Spring Pictures

My sister Amanda Ferguson is a great photographer. She came by last week and took some spring pictures of the kids in their Easter clothes. I love them! Here are a few of my favorite pics.

Spring Break Week

We've had spring break this week from preschool, mentor moms, and art class. So we planned lots of play dates and fun activities for this week.

On Monday, we spent all day with Eddie and Charlie. The boys had fun digging, riding tractors and 4-wheelers, and swinging on the playset.

Catherine drew some beautiful art with sidewalk chalk and Ms. Jill even did a special Easter art project with the kids since Catherine loves crafts so much.
We had an Easter egg hunt with the kids. Anna and Charlie liked to play with the eggs too.
On Tuesday, we celebrated Anna and Harper's birthdays. They were both born on March 27 last year and were even the same size at birth. My friend Laura and I have had so much fun watching them grow over the past year. So we celebrated with some of our friends and their kids by having a picnic lunch and just playing in the backyard.
On Wednesday, Catherine's friend from preschool Anna Louise came over to play. We dyed Easter eggs and did some Easter coloring crafts. The girls love to play babies together too.
On Thursday, my sister Amanda came over to take some 1 yr old pics of Anna and spring pic of all of them. Here's a sneak peek: I'll post more of her awesome pics soon.
On Friday, Will's friend Nolan came over to play. They had lots of fun playing trucks, firemen, riding tractors in the rain and just being fun boys.
We've had a great and busy week!

Sharing a Snack

Anna and Eli like to share snacks sometimes. It's best if it is dumped out of the pantry

and eaten straight off the floor.

"Oh hey! You see us down here?"

"Would you like a snack too?"

The Harlem Ballet

Catherine and I went to see the Harlem Ballet at the Peace Center a few weeks ago. This was one of her Christmas presents. She was very interested to see the ballerinas--especially the boy ballerinas since she'd never seen any before. We had a great time doing something special and fancy just the two of us. I don't think the ballet as a whole was what she expected though. On the way home, she said "That was more boring than I thought it would be!"

(This is us in our seats on the next-to-last row at the top of the Peace Center.)

Don't Force the Issue

Mommy lesson of the day: Don't force the issue!

As we were finishing lunch and getting ready to run 2 errands, Catherine and Will asked if they could each have one of my Babybel cheeses. I like these and don't like to share them. They're expensive and every time I've given them to the kids in the past, they've wasted them. So we had this whole conversation about "Are you sure you'll eat it? I'll be upset if you waste it." I was reassured that yes, they would eat every last bite of these in the car while we drove.

In between errands #1 and #2, Will held up half of his cheese and declared he was done. "No, you're not. You have to eat the whole thing." And we started the back and forth of "I'm done." "No, you're not." I told him he HAD to finish eating it since we had the previous conversation at home. Wanting to be an obedient child, he started forcing it down. Which made him gag. Which then made him vomit all over himself and the carseat. Disgusting doesn't describe it!

We were pulling into my friend's neighborhood at this point, so I flew into her driveway, ran to her door, and asked for help. (Thanks Susan for all your help!) Catherine was yelling to me "You did this to him! Why did you make him eat that!!" as she tried to lean her head out the window so that she wouldn't gag. Now I'm at home washing the carseat cover and cleaning vomit from various locations. I learned my lesson--Don't force the issue.

But on the positive side, I'm guessing I won't have to share my Babybel cheeses anymore.

It's Baseball Season...

and the Reds are off to a good start!

The Christmas Cottage

For Christmas, Catherine got this really cool cottage that you can draw and color on. I guess I had envisioned her decorating it with beautiful flowers and what-not, but it really has turned into a house covered in graffiti. It has provided hours and hours of activity for the kids; even Anna likes to crawl in there. And anyone who visits our house is required to draw a picture. I love the creativity!