Easter Celebration

Emma and Ani were off from school for the last ten days as part of a spring break and Easter vacation combined.  During this time we visited the library, met friends at the Monkey House, spent time playing at grandmas, went for many trips to the park and even made it to the zoo.  Easter was spent over at the Walczynski house.  This year the girls baked Easter bunny cookies and were very excited about finding the eggs scattered around the yard.  Teresa and Kevin did a great job hiding the eggs so that some were even hard for the adults to spot.  Mommy was pleased that we got a few decent photos this year with all four of us looking at the camera.  It was also great to meet Tiffany's new baby Aliyah and her older son Tino at church.

 Emma and Ani working together in the kitchen

 Four bunny cookies successfully made

 Trying out the creations

 Tiffany, Aliyah, Uncle Mike, Tino, Aunt Mara

 Sister Hugs

 Grandma Kathy and the girls

 Meeting Aliyah

 The hunt begins

 Ani in full concentration mode as she searches for the final egg

 Emma's basket is so full so has to resort to storing a few eggs in her hood

The proud egg seekers at the end of the hunt

Bedtime Snuggles

Ever since daylight savings time, we have been up late into the evening.  Ani thinks her bedtime is 9:30 instead of 8:30 and we can't seem to convince her otherwise.  It probably didn't help that the girls had Easter bunny cookies so late last night.  All the sugar sent them on a chaotic laughing spree.  Even though our sleep has been in need of some repair, our fort building skills have skyrocketed.  Our ability to beg for just one more story or one more ride as a "sack of potatoes" on Daddy's back has also increased.  Not sure when the whole concept of we just need to go to bed earlier will kick in, but hopefully for Mommy and Daddy's sake it will be soon.  For now, Mommy gets to say "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!"

 Our Two Little Monkeys

The Fort Palace

The Girls' First Concert

Last weekend Dan performed with his guitar group at a bar in Minneapolis.  The girls got to stay up extra late (especially when you factor in daylight savings) to see Daddy play.  Both girls were wide-eyed when they entered the bar and loved sitting on the high stools.  When Daddy's group started to play, you could hear Emma and Ani cheering, "Go Daddy Go!  Go Daddy Go!"  By the end of the songs, Ani was falling asleep in Mommy's arms and Emma was ready to race up onto the stage and take the spotlight.  Way to go Daddy!  It takes a lot of courage to get up there and play for so many people.  We love you!

Singing and Swimming

Winter tends to be a tough time to get out and move around.  So we spent many countless hours singing and dancing, tumbling and swimming in January and February.  We are really enjoying the warm weather that has come in with March.  Emma is starting to practice her T-ball skills and Ani likes to ride her tricycle.

Celebrate!

February seems to be a hopping time for birthday parties with Emma and Analise.  Many of Emma's friends have birthdays at this time of year and Analise had a wonderful second birthday celebration.   At school, Analise had Mommy, Daddy and Emma visit her classroom to share pictures of her at different ages and read her favorite story, Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  Grandma and Grandpa Walczynski celebrated with Ani by serving special crisounts and opening presents.

Analise told Emma and Mommy that she would like a peanut butter chocolate chip cake this year so that is exactly what we made.  After a fun time at tumbling class, we sang "Happy Birthday," tried to get Ani to blow out the candles, opened presents and spent time together as a family.  Analise also had special phone messages from Grandma Jan and Grandpa Bruce.  This year's most cherished gifts were the Strawberry Shortcake books and doll as well as the Cindrella doll.

Thank you to everyone that remembered Ani on her special day!

 Two princesses at one party!  Oh My!

Ani singing Happy Birthday to herself.  

 Cinderella spun prince charming off the table.

Emma with her best friends at a Monkey House Birthday

A Little Fun for Everyone

This past week, Dan went to sailors training in the Gulf of Mexico with Erin's Uncle Jeff.  This trip began to take formation after Dan made a comment about always wanting to sail the world.  Erin decided that his dream needed to start to form into a reality.  What better way to start off he journey than with a very experienced sailor?  A big thank you to all the individuals who helped to make this trip a reality!  When Dan returned, he was filled to the brim with new ideas and thoughts about future adventures. 

While Dan was away, Mommy and the girls had a chance to spend some quality time together.  Although tantrums did erupt from time to time, the girls played well together and tried their best to help Mommy with daily chores.  Because it was so cold, we spent a lot of time indoors.  We visited Tropics Indoor Playground on Sunday as well as our weekly music class.  On Monday we went swimming at the Maplewood Community Center and on Tuesday we visited the library to get some new books.  By Wednesday, temperatures were increasing and we were able to go outside without Mommy giving her warnings about fingers falling off due to mittens being discarded.  Wednesday night was filled with lots of made up games and stories.  Mommy made an indoor snowball counting/throwing activity out of cotton balls and we did a color hunt where we collected objects of certain colors.  We also had some time for fort building and puzzles.  Both girls watched our root vegetables and blue Epsom salt crystals daily for any new observations.  Thus far, only the radishes have germinated.  We think the onions are going to come up next followed by the carrots.  These two science experiments prove to be great conversation topics each night at dinner.

 This fort got so big it filled the entire living room

 Indoor playgrounds are definitely an electrifying experience

On Thursday the girls attended their weekly tumbling class.  Somehow the girls were both in the same age range this session and they ended up in class together.  It is interesting for Mommy to see how the differently the girls play and perform when they are in the same room.  Emma inspires Ani to try new things and Ani helps Emma to remember to pick up after herself and take time for things like properly putting on boots.  Before attending her first tumbling class, Emma remarked "Tumbling is my joy in life."  Mommy thinks she melted the heart of the gymnastics instructor with her comment.  Emma is currently working towards her goal of doing a handstand and a cartwheel.  Ani is working on her goal of hanging from the uneven bars.  While the girls tumble, Daddy has plans to take up his own new learning by joining a guitar group.  He will be practicing for many weeks and then perform some songs with the group.  Emma, Ani and Mommy will be excited to hear the tunes his group performs.  After tumbling, the girls put their cooking skills to work as they made blueberry muffins in a mug.  The microwave did a decent job cooking these creations quickly. 

Friday wrapped up the week with Mommy presenting at the Friday Montessori coffee get-together.  Grandma Kathy and Great Aunt Joan took Emma and Ani swimming while Mommy lead her middle school group of girls through their self-esteem building course.  Daddy attended the coffee get together and then worked from home during the day.  Thank goodness we made it through the week!  Now we can start all over again with yoga, church and ECFE classes on Saturday.

Had Ourselves a Merry Little Christmas

The week long Christmas break started with a visit from Santa Claus and making chili for a good friend.  Although the girls were hesitant when it came to sitting on Santa's lap, they did love looking for him out in the yard and tried to spy Santa's reindeer.  Later on in the week Emma and Ani received a picture in the mail from Santa that thanked them for the little Christmas cake that they gave him.  Over the weekend, we visited the Macy's display where the girls saw the animatronic version of Santa's Workshop.  We also delivered homemade caramel yogurt dip and pumpkin peanut butter dip to neighbors.  The girls had a blast over at our new neighbor's house.  They were able to try an Indian sweet treat and play with balloons left over from Prince's birthday party.

 What could be better than chomping on cucumbers?

During the week, the girls reenacted the Nativity scene many times.  Ani loved letting the three kings ride around in style on her pink scooter.  As the week progressed, more and more Nativity characters were found riding the trendy scooter.  Besides the Nativity, we loved reading stories by the Christmas tree and pretending to be elves working in Santa's workshop.  The day before Christmas Eve, the girls decided to make some bath salts to give the relatives at Christmas.  Our first attempt ended up a bit too fizzy, but we plan to try the project again soon to see if we can get better results.

 Grandma Walczynski's tree is always a fascination for the girls

 Grandpa, Emma and Ani playing with a train set from Great Aunt Marchie that is 60 years old

On Christmas Eve, we spent the evening with the Walczynski and Hill Family.  Church was beautifully decorated and very crowded.  Lots of Mommy's friends from her faith formation group were back at church with their children.  Ani and Emma did a great job bringing up food to the alter for families in need.  After church we headed to Grandma and Grandpa Walczynski's house for Christmas dinner and opening presents.  Everyone loved the idea of the birthday cake for Jesus that Grandma did this year.  As for presents, the favorites were My Little Ponies, a baby doll and a Sophia music player.

 

The Happy Birthday Jesus Cake

 You can never have enough hats, mittens and baby dolls

When Emma and Ani awoke the next morning, they found that Santa had left them a trampoline and a juicer for making smoothies.  Daddy spent all morning putting together the trampoline (each spring had to be individually pulled to the correct position).  As Daddy worked on the contraption, the girls happily played with their new toys.  We spent a bit of time sledding out at the park and played board games, read stories and danced around for most of the day.

 Not too much snow on Christmas day

The following morning, Grandma Jan and Grandpa Bruce arrived.  The girls were thrilled to have them visiting for the weekend.  Emma and Ani loved the color changing ponies that Grandma Jan found and the face paint from Grandpa Bruce.  We visited the sledding hill once again, painted our faces multiple times, painted pictures, read lots of stories, played new board games, visited the Children's museum and went to church at the Cathedral of St. Paul.

We are all so thankful to have such wonderful relatives and friends with whom we spent the holidays.  Our Christmas was filled with so much love!