Easter

The girls, all dressed in their Easter finest!

Strawberry cake, from scratch

Lemon tarts (from scratch) & butter cookies

We may have gone a little overboard on the dessert department

The kids were loving the egg hunt - it's just a shame the weather was too bad to do it outside, especially since I think I hid 85 eggs (for 6 kids)

Grant

Hannah was the big egg hunt winner....taking a little bit after her mother

Grant got into his chocolate bunny when no one was paying attention

Aunt Rachel gave the girls an Easter Bunny house as a gift - the following weekend when Susan & Jaidyn came to visit, the girls assembled it together.  It was a little messy and crazy, and there was the few minutes where Jaidyn put a gumball up her nose, but fortunately, Susan was off at Once Upon a Child shopping, so all was well :)

Volunteering

Now that I'm in between jobs, I had the opportunity to volunteer at Hannah's preschool.  I've never gotten to do it before, and I had a wonderful time watching what they do every day.

To make the day extra special, Hannah was the "Happy Helper" at school.  The happy helper gets to be first in line, gets to talk about the weather, identifies patterns, updates the calendar, gets to select how they walk in line (Hannah chose "walking like a penguin" on the way to gym and "hopping like a bunny" on the way back), and they fill out a chart with their names and various facts.  Hannah wrote her last name (although the "W" was an "M") and when asked to fill in what animal she would be, she refused and instead chose to be a TV character - Doc McStuffins.

I got to help the kids color Easter eggs and the other art station was making large cross stamps out of tiles and pressing them onto paper.  They do such wonderful crafts at school!  Their storytime was the Easter story.  It was so neat to see the kids in the circle listening and answering questions.  I really enjoyed watching the teachers ask the kids to think about whether they were sitting by someone who was going to distract them or touch them and if they'd be able to make good choices to listen.....and then issue warnings to the boys and re-direct them....I was also impressed with how her teacher was dictating notes in gym class about the kids motor skills for evaluations (and making notes on other skills while they did craft projects).

Hannah wanted to sit by me while I was helping with eggs and while in circle time she instructed me to sit on her star on the floor and then she sat on my lap.  Despite being the independent girl and not wanting me to walk in with her in the mornings, she was quite happy to tell everyone that her mom was with her today to help.  I loved it!  The kids thanked me at the end of the day too.  I'm so thankful I had the opportunity to do this.

Snow Day

While I was in Boston on a trip for work, Mom & Dad came to help out Jon.  While the snowstorm had me stuck in a Boston airport for the better part of the day, the girls enjoyed the snow at home!

Grant's 2nd Birthday Party

We went over to Rachel & Ryan's to celebrate Grant's 2nd birthday.  We had a great time celebrating with all of the Woolley's and the girls LOVED the fact that Aunt Rachel has a bounce house in the basement.

 Grant

 Gavin

Grant was so excited to have everyone sing to him.

The kids enjoyed their cake & ice cream

Lauren sitting on the potty : )

Ryan & Grant

Grant & Rachel

Uncle Josh was more interested in the basketball game that was on than in the presents that Grant was opening....(but that was the case for all of the guys)

Grant was SO EXCITED to get to play in the bounce house with his cousins