Saturday, April 23, 2011

Easter Party

Today Matt, Grace and I went to an Easter party at our church.  I was unsure of how this was going to go.  Grace had been to an Easter egg hunt two days prior so I was sure that she would be fine with that part, but I knew that there were other activities offered.  It turned out that the party went wonderfully!

 We started with some coloring as all of the kids started to arrive.  Grace has been really enjoying scribbling, coloring, and actually eating (when I am not looking...which has happened twice) crayons and colored pencils.  So this was a very fun activity.  However, taking the crayons away to move on to the next activity was not so fun.
 Our next activity was an Easter egg hunt.  We were able to get 22 eggs per child (that is a lot of chocolate).  Fortunately Grace still does not know that there was candy in the eggs.  She just simply thought that they were fun rattles.  
 Grace was wonderful at picking up the eggs and putting them in the basket.  However, she decided that she was done after 16.  So I picked up the remaining 6.  The eggs were very obvious and just tossed in and open field.  Wonderful for the age group.
 Next activity was a snack craft.  They told the story of the empty tomb and we "built" the story out of food.  A half of a doughnut for the tomb, a doughnut hole for the boulder, teddy grahams for the women who visited, a cookie with pretzels for wings as an angel.  It was a great activity. 
 In pure Grace fashion, she did not wait to build the whole scene...
She did not wait for the story...
 She began to eat each part of the craft as it was placed in front of her on the plate
 And it was good!
We then had story time where we listened to two stories.  Or at least tried to, before she decided that it would be more fun to run up and down the hallway.
 Which is a good thing that the next item for us was game time.  Which involved balls that have handles on them so that you can hold the handle and sit on them and bounce, but these balls had bunny slipcovers on them.  Grace decided that she needed to pet and hug these bunnies.
 She also needed to kiss them.
 We also played bunny bowling.  She did pretty good rolling the ball from a sitting position.  But it was not long before she decided that it was more fun to knock them down without the ball (mainly using her head).
 The day was wonderful, but what I was most amazed at was she did very well at taking turns with others.
Happy Easter to all!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Pigtails

 Today I decided to try doing something with Grace's hair.  After a trip to Walmart to find ponytail holders small enough for her hair, we were ready to experiment.



I think they are very cute.  Also, she has kept them in for about 3 hours at this point (longer than I ever expected).  What do you think?

Monday, April 4, 2011

Stacking

 Recently Grace has enjoyed her wooden blocks more and more.
 She really loves stacking them.
 She has been able to stack seven of the small blocks (the two top ones in the picture above) in a tower before it falls over.
Look at that concentration.  Now I am being pulled away from the computer to help Grace with a puzzle.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Saving Money

I must admit, it is not much of a surprise, but I married a dumpster diver.  No, he does not go after food, but you can bet that when colleges let out he is looking for good finds.

Last year he found a hair cutting kit.  Clippers, many different sized gauges, etc. all you need to give a man a good clipper cut.  We have had this kit for almost a year, and today he came to me and said..."can you give me a haircut?"  I very hesitantly agreed (thinking in my head...I hope I do not scalp him!)

He gave me a quick overview of how to work the clippers and said start slow.  So I started slow and continued slow, even after he told me that I could go faster.  The longer I went the more confidence I got.  In the end I had enough confidence to take off the guard and clean up his neck and cut out his ears.

I must say the haircut turned out very well.  I think that I will take the advice of my sister of where she does about 3 haircuts at home, then has her guys get one real good haircut at a barber shop.  I enjoyed giving Matt a haircut but I think that every once in awhile he will need to get professionally cleaned up.  But in the meantime this is going to save a bit of money (which always makes me smile!)