Easter was pretty low-key for us. It was just the 3 of us hanging out on a cloudy/sometimes rainy day. It started with Peter searching for eggs in the morning. Mike had hid them the night before. While collecting the eggs, Peter said “Mom, the Easter Bunny did not do a good job. He didn’t even hid them.” I guess Mike needs to work on his hiding skills for next year.
His Super Mario-themed Easter basket made up for the easy hunt:
I think Mike was as excited as Peter:
Peter telling me about his new toys:
The rest of the day we spent doing some Easter crafts:
And we rode bikes to the park (something we’ve been doing every day when it’s not raining):
We walked in our local St. Patrick’s Day Parade with Peter’s preschool. It was a first for all of us. Peter had a blast and wants to do it again next year. All the parents helped out with making the float. I spent about 6hrs on making the green tissue paper grass. One of the dad’s built the wood float platform. He engineered it so he could move it like a Flintstones car and have steering control from inside. We had the only float that wasn’t being towed by a vehicle. I guess you could call it a “green” float. Unfortunately about half-way through the parade, the steering cable snapped so they could only control it by pulling and pushing it. Still overall we had a fun time!
Inspired by the movie Up!:
We had lots of balloons:
After the steering cable snapped, Mike had to help the dads by pulling it:
At the start of the parade when the float worked great:
Peter was super excited about Christmas this year. He kept asking us quirky questions like how Santa would make it down our chimney with all the spider webs (cause we never use it). Also what type of wrapping paper would he use. Of course on Christmas eve he wanted to stay up all night so he could see Santa but we told him Santa will only drop off his presents if he is asleep otherwise he’ll skip our house. So when we tucked him in last night he told us he was going straight to sleep - which he did.
I do feel guilty lying to him about Santa. It just seems wrong. I know most parents do the milk and cookies thing (we don’t) and get really into it but I feel bad enough tricking him about the presents. Well I can’t say I wasn’t glad he went to bed right away (for once). Mike and I had time to finish all our Christmas stuff and watch a movie.
Here is Peter seeing his presents for the …second time I guess:
Later in the morning after taking inventory of all the presents Peter said “There are SO many presents and they ALL have MY name!” I guess this is one of those times it must be great to be an only child. We waited for Mike’s family (mom, aunt, brother) to arrive before opening presents. We didn’t start opening until about 10:30.
Books from Aunt Kerri:
Games from Nana and Grandpa Fred:
Crazy car from Grandpa Bill and Grandma Dot:
Video of crazy cool car:
Present madness:
Cooking stuff from Nana and Grandpa Fred:
Stocking gifts:
Mike did well this year - fancy wireless headphones from me (or is that really a present for myself so I don’t have to hear him play his video games):
After presents I served my fruit kabobs as an appetizer while I cooked lunch:
The only real homemade dish I made was mashed potatoes. I ended up ordering a turkey (sliced) from the Honey Baked Ham store (yes they sell Turkey too). It was so tasty! I might do that every year. The meat is the one dish I wouldn’t want to mess up. Especially when I can easily mess up just warming rolls. I had them in the oven for just a minute and they ended up burning.
Lunch with Mike’s family:
No food was left except the extra turkey and my burnt rolls so I guess I did okay.
Peter’s preschool class has really shrunk this year. There are only about 10 kids (total) now at his school (last year it was closer to 30). So this year’s Christmas party was much more intimate. A good thing I think. At least the celebration seemed more organized than last year. Less kids to distract each other.
Singing songs for the parents (this year Peter participated):
Peter dressed as a shepherd (same as last year but he kept the costume on this time):
Video of singing:
I am liking Peter’s preschool much more now than last year. I think 1) because there are less kids and so Peter seems to listen more instead of getting distracted, 2) the bully of the school graduated last year - even Peter was telling me he was glad that kid was gone this year because he used to call him (and all the younger kids) “stupid baby,” and 3) it may just be normal progression but Peter is really learning a lot this year - he’s coloring within the lines, counting to 100 and beyond, and adding and subtracting. I wish I knew if this advancement is due to the smaller class size (6-8 kids). If so, I wonder what will happen once he starts public school with 32 kids in the classroom.
For me this Christmas season came too quickly. I finally just ordered my Christmas cards and had to pay for accelerated shipping so I receive them next week. I designed actual cards this year instead of the usual postcard. I think they turned out cute. I had a lot of fun designing the outside and inside of the card. I used Shutterfly for the first time so I hope they come out good.
The only Christmas decorations we put up this year is our tree:
I just didn’t feel like hanging outside lights this year. It seems almost pointless anyway because we live in a court. So nobody sees them except our neighbors. And our neighbors across from us put up a ton of lights so I think they more than compensate for our non-existent ones.
I did find time to do an ornament project with Peter. I bought some hollow glass balls from Michaels, then had Peter stuff them with Christmas-looking cotton balls:
I had visions of sewing a bunch of new ornaments but my sewing machine is still broken. I keep hoping it will magically fix itself. I guess I just need to drag it to the shop for fixing.
Other pictures… when our tree loses all it’s leaves it reminds me of the Whomping Willow tree from Harry Potter:
