happy easter!

Well, we had a fantastic Easter weekend!  Memaw and PawPaw came to visit, and we stuck with all the tried and true Easter activities.  First up was egg dying.  Honesty moment - I bought the kit with glitter.  You know how glitter is the herpes of the craft world?  Well, it is because that glitter tried to get everywhere. And I had plans to use the eggs for deviled eggs, and glitter-covered eggs don't become good deviled eggs. So we dyed them all, but got away with only glittering two.  Yes!

The classic peanut-butter-filled chocolate-covered egg.  We ate off this all weekend!

The bunny cake.  Ya'll know the bunny cake.  Memaw and Britton make it every year.  And this year Memaw made it with Italian cream cake, so we could eat it for dessert.  

Ok, here's the truth, and let me start off with saying sorry to future Barrett who may or may not ever read this.  I totally forgot to buy him an Easter basket.  Or anything to put into it.  I just figured that a baby can't eat candy, so it slipped my mind to get him anything.  Luckily Memaw did not forget, and she picked up two summer outfits and a stuffed bunny.  The basket was an extra one I had in the garage.  Whoops!

Confetti eggs and egg chalk drawing with PawPaw

While Memaw, Barrett, Britton, and I went on a walk, the hubs and PawPaw hid Easter eggs in the yard.  We heard music while on the walk (ice cream truck maybe?  At 9:00 am?) and I told Britton that the music meant the Easter Bunny was near us and that maybe he was at our house sneaking eggs into the bushes.

  

   

how does your [fairy] garden grow?

First things first. We're back in lice territory.  Or maybe we never left the first time?  I don't know if this is a new outbreak or a continuation of the last, but what I do know is that when I dropped Britton off at daycare on Thursday morning and watched two lice crawl out of her hair that we were back into the fight.  I've washed everything in this house on high temperature.  Every stuffed animal is bagged for the next three weeks.  I boiled every barrette and brush.  And to overdo it, we are doing the olive oil/hair gel treatment every night, in addition to a RID treatment and a prescription treatment from the doctor (in case it turns out that Britton has pesticide-resistent lice, which exist and make me scared for the future).  But I digress....

So, to get our minds off of lice, Britton and I took advantage of our beautiful weather today and put together her fairy garden.  Truth be told, I just wanted to get my hands in some dirt.  The hubs and I had planned to redo our front yard flower bed today, but we filled the trash can only two plants in, so we're delayed until we figure out what to do with our old dead plants.  A couple of weeks ago, I had a plan to do another fairy garden with Britton.  She loves her original one, and plays in it to this day, but I wanted to give her more space.  I tried to come up with a bigger container that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg, and then it hit me - an old wagon.

$25 and a trip to Lowes to meet the Craigslist seller, I had my planter.  The hubs drilled some drainage holes in the bottom for me.  The wagon is old and roughed up, and that just adds to the overall look.  Luckily, fairy garden accessories have now trickled down to Joanns, so I stocked up on my last fabric run - miniature rake and shovel, daisy stepping stones, miniature bucket and watering can.  The bridge is actually from PetSmart - I found it in the aquarium section!

Extra pea gravel made a walkway, flat marbles made a creek, and I added small flowers and ivy, and moss from my yard.  It turned out better than it was in my mind, and dang it all, don't you love when that happens?  Britton played with it all afternoon. 

Hello Kitty gardening gloves are a MUST

cammy's visit

Cammy came to visit us on Saturday!  Before heading out for the airport, there was lunch and some movie time.  Has anyone with children bothered to even remove "Frozen" from the DVD player?  Because, really, my 11-month-old is hooked!

   

Britton and I found Cammy at the airport and came home, just to throw down Cammy's luggage and get outside.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day!  Warm, sunny, and we took advantage of the summer-like weather to make Cammy some hamburgers on the grill for dinner.

