Easter 2013

So I'm finally getting my Easter post up. I shouldn't say finally since Halloween isn't even up yet but I'm trying I really am.

On to Easter...

We had two Easter Egg hunts on Easter weekend. Our ward had one Friday night and had a night hunt. Then the next morning MOMS Club had their annual egg hunt at a park. The pictures are all from Saturday's since it was light enough to actually take them.

Easter morning I heard the girls wake up and head downstairs. I was listening to their reaction when they found the baskets. I heard, "The Easter bunny came! He came!" "Let's go tell mom and dad"  then I heard the footsteps up the stairs, the door open and whispers of who was going to wake up who. We wake up and tell the girls that we will be down in a minute and I thought we had been clear about wait for us before digging into the baskets.  I guess not because Rachel's was half empty and Ashley had made work on hers too. Surprisingly the candy was still all there.  I was disappointed I didn't get some of them with the basket before rummaging through it but they were so excited.

We went to church and the girls got to wear their matching Easter dresses. I love them!

We were supposed to go down to my sister-in-laws for dinner but her girls had been sick that week so Saturday night we had to make so new plans and quick. So we ended up hanging out and eating with our friends the Rooks. We played phase 10 after dinner and laughed away all the calories we ate during dinner.

We can't seem to find the time before Easter to dye eggs therefore it's quickly becoming tradition to dye them on the Monday night after Easter.  This year Mike and Rachel enjoyed eating the eggs as they were being colored.

R is for...

Rain- We did a science experiment and made it rain in a jar. The girls were so excited to see actual rain drops fall and would shout "I saw one" each time they dropped.

waiting for the rain to start

Rainbows- We talked about the colors of the rainbow and what it takes to make a rainbow and then the girls did a sticky wall art to make a rainbow which has been hung up in my craft room.  It was cute I showed the girls what to do and made sure they knew which colors of the rainbow went where by putting one color in the middle of each arc. When I was finished Ashley said, "That was boring, I wanted to do something more fun than that." I told her that we weren't done that they could fill it all in. She thought that was fun. Rachel asked a couple days later if they could take off the squares and do it again.

Rainforest- We talked about the different animals that lived in the different levels of the rainforest and then watched the movie Rio.

Robots- Ashley worked on her letters with a dot to dot (she's really getting the hang of the letter ones now) and with a file folder robot letter matching. The file folder game brought the lack of knowledge of lowercase letters to my attention and we will be working on that.  Rachel's new math skill today were fractions. She of course caught on real quick. It always amazes me how she absorbs information.

Race cars- The girls were excited to race on our newest race track. I was excited to make it. I admit this is the whole reason we did race cars this week. We made a bracket to see which car out of 7 was the fastest and compared how the one car that always won was heavier than the others causing it to go faster. We also reviewed letters and sight words on a racetrack board game.

resources and ideas came from:

rain experiment- pinterest find links to trainupachildlearnaswego.com

sticky wall art rainbow- a pinterest find links to mamapapabuba.com

file folder game- www.kindergartenkindergarten.com

robot fractions- www.homeschoolcreations.com

race track- found on pinterest links to www.ramblingsfromutopia.com

Books we read:

What makes a rainbow

If I ran a rainforest- dr seuss

Rollie Pollie Ollie-

Berenstain bears and the big road race

Weekend in Huntington Beach

The morning after the fair we loaded up the car and went for an even longer drive. This time we were headed south on the 15 to Huntington Beach. We went out for our nephew Jimmy's Baby blessing on Sunday but wanted to be able to see the beach and a couple friends since we were driving out there. So we left on Friday and got there around 2 that afternoon.  We checked into our hotel room (a suite and I don't know if we'll ever go back it was so nice) and then made our way over to Lindsey's house to play with the cousins and spend time with family.

picture courtesy of Lindsey- cousins and a couple neighbors girls

Rachel and Ashley both got to hold Jimmy for the first time.

Day 2-  We met up with some friends (The Mercker's) and had lunch at Ruby's on the Pier and then went to the beach. It was a miserable day there was no sun and then it wasn't really drizzling but it barely precipitating a light mist that was just there and then Rachel was steroids this whole weekend and really didn't want to be bothered. So it took a little bit  (all of lunch and a scavenger hunt I printed) to finally have fun. All in all the afternoon was fun for all. Except maybe Ashley who fell in the water and ended up sitting on the beach with Mike watching Go Diego on his phone. 

And yes I got Ashley in the water and her shrieks all on film/tape? camera! Once I have Mike convert it to a form  acceptable for blogger it'll be here

After we got the kids back to the hotel and dried off and sand free the girls took a nap (in the bedroom) and we could still hangout in the living room! Yes we were excited. Our friend Natalie came down and joined us for dinner at an Italian restaurant because Rachel wanted pasta with just butter and Parmesan cheese. We walked in sat down and she tucked in her napkin ready to eat. For desert we went and got Italian ice, our favorite and a first time try for Natalie. She's hooked. We went back to the hotel and played games (in the living room after the girls went to bed- you can't do that in a normal room, see why we loved this).

