M Family Easter & MCM Member's Night

Today we had Easter with daddy's family. Isabel was loving all the ham & candy. The girl loves her ham & candy. It was a nice time and both kids were well behaved. I was holding Henry when I was taking pictures, so he didn't make it into any.

This was last night at the Minnesota Childrens' Museum. We were there for member night and it was wonderful. It was the most relaxed, low-key visit we have ever had there because it wasn't so crowded. They had lots of snacks & activities beyond the exhibits and a concert we listened to while we played in the exhibits. They even provided us supper. Isabel had such a great time and we were there for over 3 hours. We almost had to drag her out because she was having so much fun & didn't want to leave. But I plan to take the kids back again in a couple week because Buddy the Dinosaur from Dinosaur Train will be there and she loves that show on PBS.

Oh, the next traveling exhibit that is coming in June is the Wizard of Oz. I am so pumped. I can't wait to see it. I hope it's a lot of fun. I am very glad we got a membership and it has already paid for itself and is now saving us money. Every visit now is free. Woohoo!

Easter Bunny & Pillocase Dress

Well, we weren't expecting to meet the Easter Bunny on Saturday, but there it was at the grocery store when we went. When we were there in the morning I just had Isabel with me. But since Henry was resistant to napping I decided he would get to go meet the Easter bunny to and we came back, of course Isabel wanted to come along again.

This is one of her Easter surprises, although she was begging so much to know what I was working on, so I finished it that night and gave it to her Saturday morning. She doesn't know about the Rose Petal Tutu I made her too. Anyways, the pillowcase dress seemed to flouncy around the middle, not really flattering at all. So, I made a tie belt out of the same fabric which makes it look so much cuter. It is cinched around the waist and gives it pleasing pleasts on the top. I used the pattern for this dress from here, but had to adpat it to her measurements since she is wearing a size 5 right now.

Ok - getting caught up on the blog. A few more posts to go.....

Como Zoo & Conservatory

Click on this top photo to enlarge it and see some additional pictures. The bottom 2 collages are ones that were my favorites and put on FB as well.

We had a good time. Isabel did not care for the manure smell in the building of the zebras, kudus, & giraffes. As soon as we got in each building she covered her nose and begged to leave.

She was wonderful about actually making us take time to smell the flowers. We had to stop & smell every flower we came across in the conservatory.

She said her favorite things here were the seals, the poisonous (black & blue) frogs and getting a "lucky" penny (the kind we pay 50 cents to have a machine flatten & emboss an image onto). She also loved the fish.

Isabel's First Dance Recital

She is a wonderful job. It amazing how much she learned so much in 8 lessons. I took videos of her 3 dances, but I don't know if they will be put on YouTube or not because of the length. I just don't want to wait so long to upload each one. But I do plan to burn them to a DVD so we can show family. Her grandma M. and great aunt Dawn joined mommy, daddy, & brother in watching her. She was very thrilled to get flowers at the end. It is such a bummer that there is no spring dance & that summer dance is filled. But I did sign her up for Tae Kwon Do & Cheerleading this spring. Cheerleading is only 4 classes in May. I think TKD is 8 classes in April & May. I have not decided if she will do gymnastics for spring session or not, we'll see how she does at testing in a week.

Weekly Theme: Princesses

Fun Times......

Today we went to the Owatonna Arts Center. The gallery this month was exhibiting projects from area district students, so I thought it might be more interesting to her. She did find a few clay projects interesting and wanted to try making a "word bowl" (as she called it) and the dragons & dinosaurs. There was also some interesting sculptures using a wire hanger & a nylon sock that she wanted to try.

Yesterday we went into our Art/Craft room and were going to make rainbows with play-doh (although play-doh rainbows never happened, but we made play-doh everything else), and she wanted to do some stamping and noticed that we had ROYGBIV stamps and so she made rows of each color in order. This too was her idea. She has been so great about coming up with her own ideas for projects. Although, I do have to admit that sometime she wants to do her own ideas too often and doesn't want to follow directions when she should. Although, normally she is good with following directions.

I made her a bunny pancake the other morning, similar to the piggy pancake. I put whip cream on it to make it look like a fluffy bunny, some cranberry eyes & nose and organic fruit strip whiskers.

Rainbows, Candy & Leprechauns

This top picture is one of the ones that Kirsi took, please check out her blog to see the collage that she made of Isabel & Taryn. They are moving back to their home state this weekend and we will miss them, but are very thankful we have gotten the opportunity to get to know them.

We had a blast at the Sweet Spot. We started out looking for ROYGBIV candies & bought those and she lined them up a couple times in order. She thought that was really neat. They we had some homemade vanilla & strawberry ice cream with sprinkles. Next it was a sampling of sherbert fudge, and finally we ended on buying a bag of cinnamon kettle corn for daddy.

Isabel was just loving all the choices and tended to be more drawn to the brightly colored wrapped manufactured candies than all the homemade candies & fudge (which is what I wanted). Although, she was drawn to the brightly colored sherbert fudge.