Sunday, however, was not so good.  Yes, we had more sun (we are seriously lacking in sun exposure in Pittsburgh, ya'll), but Cammy wasn't feeling so hot.  She mustered up enough strength to go with me and Britton to Kohls, but once back home she took a turn for the worse.  After a marathon upchucking session, wherein she sounded like the Predator with a stubbed toe, Cammy finally gave in and went to bed.  The hubs, me, Britton, and Barrett all headed out for our neighborhood Easter egg hunt.  

We are getting some use out of this Easter dress!  A dress, which Britton demonstrates, has a great twirling skirt.

Then we headed back home and hung out while we waited for Cammy to emerge from her sick room.  Right before we started making dinner, Cammy came downstairs feeling ever-so-slightly better and ready to play again.  

So Monday morning, we dropped the kids off at school and went shopping.  Dang it all, shopping is so much easier without kids.  And I knew I needed to try on bras (too much info?  Maybe?  I mean, all women, and I'm sure some small percentage of men, buy bras.  It's not taboo, I don't think) and shirts and hunt down random things like Easter egg dying kits (I swear that my entire April paychecks don't go to Easter-related crap) and a bucket hat for Barrett.  Then Cammy and I hit up Famous Footwear, and this was her first time in there.  She damn near skipped the aisles!  Unfortunately, Cammy couldn't find any shoes in her 10.5 size, but me, well, I left with three pairs.  

Then off to a grown-up lunch at Juniper Grill.  Where I took out my phone to take a picture of us, and Cammy goes, "Is this a selfie?"  Her first!

Almost every time we get together with Jessica, there's Scattergories to play.  It's a tradition we love.  Well, now we have a new tradition with Cammy - stalking Facebook people!  Cammy isn't on Facebook, but I am, so I logged on and let her catch up on everyone via their profiles.  Funny, she said, "But you don't actually talk to people, right?  People just post things and other people comment about it and that's it."  And this is why the youth (yute?  "My Cousin Vinny" fans out there?) of today can't have a conversation - they never do on social media!  I told Cammy that us old timers do write back and forth, but the kids these days are all about photos of food and lies about how awesome their lives are.  Holla!

To top off Cammy's trip, and send her home Pittsburgh-style, it started snowing the minute I dropped her off at the airport.  Snowing.  I cannot kid about this or I would cry.  I guess it was Pittsburgh's way of saying good-bye too...

barrett: 11 months old

We have just experienced the month with the most dramatic developments for this boy!  First, he is saying "mama" with abandon, he's thrown out "dada" a couple of times, and today I distinctly heard him say "bye-bye" as we left his classroom at daycare.  He's also crawling now, just deciding one day that he'd rather go get his toys than wait for me to fetch them!  He's also pulling himself up on the ottomans and us, pretending like he's ready to take some steps on his own, though he always ends up plopping down on his butt.  And finally, Barrett has perfected his waving.  Every day his little friends at school wave goodbye like we're leaving forever, and Barrett is now reciprocating.  And it's downright adorable!

We are one month away from the big O-N-E.  I can't believe it.  Oh, how this huge milestone has snuck up on us.  We're doing a family party, going out to lunch at our favorite Mexican food joint and then heading back to the house for cake.  Speaking of food....let's just say Barrett has turned out to be quite picky!  He loves his carbs - bread, mashed potatoes, graham crackers, goldfish, and the like, but he turns his nose up at everything else.  I'm sure it's a stage, as everything is, and the optimistic in me (as small as she may be) still serves him a variety in hopes he'll decide to try something new.

Barrett loves throwing his big soft soccer ball back and forth, and manages to get it pretty close to us with his throws.  He's also into books now, wanting to turn pages and check out the bright pictures.  He loves the television remote so much that we found an extra one and took the batteries out so he could press all the buttons.  Pat-a-cake and peek-a-boo continue to be favorite games, and the hints of warmer weather this weekend had him whining to get outside in the sunshine.  Can't say I blame him!

Likes:  Britton, Sadie, gnawing on his crib, snuggling

Dislikes:  baby food (unless Memaw is feeding him), teething pain

where my eggs at?

