He lives!

Once again this year we enjoyed taking extra time to appreciate the life and death of our Savior.  He lives!!  

Excited to start off our Easter festivities with some egg dying! 

We tried some shaving cream dyed eggs.  Didn't turn out so great for us but it was fun to play with it!

 

Alex started off our egg hunt right by stepping in a bunch of mud.  Such is the life of an egg hunt outside when the snow is still melting!

Checking out their spoils

The hunt was followed by a yummy dinner!

Soooo excited to be eating apples,

Where did the time go?

Our baby turned 18 months old on Jan 7th!  She is now 21 months old so I am a bit late.  Eleanor has such a fun little personality.  She is occasionally patient, loves to snuggle, and doesn't like to left out of anything.  Several months ago she chipped her front teeth, and I must say it suits her well.  She is always climbing up on things, dancing, or sporting band aids for one thing or another. 

Elle tries to say pretty much anything we ask her to.  My favorite things she says (in her own way of course!) are:

• I did it!
• I don't know
• Come on!
• Popcorn
• Kiss (with a lisp :) )
• Camille (sounds like Neil)

Second child alert!  Eleanor has definitely secured her place as "The Informer".  Any time anyone, especially her sister, does something they shouldn't (ie, standing on a chair, pushing buttons, touching the toaster oven...) she yells, "NO!" and points her finger at them.  It's quite funny.

Eleanor loves....

• taking care of her baby dolls
• to buckle buckles on backpacks
• singing "songs" from any book
• frozen peas, greek yogurt, milk, cheese and ice cream. she is our dairy girl. 
• vacuuming
• pretty much anything her big sis does
• babies!
• climbing up on things
• watching shows
• getting her baby, her purse, keys and telling me "bye!".  always has errands to run. 

Wisconsin's Test Kitchen

I just love my little helpers in the kitchen, and they just love to help!  Yesterday we were baking something and Eleanor kept looking in the mixer and saying, "ooooh pretty!".  Confidence booster, I love it.

The other day we tried making divinity for the first time.  It turned out yummy, and these little taste testers agreed!

St Valentine's Day

Keeping with our family tradition, we had our fancy family Valentine's dinner this year.  It was my year to be in charge of the menu/cooking.  Nick didn't give me any ideas of what he wanted, so I planned a few things I knew he would like.  We started off with a chocolate covered strawberry for an appetizer.  Then meatball parmesan sliders on pretzel buns (soooo yummy)and bananas foster for dessert (not my favorite, but mainly because I hate bananas!). 

Nick got us each a ring pop and few treats, and we made him some black licorice caramels.

Then for dancing!  Watch out, this daddy tries to steal smooches on the dance floor.

And some daddy loving

Happy Valentine's Day!

Snow Day!

Winters in Wisconsin seem to last forever.  It's April and there are still huge piles of snow.  I definitely prefer 1-2 big days of playing in the snow each winter, and no snow after that! Nick is excited when I'm willing to play in the snow.  I love it, but only a few times each year. :)  Here's a few pics of our snow days, when it was warm enough to actually be outside more than a few seconds, but cold enough that the snow wasn't so wet. 

Ok this first one is inside, trying to stay sane with all the snow! :)

We had a fun weekend watching our nephews and niece.  They played and played in the snow. Nick is great at keeping them entertained.

Doing what she does best, eating snow.

I stayed warm inside with this chica this time and made everyone a hot lunch! 

Another day, more snow.

Snow angel!