If I haven't mentioned, this week's preschool-at-home theme is Rainbow Colors. We are learning RoyGBiv. She does such a good job telling me what color starts with each letter. On Monday, we made the colored water xylophone. We skipped out on both violet & indigo & just did purple because that was how many jars I had to use. She thought this was really neat, making an instrument, learning to mix colors, and then using different kinds of spoons (metal, wood & plastic) to hear different sounds.

Tuesday night we made St. Patty's Day crafts that we were bringing to the playgroup the next day for other kids to do. I wanted to have examples for the kids & moms to see what to do and it was much easier on us to have Isabel do them ahead of time, then she could just play at the playgroup we were co-hosting. We made Fruit Loop rainbows (again, just purple because that's what is in the box) and pots of gold with corn pops.

Yesterday we co-hosted a St. Patty's playgroup with our friends Caitlin, Amelia & Gavin. Caitlin provided the house and LOTS of yummy food. I provided the 2 crafts above & a shamrock plantig activity. Isabel had a ton of fun and it was hard to leave at the end, even though we were the last ones to leave. We ended up having 33 people at this playgroup, which I believe is the largest playgroup our MOMS Club has ever had. Crazy.

Lots of Fun

Isabel did great at the Orchestra. I was very happy with how well she behaved. They also had ballet dancers performing to the music and Manchurian Acrobats. It was really neat. The title of the concert was "The Carnival of the Animals."


This weekend, we had out of town guests from Oconomowoc come stay with us. They came with us to the Little Dudes Open Gym at school and to the Orchestra.

Isabel and Sofia did a really good job playing together. They like to walk around holding hands.

The rainbow snack for Isabel & Sofia.

I didn't take pictures while we were int he big climbing structure, which is where we spent most of our time. This was in another room and we spent the first 10 minutes and last 15 minutes there. These little things were neat because you powered them with your arms.

Cupcake Party (Monday)

Kirsi took these pictures of Isabel at Max's Cupcake Party Playgroup. The Cupcake party seems the way to go for playgroups. The moms set out a couple different frosting choices and a few topping choices and the kids have both an activity & a snack. They had dress up clothes out and as you can see Isabel was dressed like a pirate, later than changed to a fairy and then later her & Mia were pretending they were fairy pirates. I like to think they were renegade fairies. This party was on Monday and I just got around to putting up the pictures now that Kirsi emailed me.

Wednesday, March 10th

We went to the RADZoo for a second time. This time it was with our MOMS Club. We went in the morning and then came back again right before dinner for their show and so that Isabel could pet and alligator and a snake. She absolutely loved that.

While at gymnastics class today I thought I would take a few pictures of her. We actually might not take gymnastics after this session. It is quite expensive and I thought I might like her to try Tae Kwon Do while it is offered for community ed. It is more affordable to do the TKD class through community ed, and they only offer that class on Wednesday afternoons (when she currently takes gymnastics). This will be the last session of CE TKD before summer and in the fall she won't be able to try that one since she will have afternoon preschool. So, then we can decide in the fall if she wants to do gymnastics or TKD through the TKD institute. So many decision for extra curricular activities for a little girl.
This week the theme is Music and she got a couple new instruments to add to her collection. We will also be going to the MN Orchestra this weekend.

Potato Stamping

Potato stamping is one of those things I always wanted to try but had not until now. Isabel had a good time with it. We also made a recycled snack box tonight too.

Dr. Suess Meals

On Friday we had Dr. Suess meals for breakfast and dinner. For breakfast we had green eggs & ham. The eggs looked greener in person. I used pureed cooked spinach to mix into the eggs to turn them green. For dinner we made a Cat in the Hat pizza. They were all delicious.

The Foot Book

In continuing with our Dr. Suess theme, we played Twister. She thought it was a hilarious game. I did get down there right with her, but she had a hard time reaching to spin & keeping her spot, so after a while we just took turns spinning & being on the mat.

It was a great day outside. Snow is starting to melt and the driveway is clear so that she can once again ride her bike. She was thrilled to get out there and ride her bike today.

Weekly Theme: Dr. Suess

Below are the Dr. Suess books we are concentrating our activities on this week in at-home preschool. Of course there are plenty of Dr. Suess books out there, but it was best to limit the ones we will read and have fun with. So, you can see a few things we have done this week and there is still some more to come.

Weekly Theme: Bears

Here you can see a few more things that we did last week in addition to our trip to Cabela's. We also sang some bear songs and got out a bunch of bear books to read.

Isabel's favorite at-home friends.

Pipsqueaks: Rochester, MN

Isabel had a good time here at Pipsqueaks too. It kinda sucks we have to drive so far, but at least admission was only $2, kinda helps offset the cost of gas. But when you have cabin fever, you become more willing to drive. I didn't get very good pictures of her because she was purposefully not looking at the camera; she didn't want her picture taken today.