It's that time of year again!  Back into our never-ending rotation of East egg hunts every weekend.  Which, admittedly, is strange since we aren't religious and don't attend church, so the real meaning behind Easter isn't our Easter-celebrating motivation.  But it seems that every holiday has turned into a kid's holiday (remember when Valentine's Day used to be marketing to adults all googly in love?), so Easter has followed the same path.  The hunt today was held at the community center.  The hubs decided he and Barrett didn't feel like going, so Britton got all fancy in her Easter dress and we headed out!

Cookies and pretzels, to fuel the strenuous hunt

 The Municipal Center changed things up this year, and instead of Britton hunting for eggs in the hallways and lobby like last year (seriously, I can't make that up), they set up the hunt in the gym.  Immediately, I'm thinking that they can't mean the actual gym because gyms are wide-open spaces by design.  How do you hide the eggs?

Apparently, not well...Don't let the hula-hoop fool you, Britton!  Check next to those cones!

You were allowed only 12 eggs.  The workers relayed in hushed tones that some kids didn't get eggs last year because some kids took too many.  I remember that last year, it was less an issue of kids using wheelbarrows to take home their egg bounty, and more an issue of multiple families showing up 30 minutes after the hunt began.  Pittsburgh seems to have a problem with being on time.  But digress.  

So, once you have your 12 empty eggs, you can turn them in for a goody bag.  Really people, I'm not making this up.  Britton got her goody bag, and it contained some stickers, a tattoo, and a couple of bunny toys.  Britton was stoked, and didn't seem to notice that there wasn't any candy.  

You know you want ruffle socks and Tinkerbell-fluff shoes.

All in all, a fun 30 minutes and a chance to wear a fancy dress - that's all this girl needs!  Britton wasn't having any of the Easter bunny they trotted out, but he looked so sad I had to snap a shot.  The kids wouldn't get near him, which is odd for a town that hosts a national furry convention.  So we got the picture so I could scare the hubs with it later, and left with the goody bag and smiles.

56 months old

A mere four months away from a five-year-old.  Seriously?!?  Britton spent the last three days with Memaw and PawPaw, and I swear she looked older this afternoon when she returned.  Maybe because Memaw cut her hair (shorter hair has a way of aging the young, as well as making the older look younger) or three days is a long time in kid-time, but dang it all, she was bigger and older.  Have I mentioned that she's ridiculously tall?  We just ordered her summer clothes because rumor has it that even though it snowed on Sunday, it might be summer one day, and we got size 8 and size 10.  She wears a 13.5 shoe.  

And the hubs and I have decided to enroll her in the five-year/kindergarten program at her daycare for school next year.  Pennsylvania doesn't require kids to attend kindergarten, and our local public school only offers a half-day (2.5 hours) program.  Instead of carting her from before-care, to school, then back to after-care at the daycare, it's easier all around for Britton to spend all day in one class with her friends.  The program has outdoor time twice a day, little emphasis on homework, and seems a much better fit than what our public school offers.

Speaking of school, Britton is still progressing really well with her reading!  We read 5 or 6 books every night, and I make sure to get a few "ready to read" books at the library so she can sound out the words.  I've caught on to her checking out the page for illustrations in order to guess at the word, but once I call her out on it she goes back to sounding it out.  Her handwriting is readable, no more random squiggles or made up letters.  And she will proudly (and loudly) count to 100 if you let her.

This weekend, Memaw and PawPaw came to visit (before taking Britton back to their house) and of course Britton jumped onto PawPaw!  She's got a ton of energy, and they just take the brunt of it while visiting.  

We all went out for Mexican food, and Britton decided she wanted to "get fancy."  So she went upstairs, got her new summer clothes on, then picked out jewelry and hair bows.  She added her Sadie Dog purse she got from Aunt Jessica for Christmas, and her ruffle socks and dressy shoes.  The whole thing was adorable.

Likes:  ballet/tap/tumbling class, The Croods (perhaps our first non-Disney animated movie?), reading, practicing her letter of the week, going on walks in the rain so we can jump in muddy puddles (Peppa the Pig fans?  Anyone?), playing in her fairy garden

Dislikes:  getting out of the bath, lice treatments (can't blame her there)