Uncle Keith Visiting

Uncle Keith got to come visit us during Spring Break! We had so much fun. We went to Pump It Up, attempted OMSI (but the closest parking was over a mile away so we bailed), went to Forest Park, ate great food, and enjoyed conference weekend! The boys (including Sean) and I all thoroughly enjoyed his visit, and we canNOT wait for him to come visit again! 

Natural Egg Dye

This year for Easter, we decided to dye eggs with natural food dye instead of the typical store bought Paas kind. I am really impressed with how they turned out! It was a fun experiment, and although it took longer than the tablets, (30-40 minutes for yellow, blue, green and orange and even longer for red and purple) I will definitely be doing this again in the future.

We used, beets for red, red cabbage for blue, onion skins for orange, and turmeric for yellow. We mixed red and blue to make purple, and blue and yellow to make green. The recipe we used was 2 cups raw materials (or 3-4 tbsp of Turmeric), 2 cups water, 1 tbsp vinegar. I actually doubled each batch to make sure there was enough. (There was plenty.)

Shredded Beets

Turmeric

Onion Skins,  with orange water

Shredded Red Cabbage

The strained beet juice

Straining the cabbage

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple.  As mentioned, in order to make the green we mixed blue and yellow. It made the liquid a brown rust color. We didn't think it was possible for a green egg to emerge from it, but it did!

After 45ish minutes (clockwise from the top) red, green, yellow, red, blue, purple, purple, yellow, orange. The green, yellow, and blue were my favorite!!

Preschool

For Preschool last week, we couldn't stand being inside one more day. It was a review week, and Steph was in charge. She did an amazing job at the park! We might just have to do that more often. She set up a game to help the kids match the uppercase letter with the lower case counterpart. Then she set up an obstacle course!

The bats were the starting line. First, they had to run around these cones...

Then bunny hope over these cones

Then they had to throw a frisbee as far as they could.

They got to crawl through a tunnel

Then kick a soccer ball into the goal. At the goal post was a tennis ball they threw as far as possible (can you find the tennis ball Bear threw?) then they go to run as fast as possible across the finish line, which was a jump rope in the grass.  They each did it a couple times, then they were off to play on the playground for 2 hours! It was most likely my favorite day of preschool ever. I cannot wait for Summer to get here so we can get out a lot more! It was definitely the best medicine for an Oregonians April heart.

After we got back from preschool, the boys jumped right on their bikes and said "Dad, we're going to the park!" so without even going inside, we headed to the school. They cannot get enough of this sunshine!

Fire Station Field Trip

Back in February we were able to join our preschool group with another preschool group in the ward for a field trip to the local fire station! It was a blast! The kids were all so good and talked about it for days.  The firemen even had goodie bags for each of the kids with their own fire hat, sticker badge, coloring book and more! It was a great day for them!

Rare Footage

Today was a great day. It was sunny. We rode bikes to the park. We went to Tee-Ball. We laughed. And smiled. And, my favorite part of the day was capturing the below sequence on camera. This child, My Asher, loves to smile. And he's good at it. However, he is not very fond of the camera, so it is rarely captured. These pictures make my heart dance. and sing. and burst with joy.

Welcome Spring! (maybe?)

Although yesterday was the THIRD day of Spring, we spent the day in 2 inches of snow. The boys had a blast building a snowman and loved the feeling of it on their tongues. 

T-Ball

Brayden started T-Ball today. I cannot get over how adorable he is in his little helmet with his mitt. Despite the snow yesterday (post coming) today was bright and sunny, although still a little chilly. It is going to be a FUN season!