I love how Tyler is looking at Esther
so adoringly in this picture!
This one was too cute not to post!
So, even though I didn't get a picture of you, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA K! We love you!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Cousin Story Time
We had a 70th birthday party for Casey's Dad tonight. While all the adults were visiting in the other room, the kids had a little story time led by Esther. It was so cute how they were all listening to her so intently! Ty is just like his cousin and loves books. Renee says he even takes books when they go to the park!
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Proboscis
I managed to get a cool shot of one of the butterflies drinking the sugar water off a flower... it's so amazing to watch! We're debating whether to let them go this week. The recommended minimum temperature is 55 degrees, but it will be getting colder than that at night. We'll see if it warms up in the next few days. Apparently their lifespan is only 2-4 weeks, so we could just keep them in the habitat, but we'd rather watch them fly away and be free!
Saturday, April 10, 2010
The end of vacation
Well, we didn't make it to the Indianapolis Speedway. Esther was sick a couple days before we left, and was still not feeling all that great the whole time on our trip, so we decided not to push things on Saturday. We just headed for home after breakfast and got home by mid-afternoon. This was the scene in our van as we were nearing home. Peter was the last to fall, and stayed awake until we were about 10 minutes from home.
We were disappointed not to make it to the speedway (especially the boys!), so now we will just have to plan another trip to Indy to do that and see the other half of the children's museum! It was a still a great little family getaway.
We were disappointed not to make it to the speedway (especially the boys!), so now we will just have to plan another trip to Indy to do that and see the other half of the children's museum! It was a still a great little family getaway.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Spring Break Mini-Getaway
Casey took a couple days off this week and we are enjoying some time in Indianapolis. When I have told people about our spring break destination, most have asked, "What's in Indianapolis?"
Well, for one thing, Indianapolis is home to the largest children's museum in the world! My family lived in Indianapolis for about 1-1/2 years when I was in pre-school and kindergarten, and we spent a lot of time at the museum. We were there for about 5 hours today, and I think we saw just over half of what there is to see and do there. We enjoyed the dinosaur and train exhibits, Barbie and Bob the Builder activities, and more. There were several things that I remembered from my childhood, especially the old (1927) carousel. We ended our time there with a planetarium show hosted by Big Bird and Elmo, which the kids thought was pretty cool. It's a great place and the kids had a lot of fun!
When we lived here, my family's favorite place to eat was a pizza place called Noble Roman's. I vividly remember eating there and being able to go up to a viewing platform where my sister and I would watch them spin the dough in the air and make the pizzas. I thought it would be fun to see if they still did that and have dinner there. We checked online, but the website was outdated. This should have been our first clue that something was wrong. We asked at the front desk of the hotel, and were given the address and phone number for one that wasn't too far from the hotel. We plugged the address into our trusty GPS, but when we arrived at the location, we couldn't find it. I called the number and it was disconnected. Bummer! We put "Noble Roman's" into the GPS and several other locations came up. I called the closest one and it was also disconnected. I tried the next one and was told that some locations had closed, but that this one was still open. It was the opposite direction from our hotel, so after a total of about 35 minutes of driving, we arrived... at a little sandwich shop type place. It was the type where you just walk up to the counter and order and then there are about 6 booths for eating in. Not at all what I remembered, but the pizza was good and we were served very quickly. So much for sharing my childhood memory with Casey and the kids...
We have also had fun swimming in the pool at the hotel, and just hanging out and having some good family time. On tomorrow's agenda: the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and then back home.
Well, for one thing, Indianapolis is home to the largest children's museum in the world! My family lived in Indianapolis for about 1-1/2 years when I was in pre-school and kindergarten, and we spent a lot of time at the museum. We were there for about 5 hours today, and I think we saw just over half of what there is to see and do there. We enjoyed the dinosaur and train exhibits, Barbie and Bob the Builder activities, and more. There were several things that I remembered from my childhood, especially the old (1927) carousel. We ended our time there with a planetarium show hosted by Big Bird and Elmo, which the kids thought was pretty cool. It's a great place and the kids had a lot of fun!
When we lived here, my family's favorite place to eat was a pizza place called Noble Roman's. I vividly remember eating there and being able to go up to a viewing platform where my sister and I would watch them spin the dough in the air and make the pizzas. I thought it would be fun to see if they still did that and have dinner there. We checked online, but the website was outdated. This should have been our first clue that something was wrong. We asked at the front desk of the hotel, and were given the address and phone number for one that wasn't too far from the hotel. We plugged the address into our trusty GPS, but when we arrived at the location, we couldn't find it. I called the number and it was disconnected. Bummer! We put "Noble Roman's" into the GPS and several other locations came up. I called the closest one and it was also disconnected. I tried the next one and was told that some locations had closed, but that this one was still open. It was the opposite direction from our hotel, so after a total of about 35 minutes of driving, we arrived... at a little sandwich shop type place. It was the type where you just walk up to the counter and order and then there are about 6 booths for eating in. Not at all what I remembered, but the pizza was good and we were served very quickly. So much for sharing my childhood memory with Casey and the kids...
