Moments In March

Well, there went March. Here's a picture heavy post containing snippets of our happenings.

-We had a couple playdates with the Sviggum kids, and are excited to have them as backyard(ish) neighbors later this year! The kids play so well together. Love these silly shots of them hiding to surprise Matt when he arrived home with pizza for dinner.

-Matt headed to New Orleans for a conference on the 12th, so the girls and I were solo for a few days. I adopted a new philosophy for these mom and kid times that was a big hit with all three of us--I asked myself "What would a dad do?" The answers were things like--go out for ice cream, go out to dinner, skip baths, go to bed with a messy kitchen, and so on. Kids' minds officially blown. Yay, Mom!  We hit the school playground after lunch at Pi and then went to Flapdoodles as soon as he left.

-Later that night the girls had to come with me to church band rehearsal (was my weekend to sing). I brought lots of things for them to do, but they were invited to play along with us in practice and handed some instruments. They were pretty delighted.

-After staying at church for Saturday night service, we endured the time change and then had to be at church early for the whole morning. Jillian got tired of going to her classroom (she had already heard the lesson twice) and asked to sit back with the band during the third service. She quietly read and played with some Lego-type items. These toys were very intriguing to one of the band members, and he spent most of the hour playing with her. Such great people at this church!

-I figured hanging in with me for all that singing deserved a nice little brunch at Chester's...

-And then a trip to the library followed by a new movie with popcorn at home (Good Dinosaur). A dad would totally do all that in one day, right?

-I continued my fun after school on Monday with a spontaneous trip to play at the RAC neighborhood followed by dinner at Newt's. No dishes, no problems.

-Matt returned just in time for St Patrick's Day. My little lucky charms are always ready for any kind of holiday.

-Jillian is testing out a new intense grin. You'll see it again.

-I made it on the Quarry Hill field trip that day with Adrienne and her preschool class. It was COLD and windy and generally miserable to spend an hour outside...

...but the kids were so cute!

-Jillian's school carnival was on the 18th. Mass chaos of the century. We lured the girls out with the promise of Flapdoodles. But first, they had to do the cake walk (did not win), get faces painted (yuck), and dig for prizes.

Later that same weekend, Adrienne had a birthday party to attend at the children's museum. Matt was working, so Jillian and I went shoe shopping for her while A was at the party. When we came back to pick her up, we found Adrienne absolutely transfixed by this storyteller in character.

-Also in March, I realized I have more mismatched socks in my laundry room than most people probably have in their drawer. I am not proud of this.

I cleaned out my closet and found a couple infinity scarves that were on the shorter side for me and gave them to the girls. They wear them all the time and are so proud of their new accessory.

-I woke up on the 23rd to a strange dripping sound in my bedroom. Soon I discovered the drip was coming from my ceiling...which meant it was actually coming from the girls' toilet above us. Less than awesome. Supply tube replaced, 3 rooms torn apart, dried, and slowly being put back together. Thank goodness for insurance!

-Oh, and we had a snow day on March 24th. 11 inches. I really wish they'd stop calling snow storms that occur during actual spring "Winter Storms". Maybe I'd be less annoyed if they issued a "Spring Storm Warning"? Nah, probably not. We did our best to enjoy what is hopefully (please!!) our last big snowfall.

-I attempted to soothe my winter-weary soul with as many flowers as possible from Trader Joe's.

-The girls had long overdue haircuts. This haircut experience was especially fun because it was the first time Stephanie actually washed their hair in the shampoo bowl (versus wetting it down with a spray bottle). It was so fun to watch both of them during this. Adrienne LOVES scents and loves to have her hair washed/done. Jillian is much more sensitive and HATES having her hair washed/touched/combed/etc. You can see the differences reflected in the series of pictures below. They each chose their style and were SO excited to meet Matt for dinner immediately following the appointment. They felt so fancy and knew that Matt would tell them how lovely they looked (he did).

-You can see how serious/nervous (?) photo-bombing Jillian looks in the background.

All dolled up and ready to meet their main man! My babies! Sniff.

-And then there was Easter. They were up bright and early to open baskets (6:30!)

We snapped a couple quick pics before heading to the early 8:00 service at church.

-After church we hopped over to the Country Club for brunch and an egg hunt with the Tauntons. We found the Easter Bunny right away and the girls were so excited!

-Four sweet friends loaded up with dessert from the dessert table.

-Adrienne loved on the Easter bunny again as we headed outdoors (brrr!) for the egg hunt. It was the fastest egg hunt I've ever been a part of (thank goodness) and was seriously over in less than 10 minutes.

-This is what egg hunts in Minnesota look like. So sad. So sad.

-The girls threw on their rain boots and sloshed around in the soggy grass without a care.

-The Easter Bunny still working as kids were hunting.

-Poor Jack. Not amused by the experience.

-Sporting their new "be brave" t-shirts the bunny brought

-The girls set up an egg hunt full of candy prizes for Matt and I in the basement. It was so cute, and they did a really good job of hiding the eggs. My favorite part was the "winer's box". Took me awhile to figure out that I got the box because I was the WINNER, not because I was going to get wine :)

-Matt finally had a couple days off after a looooong stretch. We marked out Tuesday to go shopping for him since both girls would be at school. I got to school drop off for Adrienne only to discover that she didn't have school that day due to conferences! Oops. I've never made that mistake before. So, I grabbed some crayons and a new coloring book at a quick stop and she spent the day nicely shopping with us. At our last stop, a local men's store, she sat at a table near the window for over an hour while we deliberated on suits. Such a trooper!

-We ended the month with the last day of school before Spring Break. It was a dress-up day for Jillian--hat and shades. She didn't want to wear shades, but was super excited to wear my hat. Big girl!