Riding Bikes!

I bought Elizabeth the tiniest bike at a garage sale today. It is a princess bike. She was so excited to ride it.......it is just the right size for her. And, it was only $5!
So once Patrick realized that his little sister was riding a bike like his he had to get his out. He hasn't had much luck learning to ride up until now.......he couldn't seem to get the pushing the peddles forward part. So every time we tried he would get frustrated and quit. We didn't push it. But today he realized that he could do it!
Off Patrick goes. He went flying down Tom's driveway with barely a nudge from me to get started. Bet those training wheels come off fast!!
Patrick HAD to call Dad to tell him all about his accomplishments.
Off Liz goes. She can't ride by herself every time, but was doing really well until she lost her balance.
And there's our boy, showing off his skills. I am so proud of him. It is hard to teach him things. He doesn't have much patience and wants to do things perfect the first time or not at all (there was definitely no switches at the hospital....he's mine!). We knew it would come.

Dentist

Today was Elizabeth's first trip to the dentist for her 6 month cleaning. She was soooo excited to go and sit next to her brother while he had his cleaning. She asked a lot of questions and gave great answers to the questions she was asked. She opened wide and never complained, until........



the dentist, Dr. Palma, came in to count her teeth. He is a man and she didn't like that! So, out came the crocodile tears and the drama. He didn't get to peak in. Maybe in November!

The Zoo, of course

Aunt Heather and I took the kids to the zoo today. It was a bit chilly but at least the rain held off. Of course, over break, we needed to get to the zoo. Funny, the kids are going with Daddy and Uncle John tomorrow.

Lovely Leah smelling the tulips :)

Liz must have a strong nose - this is as close as she needed to be to smell the flowers.

Instead of smelling the tulips, Patrick picks one. Ugh,Lovin' the elephants.

The girls are sooooo cute together. Here they are discussing the snow leopard. It was quite a discussion. Elizabeth got so hung up on it that she told Daddy all about it at dinner. We don't know what the discussion was about, but Liz mentioned Leah and snow leopard a whole lot.

I think over their lifetime there will be a lot of this picture. Elizabeth just got tired and laid down. Everyone needed to go around her, as she let them know. Leah was a good friend and tried to coax Liz up.

Patrick sulking by the tiger. He got in trouble with me just before this. At least the tears are gone.

Here's Davis man after he walked for a while and tired himself right out.

So, of course, we needed to pose on the tiger. Because we have never posed on the tiger before?? The same bunch?? There was a large group of tweens ahead of us, part of zoo camp, who were quite fussy about their pictures. And then a family after them. The kids did a great job of waiting their turn patiently. And, after all that, I didn't manage to get a picture where all three look their best. I did get three pictures though, ironically, where one out of the three looks good in each one. So, I posted all three. This is Elizabeth's best shot (sounds like America's Next Top Model :)

This is Leah's best.

So I think this is Patrick's best shot. He was more concerned about growling like a tiger than looking nice for a picture.

And, of course, we have to pose as penguins. All the times we come to the zoo they NEVER tire of this either.

I see the penguin! I think he is coming this way!

There he is!

We'll follow him where ever he goes!

Feeding the Ducks

Pop Pop came into visit (and bring mom some furniture) today. After playing at home we headed down to the duck pond to enjoy some time outside.
Elizabeth still has a hard time understanding that the corn is to be THROWN IN the water.
She prefers to dump all of it either on the gravel or just at the edge of the pond. No ducks were really into her today. I think she likes taking her coins and putting them into the donation box to get more corn, to then dump out in three seconds. It is cute to watch her be independent and get the corn all by herself. By the end of the day she didn't even need Pat around to do it.
As an extra treat we saw Aunt Di at the duck pond. Two days in a row as she stopped at our house last night for a quick visit. She had a big bucket of corn for us to feed the geese with.
After the duck pond Pop Pop took us for a great lunch and then we did a hike outside. What a nice spring day!

Open Gym!

Of course it isn't a break from school if we don't go to open gym. Today we went later than we usually do which was great! All the little ones must have been home napping because the place was empty! Patrick and Elizabeth brought their friend Peyton along and everyone had a great time running, climbing, jumping, swinging, and being monkeys in general.
The giant mat that you jump over the horse to get to was a big hit.
Elizabeth was quite Sassy on the running trampoline. She was so fast I could barely catch her on camera too!
Everyone did great on the balance beams. Some were on the floor, some where a little bit off the floor, and some were the high ones. Pat could get on and off, and walk across, the high ones all by himself!

I don't know if there will be open gym during the day in the summer like there is over breaks. If not we will definitely have to get there on a Friday night to enjoy.

Big Bro

Patrick really is a good big brother. He was doing his own thing drawing this morning and put it aside so that he could draw pictures of Dora for his little sister, at her request. My good boy :)

Lizzy Lou

Yup......that's our Lizzy Lou!

Open House at Westside Nursery School

Tonight was an open house at Patrick and Elizabeth's school. The two were so excited to have Mom and Dad go with them to school and were hoping to see friends from their classes.
I didn't get to take many pictures because we were all over the place - visiting the Firefly room, Butterfly room, Dragonfly room, and Muscle room. After a quick visit to the sensory tables it was out to the playground. Elizabeth was super excited to see the Gallauresi's there.......especially Leah. She gave Leah a big hug and told Ms. Nancy that Leah was her best friend. Incidentally, every body at school just loves Elizabeth. She goes into Patrick's class for 1/2 hour before her class starts on Mondays and Wednesdays and Pat's teachers just adore her. How funny is it that everyone at school calls her Lizzy too?!?
There was a craft where the kids draw on coffee filters with markers and then spray them with water to watch the colors bleed. It was a big hit.
The biggest hit was the playground. Surprised? Elizabeth was pretty bossy out there.....even telling off a boy definitely not in pre-school.
Patrick showed off his skills on the rope swing. There was anew rope to climb and swing, a row boat to pretend in and a horse swing made out of tires. After visiting and playing we all headed out for pizza together. It was a fun time.

Our Easter Best

After going through all our Bunny loot and having a great breakfast it was time to put on our new clothes and head out. There are a ton of pictures of Elizabeth all dressed up because she was posing and they came out so darn cute that I couldn't leave any out.









We went out to Pop Pop's for Easter dinner. The kids had fun visiting and exploring Pop Pop's back yard and woods.
Elizabeth and Patrick were very gentle with Nathan, for the most part. They were also very curious about what he can and can't do.