Easter Fun

Sorry it took so long to get some Easter pictures posted. Danica had a fun time this Easter. She got to dye Easter eggs for the first time and loved it. She enjoyed it so much that I bought some extra dye kits when they went on clearance after Easter! Who says you can only have pretty eggs once a year! She didn't even argue about having to put on a smock to color the eggs (previously this had been an issue!). I guess she thought it was just like wearing her apron when she "helps" me cook.

Here she is getting all ready to go. And apparently doing her best "grasp the monkey's tail" impression! (tai chi for anyone not familiar)

She was all about the pictures that day. As you can tell by the cheesy grin. She is all ready to go!

I wrote on some of the eggs with a white crayon and she loved how we could put names on them. The names included: Danica, Mommy, Daddy, Papa, Grandma, RoseAne, Nicholas, Emmarie, Monica and Kasen. (and yes Monica it was her idea to put your name on it!) We took Kasen his egg the next day when we went to Randi and Devon's house for Saturday "Easter" dinner.

Here she is with her finished eggs. She was so proud!

Like I said we went to Jason's cousin's house for Saturday evening. The kids quickly disappeared into Kasen's room to play. Even Ellia was in on the action.
Later the kids has some fun with a track. I think it was for cars but am not sure.

Here is Randi and Kasen getting all ready for their Easter egg hunt!

They loved it!As you can see Kasen was determined to get that egg. Even if it meant manuvering under a chair to do it!

They were pretty good about not trying to take each other's eggs. I think that they came out about equal in the number department. Of course us parents helped steer them towards more when needed.

Ellia enjoyed watching them and chewing on the plastic eggs as well.

The kids and dad sorting out there treasure!

The kids sitting watching a show, winding down before we had to leave.
And Ellia sitting in her high chair eating dinner happy as a clam! Gotta love that hair and grin!

This was Danica's Easter dress. This picture was taken after church BEFORE lunch so that would be why there is a crabby look on her face! It is such a cute dress though!

MN Trip

I am aware that these pictures are long over due but better later than never right! The beginning of April we took a long weekend trip to MN. It started out being a surprise to my sister Janeen for her birthday. Then we decided to try to surprise pretty much everyone, with my parents being the ones who knew along with my father-in-law Don. Well....long story short we ended up having to tell almost everybody in the family that we were coming due to it being a busy weekend and we didn't want people to go out of town or have every minute that we were there scheduled with something else. The only person who was surprised was my mother-in-law Jeanine. Jason and I were pretty impressed that Don was able to keep the secret! Needless to say she was very surprised to find us standing on their doorstep at 4:30 on a Thursday afternoon!

Danica quickly snagged Grandma and they dissappeared to find the toys and play puzzles. In case anyone didn't know, Danica has no problem with shyness when it comes to seeing people that she hasn't seen in awhile...or complete strangers for that matter. We also had been talking to her for several weeks that we were going to be flying on an airplane and seeing Grandmas and Papas and her cousins. She had a great time on the plane and thought the very bumpy landing that we had was fun. Mommy and Daddy thought otherwise. Don't....like....turbulence.

This is from when Danica got the see my Mom aka "other Grandma" (this title is used to refer to whoever she currently is not around and can be used to refer to Papas as well). I'm not sure either one of them planned on letting go!

This was at Tim and Monica's house. They have a very old rocking chair that the kids liked to sit in.

And here is Emmarie patiently (for the most part) waiting her turn.

Danica and Nicholas are both pretty huggy kids so it wasn't hard to get them to do it for the camera.

Emmarie spending some time with Uncle Tim. I wonder why they get along so well? Hmmmm.

Danica with Uncle Justin. Friends of Janeen and Justin just had some little lamb born that morning so we went to see them. Danica didn't like the lambs--no idea why...but she loved the chickens. She also loves her Uncle Justin...could be because she knows he very used to little girls since they have two.

