Gimme A Break!!!

Spring Break that is!!! :-)

We've all enjoyed our break this past week. I think I needed it as much as the girls! We kicked off our spring break with Lily's birthday weekend (see previous post). Sunday night the girls spent the night with their Mamma & Papa (Joel's parents). On Monday they ventured out to Purple Glaze where the girls painted their very own ceramic pieces...

Zora's little dog

Lily's little bunny

On Tuesday Lily had her 4 year check-up. That was NOT the highlight of our week. She had to get 3 shots and she screamed while I cried. You'd think that I wouldn't do that anymore, but I just can't help it. Later we went to the mall to play at the indoor playground with our cousin, Ty. We also had some fun shopping!

Wednesday was St. Patrick's Day and apparently a little leprechaun snuck in our house early that morning and dyed our milk green! So we had cereal with green milk! :-)
Wednesday afternoon we met some friends at McDonalds to play inside because the weather was too chilly to be outside. The girls had a lot of fun, but I forgot my camera :-(

Thursday was absolutely beautiful so we went to the park with Nana, Papa Doug, and cousins Alli & Skylar. The girls had a lot of fun. I just love their sweet little faces!

Isn't she adorable in pigtails?!?!?!

Love that little smile!

Having so much fun!

Thursday evening we had a weenie/marshmallow roast in celebration of all of Joel's hard work this week. Several months ago Joel put an awning outside our playroom and we had great intentions of getting a concrete slab until this awful winter hit. This past week was nice enough that he was able to complete the job! We were also finally able to put together the fire pit that we got as a Christmas gift. Uncle Jamie, Nana Betty, and Papa Doug all joined us to celebrate our new patio with an old fashioned weenie roast - those were the best chili dogs I've had in quite some time! For dessert we roasted marshmallows and made some S'mores. We had some nice family time together and it brought back lots of good memories... namely our recent visit to Arizona to see the Voss family, and for me it brought back all those times my family used to go camping in Colorado. There's nothing like sitting around a campfire with friends and family!
Friday morning we were thrilled to spend some time with our little buddy, Mark. We only watched him for a couple of hours, but we had fun. He is such a cutie! We also had playgroup on Friday morning and while we were there Zora drew this picture...
She absolutely LOVES to draw and she is getting better and better. I thought she did a great job, but I was really impressed with the squirrel under the tree. Here's a close-up...
Is that not too cute?!?!?! She decided that she wanted to send the picture to the Voss family because she misses them so much, so that's why there are names written on the picture.

Friday afternoon was a gorgeous 74 degree day, so the girls played outside while I cleaned out some flowerbeds. I got the girls in on the work when I told them I'd pay them each $1 for each job they helped me with. First they helped me by picking up all the big sticks and tree limbs they could find in the yard, then they picked up any trash they saw, and finally they helped me move some bricks to frame one of our flowerbeds. I now owe them each $3, but it was worth it. Nothing like teaching the value of the hard-earned dollar!

They also had fun playing in bubbles from a bubble machine that Lily got for her birthday from Aunt Megan & Uncle Nathan. I think we went through 3 bottles of bubbles!!! They would have played for hours on end with that thing if I had kept pouring in more :-)

Our spring break ended on the official first day of spring which was anything BUT a spring-like day! As I mentioned before, Friday was beautiful and 74 degrees... what did we wake up to on Saturday morning???? SNOW AGAIN & and more freezing temperatures!!!! I tell you this has been the craziest year for weather! All of the wildlife in our yard was so confused and desperately searching for food. It was a good thing I had hung up three bird feeders the day before. We had lots of birds flocking to our patio to get food in the snow storm. I managed to get some pics of a male and female cardinal...

The girls enjoyed playing in the snow for a little while, but Zora also commented that she was hoping that the first day of spring would be warm. I think we're all tired of the cold weather and looking forward to WARMTH!!!!

Tomorrow we're back on our school schedule. Only a few weeks left until summer break :-)