Day 3- We had breakfast with Grandma Wendy and Papa Keith at the hotel and then headed to church for the baby blessing. There happened to be 3 of them that morning and was filled with family. Mike had the pleasure of joining the circle along with other uncles and grandfathers. 

Rachel heading to the car with Grandma Wendy and Papa Keith

After church we went to the luncheon at a park and hung out there all afternoon until about 3 when we headed north to the Hendrickson's where we visited, touched snakes and ate a delicious meal. It's always nice catching up with friends we don't get to see nearly as often as we'd like. Hopefully we'll get back sooner than next year.

County Fair

April 11th I piled my girls into my friends car and we drove the hour up to Logandale for the Clark County Fair. I don't know what is up with kids and these foot massage chairs but I learned my kids weren't the only ones that can't resist sitting in them. This was the first thing they did.

 We had to do the pony ride again. My girls love the horses. Ashley rode on Max and Rachel rode on Bullseye. They would have stayed there all morning.

We went to the small animal pavillion we never made it to the large animals. The picture below is Rachel and her friend Lexi looking at the bunnies.

Rachel didn't like the way they smelled

Ashley refused to leave the piglets until she could touch one. We were there for a long time. We missed milking the pretend cow we spent so much time over in this pen.

Ashley really loves animals. These baby goats were perfect height for her to easily touch. At one time she was looking at the bunnies in the cage behind her and the little goat she's petting went to the fence sticking out his nose trying to get to Ashley. I told Ashley to turn around and seeing the kid right there she did this shriek and was surprised to see it there but reached right down to pet it.

One of the events we watched that was talked about for the year was the pig races. They had 3 different races. The pigs race for oreos. The crowd gets divided into cheering sections and our pig actually won one this year





In between race 2 & 3 they bring out Swifty the swimming piglet. Last year the piglet poo'ed before jumping in and my girls were actually disappointed that it didn't happen this year.

After the pigs we grabbed lunch. And went to wait for the dog show. This year's show was perfomed by the winner's of America's Got Talent. They were good!  They did a never scene before comedy act that had the kids all laughing. It was a clown trying to set up a picnic and dog kept stilling his lunch but would hide when ever the clown turned around. They the tricks started. One dog flipped backwards! Needless to say my girls loved it!

We finished the day with ice cream cones and very tired children. This is one activity we enjoy going to every year.

Such a fun day at Roos N More

We had a blast today at a zoo in Moapa an hour from us called Roos N More.  Karen Condos (from my ward) organized a private tour for a group of us to go. It was awesome. It got warm and we were all hot, sweaty, dusty and thirsty but we did things that I don't know where else you can do it at.


First it started out by having this animal (it's related to a raccon and I believe it starts with a "p") crawl across the kids backs in a line

Then the kids got to feed lemurs (the guy to the left) through the fence and pet them while our tour guide went and got the next lovely creature for the kids to touch and hold. A snake. Both girls lined up to hold it. Rachel got close and then ran away and wanted nothing to do with it. Ashley made me laugh in that 3rd picture because she's looking at it with such love like it was a baby in her arms. Then when she was done promptly dropped the snake. It was a good thing the lady (Carrie) was holding it's head.

The next stop was a real fun feeding ground. We got to feed miniature horses, goats, pigs, an ostrich, a zebra, an even a camel! The best part was you can hold a carrot/celery in your teeth and the camel will eat it! The girls weren't brave enough for that and I wasn't sure if I would be either but how many times do you get an opportunity to be kissed by a camel? A baby goat escaped and I got to hold it close to me while we found out if it was allowed out. And yes that one usually slips through the bars.

After the feeding zoo area Carrie took out a monkey (I want to say it's a type of Lemur but once again not really sure). The had the monkey on a leash and we all got to take pictures with it. It surprised Rachel a little when it leaped to her friend Lexi and thankfully her mom captured her face because it's perfect. We did get a family picture with it that I'll add when I get it. 

While waiting for everyone to get to sit and have their picture taken with the monkey that wasn't always cooperative but very soft and cute. Ashley came over to the squirrel monkeys (left). After this little guy was finished with his celery Ashley wanted to feed him the baby carrot she had. I lifted her up and she held up the carrot, the monkey came over stuck his hand out the cage and Ashley handed the monkey the carrot. This was the highlight of her trip and of course I don't have a picture because I was holding her and we were alone. 

After the monkeys we went to another petting area that had pigs and a calf only 5 weeks old. It's mother died when it was 5 days old and they said it gets a minimum of 12 bottles a day. I was surprised at how course the hair was. Carrie Next we made our way over to the kangaroo habitat. And yes we got to go in! Rachel fed one and we all got to pet them. We even saw an Albino Wallaby. I had never heard of one before and they had 2. But the best part was that one of the kangaroo it may be a wallaby had a baby in her pouch and Carrie opened the pouch (I know sounds gross but wasn't) and we got to see the baby kangaroo. It was  in the middle of nursing but if you click on the picture you actually see it's foot and front leg, a closed eye, and it's nose and even the bottom of an ear! It's the coolest thing ever.