Emmarie and Danica would frequently disappear when at Tim and Monica's house. We would usually find them in "the red room". They would be playing with cars or whatever. They got along so well. It was cute because Danica looks so much like me and Emmarie looks alot like Janeen. We had mini versions running around!

Janeen and I managed to convince our Dad to make his yummy milkshakes! They are still some of the best I have ever had. Here the girls are enjoying theirs.

Danica was dancing on Grandpa's feet again. Nicholas thought that it looked like fun and tried to join in.

And this is Nicholas after Danica told him no, it was her turn. Ever so politely by pushing him off. He then growled at her and shook his finger at her and dramatically put his head down. And all the adults laughed. And then he smiled.

This is a sculpture that Tim and Monica received for their wedding from our Uncle Fred. I just love it and thinks it's beautiful so that is why I am sharing it.

You may have noticed that there are no pictures of RoseAne. I didn't realize that until I was posting this. RoseAne was very busy the weekend that we were there. She was in her first play Disney's Beauty and the Beast and was both a lamb and a flower. We were able to go see it on Saturday afternoon and Danica loved the play. It was well done and you could tell all the kids worked really hard.
Danica did great on our return flight too. She loved being on the airplane and "going up in the sky, really fast, and bumpy!" It makes it so much easier when they are good flyers. And thank God for non-stop flights and portable Dvd players!

First Haircut!

Well the time had fnally come for Danica to get her first haircut. The way it was growing it had a bunch of different layers in it and that made it difficult to do anything with. I found out about this place in Portland from one of my coworkers who takes her son there. It is called Little Clippers and they specialize in kids haircuts. This place was awesome! They had tons for the kids to do while waiting. A couple of playhouses and a couple of different video gaming systems including Vtech. So this is Danica's hair before the cut.

She was trying to figure out the Mario game that they had. We got there a little early so she could see what it was about. She was excited to get her haircut "with scissors!" When she mentioned that with excitment the day before we had a little conversation that only big people get to cut hair with scissors.

They had all sorts of different things for the kids to sit in while they got their haircut. And the kids got to choose. Danica chose the Barbie car. They also had a jeep, horse and racing cars. She particularly liked playing with the radio and steering. She didn't put up a fuss with having the cape on. I wasn't sure how she would react to that but she took it well. She also got to watch a Dora video while they cut her hair. They have a pretty big list for the kids to choose from and Jason and I knew that would work for her.

The guy who cut her hair was really great. He was even patient with me and Jason since we couldn't agree on how short to cut it. I think we ended up inbetween what we wanted.

I was amazed she didn't freak out over the blowdryer. She still doesn't like it when I use one!

And "ta da!" Shorter hair.

A picture from the back!

We found a great deal for a hotel about half a mile up the road from the haircut place (Jason found the deal and is quite pleased with himself--as he should be, it was fun). We stayed in a room with 2 queen beds, it had a pool and we got 4 tickets to the zoo and a full breakfast! So we had a little vacation. We took Danica to the pool and of course she had to pose for the camera!

She is such a little ham! She loved her swimsuit. The pool was kinda cold but we got used to it. We didn't have any earplugs for her so she couldn't go underwater. Since she doesn't like to go under...I think she was okay with that.

Saturday morning we went to the zoo and she was so excited to see all the animals. And I mean see...not watch. We would get up to a cage and she would take one look at them and then say "more animals!" It made it hard when Jason or I wanted to actually look at the animals! Especially the baby elephant! He was so cute! Jason got this picture as I was waiting in line for an elephant ear.

She did alot of walking at the zoo. She declared she did not want the stroller and would walk. We did miss going through one section because of this. Partly because the zoo had a lot of construction going on and some paths were closed so we had to take the long way to see some things. It was a fun couple of days.

