We Love Wii

On Sunday we were supposed to have a life group meeting, but the hosting family got sick. :( We were going to offer to host but another couple couldn't make it. So, we decided to take advantage of the fact that we had a free evening and invited Chris & Lisa (from life group) over for some Wii fun. We'd been talking about having a Wii night ever since New Year's when they were talking about their new one Lisa got Chris for Christmas. This night it finally worked out!

We started with dinner, and the kids got up as we were eating our dessert to start and play. Caleb asked for help while rocking on his horse, and Isabella went to push him gently back and forth. It was adorable! I had to snap a picture or two.

After dinner, we went downstairs to play, the adults with the Wii and the kids with the toys. Joshua desperately wanted to play with us, so Daddy would pretend Joshua was doing it with the nun-chuck as Shawn would swing with the remote. Then Joshua told Chris that he took a swing at his ball and then he told both guys what a great job they or he was doing (whoever had taken a shot at the time). He felt like one of the men. :) He was a bit of a pistol that night, though, in the beginning. Chris laughed at our little Mr. Personality.

Meanwhile Caleb & Isabella played. At one point they were sitting 'cheek to cheek.' They enjoyed playing potato heads and dancing in the buckets and with the buckets on their heads... as you can see below.

The guys played golf and tennis, the four of us bowled against each other, and we all took a turn at the cow racing game. We also played the 'Find This Mii" game (can't remember what it's called now). We had a fun time! Here's Lisa in action...

Shawn thoroughly enjoyed having some 'real' competition (Joshua nor I give him a run for his money ever). I think Chris actually won many of the games. They both had a great time.

They also thoughtfully brought me these flowers for Spring, which I thought were beautiful.

Lisa & Isabella also taught my boys & me the "bubble" song (see below). I'm not sure if we remembered it all... we sort of made it up as we went along. Both the little guys enjoy singing it and the hand motions. In fact, Joshua HAD to get up on the chair to perform the song, which cracks me up. He's such a ham. Enjoy!

Easter Egg Hunt - Part 2

 

After all the fun morning activities, it was time to head outside and wait for the helicopter to come and drop the 20,000 eggs. This event was SO well organized. The field was already covered with eggs strategically placed all over so that the ground was well-covered. It was a little chilly that morning, but the kids didn't seem to mind.

I loved this picture of Caleb with Joshua's basket and his little pink-painted nose! And Isabella made the cutest little bunny.

Soon enough we heard that the helicopter was warming up to make his first pass and then come back for another pass with the actual eggs dropping. We were eager with anticipation and the announcer started chanting (which the Bean ADORED!): "Drop those eggs! Drop those eggs!" We could see the helicopter (and Joshua calls all helicopters 'Harold' since that's the name of the one in the Thomas books).

Joshua was SO excited! He kept the chant continuing as he watched the sky for Harold to drop the eggs.

And then he did! Our camera took a fairly fuzzy shot, but you can still get the idea of what it looked like.

The eggs rained out of the sky, which you can see if you look closely at the picture below:

The field was covered with eggs (we of course weren't on the field yet since they wouldn't want anyone to get hurt with eggs falling from the sky).

Harold went back 'home' to get more eggs for the next round of kids while they said "on your mark, get ready, get set, GO!" and let the kids on the field to fill their baskets & bags with eggs.

Isabella was the first one out of our group. Unfortunately, Shawn didn't take any pictures of Joshua picking up eggs. I had given him our camera since we were in Isabella's group (2 and younger) and Joshua was in an older group (3-5 year-olds). I understand it's hard to live in the moment and get pictures. Such is life!

The kids enjoyed finding the eggs. I think Caleb thought he was 'cleaning up.' 

I'm thankful for Lisa & Chris snapping the pictures of Caleb searching for eggs. He was having a blast! And Joshua was hoping that Harold would bring some more since that was his favorite part.

 

Next we took some family pictures to remember the day with:

Thereafter we tried to go back to the bounce houses, but there was a miscommunication between the church and the bounce house rental folks for the first group, so they didn't let us come back in to play. Joshua was sad, but we ended our time with heading out to see some of the outside animals they had. We started with petting the bunnies. Caleb in particular LOVED these little bunnies and he stayed there for a LONG time petting them. I was impressed with the young gal who kept the bunny calm and allowed Caleb to pet him gently and lovingly. He was enthralled by this soft little creature.

Next Isabella moved on to see the goats. Joshua stopped to see the chickens and then went into the goat area while Caleb watched from outside the goat place:

Soon it was time to part ways. Our friends had tickets to the Fulton that afternoon, and Isabella was going back to her grandparents. Shawn & I decided that Chinese sounded good for lunch and went and got takeout before heading home for the boys to nap. Later that afternoon we went to church and had communion, which was nice, and the sermon was on the events the week before Jesus' death. It was a nice Saturday, even with being full moon. Here are our goodbye hugs and Isabella in her car seat heading home!

Thanks for a fun day out! The boys LOVED the egg hunt and all the activities and we enjoyed it, too. :)

Easter Egg Hunt - Part 1

Our friends Chris & Lisa invited us to go on an Easter egg hunt with them. We looked at various egg hunts happening that morning (March 27) and thought the one that sounded the best was at her uncle's church. It was really a fantastic event! Here's their family, including little Isabella.

Saturday morning, I was actually the first one up! But, once my feet touched the floor, Joshua came running into our room. We met the Grube family at 8:30 am in the parking lot across from the airport to follow them to the church in Lititz.

