 mile run for my half marathon training!