Pretty nails and other things

The other day I painted Danica's fingernails and toenails for the first time. If there had been any doubt left...she is definitely a girly girl. She was so excited to have it done and even tolerated (kinda) me cutting her toenails. That normally involves many tears on her part because for some reason she hates it. I have no idea why. I have never clipped her while cutting her nails. Oh well. She chose a purple for her fingers and a light silver blue for her toes. Which doesn't show up on pictures very well otherwise there would be a picture of that too.
Showing off her nails for the rest of the day. I barely got socks on her when we went to the store. Of course she had to show the cashier her nails and announce that her name is Danica.

She was in head to toe pink the other day. She decided to wear her Minnesota princess hat. She actually kept it on which I wasn't expecting. It looked really cute with the pink fuzzy sweatsuit.

This morning she helped me make banana bread. She helped to mush up the bananas and stir everything together. She did a really good job too. Flour was not flung out of the bowl and she did a great job stirring in circles. She wanted to be the one to put it in the oven but stopped insisting it when I opened the oven door and showed her how hot it was. Suddenly Mommy was supposed to put it in. Which was my plan all along.

Taking turns

I love that Danica understands about taking turns and sharing. She was really good about it with Christmas presents this year. However.... She can be a little stubborn about it. (Gee, I wonder where she got that from!) The other day she was carrying around one of the little baskets from her Hi Ho Cherrio game filled with cherries. She then spilled them on the bathroom floor. I told her she needed to pick them up and she relplied with "No, it's Mommy's turn!" She then refused to pick them up because clearly she thought that it wasn't her turn to do it. I refused to to it so they sat there. I tried to get her to pick them up later but apparently it was still Mommy's turn! I could not get her to do it. This went on for awhile until one managed to make its way into the hall and I stepped on it with a bare foot. (Ouch!) I then admitted defeat and picked them up.

Nice try

I took Danica to Target Thursday to get some Valentine Day treats to take to daycare on Friday. She was walking around with me (since I couldn't convince her to sit in a cart--I only needed a baskets worth anyways) and helping me pick out the "presents". I was looking at something while we were in the isles of V-Day stuff and I turn around and she is clutching a teddy bear that was about as big as she is and looked up at me, smiled oh so cutely and said "I have that?" I told her "No, put it back." Without a complaint she turned around and put it back. Two seconds later I looked down at her again and now see her with a much smaller teddy bear (only about 6-8 inches high) clutched in her arms. She smiled again and said "I have this?" The look on her face was absolutely precious! I again told her "No, you need to put it back you have enough bears" and she pouted but put the bear back. It's a good thing that my parents had already left and weren't with us otherwise I'm sure we would be stuck with a giant V-day themed teddy bear!

Good visit with Grandpa and Grandma

I left Danica at daycare when I went to the airport to pick up my parents. It was right during her nap time and 2 hours that she didn't need to spend in the car. We picked her up and she just ran to the car in excitment. She gave big hugs and was it was difficult to get her to calm down enough to buckle her in the carseat. Shy she is not. She snuggled right up to them and it was "play puzzles with me?" and "read books with me?" for a solid week. And you know my parents just hated that!
Snuggling with Grandpa on the couch.
She saw everyone else reading the Sunday paper and wanted to read it too. She even picked out the section that I go to first too!

We spent some time on Saturday out on the coast. Being February it usually isn't too nice out there but there weren't any clouds and not too much wind but the waves were huge!

We stopped by a lookout and she wanted Grandpa to pick her up so she could see better.

Danica thought it was sunny enough to be wearing her shades. Her she is watching Grandpa get as close as he can to the ocean without getting wet.

Snuggled with with Grandma and Grandpa on the beach. I know you can't see it but my Dad is smiling!

Watching the waves with Grandma. And if you look carefully you can see Grandpa down on the beach. I hadn't noticed that when I took the picture. I think it's neat.

This was actually from the first day that they were here. Danica cornered my Mom and "forced" her to read to her.

Danica thoroughly enjoyed having Grandma and Grandpa visit. I think even more this time than the last time. Every time she is just so much more aware of everything and is starting to have such a vocabulary. So the conversations are more than one sided like they used to be. She was really well behaved while they were here too. Show off. She'll probably act up for the next two weeks to make up for it.