Easter Morning

We had a repeat of Christmas morning in that Rylee got up at 4:40 am to hunt for Easter eggs.  Of course we sent her back to bed, only to be reawakened at 5:20, 6:40 and finally 7:00.  She was one eggcited girl!  :)

The bunny brought Legos so the kids had fun putting together their new sets.

But the big hit in the basket was the special chocolate bunnies (a first for my kiddos).

Classic Rylee: "The Easter Bunny knows we're dairy free!"

Pre-Easter

We dyed eggs at Venessa's house.  Rylee was the only kid that really got into it.  Madison and Jace mostly played.  :)

Later that day, Rylee had a birthday party where she got mermaid-ified.

Spring Break

I've been meaning to blog since Spring Break... hmmm... was that last month?  We had a lovely week off.  We had some fun playdates, a birthday party, but mostly we swam.  Rylee's wish was to swim in the pool every day of Spring Break - she made it 9 of the 10 days if I remember correctly!

Learning to dive...

Jace loves the water so he was happy to spend his days in the pool too...

We're Still Here- Part Rylee

Rylee has been amazing! She gets herself ready in the morning and comes to school early with me. She hangs out in my classroom, doing little projects or drawing me art work to display behind my desk. After school, she goes to the onsite aftercare until 3. Then hangs out with me again, until we have to leave (at 3:45) to pick up Jace.

She loves her new class and her teacher. She's in the gifted/high achieving class and she's doing great. The nightly homework is a little intense (she has weekly spelling words, a fluency passage, and usually a writing component), but she doesn't complain. Every day she comes home and tells us about her day and what she's learning.

She was student of the week a couple weeks back. Very exciting!
She was also the flag holder on Good Morning Sawgrass. Mrs. Smolich snapped this picture for me since I don't get to watch the broadcast in Pre-K.




She also texted me these pictures of their gravity experiment. Lol!







We got her school proofs back. She had pictures twice (long story) so I can't decide which ones I like best.








Here's one last pic of the kids together (in their new Frozen pjs from Gaga and Papa).



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We're Still Here - Part Jon

I haven't had the chance to blog. I haven't had the chance to do much of anything! Being a responsible, hard working adult sucks... especially without Gaga and Papa and all the help they normally provide. (We always appreciated your help, but clearly not enough. Thank you, thank you for the last several years of day care, shopping and cooking. You spoiled us!!)

Anyway, here's what's been happening with us:

Jon- work, work, work, cook, cook, cook. The poor man lives in our kitchen. Every morning, he and I pack two lunches for the kids, plus a snack for Rylee and two snacks for Jace. As you can see, he's really enthusiastic about it!





In the evenings, he's washing all the containers, cooking two meals for dinner and possibly pre-cooking tomorrow's lunch item, then cleaning up the kitchen while I oversee homework and the kid's baths and bedtime routine. I don't know how we would survive without our personal chef!

Oh, and he also takes Jace to school in the morning in the "big truck." That's a highlight of Jace's day - he talks about Jon's truck all time. (The one I'm not allowed to drive until I go through Jon's drivers training course- but I digress!)

There hasn't been much time for fun, but Jon did manage to take a short weekend away to see his Dad and Connie at their winter place in FL. (The two of them also visited us here so the guys could compete in a golf tournament.) And last weekend, while I was taking an exam, he took the kids to Monkey Jungle for an adventure.

This week, he treated all of us to a little fun. First, we went to Burger King for dinner. (We never eat out so even a BK meal is a big treat in this family!) Then we drove out to the Everglades to try and catch sight of the rocket NASA was launching. It ended up being too cloudy, but we still watched the launch live via my phone and got to take in a beautiful sunset.

Here are pics of the kids (in the truck!) enjoying our adventure:






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Cell phone pics

Things are a little crazy here. We had a blissful couple of weeks with Daddy over the holiday break, but now it's back to reality: I'm back to teaching full time, Rylee's loving school and hanging out in my classroom as my helper, and Jace started full day preschool. It's certainly an adjustment getting us all out the door by 7 am. Thank God for Jon or should I say our short order cook/lunch and snack prepper. The poor man lives in our kitchen when he's at home. 

Anyway, here's a couple pics from the last few weeks.  At the zoo after Christmas...

 

First day of school:

At a birthday party yesterday. There were real hula dancers!

That's all I have time for. I'm blogging while Jon drives and we are at our destination. Trying to take Jace to get his haircut!  :)

ThanksMas 2

On Saturday, we had Christmas with my parents.  This was the first present Rylee opened (a Skye from Paw Patrol).  She was ecstatic, but Jace immediately started to cry.  Little did he know but the present he was holding was a different Skye.

 

The funny thing is after Jace opened his Skye, the two of them decided to trade.  Kids!  Jace also got some other Paw Patrol toys like this Marshall.  As you can see, Papa had the fun job of package opening.

 

Here's the Skye that Rylee traded Jace for.  Not that it matters, she only plays with Paw Patrol when they play it together so it really belongs to Jace.  Shhh!  He still sleeps with a basket full of Paw Patrol characters each night.

 

The kids got a few toys, lots of books, and Rylee got several crafts.  All in all, they were happy with their present haul.  My mom and Dad opened their presents too.  My kids were especially happy with the new rotating waffle maker we bought for Papa.  We wear those things out in our house so the last one literally fell apart while we were making waffles when Jon was visiting.

 

Right after this double kiss, we celebrated with a waffle breakfast of course!