And at a fairly brisk pace for once! I am determined to hit current BEFORE 2017 begins. Let’s see – March – creeping up on spring weather, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, my brother and my dad’s birthday month. Wow, thinking back that is quite the list of special days for our family.

Easter is always a bit of a deal. The girls get new dresses and hats if we can manage it. We go to church as a family, take photos, have a nice dinner… OH and the Easter baskets. This year we did our own egg hunt as well. The weather was far from perfect so we did it indoors. You just have to make it work, right?

At church

Baskets

Egg hunt

We had a fun and rather special craft… dragon eggs. Styrofoam and thumb tacks. All thanks to Nana. Even Echo got in on the fun, though then you had to glue down a few extra tacks to make sure nothing comes loose. 

We decorated traditional/conventional eggs as well.

Of course we did our monthly free Home Depot project.

Emanuel and I had to miss the scout’s mom and son dance so instead we went out to Mom and Son ONLY lunch at Dairy Queen! Talk about fun! 

Emanuel did make it to his Scout field trip to a police station. 

We actually had a few good crafts this March. Marshmallow and toothpick structures.

And making more relaxation bottles using glitter and glitter glue. Sparkle Sparkle!

We even managed to get in a visit with the Novaks. 

And spent plenty of time at the YMCA.

Post swim curls

Celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday with a themed lunch.

All in all a good month. This has really been a pretty good year as we look back! 

Well well we have made it to March and the countdown to spring. Of course with it being slightly warmer I had to take advantage and photograph the kids! I have been lax in doing this of the whole group.

It was nice enough that we were able to photograph a couple of my completed crochet projects outside! Again check out Kristen’s Kords HERE!! She rocks!!!

Tinker Bell!

We had the Schwartz kids over again to watch while their folks were busy. Visits with them with parents or not have become a highlight of our weeks!

Miss Echo has totally embraced all sorts of creative imaginative play. Tea parties are so exciting for the stuffed critters and dolls in this house!

We finally opened our Chinese New Year lucky candy holders. That yummy strawberry candy is a family favourite.

We also have a new family member… Hugo Bear Dog generally known as Bear Dog… he joined us thanks to Amy Sue, the amazingly talented seamstress who is creating dresses for Shandai’s wedding! He is an instant hit and has become Echo’s new favourite snuggle buddy. I have to share her page HERE. I absolutely cannot wait to see how Shandai’s dress and my own turn out! They are going to be spectacular.

School has continued on swimmingly. I am so proud of the kids for trying their best to expand their knowledge and try to face the hard stuff with less and less whining and complaining.

Don’t forget about Dr. Seuss’ birthday! We had a added experience for the girls – Dr. Seuss themed activities at Lakeshore.

And food that suited our theme… red and white fruit to represent the Cat in the Hat’s hat… One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish jello with gummy fish… and eggs and ham (trust me… GREEN eggs does NOT go over well). I also had each of the kids write their own RHYMING book. Ken, Karyn and I worked out our own book. Talk about fun. Though the kids struggled a bit. You can find our resource post HERE.

Snow…

The igloo

Home Depot…

Lakeshore Saturday crafts…

A brief foray into pet ownership with the short lived TRIOP!

Movie night with popcorn at the YMCA! (101 Dalmations!!)

Don’t forget St. Patrick’s Day lunch (we did a minor unit this time… previous years have burned us out a little on that theme) but any chance to have a themed meal! You can find our resource page HERE.

Leprechaun escaped our trap once again!

Themed craft

End the month with… EASTER EGG HUNT!

And it was a well rounded month. March is always that little bit more packed when Easter is early April… Let’s see… Dr. Seuss, Home Depot fun, St. Patrick’s Day, early Easter activity… I think we can say we kept good and busy!

April 21

Easter Monday… well the Monday after Easter was the perfect day for our family to head to the Como Zoo… it is a donations only entrance so way more affordable for our small budget than the state zoo. It may not have ALL the animals but there are more than enough to make for a fun and fulfilling day.

We started out with the seals and penguins where we picked up our second plastic mold creature – a seal (last time it was the gorilla). The kids want to collect all of the ones available at the zoo. One animal at a time.

We got some spectacular pictures of the polar bear.

We had a snack in front of the lions who were napping in the sun.

And other cats as well

There was the newly renovated gorilla enclosure to check out as well.

Don’t forget about the monkeys!

We had a quick stop off at the gift shop to look around and get a postcard to send to Cousin Jimmie back home. And then it was out the door and into the sunshine.

Time to head home for the OTHER big activity! Gammie sent the kids a box full of Easter Egg Hunt fun! Pre filled eggs and peeps for all!! I had Ken set it all up –  the pretty eggs in the front yard in pretty plain sight for the girls and the backyard full of  the others in harder to find places. The girls were so excited to have easy to find and the boys totally loved the challenge.

Ready to hunt

After we ran and hunted and laughed it was time to take all the booty up to the sun room to hang out in the sunshine as we painstakingly opened each and every egg and pile up the treats… jelly beans and rockets (US Smarties). Each egg was carefully emptied, closed back up and put into the bag to be saved as I am told we MUST repeat this procedure next year!

Throw some more fun outside with a tiny bit of school and I think we made it an Easter Monday to remember!!!