Lisa took care of registering our kids for us, so we all just walked right in. Unfortunately we didn't win any of the prizes, which included some cool things like bikes, but we were okay with that. We started walking down the hallways of the church to see the various activities. And, the first thing we met up with was the Easter bunny. My boys didn't want to hug or even give the bunny a high five. I guess a life size creature of what you expect to be small is still a little scary.

So the boys just watched, and we followed Isabella to the activities while I held their Easter basket (and a little bag for Caleb since I thought it would be easier for him to maneuver).

Here's my little Caleb Luke. If you ask him what his name is now, he says "Buke!" Too cute. These sort of reminded me of mug shots.

The first 'game' I remember the kids playing was an egg toss in these 'flower' holes. Joshua thought this was WAY cool as you can see by his face below.

Here are the action shots, Joshua above and Isabella below.

Next we headed to a room to make crafts. The first stop was coloring stick people with markers, which all the kids did.

Then Caleb & Daddy played while we continued on with 'bigger kid' stuff. Joshua & Isabella each made a Popsicle stick worm, and I was surprised at how well Joshua did with it. He put the little balls right next to each other and stuck the eye right on in a good spot. He enjoyed the crafts.

Then we moved on to sand art, and the Bean's turned out to be mostly blue because he kept wanting to dump that color in. Oh well! He loved his little sand masterpiece. We decided against letting them paint this cool window hanging things because of drying time and the nice clothes they were wearing.

Here's Lisa & Isabella and you can see Joshua & I in the background behind them in the picture below. This ended our time in the craft room and we moved on to another hallway with more games for younger kiddos. They had different activities for different age groups.

I'm having a difficult time remembering the order now, but it doesn't really matter, I guess. So, I THINK the next thing they did was play the bean bag toss game. The gal would say a number or a shape to try and land on. Joshua did pretty well for the most part, and then Isabella took a turn. After each area, they would get a little prize that he put in his Easter basket. (Before long, I was carrying two Easter 'baskets', two little guy coats, a camera, crafts, prizes, balloons, etc!)

I thought the picture below of the kids together was adorable. I know it's out of order, but it was too cute not to put in here!

Then as we walked we saw this little bunny & egg stand for pictures and had to stop.

We continued on to let the kids fish. Joshua is really into 'Finding Nemo' and he thought fishing was awesome! There was a pole with a string and a clothes pin on the end of it. In front of the kids was a wall painted with an ocean scene and fish. They threw the 'line' over the wall and someone on the other end clipped a little bookmark to their clothespin. The kids never saw the extra helper and thought they caught something as they reeled it back in. It was soooo cute!

Then we walked into the face-painting and fake tattoos area. Joshua NEVER wants his face painted, but I thought we might be able to convince our easygoing little Caleb. NOPE! He got a pink nose and screamed when she tried to do any more. So, he was left with a pink nose and no bunny whiskers. Some kids had an entire bunny face!

Isabella enjoyed being a bunny, and Lisa said she cried when they washed her face that night. I thought she looked so cute!

Thereafter, we went to the balloon room. They had more than a dozen folks in there making balloons so it went really quickly. We were right in and right out. I must say that the youth of this church were amazing. Most of the people 'manning' the stands were youth who had such patience for the kids and such skill at working with them on the various activities. We were really impressed.

The lady gave Joshua a bunch of options for his balloon, and he requested a monkey out of all of them. She said "what's your favorite color?" and he replied "BROWN!" since monkeys are brown. ;) She made a brown monkey on a green tree and gave it to him. Later the tree broke and the monkey came unraveled and it looked more like... well, we won't go there.

Isabella got a pink elephant and Caleb got a yellow puppy.

Next we wondered over to more games, and once I saw this one, I groaned thinking "Noooo!!!" It was called the "toilet toss" and the idea was to toss balls into the toilet lid. All I can say is "DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!"

Both boys enjoyed the toilet toss and got their prize.

Next we played another game where you toss a ball into some colored cans.

This one was small enough for Caleb to enjoy, too!

And at this one, all three kiddos picked up a duck and if there was a nail, you didn't get a prize, but if there was a number, you chose a prize out of a bucket with the same number. Caleb got a yellow ring and Joshua got a little eraser, I think. We were behind a group at this point with triplets. God love her! I guess twins run on both sides of the family from what she was saying.

Next we went golfing. This one made me CRACK UP! We waited behind two bigger boys who were probably a little too old to be doing this game. Joshua went up and first swung and almost hit the gal who was working there, then he chunked the ball backward and it went flying by Daddy who picked it. Finally, he grasped that the ball was to go in the hole that I showed him, and it went right in. Isabella went after Joshua and did not disturb the crowd. As the golfers were taking their shots, Caleb was being bashful for the Easter bunny, who Joshua almost took out with his ball.

 Then Joshua & Isabella decided to hold hands. She held onto Grandpa's hand and the Bean's (Lisa's parents met us there so they could see her hunt for eggs).

Next while Joshua went into the bouncing room, they got Isabella's picture with the Easter bunny. Chris was holding Caleb (since I had all the stuff and Caleb was tired of walking) and neither of my kids enjoy the Easter bunny. Isabella wasn't too sure either (as you can tell by her head down) but she didn't cry.

Next, the kids joined Joshua in the jumping gym area. They went into the house where the little guys go.

Meanwhile, Joshua was going through the obstacle course like at Bounce U. He was LOVING it, but we finally convinced him it was time to get his shoes on because Harold the Helicopter was coming to drop some eggs to find...

More stories on the actual egg hunt to come!