Routine? What Routine?
This week looked a lot different than normal. It was spring break where we live, so some of the weekly activities were cancelled (homeschool playgroup and church night supper). Nana came to visit (much excitement! It's been the longest time they've ever gone without seeing her), so the entourage didn't do their usual Daddy date night or come to the Y with me. We didn't go to the library this week, because we decided to spend that morning at home with Daddy since he went out of town again (just two nights; he's back already). And to top off the week, we cancelled our usual Friday activities to go to the zoo with our neighbors Miss N, Mr. S, and LA. Next week we'll be back slightly closer to "normal." The poor entourage won't know what to do with themselves!

Nana!
Nana's arrival was the first major event of the week. She arrived Sunday night after they went to bed, and they were so excited to have Nana here when they woke up Monday morning. Nana drove down in the convertible, so the entourage got to ride up and down the street a few times with the top down. We played outside alot, and got to try out the girls' new bubble bucket.

We also dyed Easter eggs while Nana was here. Monkey and Bug helped with the whole process--from boiling the eggs to eating the finished beautiful product. Goose was very disappointed that she didn't get help with the dying.

 The last morning of Nana's visit proved particularly eventful: The entourage got to see a sheriff up close and in person when I got into a fenderbender (no one was injured, there was minimal damage to the cars, and the officer was merciful enough not to give me a ticket), we went to the bank to take care of some paperwork, and Nana bought us frozen yogurt (she decided we all needed a treat--yum!)

Puddle Jumping
Thanks to a couple of really hard rains we had two fantastic puddle jumping days. There's a dip in the road right in front of house which creates the most fantastic, huge, mud-free puddle. The first time the girls mostly did just jump--with vigor. In fact, they had to stop a couple of times to dump the water out of their rain boots. Toward the end of the water play Monkey and Bug decided to reinact the "fetch a pail of water" part of Jack and Jill. They scooped water into buckets with sand shovels, and they were kind enough to let Goose join in. The second time they still jumped quite a bit--enough to get soaked head to toe, but they also floated boats and other objects, collected and examined rocks found in the puddle and surrounding area, scooped water into buckets and watered the street, and discovered that when you draw with chalk on a wet street it makes for really vibrant colors.

Veggies
Last week we planted microgreens; this week we harvested! The entourage was thrilled to eat the veggies they had grown themselves. I have plans to put them salads and on sandwiches, but the first harvest was snipped and eaten immediately. The girls didn't even want to go inside first; they sat on the front porch in their PJs and ate every last leaf. I highly recommend gardening as a way to get your kids to eat their greens!

Wheels on the Bus
Monkey and Bug have been singing "Wheels on the Bus" a lot lately, but they get very creative. One recent rendition involved a bus whose passengers included the usual people, babies, and mommies, but also a tiger, bunnies, a sloth, a clown, a dinosaur, and of course Diego, who showed up to rescue the people from the tiger and the dinosaur, who were apparently wrecking havoc on the bus. They were cracking themselves up!

To the Zoo!
Monkey and Bug have been begging me to take them to the zoo for a while now, and we finally made it! We borrowed a big wagon from some neighbors, caravaned up with our next-door neighbors, and the entourage had a blast. They were extremely good travelers (an hour and a half in the car with just me and three 3 and under: I was a bit nervous, but they did beautifully. I even wore them out enough that they all slept the whole way home). At the top of their to-see list were elephants, monkeys, and zebras, and this zoo did not disappoint. We also got to do cool things like walk through the kangaroo habitat, feed goats (Bug was so brave!), and get face to face with a hungry giraffe (sadly we didn't have any food for him, but being at eye level and maybe a foot away was pretty nifty). We didn't have time to see everything, but since this trip was such a success, we're planning to get a membership, so you can look forward to more zoo reports.

The entourage plus one (LA) were very excited to "ride the elephant"!

Goose Is Flying!
Down the slide at least. This girl is fearless and a lot more mobile than other kids her age or at least her size. On the zoo playground and on our neighbors playset, while the other toddlers were sitting hestitantly at the tops of slides and grasping at the edges while they slid to their mommies at the bottom, Goose was flinging herself onto the slide on her belly headfirst, controlling her speed to slow at the bottom and tumble off into the rubber mulch/grass, bouncing up and repeating endlessly. She freaked out more than one parent on the sidelines who seemed to think she was zooming toward certain death or at least a bad fall, and more unfortunately inspired a few bigger toddlers/preschoolers to do the same with considerably less success. She's pretty tough too: At one point at the zoo, she got knocked over in the rush of bigger kids. A preteen girl tried to be helpful, pick her up, and carry her off the playset. Goose was indeed crying--not because she got knocked over (she wasn't phased), but because someone was trying to take her away from the slide! She squirmed out of my arms and right back up the stairs as soon as I "freed her" from the preteen.