Go, Lyra, go!

Lyra is really starting to get around. I will put her down on one end of the living room and a few minutes later she has scooted herself over to the kitchen floor. I love her cooing noises and how she folds her hands so neatly while she rests.

Bath time, Story time, Sleepy time

It has always been a bit of a chore to get Lisa to take a bath, but now I have another incentive to get her interested...she can take her bath with Lyra! She loves doing everything with her little sister. She usually wants to do more than I am ready to let her do, but we are learning what she is capable of. She loves to carry Lyra around, put her in the walker, and always asks if she can lay by her for a little while at bedtime. She is quite the little helper. Lyra loves to splash her little hands in the bath water, but isn't too excited when Lisa gets water in her face. I love the way Lyra looks at Lisa when she is being rather boisterous, like she's fascinated by this wild girl. I hope they will become great friends. I think they will.

Snowy Easter

This weekend we experienced a first--having an Easter egg hunt in the snow! Ryan wanted to make a little lesson for Lisa about Natural Selection (of course) using camouflage eggs and colored eggs. In usual Spring weather, this would have meant coloring some eggs bright and other eggs brown and green and letting Lisa learn which were easier to find, but with the snow we left our camo ones white and the experiment worked very well. At first Lisa said she wasn't going to pick up any white ones if she found them, but then while Ryan was out hiding them I told her it would be really nice if we played along with daddy on this one. She agreed very sweetly and I think she actually enjoyed the activity. She learned that the white camouflaged ones were much harder to find and that's why animals have camouflaged eggs. (There you have the extremely simplified version of Natural Selection). After the experiment, we hid all the rest of the eggs and she had a great time collecting them all. In the evening we decorated Spring sugar cookies while watching "Here Comes Peter Cottontail".

A few weeks ago when they were putting out Easter stuff in the stores, Lisa spotted some Easter bunny ears and decided she HAD to have them, so we consented as long as she agreed to come home and clean the living room. The next day at preschool was show and tell and of course she took the ears and later her teachers told me about the elaborate story she shared with the other kids--about how she REALLY wanted those Easter bunny ears because they were the LAST pair (not true) and mom and dad said she had to earn the ears by cleaning the living room. Her teachers said they were cracking up at her animated story, but they were excited too because that's what show and tell is supposed to be all about--telling a story. Boy...they should come to our house. Sometimes it feels like the whole day is one big show and tell. Such a good imagination. It is fun to watch her pretend.

Winter outside, Spring inside

We are getting anxious for Spring. Since we can't quite have our way yet outside, we are bringing a little of Spring inside. Ryan is always looking for any opportunity to teach and excite Lisa about the world around us. His most recent idea was to make a little indoor garden, so he and Lisa went to the store together today and bought some seeds, soil, pots, and a grow light. They had fun planting together and I know Lisa will enjoy getting to water them every day. During dinner we looked out the window and were a bit surprised at the snow storm that was brewing. Sometimes that can really confuse your senses...I almost felt like putting Christmas music on. It's still beautiful, even if we are ready for Spring. Lisa is saying she wants to build a snowman tomorrow. Maybe she can at least get a little snow angel in. She is on "Spring Break" from preschool, after all! Ryan has been on Spring break, too, and it has been nice having him home during the day. He and Lyra are really starting to bond and I love watching her make him smile so much.

Chore board

A little something to help add structure to our day. Since returning from Christmas vacation we have been having Saturday be our "treat day" but now we only get to have treat day if we do our jobs all week. I saw someone else's chore chart for her boys (thanks Michele!) and thought Lisa and I could really benefit from something like that. She had fun picking out the pretty paper and, of course, birthday cake stickers from Porter's. I loved the look in her eyes as we walked through that store. Girl after my own heart.

Open Wide! Lisa helping Lyra with sweet potatoes (plus jumping jacks bonus video)

Island Park snow fun

Last week Debra and her boyfriend Dave were staying at their friend's time-share with Ryan's parents up in Island Park and we went up to spend some time with them and play in the snow. They rented a snow machine and we also brought our snow shoes. We brought all Lisa's snow clothes, but she had fun just playing inside with gramommy at her "hotel" (which she used to call "hel-tel" but she's got it figured out now)

I did get a chance to drive it (my first time driving a snow mobile)

Five minutes later we were in a ditch. The snow just kind of dipped down and we didn't see it soon enough. Ryan stopped right before it, but then we just kind of sank down into it. Luckily the snow pushed under the machine so we weren't standing in water. And very thankfully, a super nice guy came along and helped us get it out. Then later while we were driving it some more, some boys flagged us down to help them pull their snow mobile out of some deep snow. I hit the button to stop the snowmobile and after we helped the boys we went to start it up and it wouldn't start. Ryan didn't realize that I had hit that button and we could NOT figure out why it wouldn't start. I ran back to the cabin while Ryan kept trying to get it to go. When Debra and Dave came over to it, Dave pulled up the button and started it right up. We are not snow machine people.

SO we went snowshoeing! At Harriman State Park

And got to see this beautiful tranquility

As soon as I saw this bridge I recognized it...when Lisa was about a year old we went hiking here in the summer and it was rather warm and we had seen hardly anyone the whole day so I thought--I'm going to take a quick dip in the water. And, what do you know, as soon as I'm down to my birthday suit and enjoying the nice cool water, along come three riders on horses. Luckily they were going pretty slow, so we saw them from a distance and I scurried to the bank where Ryan helped me cover up real quick. But I'm sure they figured it all out as they rode over the bridge. They all kind of just turned their heads and didn't say a word as they rode on their way. How embarassing, right?! Oh well...now I have a story to tell.