Pillow Pet

Emma was originally working toward getting a Build-A Bear but then changed her mind. She earned all her stickers and got her Dora pillow pet today for staying dry at night. Great job Emma!

Emma's Special Person Night at Preschool

Dad and Emma went to the Special Person's Night at preschool. She planted a flower, made a crown, created a terrarium, decorated a spring cake, pasted flowers on a hand, and designed her own spring picture frame. It looked like it was a lovely Spring-filled activity night!

Oregon Trip

We headed down to Astoria, OR for a quick overnight trip. Andrew (my brother), Kelly, and Logan came along with us. We had an awesome time. My kids thought the "huge hotel room" with a river view of the boats along the Columbia river was one of the major highlights. Below are some of the things that we did.

A visit to the Goonies House- after this visit we found a little local shop to eat some fish and chips. We tried the sampler platters including a tuna and agreed it wasn't as good as the other varieties of fish (halibut and cod).
After dinner we saw the Astoria Column

View from the top (if you look carefully you can see Kelly and I down on the bottom holding Logan and Jacob with Emma in her pink coat to the side).

We had a little pool time and then put the kiddos down while we stayed up to chat.

The next morning we headed over to Cannon Beach.
Our friendly visitor
Haystack Rocks
Benjamin playing in the tide pool - it didn't last long before the tide came in
The kids played in the sand for a long time. They loved it even though it was not warm at all.

Benjamin, Andrew, and Logan's tunnel with water trench around it.
Jacob was so happy playing, but we knew that he was soaked. We stripped him down and his little legs were freezing so we knew it was time to head for lunch and then home. He cried to leave though. Jacob was hard core into the sand.

It was a great trip and for the most part the kiddos did great on the drive as well. We are looking forward to our next over night adventure to see where it may take us!

St. Patrick's Day

Benjamin was off of school on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for elementary school conferences. So one thing that we did together one morning was make a leprechaun trap. It was pretty ingenious. It was a leprechaun mansion complete with a two story house, swings (Emma's contribution that she worked on the whole time), and a slide. There was also a trap door at the bottom of the slide so that our little trickster would slide down the slide to get the gold and fall in the hole into the box below and be trapped.
Unfortunately, that tricky little guy was too sly and evaded our trap, but he did do some pranks like unroll the entire roll of paper towels all over the downstairs, turn the ottoman over, and scatter pillows all around. He did give us a few surprises as well like a shamrock trail, green milk, and a pot of gold coins.

Seeing the house . . .

checking the traps (we put out the one we made last year as well) . . .

Dad said next year no traps because he doesn't want to clean up the mess!

18 Months Old!