Zoo trip and a Happy Easter to all!

First of all, we would like to wish a Happy Easter to everyone!  

 

Now to back up for a minute.  Yesterday Spring decided to arrive, for at least a day anyway.  It was a gorgeous 70 degrees and sunshine galore! I can't imagine who would have wanted to be indoors yesterday-definitely not me!  My friend Stacy  (from work) and I decided, with the help of Brian (lol), that it was a perfect day to take Kaden and Hailey to the zoo.  We spent a good portion of the afternoon there and the kids had a great time-Hailey even touched the jaw/teeth of a shark.  She thought that was pretty cool! :-)  The tiger was actually visible in his habitat-though the kids were so enthralled by the waterfall! Gotta love the 3 year old perspective on things, LOL On the way to the monkeys, Kaden grabbed for Hailey's hand.  She was reluctant at first, but there were also subsequent hand holding opportunities throughout the day-it was too cute!!  And of course, Hailey took along her stuffed monkey so that she could show it to the monkeys at the zoo.

Our first stop was the fish and sharks

Looking at the waterfall-I mean tiger :-)

hand in hand to the monkeys we go!

See my monkey!

Tickle-monster Hailey

Since I knew that tomorrow (or today, since I'm writing this a day late) would be cold and rainy, once we got home Hailey put on her pretty Easter dress and we headed out to the yard with some plastic Easter eggs for some photo fun.  (thanks to Brian, the yard looked great....he mowed while we were away at the zoo!)

wearing a dress would not be complete without a twirl!

I found my favorite color

 After our photoshoot (and I use that term very loosely, lol) we had dinner, went to the store and finally dyed some Easter eggs-yes I know, a little last minute, but there just wasn't time during the week...and they dried just in time for the Easter bunny to be able to hide them.

 Boy, what a busy day Saturday turned out to be!

Today is Easter and the bunny has come and gone.  Mr. Bunny hid a whopping 25 eggs (both plastic and real) both inside the house as well as outside.  Silly bunny must have forgotten that Spring was only here for the day yesterday, lol.  Oh well.  We bundled up in rain coats and boots and headed out for a soggy egg hunt.  Hailey had a lot of fun "spotting" the eggs all over. Inside the plastic eggs she was excited to find some pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and even a half dollar (compliments of one of my students, lol and....DINOSAURS!! (okay, dinosaur erasers that is).  Hailey is big into dinos right now as they have been learning all about them at school this month. Although, one dino looks as though he had a battle this morning.  For some odd reason Hailey decided to bite the tail of one orange dinosaur (not sure why as this is totally out of character for her).  I hear a voice screaming from the back room..."mommy, mommy-I think you need to hot glue him back together!"  Gotta lover her :-)  Upon telling her that this miniature dinosaur tail would not be able to be glued back together, she LOST it!!  You would have thought we had lost a family pet or something, lol.  After giving Mr. Dino some hugs and kisses we decided to call him "stubby" and Hailey continued to play with him as if nothing ever happened to him.  Silly girl!

The Easter bunny came!

Look, look, look-I found an egg!

silly bunny must have been cooking an egg

outside for our soggy egg hunt

searching for the last egg outside-I found it!! :-)

This morning after Brian went to work, Hailey and I had an impromptu fashion show (aka, ty on the new clothes that Grandma and Grandpa Mellott sent in the mail, lol) 

"another twirly dress-for me?!?!!? really???"

summer jammies

more summer jammies

We hope your Easter has been as fun-filled as ours has been! 

Hippity-Hoppity, Easter's on it's way

This year, more than ever, Hailey has been very aware of when new holidays are coming up. As soon as she saw decorations in the store a week ago, she's been asking me how long until the Easter Bunny comes.  She's super excited about finding all the eggs :-)  So I noticed that the Easter bunny had arrived at the Supermall and asked her if she'd like to go for a visit and say 'hi'.  "of course, mommy" is the response I received.  She told Brian and I that once we got there she was going to hop right up to him and sit on his lap. In our minds we were thinking that this was highly unlikely of her to do, as it took a good couple of weeks to warm-up to Santa Claus, lol. So, after breakfast this morning Hailey and I hopped onto my computer to find her a coloring page to color and take to Mr. Bunny.  She took her time and worked really hard to color the picture to her liking.  We finished getting ready and then headed for the mall.  The whole way there she kept on about how she was going to sit right on his lap and take a picture, how she thought the bunny would like her new shirt, and many questions about if the bunny would be a girl or a boy (boy, by the way!).  We got to the mall and parked.  As we were getting out of the car Hailey noticed 2 other little boys heading for the same exact door we would be going in.  Hailey told me "we need to hurry and get in there, otherwise the boys would steal the bunny's lap and that was her bunny!" We had a good laugh and talked about waiting patiently in line, if there was one. I have to say....Hailey is growing up so fast!!  She was quite the big girl with the bunny.  She did just as she told us she would.  She hopped right up there, gave him the picture she had made, and asked me to put her on his lap.  The ladies behind the camera managed to get a pretty cute picture, too.  After sitting on Mr. Bunny's lap, he gave her a color/activity book, to which Hailey replied "awww, that was sure nice of him. Apparently he thought I was pretty cute!"  Gotta love her :-)

Oh, and by the way: Easter baskets-not just for Easter eggs and candy anymore, LOL

Hailey's new hat, as she called it :-)

Spring Break...finally!!

Wow, it's been a crazy past couple of weeks for me.  The 22nd of March was my brother's birthday.  Couldn't get a hold of him, so Hailey decided to leave him a video message on Facebook.  She had fun with that :-) 
Uncle Chris' bday message
Then on the 24th and 25th we had student led conferences at work.  That's always  a whirlwind to get ready for, and I'm extremely happy that they are over for another year.  The31st was our 2nd grade music concert.  Though many did not show, those that did had fun and did a great job!  On that same day, we had a baby shower for a friend at work.We had so much fun planning, shopping, and decorating for this event!  I think the event was a big success...Baby Heidi definitely has some cute clothes to wear :-)

Today my brother came over and helped Brian put up drywall in the garage.  That took up most of the day and, I can say it is finally done!! Hailey had been very persistent all day asking for Uncle Chris to have a tea party with her.  After the drywall was up and the garage was somewhat cleaned up, we ALL decided to join in the tea party fun.

After the tea party was over, we took Christopher out to dinner to thank him for his help today.  After dinner, he came back to the house for a couple more hours and all of us, Hailey included, played a bit of the Wii.  We had so much fun and laughed for the better part of the evening!  Hailey LOVED spending some time with her Uncle Chris today!! So...that leaves tomorrow left for the weekend and then I get all of next week off for Spring Break!  :-)  I'm so excited to be able to spend some quality time with my family, and just relax.  Now I just wish the weather would cooperate so that we could enjoy some outdoor time as well. Oh well....Happy Spring Break!! :-)