Monday, April 29, 2019

Easter 2019, part 1.

Celebrating holidays with kids is just the best. (Granted, in the moment it's sometimes hard with changed schedules, lots of people, etc. but it's always worth it and I look back on it with fondness!) We started celebrating with dying eggs. The most extensive we got was writing on a couple with white crayon first, otherwise we are still at the one color per egg stage. :)


Lucy and Ellory thought it was great fun. They didn't participate last year, so they were giddy to slosh their eggs in and stir them around.





We spent Easter in Des Moines, which was great to be able to see a lot of family. It was fun to see Jorie, and we got to watch her take her very first steps!



We enjoyed beautiful weather outside with the three cutest bunnies!










While we do do fun things like egg dying and bunny ears, it was neat to read lots of Easter books and do Resurrection Eggs and talk about the real meaning of Easter, that Jesus died for our sins and rose again!

We got to see the De Jong side too, which was awesome! Brett, Elizabeth (Kley's sister), and Will live in Des Moines, and Brad and Jana were there too because Brett had his white coat ceremony for med school. Way to go, Brett! They do a scavenger hunt for the girls each year instead of a traditional Easter basket and it's really fun!


"Who's ready for Easter?" (That's why they were raising their hands, though it looks like they're just yanking on Will's arm.) Fun to see how cousins grow every time. Will's such a sweetie!

Thursday, April 25, 2019

Circus!

It was so fun to take the girls to the circus! I had heard it was coming, and was so glad it turned out to be a weekend that my parents were in town! My dad ended up not being able to come because he was helping my grandpa do yard work, and Kley didn't come because he was working (he does quite a few taxes even though he's a lawyer and not an accountant, so they were finishing the last minute rush over the weekend before the deadline), so we had a fun girls trip! Kayla (my sister) and Victoria (my cousin/Kayla's roommate) got to come too.


We had really nice seats! It was fun to watch the girls faces and see them enjoy it. The seats were especially nice for Lucy because she could wiggle a bit and walk up and down a few steps since we were near the front and on an end. We joked that she should be in the circus, not watching it, with how much she moves. Ellory and Norah sit still longer than her, but it was longer than we thought it would be, so they were all definitely ready for intermission to get up and walk around, though overall we did have a great time. (It was about an hour and twenty minutes until intermission, then a half hour intermission, and then we sat through another twenty minutes and then we left a bit early to head to supper, in case anyone was wondering the timeline. Such interesting things to see, but a bit longer to sit than we were expecting.) A fun experience!


Superheroes.


Tiger tamer.


Light show.


Acrobats.


Elephants- the girls said this was their favorite part!


Friday, April 19, 2019

Ah, sweet spring.

As I write this, yesterday was a glorious spring day and we played outside after naps, fully enjoying the 71 degree weather. Unfortunately there is snow predicted later this week, so we'll enjoy whatever nice weather we can get! We got out the sand box again and that's always a yearly highlight. 


So nice to see green grass and blue skies!







The girls love swinging too!





Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Minneapolis weekend.

We spent the weekend in Minneapolis recently, visiting my sister! Always fun to venture into a big city and see family! Kley and I went to Bethel in St. Paul (where we met), and it was fun to drive through the campus again and remember back.

We (my dad, two sisters, and I) ran a 5k that benefitted my sister's hospital where she is a NICU nurse. It was fun! It was a pretty route and fun to have something to train for. I don't have many opportunities for competitiveness in my adult life, so it's fun to have that every once in awhile and try to pass people! I didn't get my best time, but it was a good race considering I didn't train beforehand near as much as I should have. It was by far my biggest race too with 9,000 runners!


We enjoyed some downtime hanging out at their house and walking to DQ. Ellory was living a life of luxury with being both pulled and pushed!


It was a little chilly for ice cream outdoors, but that doesn't stop this ice cream loving family. (Lucy was just outside the frame, pushing the wagon around and didn't want to come in it. She was so enthralled with pushing it that she didn't even eat her ice cream.)


We had fun at Como Zoo, one of my favorite spots from when we lived there! The girls had much more fun than their faces show in this photo. It was supposed to rain a lot of the weekend, so we were thankful it didn't rain as much as they said and we could do some things outside!


The monkeys were almost everyone's favorite!





Giraffes are my favorite.






Piggy back rides! Not a ton of animals were out yet since it was still early in the season, but it was fun to see what they had, and it worked perfectly because we went after naps, so we didn't have tons of time before they closed anyways.


The conservatory is one of my favorite spots, so Karlie, Ellory, and I ran ahead to see it before it closed. (Norah and Lucy were slowly pulling the wagon behind us, but they loved that and didn't mind missing it.) Such beautiful flowers!




Always fun to do something one on one with my girls, even if it's just a quick ten minutes.



Karlie and Minneapolis, we love you! (Karlie's husband, Zack, was gone for the weekend at a work retreat.) We'll be back again! Also, the girls slept shockingly well away from home, so that's always a plus, and we got to have brunch with some college friends!