Bloom at the zoo

Lola and Bella posing with the tulips

Zoo Bloom!

What a great experience to see so many lovely tulips covering the zoo. It was so wonderful. Lola took her bunny pal Bella to share in the fun. Here are some highlights~ petting a king snake and feeding the giraffe. We also were lucky enough to see a peacock all prancing around with his feathers spread:)

Smiley French toast

Is Breakfast tastier when it comes in a smile? I often wonder... Well, no matter, I still enjoy serving our morning meal with a smile. I wonder what effects would come if I tried it with dinner.

Bella enjoying spring

Jello snacks for Bible Study

On Wednesday nights we enjoy an hour with friends at church where mom teaches children's Bible study. Tonights snack was a hit ~ jello shaped like Easter icons. It was the first time I tried it, we don't really eat jello. You can use any candy mold and just add the jiggler recipe for the filling. Oh, the possibilities....

Happy birthday Granny

Now that we are closer to family, popping over for a birthday dinner is turning out to be quite nice:) Granny's birthday is tomorrow, but we had church commitments, so we came a day earlier to share a meal and go golfing.  Lola had made Granny some homemade Granola~ our new speciality. She also spent a lot of time on the card. She  picked out a new 'golfing' hat for Granny. Virgil made some tasty lasagna and a most delicious cheesecake for his mom. Happy Birthday! Ok, who's birthday is next? :)

Reading to dogs

Lola spent the morning reading to guide dogs at the library. Lola really enjoys reading and the dogs really seem to like it. Lola gets many compliments on her reading and we are so proud of her.

Rapunzel

Candace scored us some tickets to Rapunzel at the Taft Theater, we had a great time. Lola really enjoyed her first play.

Practicing peeling

The simple joy of peeling a hard boiled egg. 

Butterfly release

Our painted lady butterflies have completed their metamorphosis. We had decided a while ago that it would be fun to release them in the country where they could find plenty of flowers for drinking food. So, Now that they have all emerged from their chrysalids, we went for a sleep over at Great Granny's. Great Granny was so excited to see the butterflies. She was even able to hold one before it flew off into the world. The Doll also held them all and one even let it catch it over and over again. We ended up taking that one back home with us to show to daddy who had been gone when they came out. The beauty of a butterfly is wonderful. 

Planting potatoes

Lola is always eager to try something new. And planting potatoes in a garden sounded like so much fun. However, she is, how do you say... well, Girlie... So as soon as she felt the 'squashy' potatoes used for starting a potato garden, she was less thrilled at the idea of helping and turned into more of a cheerleader for Great Granny. As the need for eating becomes more clear to this little one, I do hope that she'll learn to make some sacrifices for her dainty ways. 

Gym Time

It's was time to show off some skills for dad. I got to take Lola to gym class and I could not believe all the things she could do, most of them scared me to death but she was flying around all over the place. Jumping, flipping and walking on that balance beam. I look forward to going again.

Cheese cake in pressure cooker

Is it really possible to make a cheese cake in the pressure cooker for 30 minutes...??? Well, yes it its:) One more reason to love the Pressure cooker. 

St Patrick's Day

Who doesn't love green milk and cookies for Dr Seuss? Its not so convincing that Leprechauns were the culprits, because, as you might imagine, Our Doll knows the difference between real and make believe. She thought it was a nice try, but "MOM<<, Leprechauns are not real!!! " So she was happy to have cookies for breakfast though:)

Spring blooms

Smells of Spring fill the trees. We are enjoying our lovely blooming tree in the back yard. It is so sweet smelling. One day it rained and the petals fell like snow across the yard. 

Pie for Pi day

March 14 (or 3.14) National Pi Day. Since Pies are circles and circles are related to Pi. We enjoyed a little chocolate pie. Since we're not up to calculating the radius of the circle or irrational math numbers,  the  math we did used to make the pie.... temperature, time, measuring weight, reading measurements. 

Spring critters

As we were digging up some weeds on the side of the house we found this furry little caterpillar. I let the Doll enjoy watching it crawl around the container for a while so I could continue to pull weeds. Funny how they inch along. After a couple of hours we placed it back to where we found it.

Circus

Elephants on Parade! In a military style. The Circus was in town so we had to go see all the Clowns, Tigers and Elephants. It was a really good show and we had a great time. It also went along with Field trip friday in the city

Snowy morning

This year is really the first time our girl has experienced winter. She grew up in Sunny California:) So when we moved here it has been fun to explain the cold and the seasons to her. It has been a very mild winter according to everyone who lives here. But to our little 5 year old this dusting of snow this morning was a wonderful marvel for her to enjoy.

Winter giving snow a try

Accomplishments

I love watching her try and try until something is accomplished. Whether it's painting something she is thinking about or working on her math, or just doing a puzzle. It's like I can see her little gears in her brain working on it. I caught this picture of her admiring her handy work on this Bunny puzzle. It's been in the Easter box since last year and she wanted to piece it together right away. When she finished she gave it a nice looking over like~Yeah! I did it by myself. ~ So fun~

Bunny Puzzle

Aquarium with daddy

giving the detailed description of the different fish to Dad

Lorikeet

Coaxing a nervous one to have some breakfast

See Dad it's easy~ just be sure to hold the cup so the bird doesn't steal it away:)

what a fun treat!

Tornado warning

Friday is our field trip day at homeschool so we weren't home all day. And when the storm was coming the Doll and I were in the city picking up my husband. On the ride home, there was quite a bit of debris flying around. We were lucky to not have any tornados at our house. Just the ominous cloud lingering to the south. There were tornados 20 miles away.

Truffula trees~ Happy Birthday Dr Seuss

Dr. Seuss how fun you made reading

 for both girls and boys

You turned books with paper

into lifelong toys

Cupcake challenge :)

We enjoyed talking about the beloved Dr Seuss today in memory of his birthday. Did you know that Dr. Seuss had several pen names? Read more about Dr. Seuss here.We recently found two old books (come over to my house)&(maybe you should fly a jet)that I don't remember reading at the fabulous half price book store:) And after the tornados had passed we went to see the 3d movie the Lorax. Have you read this book? It is such  a great story. Following the movie we whipped up some peanut butter cupcakes~ new recipe, that was so tasty, and turned them into some Truffula trees. And  if you don't know what a truffle tree is then you should definitely read the Lorax. 

Thinking of Easter

Thinking

love

gifts

family

life

love of God

gifts of friends

family near and far

life that is so short and precious

life

family

gifts

love