easter

our easter celebrations began last wednesday (the 4th) at the whale park:

the kids played:

while the adults hid eggs:

and then my camera died, so we back went home to hibernate.

ha! i wish. my camera really did die but we stayed and i took some high-quality pictures with my magnificent dumb phone. 

ready to go:

all done:

and enjoying the spoils:

luckily for the kids i hadn't procrastinated getting their loot this year so not having a car didn't make a difference on the easter front: 

lucy got a kick out of the "carrots that walk" and likes coloring in the batman book "because it has two-face". both girls enjoyed the m&m's and thought the movie was too scary. all in all, a success.

hazel was sick so grant stayed home with her while lucy and i headed out to the first hour of church, which was full of beautiful easter music. once home again, i made hot cross buns. then we all took a nap (well except grant who read). after our naps, grant and i hid some eggs for the final extravaganza:

it didn't take the girls too long to find them all (the one grant hid in the chain and the one i hid in the cat's plaything took the longest). 

and finally, after dinner we dug into the hot cross buns (i used half all-purpose and half whole wheat flours 'cause that's what i had; and i added cardamom to the cinnamon and sugar; oh and no raisins were added; and instead of an egg white in the icing, i used meringue powder. and they were tasty):

hope everyone had a great easter too!

valentine's 2012

our celebrations began on february 8th, with a playgroup potluck lunch and valentine exchange:

after eating we passed out our valentines:

my craftiness knew no bounds:

trick-or-treat bag + paper heart = valentine receptacle. genius.

the girls had plenty of room to go crazy playing with their friends:

they were also able to decorate a sugar cookie each:

on valentine's proper the girls received small gifts from us:

each got her own box of chocolates, toy car, and hairbrush:

lucy was so happy to get a brush "just wike rapunzel's!"

later we made some more sugar cookies to decorate:

just look how tasty:

knives were only licked once or twice.

it was a good, happy day.

splish splash

playgroup last wednesday was at hermann park. all of the kids wore swimsuits and played in the fountains:

the girls, of course, had tons of fun:

lucy preferred splashing in the muddy puddles (lucky me):

happily, hazel was more excited to feed the ducks:

turns out they don't much care for ritz crackers. strike two, mommy.

today we planned on going to the discovery green downtown. so this morning we put the girls in their swimsuits and headed out:

oops.

we left anyway, thinking we might have a little time to play before the storm could catch up. wrong, again. this is what it looked like at the first major light (about 1/2 mile from our gate):

hmmmmm. at this point we decided to just drop grant off at school. it was slow going. houstonians treat rain like utahns should treat snow, i.e. they drive very slllllooooooooooooowww. just as we got on to the freeway, the car in front of us nearly caused a wreck by stopping. there was a big puddle in his way. anyway, we made it passed a couple exits and this sign:

"hurricane season is here...be prepared" oh, happy thought! this is where grant gave up and got off the freeway. we splashed our way back home (hopefully missing any pedestrians that happened to be on the sidewalk or at a bus stop):

and, go figure, by the time we got home it was barely sprinkling. so we let the girls brave hypothermia:

this is one of their favorite things to do. lucy especially can't get enough. she runs back here whenever we're outside to see if the puddle is there:

at first they were content with just running back and forth through it:

but soon enough, it was this:

and finally, this:

hazel is a stingray and lucy is a very rare water-loving cat. the best part of all of this splashing is (no, not the laundry) the tantrums that get thrown while trying to get back inside.

it's a good thing they're both so stinking cute.

hazel puts the 'p' in park

last wednesday was playgroup. we went to a new (for us anyway) park. hazel was really excited to see this park because it has an old firetruck as part of the playground. so we drove out there, it was about a 15 minute drive, and once the beasts were unleashed, they bolted for their various areas of interest: hazel to find the firetruck and lucy to find something with which to endanger her life. obviously, i followed my daredevil around. at first she was interested in the noisy construction across the street:

a couple minutes later, a friend brought hazel over to me. she (hazel) had stopped playing and told juliet that she needed to use the potty. sadly she had already gone. sigh.....of course this caught me unprepared: no change of clothes, not even a diaper. thankfully another friend gave me a diaper and hazel continued to play:

the rest of the time was spent accident-free, despite lucy's best efforts:

she found an old bubble-blowing wand and maintained a death-grip on it:

 hazel spent nearly all of her time on the firetruck. driving:

and tightening the lug nuts on the wheel:

she became quite the clown while i was taking pictures:

eventually she got bored of the face-making and decided to just show her enthusiasm for the firetruck:

hazel then left the firetruck and found the "beach":

lucy ended the visit playing on the bike rack:

the end.