Archive for April, 2010

Serenity’s newest art projects =)

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Serenity asks me to “do crafts with Mama” nearly every day now!  As you can imagine, I love it =)  Here are two of my absolute favorite projects!  We made this rainbow yesterday!  She asked to make a rainbow, and I offered her our newest do-a-dot markers.  But since she asked so specifically for a rainbow, I drew a line with crayons and asked her to mark on the line, and she actually did it!  Can you believe how much it looks like a real rainbow!  I am soooo excited!  And she loved the activity. =)  The other is a project I saw on one of my blogs, the handprint butterfly.  It was cute.  Serenity loves painting her hands and doing handprints, and then we got to use the foam sticker for the body and glue to stick down the eyes, so there were several steps, all of them fun!

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A few other fun things we tried for the first time include stamping and painting with water.  I got out my fairy stamp pad, and Serenity loved stamping the paper, and her body.  Painting with water we just did once, and of course the entire cup of water got spilled, but that is a perfectly acceptable method of finishing the painting =)

Brandon and Nicole’s Wedding

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Yesterday was Brandon and Nicole’s wedding.  It was so much fun, and they are so happy =)  I loved getting another chance to design wedding flowers. =)  Serenity had a blast despite being a little sickly.  She spent the whole reception on the dance floor, running around with all the kids.  She danced with Raegan, played tag with Casey, and generally enjoyed herself spinning in circles and plopping on her bottom.  She also managed to get ahold of a glass of champagne.  I’m not sure how much she drank, probably not more than a few drops, but she definitely got a taste.  I thought Eric had given her a glass of water, but then I smelled it and discovered otherwise!  She loved Jen’s spaghetti and meatballs.  When Jen was showing it to her she got big smiles!

Nicole's Bouquet

Nicole's Bouquet

Cali Trip

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Cali trip

We had so much fun in California!!!!  Some of my favorite moments include playing cards with FarFar.  He was shuffling, and every time he did Serenity would say “COOL!” with her eyes wide and admiring.  And when he dealt her cards, she said, “thankyou Far Far that’s so SWEEET!” (try to imagine her voice going very high and squealy and cute on sweeet!”)

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We went back to see the horses with Tina.  Serenity didn’t want to ride them this time but she did like looking at them still.

Serenity loved going "donkadonk" with Tina =)

Serenity loved going "donkadonk" with Tina =)

Ann, Eric and I took Serenity to Castle Rock one day.  Serenity was such a good little hiker!  She walked by herself the whole way up!  About a third of a mile!  And then Daddy climbed into a little cave, and I handed her up so they could enjoy a snack in the warm, snug cave.  (It was a little chilly, there was even some snow!!)

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We got to go to Aidan’s birthday party!  They had a fantastic Easter Egg Hunt.  They started by letting the very young kids go first, and they had the hunt area divided by cones.  Serenity looked under every cone, so Andrew started sneaking eggs under them for her to find.  She put several in her basket, and then started asking “open it Mama!”  We got an excellent sugar high.  In the evening, Serenity was playing with the little finger puppets she found in some of her eggs, and she started making them “hop, hop, hop HOP HOP”  It was hilarious, she was saying hop so fast and nearly vibrating.  We also had a lot of fun at the park at Aidan’s birthday, swinging, doing the balance beam, but especially sliding!  There was one tall twisty slide that we must have done twenty times, a few times at the same time as Henry!  Serenity enjoyed hitting the piñata, which was a little surprising.  She said “swing two hands!” so she’s been listening to Daddy’s lessons on using the baseball bat. =)

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Serenity had a few solo outings with Vanaemma and Far Far and Tina.  She went for a walk with them to a little farm, and had a great time! And they babysat her once while Eric and I went to have dinner at Juan and Veronica’s.  It was nice to have time to catch up with them and Jack and Patricia.  Eric played PIG with Aidan, and Aidan won once!  Pretty cool. =)  Eric really wants a basketball goal.  In the house.  We’ll see =)  Serenity still loves watching him shoot, dunk, and alley-oop!  Henry is talking now, and it’s so cute to get to see him in the stage where he might repeat just anything!  He even said butterfly!

Serenity got to ride on a real tricycle for the first time.  Of course, Daddy tested it first to make sure it was safe!

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We went mini-golfing with John and Ann.  It went much better than anyone expected!  Serenity enjoyed getting everyone’s eggs out of the holes, and finding the numbers at each hole was a big thrill!

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Sunday we enjoyed our wonderful traditional Easter Egg Hunt.  The Easter Bunny hides much cooler eggs at Vanaemma’s house.  Serenity found everyone’s egg and distributed them, with a small finder’s fee.

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