A Wednesday Funday!

Easter is right around the corner so my neighbor and I decided to do an impromptu egg hunt for the kiddos this morning. They had a ball looking for all of the eggs in the park.

Wow look at my eggs!

The kids running around having a ball!

Sweet! The big kids are running! I will go through all the eggs while they are away....

Laughing up a storm while Martha plays peek a boo!

Notice the chocolate dripping from Syd's mouth. Most eggs where filled with stickers, crackers etc. a few had chocolate you should have seen her face when she saw the CHOCOLATE!

A Great Weekend!

We are truly blessed with so many great friends. I am amazed and thank God for bringing new friends into our lives. Saturday night we went over to Meaghan and Jeremy's house for a belated St. Patrick's Day dinner. It was filled with great food, laughter and little chaos (good choas that is). There were 8 kiddos there under the age of 3 1/2. I forgot my camera for this one. Today we headed to the Seattle Children's Museum with the Berg's. We were lucky enough to meet them when Marcus and I went to Puerto Vallarta a few months ago. They were there for a wedding (without there kids too) and we found out we both lived in Seattle. Here are a few pictures from our outing at the Museum...

1st day of spring...

We are so sad that Nonni is leaving today. But before she headed out she had to do the usual planting here at the Oldelehr house. Nonni has a HUGE green thumb (something I do not have). So every time she is out here she helps make our yard and pots "pretty". Here are a few photo's of the kids helping Nonni. Well, Dane ate ALL of the dirt he could pile in so I had to bring him inside. So he had to watch from in the house. Then Syd felt bad and gave him a smooch!

I was in the other room and heard Sydney and Dane laughing up a storm. The laughs got louder and louder. I decided to see what was going on. I opened the door and Sydney was squirting lotion all over Dane's head and making a mohawk...

St. Patty's Day

We had such a wonderful St. Patty's Day! It was so nice having Nonni in town to celebrate:) Here is a glimpse into our fun day!

A special St. Patrick's Day breakfast...Green donuts at The Edmond's Bakery!

Here are some of the finished products of the crafts we did today. We made Blarney stones that we all kissed for good luck. Nonni and Syd went on a little hike to find the best rock to paint green.

In action painting the rocks for our Blarney Stones

Kneading the dough for our homemade Irish Brown Bread- so yummy!

Jenn and Owen came over for some corned beef and cabbage

To top off our great day we made a super fun and good dessert. Each kiddo got a shaker with some white powder and milk the harder they shook it turned into yummy "GREEN" pudding.

Happy Birthday Stella

We are so blessed to have so many kiddos with birthday's so close together. Here is a picture from Stella's 1st birthday this weekend.

ABC easy as 123...

Sydney is at an age where she is a sponge. She is interested in learning new things so I have decided to start introducing a letter a week. I have searched around for the best way to do this and with lots of different resources (and many sites with very creative ideas) we started with the letter "A". So here is a glipse into our week with the letter "A"!
*Alligator *Ant *Artichoke *Apple *Angy *Aquarium *Armidillo *Airport *Airplane

When Sydney woke up we went running downstairs to see the "A" table. We started out our "A" week with a scavenger hunt around the house to search for all of the "A's". Sydney had an Amazing time searching for the "A's" and running them all to the door.

Then we headed to the library to pick up our "A" books. While we were there we looked at the Anglefish in the Aquarium. Sydney wanted to stand on the stool Dane was on (we are working on sharing!!!) and she would not share so we had to leave and she was very Angry!

Once we were home I cut an apple in half and the kiddos used the Apple as a stamp. Dane even participated in the Activity but wanted to eat the Apple (you may notice the paint on his face:)

Syd just got out of the bath so you can't see her face behind her wet curls:)

We also made an Alligator out of the letter A.

Sydney loved gluing on the "A" shaped teeth and googly eye's

I made a special "A" dinner for Sydney! Well the picture looks great huh? And the dinner atmosphere on the other hand was pretty Awful. We had a long day and Miss Syd was ready for bed and wanted nothing to do with this fabulous "A" dinner her momma prepared. Oh well I guess life with a toddler is not always Amazing. On the menu: ants on a log, applesauce, artichoke, sweet potatoe in the shape of an "A", pretzel "A's", "A" shaped hamburger, Peas in the shape of an "A".
To top off our "A" week we headed to the Airport to pick up Nonni. While we were there we looked at lots of Airplanes. All in all we had a Amazing "A" week.

Hop on Board!

Here are a few pictures of the kids this morning! Sydney invited Dane on board the choo choo. It was so funny watching them zip around the kitchen.

Dane in his Mizzou shirt (too bad they lost today!) Miss Syd lovin' on Dane:)

I just couldn't resist posting another picture of our cute little man walking!

DANE'S FAVORITE THINGS...

