TX Trip Part 1

Longview, Texas!  I was going to attempt to put all of our visit with Nana and Papa in one post but when I got to 53 pictures with 3 more days to go, I figured I better split it into two posts.  Below is a picture of what the 9 hour ride down and the 9 hour ride back looked like.  My friend Emily (whose parents also live in Longview) and her 3 kids and the girls and I had quite the experience in the van...movies, games, activities, snacks, songs, a basket on a pulley to get the goods to the back seat, and a partridge in a pear tree!  We left early so they would sleep for at least the first quarter, and they did amazing!  It went so much better than I thought it would.  As long as neither of us has anymore kids for a bit, I would do it again in a minute.

So Nana went our of her way to make our pre-Easter week fun.  We got home on the Saturday before Easter so instead of doing our traditional things, we got to do new fun things with Nana and Papa.  We did face painting...

  

and fingernail painting...

and egg hunting everyday...daytime AND nighttime!!! 

We made Easter cupcakes...lambs, nests, and a cross :)

We had bunnies for breakfast...

and colored eggs too.  What fun what fun!

Nana and Papa had to work during the week but we still had lots of extra special times with them...we saw a Dog Parade...(oh yeah...I know you are all jealous)...

we went to a sweet "castle park"....twice...

the girls helped Papa "make" in the kitchen...

and then he took them on their first ever mini-golf trip.  Note to self:  the attention span of a 3 year old is a tad short to do 36 holes you paid good money for...

and we visited Papa at work and sat in on his little kids sermon he does for the pre-school at the church.

Of course, we got all spiffied up for church so Nana and Papa could show off their sweet grand-babies.  They were a hit waving their palm branches and you easily tell what pew we sat in thanks to the glitter they left from their dresses.  :)

Emily and her sweet parents made sure we weren't just sitting on at home on the couch when Nana and Papa had to work so the girls had their first experience with Chuck E. Cheese.  Andy tried to convince them before we went that they probably wouldn't like it and as we walked in the door, Hadley ran off around the corner yelling, "I LOVE THIS PLAAAAAAACE!!"

Did someone say FREE TICKETS?   Notice who's is front...

Our sweet girls.  More TX and EASTER fun to come!

Love to you all!

Rainbow Week--Spring Break 2014

Spring Break.  When you stay home with your kids who aren't in Kindergarten yet, everyday is kind of like a break...and by "break" I mean cleaning, meetings, studies, errands, laundry, dishes, pre-school, planning, etc.  Some of our normal activities were not happening that week so to fill some free time, I wanted to do something fun.  I remember one spring break growing up when my mom planned everyday to be something different.  One day that sticks out was backwards day (we ate dessert first and had spaghetti for breakfast).  Since the girls are super into rainbows and colors right now, we did Rainbow Week.  Everyday was a different color and we dressed and ate dinner of that color.  Monday of that week was St. Patrick's Day so our days were out of order a bit but you get the picture.  Fun times, super easy, and it didn't cost anything....except $3 for a purple shirt for Andy :)

RED DAY

Strawberry milk   

We made apple stamps (cut them into stars and hearts).

 And we ate strawberry applesauce, raspberry yogurt, and noodles with red sauce for dinner.

 ORANGE DAY

 Butternut squash casserole, carrots, oranges, peaches, and cheese puffs for dinner.

YELLOW DAY

Our Sarah Cole...

Mustard chicken, pineapple, corn, and egg salad for dinner. 

 GREEN DAY

 We already covered this but broccoli, asparagus, chicken and noodles with pesto, and kale salad.

BLUE DAY

 On our blue day we had a Frozen party with some friends...we made marshmallow Olafs and had to blue slushies...  

and blue jello

and blue cupcakes.

PURPLE DAY

 Beet and beef soup (Borsht), red cabbage, purple jello, and beet salad.  Probably the weirdest (and hardest to find) combination of purple food.  Turns out, the girls are not fans of beets :)

 This was the fun part:  all week, everywhere we went, we looked for things that were the color of the day and took pictures of them.  Then I had them printed off so we could make this.  It turned out great and the girls are excited to have it hanging in their room.  It was a fun week and I need to start thinking about what to do next year :)

 We are so happy that spring has been slowly revealing itself in KS.  Next week the girls and I head to TX to visit Nana and Papa and then Easter!  Hope you are all well!  Love to you all!