Ronald McDonald

The girls had a special visitor at their school last week - Ronald McDonald! Avery said he was "hilarious"! I guess he put on a silly show with magic tricks. Then, they got to eat McDonald's food for lunch. They even got chocolate milk! Such a treat! I'm actually surprised Avery got a picture taken with him, considering her fear of costumed adults. :)

Weekend fun

I signed the girls up for a few nature classes through the park district. Our first class was last weekend. They made rain-sticks and had a nature hike around the woods. The building the class was at had a swimming turtle, a snake and a bee hive. So, that was super exciting!

That night, we enjoyed some more outdoor time. We set up the fire pit and made hot dogs and s'mores!

Fits of giggles!

On Sunday, we had a playdate at Grayson's house. Ross' parents were in town to help with the boys while Erin's on a business trip. Morgan kept calling Ross' dad - Grandpa Richard - because she thought he was Matt's dad. :)

This kid cracks me up!

Weekends are so fun when the weather is nice! But, they are way too short!

Easter celebrations

I love holidays now that the kids get so into them! Our Easter weekend was filled lots of eggs and treats and family time!

We started the weekend off with an egg hunt at the girls school. We took pictures with the Easter bunny and the girls got their faces painted! We went out for brunch afterwards to The Harvest with my parents. The girls love spending time with their Mama and Papa.

On Saturday afternoon, we dyed Easter eggs at Aunt Erin's house. Even the little boys got in on the action! Beckett was covered in green by the end!

On Sunday morning, the girls were so excited that the Easter bunny had a made a stop at our house. They found all the eggs pretty quickly and loved opening all the eggs to see the treats they got! The Easter bunny brought them lots of books and coloring books - our fave right now!

The girls love when Mama visits because she always needs help making coffee in the morning. After my parents leave, I find coffee grounds all over the counter and floor! I'm not sure how it even makes it in the coffee pot! ;)

Then we headed out to Crystal Lake to my brother's house for Easter brunch. So much good food! The kids had a blast playing at Nolan's house and we had another egg hunt! We also celebrated Brett and Sandi's birthdays!

This was literally less than 5 minutes after we left my brother's house! The girls are at that age where they are starting to not want to nap as much, but they sure were worn out on Easter! Maybe it was a sugar crash! :)

We veg'd out that night on the couch and the girls got to pick out a treat from their Easter candy - they both picked their ring pops!

Tea Party

Avery convinced Papa to have a tea party the other day at Grayson's house. She's a little bossy about her tea parties... she kept Papa in line! ;)

Lima beans

Only kid I know that actually picks the lima beans out of the veggies to eat them... not throw them out! :)

Outdoor fun and Sesame Street

We are loving the warmer weather! We spent a lot of time outside a few weekends ago, coloring with chalk on the sidewalk, riding bikes and playing at the park near our house. We also went to see Sesame Street Live. We had seen a Sesame Street show before and the girls loved it. We don't watch Sesame Street... in fact, the girls never got into that show. But, they know some of the characters from books and friends at daycare. And it's not like you have to know the TV show to have fun at the live show. The girls loved all the music and the characters. We were in the 3rd row, so the characters came up close to us. At the end of the show, they shoot out confetti and streamers, which the girls thought was awesome. :) We finished off the night with dinner out at a restaurant, which the girls are starting to enjoy more. Although, they still don't like waiting for their food. They usually ask us immediately after ordering, "what's taking so long for our food to get here?" I think they are spoiled by The Harvest, our Sunday morning brunch spot. We get our food in less than 10 minutes after ordering when we are there.

Budding artists!

Who doesn't love popcorn!

Waterpark fun!

We spent the past weekend up in the Dells with my family at the Great Wolf Lodge. To say the kids had fun would be a total understatement! They loved the water park, especially our little fish Morgan. Avery even had a good time, despite getting water in her face (which she hates!)

I didn't get many pictures in the actual water park because we were in the water and couldn't keep our cell phones with us. But, needless to say, we spent most of our time there, on the slides and in the huge wave pool. And no surprise to us, Morgan wanted to go down every slide and was such a little daredevil. She and Matt rode on the bigger slides together in double rafts. I saw her at the bottom of the slides a few times and she was just laughing and saying "this is SO MUCH FUN!" And, also no surprise to us, Avery stuck to the smaller kid slides and the kid water play areas. She got brave enough to go down the slides without me catching her at the bottom and was really proud of herself for that. She also loved the wave pool, until I thought it would be fun to sit down with her on my lap in the shallower water and we got totally knocked over by a quick succession of waves and loads of water up our noses. That was probably her least favorite part of the weekend! Ha!

We started off the weekend by picking up the girls from school around lunchtime on Friday and headed up during nap time. The girls were really excited, but eventually took a little snooze.

When we checked in, they gave all of the kids wolf ears! They wore these around all weekend and howled!

We stayed in a room with a "wolf den" for the girls. It was basically like a little room inside our hotel room. They had their own bunk beds and a little tv. I was a little worried the paintings on the wall would scare them, as it was a bunch of wolves, but they did fine.

Besides the water park, they had lots of other activities for the kids to do. During game time, Avery played hopscotch.

Plenty of picture opportunities around the lobby. These are the Great Wolf Lodge characters. Of course, Avery's favorite was the purple girl character named Violet.

Getting ready for bed in the wolf den

Morgan loved this huge bear statue

The kids were on a walrus kick at dinner one night

Ha! Matt played walrus, too! 

Story time with Violet

My little wolves heading to the waterpark

Snack time - playing in the water makes you super hungry!

Craft time - painting a t-shirt

Avery and I did the scavenger hunt

Showing off her finished craft

A couple videos from the water park...

You can hear Nolan saying "wheeee" on the way down. :)


And here's Morgan... seriously, she just wants to be underwater. I think she's going to be a scuba diver or something when she gets older! ;)


The restaurant had a wall of logs and we were seated next to them on our last lunch there. We noticed people had signed their names in crayon on the logs, so Matt signed the girls' names. Look for it if you go! ;)

The girls fell asleep a few minutes after we hit the highway on the way home. They were so exhausted!