The kiddos are constantly changing! I think they are going to do some of these things forever and think I have plenty of time to take pictures and videos but it always seems they stop before I capture it. So I am going to attempt to do a list every few months of the kids FAVORITES of the time. So here is goes (in no particular order)... Because tomorrow things will change I'm sure...


WALKING- Dane is SO HAPPY to be a walking man! I LOVE this stage. It is so much FUN to watch him take steps. He is getting really good but he is still a bit wobbly:)


SPOON- Dane LOVES the fact that he can use a spoon. He was so proud of himself when he actually scooped something up and made it to his mouth. AWW the little thinks that make them so happy:)

FROGGY - So we have ANOTHER frog lover in the family! I'm not sure how this happened. We had about 4 things in his crib and he picked this cute little froggy blanket to be his friend:) He only likes it when he goes to bed at night and for naps. So for now froggy is never seen in public but that could always change...

Bath - Dane from day one has LOVED the bath! Our routine at night is to have dinner, play a little bit then head up for bath time. If you tell Dane "Time for bath" he starts panting and jumping up and down in excitement! He could stay in there for hours and is always sad when the water has all disappeared. There is ALWAYS tomorrow night...

TEETH - Dane LOVES to brush his teeth! It is another favorite in the morning before we head out the door and right after bath at night. He loves that when he is all finished (or mom says we are finished) he puts the toothbrush in the drawer all by him self and is so PROUD!

His OBSESSION right now is turning things on and off. He LOVES to reach for anything with buttons. Anytime we leave a room it's his "job" to turn the lights off or on. He smiles SO big and is so excited of his "job"! Tonight he even helped Sydney and I set the table. You should have seen his face light up when he put his spoon, plate and napkin down!

PUFFS- Dane LOVES to eat pirate booty aka "PUFFS"! I think he would live on this stuff if we would let him. He starts to shake when he sees the bag and says "PA, PA".

SYDNEY'S FAVORITES...

Independent- So I think this is a BIG one in our house now. Sydney is 2 going on 15 and thinks she is old enough to do EVERYTHING herself. Today we were going to school and she was dressing herself. I came in the room and she had 4 shirts on. She was DETERMINED to wear them all! So she trotted into school with FOUR shirts on. I wish I took a picture it wasVERY funny. But at this age there are some things that are not worth picking a battle over and this was one of them:) She also loves to get in the car seat "ALL BY MYSELF- NO HELP"! She even thought yesterday at the park she was big enough to walk herself down the street to our house to go potty (she did not WIN on that one!)

Kitchen- I really love to cook and now Sydney loves to help me. She loves to climb up on her big stool next to me to help stir, mix etc... She now helps me wash dishes (play in the water = wash dishes) and set the table. It is so fun to watch her get out the placemats from the drawer and then put the plates out. Then every night we sit down and hold hands and say our prayers.

Wearing big girl underwear- Yesterday we were walking to the park with Cavin (her friend) and Syd stopped in her trackes and said "Cavin, I have new underwear...LOOK" Yup, She unzipped her pants and showed him her pretty new undies:) Three days into going in the big girl potty every time. WOO HOO!

Froggy- So I think this one is going to be on the favorite list for a bit longer. We have 3 of these and rotate them in and out of the wash. Froggy is her best friend and has gone everywhere with her since she was one. I'm not sure how much longer he will tag along but for now she LOVES him (and tells him often I love you and kisses him...SO CUTE). The doctor says not to try and take it away now she is still at an age where this comforts her. So instead of the Oldelehr family of 4 we are a family of 5! There are times we have to feed him, make him drinks of water like another member of the family. But he is a good froggy:)

Luggage/Back Pack/Purses- So I mentioned in an earlier post Sydney's obsession for packing things around. Well one of her FAVORITE things now is to carry around her bags and stuff EVERYTHING she possibly can into them. If we can't find something we know to start the bag search:) She even sleeps with ALL of this stuff. Let's hope this is a phase! It looks like she LOVED carrying things around when she was younger too- blurry pic but thought it was cute:)

Outside/Beach- Sydney has always loved to go out and about. Probably because from day one we were taking her everywhere with us. We live a 10 minute walk to the beach so we try to make it there at least 2-3 times a week (rain or shine). She loves throwing rocks in the water, seeing the train, ferry and all the fun the beach has to offer. I remember at an early age she would say "BEEECH" and hope we would go...

BED- Sydney is so routined when it comes to sleep. We will be right in the middle of something and she will say "mama, I'm tired" and she will be ready to go to bed and drop everything we are doing. Although every once in a while she will skip a nap. Her night time ritual is take a bath, crawl in our bed and watch Barney then head into bed. Right now she has Daddy take her in. They say three prayers and then she prays for people. Depending on how tired she will pray for 20 people or only 2 if she is exhausted and can't think! He lays on the floor for a couple of minutes then she says "Nite Nite Daddy, Sweet Dreams, I LOVE You". I sat outside the door one night and they said this line back to each other. Marcus said that is their night time ritual. It made me melt...so PRECIOUS!