We have also had fun swimming in the pool at the hotel, and just hanging out and having some good family time. On tomorrow's agenda: the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and then back home.
Esther and Peter with Bucky the T-Rex
Doing a little excavating
Dressing up as dinosaurs
Esther loved the Barbie exhibit. There were
hundreds of different Barbies on display from
different decades, and lots of fun activities.
She and Miriam had fun dressing up...
...and being hair stylists
Lunch break!
Riding the cool old carousel
The long-awaited pizza
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
We Have Butterflies!
Two of the butterflies (Laura and Casey) emerged yesterday, and 2 more (Esther and Peter) today. The kids decided to name the 5 butterflies after the members of our family, and they were named as they emerged in order of our ages. One caterpillar waited an extra day after the other four to form its chrysalis, so that's probably the one that hasn't emerged yet. Maybe Miriam will join the others sometime tomorrow.
It's been so amazing to watch them emerge and start to fly, and also to see the proboscises in action as they've started to eat/drink. Those little curly straws they have are so cool! We put sugar water on a flower and on some wadded up tissues in the habitat for them to drink.
It's hard to get good pictures through the mesh, but I did get a few by opening the top a bit and sticking my camera lens inside:
It's been so amazing to watch them emerge and start to fly, and also to see the proboscises in action as they've started to eat/drink. Those little curly straws they have are so cool! We put sugar water on a flower and on some wadded up tissues in the habitat for them to drink.
It's hard to get good pictures through the mesh, but I did get a few by opening the top a bit and sticking my camera lens inside:
The chrysalis in front of the butterfly
is close to emerging...
is close to emerging...
you can see the wing pattern
One that just emerged, and empty chrysalises next to it
In other news, we had a male duck and a female duck in our front bushes this morning. When I went to get the mail, I noticed an egg under one of the bushes. We're hoping maybe we'll get to see a baby duckling hatch!
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Happy Easter!
We had a wonderful Easter today. Our celebration started with a beautiful church service full of praise at Casey's parents' church. We then spent the day with Casey's family at his parents' house and had a really fun day. After a delicious dinner, we spent time outside playing wiffle ball, drawing with chalk, blowing bubbles, and taking a walk to the neighborhood playground.
Pictures before church:
Eating Grandma's goodies... I was too late
with my picture to get all the icing and
jelly beans that were on top!
Playing outside
Grandma bought these bubble wands
"for the kids to play with"...
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Egg Decorating
Casey, Esther and Peter decided to get egg decorating done today, just a day before Easter. They have done this for the past few years, so we didn't want to break tradition! They had fun drawing with a white crayon before dyeing and also trying out a tie-dye kit. They turned out pretty cool! Miriam had just woken up from her weekly nap, so she wasn't too into it at first. By the end, she did want to give it a try, so she did the last egg.
Tomorrow we are looking forward to celebrating the real meaning of Easter at Casey's parents' church and spending the day with his family.
Tomorrow we are looking forward to celebrating the real meaning of Easter at Casey's parents' church and spending the day with his family.
Egg Hunt and Resurrection Eggs
Our wonderful neighbor Dore has been doing an Easter egg hunt for our kids for the last few years. She seems to make it bigger and better every year, and this year she went all out again. She invited the grandchildren of our other neighbors (who all live nearby and are around quite a bit), to join our kids. We had 2 five-year-olds, 1 four-year-old, and 5 two-year-olds participating. The two-year-olds watched the older ones and figured out pretty quickly what the object of the game was, and joined right in! Miriam was a little overwhelmed and stuck pretty close to Casey. It was fun to watch all of them hunt for eggs and then Dore also had a little labeled gift bag for each of them with their names on them.
After all the eggs were found, we went and sat on Dore's deck to have a snack. Then our neighbor (the grandma to the other children) told the Easter story using the Resurrection Eggs. We have these eggs as well and use them with our kids each year, but it was neat for them to hear someone else tell the story. She did an amazing job of telling it very dramatically and in a meaningful way, and even the two-year-olds were listening quite intently.
We are thankful to have such great neighbors and really enjoy this tradition that we have with them!
After all the eggs were found, we went and sat on Dore's deck to have a snack. Then our neighbor (the grandma to the other children) told the Easter story using the Resurrection Eggs. We have these eggs as well and use them with our kids each year, but it was neat for them to hear someone else tell the story. She did an amazing job of telling it very dramatically and in a meaningful way, and even the two-year-olds were listening quite intently.
We are thankful to have such great neighbors and really enjoy this tradition that we have with them!
No More Naps?
Miriam is transitioning out of naps. This stage was pretty rough with Esther and Peter, but Miriam seems to be handling it pretty well. She still goes in her crib every day, but lately she only falls asleep a couple times a week. Amazingly, she's really not too crabby when she doesn't nap! The other day she didn't nap at nap time, but this is what happened while I was making dinner... I guess she needed one that day!
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