Easter 2012

Easter morning is always very exciting!! Ella woke up before us all and ran into the dining room to check on Easter bunny's progress. I told her later that she needs to wait for all of us before she goes in. She replied, "Well, I was just making sure EB had came otherwise there was no point in waking you guys up." Good point, Ella!
Easter bunny didn't disappoint this year. The big surprise for Luke was new fireman rain boots!! Huge hit!! Ella got her very first chapter book...a Junie B. book she has already finished. That girl can read really well!!
Here are a few shots of Easter morning.

2012 Easter Preparations

We had a great Easter this year. The day before was full of preparations for the arrival of the big bunny. First, we had to paint the eggs for Easter bunny to hide.....little did we know we would wake up Easter morning to discover some animals had made off with all the real eggs!! Big disappointment! After we dyed eggs, the kids put out their baskets and wrote our traditional nite. Then Lyle and I tucked them into bed and had a nice night hanging out with Craig and Lauren who had come over earlier for a little BBQ.

Little Rock Marathon

We finally did it! Lyle and I have been talking about running a marathon together and we finally did it...well Lyle says it was just a 5k so we can't really call it a marathon but just the same:) We ran the Little Rock 5k marathon back on March 3rd. It was the first for both of us. It was so so so much fun! We are both addicted and want to run more. We have another 5k lined up but we are trying to gear up for a 10k. I can't ever see myself doing more than that but we'll see. Lauren was able to take the kids down for the race so they got to watch us take off and cross the finish line. It was so fun to hear them cheer for us! We finished in 29 minutes and ran a 9:30 minute mile...by no means fast but we did it.

Spring Break 2012 Part 3--Camping trip

We had a little camp out this spring break. Well, it was actually in my parents back yard but close enough:) We had a cozy little tent with an air mattress and lots of blankets! It was really perfect. The kids loved sitting around the fire in their pjs but they really really loved snuggling up in the tent. We will have to do it again soon!!

Spring Break 2012 Part 2

As I said before, we had a very fun and very busy spring break. The renovations on the Museum of Discovery were finally complete so I took the kids there one afternoon.
Here are a few pics of the fun.

One of the big attractions was this set of tubes that went the entire two stories of the building. Air was blown through the clear tubes and the kids could put pieces of fabric or little balls of yarn in them and watch them travel up to the top where they would get blown out and fall back to the ground. They loved it. We spent most of our time here.

Then we went into the "Explore your Body" section and Luke spotted this machine where he could measure how strong he was by squeezing the handle. We spent several minutes on this.....typical boy!

Luke also had fun staring down this iquana...."He's eating wunch, Momma!"

They then got to act like they were news anchors and be on TV. They were supposed to read the tele-prompt as different backgrounds flashed behind them but they didn't really get the idea. They just thought it was cool to be on TV.

It was a really fun time but all Luke could remember about it later the next day when Lyle asked him  was how he didn't get a toy from the gift shop....go figure!

Later that week, while Lauren and I went with some of my girlfriends to watch the Hunger Games, uncle Craig took the kids to Playtime Pizza. I got this picture texted to me during the movie. I'm not for sure what they were doing but from the looks on their faces they must of had a great time!

But by far, the best part of Spring Break this year was that Ella learned to ride her bike without training wheels!! She has been trying for several months now but just wasn't getting it for some reason. This day though, she was determined. As I was helping hold the bike for her, I noticed that as soon as she saw me let go and stop running beside her she would instantly fall over. So, I let go of the bike but kept running along side of her and she literally took off. It happened just like you see it in the movies. She just started going! She was so proud of herself.....but not more than I was of her. I could watch her ride that bike all day! Later on, we decided to play a little trick on Lyle. When he got up from sleeping, Ella asked if he could go outside and help her because she "just wasn't getting it at all". So, we went outside and I acted like I was trying to show Daddy how I was helping her and then I just let go and she took off!! Lyle was very surprised and Ella was beaming!! Daddy and I are sooo proud of you Ella!!
Here is a video from the big day!