Swimming

The kids begin their swimming lessons next week. They're excited about getting back in the pool. Abby is constantly asking when she is going to go to her swimming 'yessons'. I'm hoping to be able to spend a lot of time in the pool this summer, like we did last summer.

Here's a little video of the kids swimming, last summer.

Dirt

Around here, another sure sign of spring is...dirt!

There's dirt...

...on faces.

...under little fingernails.

...on knees.

...on bottoms.

...covering the kitchen floor.

...in a ring around the bathtub.

...on the bar of hand soap.

...in the kitchen sink.

...on my 'good' towels.

It's spring time, there's dirt everywhere...and I'm lovin' it!

Pizza and Pins Party

We decided to have Grace and Jacob's birthday parties together at the bowling alley, last Saturday. Along with all the grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousins, they both got to invite a friend to come along. We had pizza, pop, cupcakes, and lots of bowling. I was surprised by how much work it was to keep things going and was worn out by the end of it. To think that I had come up with the idea to have it at the bowling alley, instead of our house, to make it easier on myself. Hmmm...my little plan backfired on me! Ha! But, as crazy and hectic as it was, we had a good time.

Paco and Grandma decided to bowl some, too. It had been many, many years since either one had bowled. Paco, having had his heart surgery back in December, did wonderfully rolling the ball down the lane. However, Grandma showed him up a little (well, all of us, actually) when on her first ball, she rolled a strike!

Geocaching with Nana and Pa

To end our busy St. Patrick's Day, we met Nana and Pa for some geocaching at the park.

Pa leads the way.

LOVE

Everybody jump!

Us.

A great end to a beautiful day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

A little St. Patrick's Day fun for breakfast.

I made shamrock pancakes with little 'pots of gold (coins).' Yes, banana slices as gold coins are kind of lame, but I was trying to keep it fairly healthy!

Signs of Spring

Daffodils and crocus in full bloom

Little girl spring dresses hanging to dry

More time being spent playing at the park

Geocaching

With the beautiful weather that we've been having, we've been trying to enjoy the outdoors as much as we can. Waking up to a gorgeous day on Saturday, we decided to spend the day geocaching.

If you don't know what geocaching is you can read more about it here. In brief, it's basically a treasure hunt using GPS. People hide little 'caches' in all sorts of places, then they post on the internet the longitude and latitude coordinates of the hiding place. Then, we put the coordinates into our GPS and set out looking for the hidden cache. The cache usually has a log book and some little, inexpensive trinkets/toys, that the kids can swap out with one of their own little toys.

It's a wonderful way to get outside, enjoy nature, and get some exercise. It makes hiking even more exciting for the kids because they know that there is going to be a 'hidden treasure' to find.

Here are some photos from our adventures this past Saturday: