A Hodge Podge of Pictures..and a LOAD of Smiles

Look at my beauty!! I love this very un-posed, natural smile.  

Two weeks ago was Spring Break in Bettendorf which meant that the Family Museum had special activities for each day of the week. This was the Earth Balloon. It was huge and filled the entire Great Room of the museum. You could go inside the balloon for a 20 minute guided tour, but unfortunately the wait for that was way too long for my kiddos so we just admired the outside and identified the ocean, forests, islands, and habitted land.  The kids thought it was pretty cool.  This day happened to be relatively warm outdoors so we spent the entire time OUTSIDE in the museum's great outdoor park area to avoid the spring breakers. The kids were ecstatic to finally get outdoors.  

I think it was like maybe 45 degrees this day….but by this year's standards that was warm!! So we headed out for our first afternoon outdoor snack!!  We also toured and I mean TOURED the neighborhood on our bikes…well the kiddos ridding and me walking…rather briskly.  We probably rode over a mile. I just kept saying maybe we should head back and they both emphatically shouted no. Kennon is absolutely FABULOUS on the red balance bike and Maddox goes gang busters on her pink big girl bike. They are so adorable ridding together.  Eric and I have honestly been talking about getting Kennon a big boy bike for his birthday in June. He is already balancing fairly well and I think he could be ready by then!!  Amazing!!  

After this long ride Kennon said 'Mom my peanuts hurt!!'  I wasn't quite sure what to say so I said 'buddy talk to your dad about that one!!'  Hah…. 

The Bubble Man at the museum - a spring break special 

So our 'school time' is moving right along.  The letter of the week is 'O'.  We did a hunt today and both kids worked on either writing or finding their letters by sight.  We keep building the curriculum by continuing to work on letters from previous weeks.  I think Maddox's letters are coming along really well and I can actually see a difference in her letters that she complete on Monday as compared to the letters she writes on Fridays. It is remarkable.  That Aunt Diane….she sure  knows what she is doing. Thanks for all the great tips!! 

Name that Tune?? 

Last week I scored a 1 pound bag of basil at HyVee for $1.00. For those of you that don't purchase basil regularly that is a STEAL!!!!  Gotta love Hyvee. So I commissioned the kids to help me prepare some basil to make homemade pesto.  They were happy helpers although not so interested in the final product.  I think Kennon looks so old in this picture.  

Last week at the museum ( yes…we were there again…maybe we should just camp out in the backyard playground area you can see through this window…just kidding!!) the Bettendorf 6th grade students were there and had set up all these fun,  stations for toddlers and museum goers to participate in.  They had this basketball station set up and literally showered KTK with love, balls, attention and lots of good jobs!   He would have stood there all day getting their praise and being handed basketballs to shoot.  Unfortunately for KTK ( and for me who had to wrangle him out of the museum) the 6th graders had to go back to school for lunch about 11.30.  It was one of those terrible mom moments where I wished I was the only one in the museum but nope, super busy and lots of museum goers to witness KTKs tantrum.  When he does this ( which is quite often right now….along with hitting anything and everything mostly humans….a work in progress) Maddox gives me the oddest look like 'uh mom, are you going to do something'.  Magically she starts acting really well when he goes off the handle. Thank goodness.  

We were all invited to Priya's birthday party last Saturday.  It was the kids' first official non family party and it was a hit. Priya turned 4 last Friday and celebrated with a rainbow themed party complete with cupcakes with LOADS of light pink pretty frosting, a candy filled piñata, fruit loop necklaces and a take home bag full of candy that put Maddox and Kennon's Halloween candy to shame!!   We all had such a nice time meeting Priya's family and friends. There were tons of kids of all ages and both Maddox and Kennon ran around with happy faces almost the entire time. Maddox put this adorable dress on at like 6am that morning…all ready for the party.  

Kennon getting blind folded by Priya's mom, Elisha,  for pin the horn on the unicorn. 

I call this Maddox's sugar smile! Fruit loop necklaces!! This after cake and ice cream, and preceding the candy piñata. And Priya's grandma sent the kids home with a red solo cup full of fruit loops. I think she could tell after chatting with me for a bit that Maddox and Kennon don't get a lot of fruit loops!! I just found one under the couch as I am typing this.  Gotta love Grandparents to send the kids home with sugar ;)  

Look out unicorn, Kennon has the bat!

Candy!!!  Maddox didn't know until like 1 minute before it broke that there was candy in the unicorn.  She came running to us with the biggest smile after she found out that they were going to get showered with candy. 'Mom there's candy in there!!'   Her smile went from ear to ear. 

Kennon was excited as well but wasn't quite up to speed on gathering the candy up. He was fine to just take a couple of pieces and start opening and eating the candy.  He was happy with his 3 pieces shoved in his pockets. Maddox on the other hand came to both Eric and I and wanted us to hold her pile of candy so she could go back for more. She wasn't interested in opening any until she knew she couldn't score anymore!!  

The kids are starting swim lessons this week.  We have really let that aspect of 'education' slide as Kennon has never taken formal lessons and Maddox hasn't had any since she was 6 months old. They both like the water so we decided with my new status it was time to get them signed up for lessons. Both kids are doing parent-tot lessons which means that either Eric or I are in the water with them.  The classes are in the big pool and work on water basics.  ( putting face in, kicking, scooping water, safe entry into the walker, jumping into water, floating, blowing bubbles etc ) Neither Kennon nor Maddox is really all that excited about putting their face in which is the goal of this class.  It is just one time per week the whole month of April.  Hoping to have that goal accomplished by the end of the month. Then the next class they'll do will be solo hopefully.  

So one final funny thought for you moms. Everyone knows the pool experience is generally fabulous..the locker room not so much. Trying to get 2, or even 1, cold, wet, tired, hungry toddler showered and dressed with only one adult parent to assist is kind of a nightmare.  Today Kennon screamed bloody murder from the time that I wrangled him out of the pool till the time that we literally walked in the door of 5363 and gave him fruit snacks. Again it was one of those moments that Maddox figured out that she should start acting really well because Kennon was struggling so terribly. After getting them both showered ( I felt bad that Maddox didn't have lessons today so I went and grabbed her from the Kid's room so she could have some swim time….in hind sight…maybe not such a good idea )  and dressed and myself rinsed off and dressed I realized somewhere I had lost one of my tennis shoes.  It was freezing outside today so I was thinking, as I walked to the front desk of the Y with one shoe, well this is going to be a cold walk to the van.  Luckily it was at the lost and found!!! Thank you Grammy…my Guardian Angel looking out for me, to make sure I got my shoe back and didn't have to do the shoeless walk of shame to my car.  Another one of those times that Maddox was looking up at me, as Kennon was wailing and I was searching every nook and cranny for my blasted shoe, 'uh Mom what are you going to do now?'!!!'  One for the record books.  Next week has got to be better eh? Maddox starts her lessons tomorrow.