Here Chickie Chickie

 In our house we believe in bribes positive reinforcement for good behavior.  When Lilly goes to bed nicely at night, Lilly gets to earn things.  The kindergarten classes at my school have been hatching eggs.  Lilly had a great week and got to visit the chicks. 

 Lucy loved loved loved the chicks.  

Lilly took one small peek and decided the kindergarten toys looked way more fun!  

Great Bend Easter

We went back to Great Bend (for the third time in five weeks) to celebrate Easter with my parents and Hanna and Grant (Jack too).  Luckily the weather was nice and the kids spent most of Saturday just playing!  Saturday night we went to the convent for mass.   I thought the girls looked pretty cute in their dresses from Nana Bobbi.

It was nearly impossible to get a good pic of both of them together!

 Mainly because Lucy would rather bang on the fire place. 

 Sunday morning the girls opened Easter baskets and hunted eggs.  Jack always keeps a close eye on the kids!

 Lilly got some yummy snacks in the cute bag Nana made for her!

 Lucy got yummys too.  You can sorta see her new bag behind her. 

 Lucy showed us she could walk and carry her basket too!

 Lilly hunted a dozen eggs all by herself!  

 Her magical eggs had the names of her family on them.  We were quite impressed when she read most of them!

 Once again, Jack kept an eye on her!

We had a huge meal at lunch, complete with Great-Aunt Karen and Papa Dot, had some face-time with the Moos family,  and then hit the road for the long drive home.  Such a great weekend!

Easter Part 1

Early last week, Lilly and I got started on our Easter goodies, with colored eggs and sugar cookies.  She is such a big girl, doing the majority of the coloring herself.  She was so excited when the magic eggs came out the of the dye with her families' names on them!  

Lucy wanted to help so badly.

 John watched basketball (have I mentioned I hate the first couple days of March Madness?!).

 Last Thursday, the kids had an evening Easter party with their daycare family.  They each had their own hat and homemade basket.  

 Lucy wasn't too in to hunting eggs, but sure loved walking in the grass with bare feet (have I mentioned she is all out walking!  Like, 10 steps at a time walking!).

 Lilly did a great job of finding the ones with her name!

Up next, Easter in Great Bend.

Mommy Lilly Day

 Lilly and I had a special day, just the two of us.  Lucy went to daycare and after a quick stop at the dentist, we hit Topeka for some inside fun (since it was freezing outside)!  We spent 2+ hours at the Kansas Children's Discovery Center.  It's hard to believe it had been a year and a half since we first went (check it out here). I was a little worried when we pulled up and saw two busses, but luckily they were loading up as we walked in. I think it is fair to say I don't do real well with large groups of minimally supervised children.  

We circled the big room once and Lilly chose to start with the painting.  There are huge glass windows that the kids can paint and then squeege clean and start again. 

 Next up was blocks on a light box.

Lilly was excited to try out the "Lilly sized" blocks, as she called them.  All was good  until I realized that I was on my own putting them together.  It was seriously harder than it looks.  I literally had to hold one side up with my head while I added blocks to the other side.  Teeny tiny Lilly wasn't much help either, since the blocks were half her size and heavy! Thank goodness it stayed up long enough to get a picture!

 Lilly also worked  in the garage for a while.  

I was so happy I got this picture.  Check out the one from just before Lilly's second birthday!

After lots of hands on play time, we headed over to Orange Leaf for some ice cream, Lilly's favorite!

We had a great day, but Lilly asked more than once why Lucy didn't get to come.  I tried to explain how I thought she and I needed some special time with just each other.  It was pretty sweet that she seemed to miss her sister!  

Spring Break

 As soon as school was out last Friday, the girls and I headed to Great Bend for some much needed Nana and Papa time.  It had only been five days since we had been there, but it was much needed none the less.  It was easily 60 degrees when we pulled in Friday night.  Sadly that was the warmest it would be.  We stayed inside a couple days but by Monday, we had to get out.  

First stop.....the zoo.  Lilly had been telling us for days that she needed to go meet the gorilla, lion, and tiger.  She met two of the three. 

I see so much "Hanna" when I look at this picture.

 Lucy got strapped in for the majority of the trip.  It would appear she was ok with that.

 Next stop, Vet's, for some swan feeding.  Not sure if you remember, but these swans have made my blog before (here)  They once tried to eat us.

 I think this guy remembered us from last time.  He was a little overly friendly again.  Random fact, swans like stale cereal and cat food.  For some reason we had no bread to give them, so we got creative.  

They didn't seem to mind the odd menu choices.  

State Champion!

My husband is kinda a big deal, didn't you know?  This year we traveled all the way out to Hays so he could ref the 1A State Basketball Tourney.  There are 1000+ registered officials in the state of Kansas and only 84 make it to the last day of the season.  To top it off, John was one of the 42 invited to officiate a championship game. That makes him a state champion too, right!

Doesn't he look excited!  It was actually the closest, and most exciting game of the day.

It was neat to not only watch him ref, but to also see a neighboring town win the 1A state title.  

The girls got some Nana and Papa time while John and I spent all day Friday and Saturday together.  It didn't turn out to be that enjoyable for my parents because Lucy was just getting over a week of being sick. We got back to Great Bend late Saturday evening and made it back to Holton late afternoon on Sunday.  Overall it was a crazy busy couple of days, but basketball is finally over!  

So Tough

 There are some days this cute little face is just a bit too much for the big sis.  

The majority of the time Lilly is patient and really likes playing with Lucy.  Ever now and then she just needs her own space.  Little miss found a safe spot out of Lucy's reach.