Keeping cool in the heat

We recently had record highs in Orange County with it reaching 100 degrees!!!! My little munchkins found relief outside by playing with buckets of water (and yes, as you can see, DD is STRONG and DETERMINED).

Luckily I had just ordered this water play table last week in preperation of summer ... not realizing that we needed it NOW - it couldn't have arrived at a better time! They have enjoyed several days with this too but Mommy forgot to take a picture while doing so but no worries, there will be PLENTY of photo opps in the future. :-) If you are looking for a water table I highly suggest this one and would steer away from the sand/water combos unless you want an EVEN bigger mess to deal with after play time. I also decided to get several plastic art aprons that I can easily take on and off the kiddos when they play with the water table so they don't get their clothes too wet (at least not more then the sun can dry off before coming in, of course, on days like these they were stripped down to little clothing any way). I had DH put up a hook by the garage door to hang to dry and give me easy access to them. I am very pleased with the plastic aprons and they are coming in handy for our "shaving cream" art projects too. I just hose the aprons down afterwards to clean up. If you have never tried this activity, it's a MUST, it provides a lot of (messy) entertainment for active toddlers - the type of (messy) entertainment 3 year old boys like.

It has cooled down quite a bit and today it is only in the high 60's .... I am hoping the less sunny sky will bring longer naps today. :-)

Spring parties in full bloom

Being born in Springtime comes with a wonderful gift ... beautiful weather! It seems like Spring more then any other season brings a lot of BIRTHDAY PARTIES! And my guess is because it seems like the perfect excuse to get all the kids and parents together outside for some fun.

This weekend we had two FUN birthday parties - Saturday was for an adorable little 1 year old and Sunday for a beautiful 4 year old ... and next weekend we will be celebrating the G twin's 1st birthday!!! Party season is in full bloom!

Here are some pics of the kiddos (& DH) enjoying themselves at the festivities.

Hippity Hoppity Easter's on it's way!!!

Yesterday we decorated our Easter eggs. DS is at an age now where he is really getting into these fun traditions. I found the handy egg holders you see in the below pictures at Michael's craft store (for only 99 cents) ... and all our practice with cutting skills and proper scissor holding certainly paid off. He had no problems handling the eggs and dipping them into the dye. DD even got her own pink pair but not quite ready to use them by herself - maybe next year?! :-)

When DH's asked him last night when going to bed what his favorite part of the day was yesterday he shouted, "EGGS!". He even had his first swim lessons yesterday (that he really really enjoyed) and EGGS won out! **beaming with pride as I type this thinking of what a great job he did at his first lesson, even going under water a few times!!!**

I told the kids that if they put out their new big sand buckets (the ones we used for our Palm Sunday Easter egg hunt) by the fireplace tonight EB (Easter Bunny) will leave some treats in it ... DS is already smiling with anticipation of CHOCOLATE (& he won't be disappointed as EB got the biggest chocolate bunny at SEES Candy he could find).

... and thanks again to Chasing Cheerios for a great idea!!! After looking around the web for almost an hour looking for a fun yet easy Easter card craft I decided to stop by her Blog and boy was I happy - the perfect idea for our Easter cards to Grandparents and Godparents. We typically try to do handprint art for holiday gifts but this is the first time he really got into it and had fun. I think because he is now old enough to hold the paint brush in one hand and paint his hand and fingers of the other hand and then pat his hand on the paper all by himself. He LOVED making these and glued the eyes and noses on too. I drew the mouth and wiskers and "thumb" bunny's finger prints on the inside of the card (yes, you guessed it, those would be DD's fingerprints! :-). DS is quite proud of how these turned out and is excited to give them to his family members on Easter tomorrow.

Rice is the pits!

Me to DS: "We are going to buy rice today for our 'rice pit'.".

DS: "Mommy, that's a Daddy word (lots of laughs in between repeating several times) pit, pit, pit.". (giggle giggle giggle)

Is he a boy or what?! He already finds all those words that suggest smelly stinky things quite funny (you know the ones: fart, (arm) pit, gas, burp, etc.). It reminds me how excited I am for our new baby girl to arrive in August because that means we will out-number them thus hoping to keep the stinky jokes around the house to a minimum. :-)

Thanks to KR for recently sharing the blog Chasing Cheerios. I have found some wonderful ideas for the kids including our new "rice pit". I bought a pink plastic kiddie pool from Toys R Us and filled it with about 7 ten pound bags of rice from Costco (total cost for everything was less then $45.00). Both kids have been having a BLAST and DS has asked to play in the "rice pit" every day since getting it. I added old measuring cups, cleaned/recycled plastic containers and some of their sand toys. Besides being less messy I (& the kids) actually enjoy the texture of the rice better then sand. I bought myself a soft gardening pad to knell next to them to play together (come on - did you really think there would be space for a 3 year old, 1 year old AND a big ol' pregnant lady inside the 'pit - LOL!)