Easter Dinner

Sunday evening we went over to Dan and Nancy's for dinner. And you know what? The Easter Bunny knew that Nathan would be visiting there too, and left a few eggs and treats for him to find!







Drinking almond milk out of a big boy mug


These came from Nancy's yard: proof that there ARE signs of spring about.


In a rare turn of events, Nathan actually snuggled in to read a book--heaven!

Easter Morning

Nathan was ALL about the Easter basket and Easter egg hunt this year. First thing in the morning we strapped some shoes on to his footie pajamas and we began the festivities. First was locating and exploring the goodies in his Easter basket.

It looked so pretty when the Easter Bunny had put everything together.


"Here it is!!"


I just love his little voice.

Off to the Easter egg hunt!




Examining the bounty inside the eggs

Coloring Easter Eggs

All of the Easter traditions have been so much fun this year! Saturday evening after dinner we dyed some Easter eggs for the Easter Bunny to hide when he came to visit.

Watching the dye tab dissolve in the vinegar

The first one will be pink.

Daddy helping with the transfer.

Checking on the color intensity. "It's not done yet."

Ta-Da!

Easter Egg Cookies

On Wednesday afternoon, I decided that it would be fun if Nathan and I made some Easter cookies together. We both had a blast! For those of you who have ever seen me make even so much as a bowl of cereal, you know that I am not afraid to make a mess in the kitchen. This tendency toward kitchen chaos went a long way toward me being able to relax and enjoy my 2-year-old sous chef's process.

I got all the ingredients ready before getting N involved. The cups contain an egg, melted butter, and flour. And yes, I used cookie mix. Judge away. :)

N couldn't believe his luck that I was encouraging him to dump all of this stuff out!

Time to mix all the ingredients

Helping spread the flour on the counter before rolling out the dough. I'm pretty sure we used slightly more flour than was technically required!

Time to cut out the egg shapes.

Now for the best part--decorating!

Can you tell which tray Nathan was in charge of decorating, and which tray was mine?

Art Project

Nathan has had kind of a funny week; he has had to be home from daycare for several days, but apparently is only sick when he is there. I picked him up early on Monday, he was fine all day Tuesday, brought him back Wednesday morning, got a call to pick him up at lunchtime, and then he was fine during the afternoon and all day today. While this threw a bit of a wrench into my very busy work schedule, it was fun to be able to spend so much unexpected time with my favorite little guy.

I decided to use some of the found time to attempt an art project inspired by one of the blogs that I follow, Paint and Prozac, where the author is always doing fun and relatively mess-free art projects with her toddler. Well, Nathan wasn't totally in the mood to cooperate with my plan, but we both still had fun (and ended up making a mess!).

Paint and cardboard inside a big ziploc for cool new texture and mess reduction. It's kind of intriguing...

Forget the bag, he wanted to get in on the action!

Showing off his messy fingers.

Totally unrelated to the rest of the post, but isn't he so cute in his rain coat and "fwoggie boots??"

Baby flutters!

In the last week I've started to feel intermittent little flutters from the baby! It is such an indescribable feeling to open a little line of communication with the new life my body is working so hard to nourish and grow.

This evening while I was sitting in the kitchen chatting with Todd, the baby started dancing away, with the most definite flutters and pops yet. I put my hand on my belly and realized that they could be felt from the outside. I had Todd come over quickly to feel, and unbelievably the baby cooperated and kicked him right in the hand!

There's life in there! :)

Graham's Quilt

Hillary is definitely one of my most creative and artistically talented friends. If she and Becky were to embark on a collaborative project, the results would be out of this world! So needless to say, the prospect of making a quilt for her new baby was a little bit intimidating!

Hillary put together a beautiful nursery--cheerful, sweet, sophisticated and contemporary with just the right touch of whimsy. I wanted to try and reflect that in her quilt so that it fit in. I originally wanted to steer away from using the same dinosaur fabric that she used as an accent in the nursery, and think a little more out of the box. However, I kept coming back to the dinosaurs--they're just so cute! So I decided to just go with it.

The last few quilting projects I've done, this one included, were done without a pattern. I had a vague picture of what I was going to do, and bought yardage based on that guess. As I cut and pieced, the design evolved a little bit, which I've really come to enjoy as part of the creative process. This one took longer for me to settle on a layout that I liked, and the extra time was worth it--I love the way it turned out!

I backed it in the impossibly snuggly minkee fabric. It's soooo soft!

Meeting Graham

My dear friend Hillary gave birth to her first child on Wednesday, April 13th. On Saturday I was lucky enough to meet the brand new, and completely adorable Graham Douglas. He is just perfect! It has been a long time since I've had the chance to snuggle a newborn--there is something endlessly fascinating about how miniature and perfect they are--I love how they stretch, and their sweet little hands.

Hillary and Jeff are completely in love with their little man, and more exhausted than they've ever been in their lives: it's that heady drunkeness that comes with new parenthood. I am so incredibly excited for them! They are going to be amazing parents, and I am so excited that I will have another one of my best friends as a source of support and advice in this crazy adventure known as motherhood.

Isn't he sweet??


Graham and his proud and beautiful mama.


I love how newborns still stay all scrunched up even after they're out of the womb.

16 week appointment

I had my 16 week appointment this morning. Aside from me writing down that the appointment was at 9:00 and arriving at what I thought was on time to discover that my appointment was actually at 8:30, everything went great!

I've gained about 2lbs so far this pregnancy, so the midwife was pleased with that. After my weekly progesterone shot, she got out the doppler and was able to find the baby's heartbeat right away! It was 140 bpm, and very strong and steady. Everything seems to be progressing well.

Before I left, I made my next appointment, which will include our "big" ultrasound where we will hopefully find out if a boy or girl will be joining our family. May 13th can't get here fast enough!

Meijer Gardens

April is one of the busiest months for me at work (in close competition with October and December) and fitting in all the fun stuff I want to do with my family and friends while still maintaining some downtime (and maybe doing some laundry and/or housecleaning) can be a little challenging. Luckily on Sunday we were able to combine two fun things--a long overdue day with the Appledorns and a trip to see the butterflies at Frederick Meijer Gardens.

It was a crazy summer-weather day, which came on the heels of a series of cold and rainy days, so it was bizarre and wonderful to have to think about sunscreen and be able to wear a tank top! An outing at a crowded location with two mobile and independent-minded toddlers was a bit of an adventure, to say the least! Although the two boys were usually running in opposite directions, we did get a chance to have some good conversations with Dan and Annalee, and it was so much fun to see how much Miles has grown since the last time we saw him. The boys both loved the butterflies, running around in the sculpture park, and having some ice cream treats at the end of the day!

Ooh, butterflies! Nathan would shriek with excitement every time a butterfly flew his way, it was so cute!

My boys! (and my cute new purse in the background)


Sweet and serious Miles--isn't he cute?



Miles was NOT amused about his Mommy picking him up to move to a different spot--check out that pout!


A hug for Daddy!


Cute blond boys





Me and my son--how did he get so big????




Sculpture park, tropical garden with exotic butterflies, and it's a pile of mulch that gets these two all excited!


Butterfly chair!


Miles demonstrating his impressive upper body strength--this kid is a climber!




All day, while looking at interesting stuff, N would clasp his hands behind his back.


Cute hubby alert!


Boys on the run!




Mmmm... ice cream!



Looking at butterflies wears a guy out.