Easter

With no family in town, and a commitment and Saturday that kept us from traveling to see them, we had a pretty quiet Easter with just our family. We took a little trip up north on Sunday to the Franconia Sculpture Garden. We had driven past this place a number of times, and seen this from the road

but this is the first time we stopped, and it was lovely! We started with a picnic

There were lots of very large sculptures, and as far as I could tell kids were welcome to crawl on them. We had a basket of goodies for E. We "hid" the basket on one of the sculptures. Which, let's face it, means we set it on the ground beside the sculpture, and still had to entice him to crawl towards it.

Most of the goodies were musical instruments. I love that he likes music so much. He perks up when we turn the radio on at home, he quiets down when we turn lullabies on in the car, and music class was the one activity we could complete with at least minimal crying when he was very young.

 And one last picture. Everest with his new morocco and his matching green stroller.

We finished the day by skyping with Mike's family, and a phone call to mine.

Springtime in Minnesota!

In spite of the snow we had just last week, we believe springtime is finally here! The crocuses have bloomed, literally through the snow, and the tulips are on their way. The battle with the critters has begun, as they promptly ate all my crocuses. I can see a rabbit in the backyard eating things as I write this. In honor of easter, I will leave him alone for now. While people in Minnesota pretend to be tough about the 6 months of winter, everyone comes alive on the first few days of spring. The trails around town are full of people enjoying the weather, and there are smiles on everyone's faces. It is one of my favorite times of year!

One of my favorite things about spring is to see which of my plants survived the winter. Thanks to the healthy layer of snow we had this year, I think everything survived. Roses, Hydrangeas, grapes, and lilacs - I may be out of room to plant anything new this spring! 

We are starting to go on walks again, and got E's swing out. So far, he loves it, and I imagine we will get hours of use out of it. Our jogging stroller is finally getting some use, and I can't wait to get the bikes tuned up for long rides.We went to baby animal month at the zoo, and are hiding our eggs outdoors tomorrow. I'm starting to plan daytrips around the cities to outdoor destinations. Spring is definitely here, and as I become more Minnesotan, there is a smile on my face, too :-)

E's first easter egg hunt

Catch-up, ha! I'm starting from today and moving forward.

We took E to a community sing-along and egg hunt last weekend. E loves music, in spite of the fact that he prefers to chew on the instrument rather than play them.

 Here he is finding his first easter egg. I had to suppress my mother bear instincts when a little girl took the egg out of his hands and her mother let her. That mother will probably be me in a few years, but I struggled to not be annoyed! E didn't care :-) We're going to hide some empty eggs for him tomorrow, as again, he doesn't really care. This is surely the last easter we can get away with hiding empty plastic shells!