Easter!

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Well, unfortunately I open this Easter post with an Easter fail.  The Easter Bunny made a stop at our house on Thursday morning before we left for Dayton and the trip to American Girl.  I was caught a little off guard since the Bunny came early, and on a school morning.  So, I have zero pictures of Emily's basket and zero pictures of Emily with her basket.  Mom fail.

But, luckily the Easter Bunny also made a stop at Grandma's house and, this time Emily took a picture of her basket!  Yay!  Glad we gave her that iPhone.  True to his normal routine, the Easter Bunny even left Emily a little trail of jelly beans to help her find her basket.  Emily took a picture of the trail of jelly beans too.

 

Still don't have a picture of Emily with her Easter basket from this year, but this will have to do.  Hopefully I'll get it together next year.  Happy Easter!

Emily playing tic-tac-toe with her new Beanie Boo, Orchid.

UPDATE!  GRANDMA SAVED THE DAY! Here's a picture of Emily with her basket.  Thank you Grandma!

Trip to American Girl Store at Easton

Friday, March 25, 2016

To celebrate straight A's again this quarter and also the start of Spring Break, we took Emily to the American Girl store at Easton Town Center in Columbus.  Grandma & Grandpa Heintz came too. Emily brought her Grace doll along on our trip and even wore her matching outfit (which she received as an early Easter gift from Mommy & Daddy).

We started our fun with shopping. Lots of shopping.  I think she looked at and touched every single item in the whole store.  The last time we visited she didn't really ask for much of anything.  This time I think she wanted one of everything.  She had a gift card to use and both Grandma & Grandpa and Mommy & Daddy were also planning to get her an item or two of her choice for Easter and to celebrate her straight A's.  Basically, she raked it in.  Gratefully, we got a coupon for 30% off everything in the store the night before we left!  YAY!

After our shopping was done, it was off to the Bistro to continue her celebration.  We booked her the party package so she got some extra treats including a goody bag with a tiara and a cake too!

After lunch, we made Caroline an appointment at the hair salon for a new hairdo.  Caroline was Emily's first American Girl doll and her hair was looking a little rough.  She had long blonde curls that just did not hold up well to a younger Emily who liked to play with her.

After shopping, eating and styling, it was time to head home and PLAY!  Among the many things she chose Emily got an ice cream cart, rainbow sprinkles outfit for her doll, a crock pot dinner set, a popcorn popper set, a treats and eats pet bowl set, a beautiful party dress complete with a crinoline for extra pouf, a lace parasol, a shawl and fan, a matching mint green dress for Emily and her doll, Samantha's accessories and maybe even some other things that I'm not thinking of.  She clearly made out pretty well on this little trip and she has been playing quite happily with all of it at Camp Grandma (where she is spending the rest of her spring break).  Great way to start spring break!!!

Drama Recital 2016

Monday, March 21, 2016

Emily's drama recital was tonight, and as in past years, she was fantastic!  This year her poem was called "Obedient" by Shel Silverstein.  She gave just the right amount of drama and didn't stumble over any of her words.  She was fantastic!

Obedient
By Shel Silverstein

Teacher said, “You don’t obey.
You fidget and twidget and won’t sit down.
So go stand in the corner now 'til I say you can turn around.”
So there I stood ‘til it got dark without a whimper or a tear,
‘Til everybody else went home.
I guess that she forgot me here.

And that was Friday, so I stayed
All through the weekend--bein’ good.
And Monday was the first day of summer vacation, so I stood
Through hot July and sticky August, tryin’ to obey her rule.
Stood right there until September, when--yikes-- they closed down the school!
Boarded up the doors and windows, moved to a new one way ‘cross town.

So here I’ve stood for forty years in dark and dust and creaky sounds,
Waiting for her to say, “Turn around.”
This might not be just what she meant,
But me--
I’m so obedient.

UPDATE! Emily got a gold medal for her performance! Next stop, ACSI competition in Teays Valley!

Bunny Brunch

Sunday, March 20, 2016

The annual Ronald McDonald House Brunch with the Easter Bunny was held for the first time this year at Berry Hills Country Club. We had to move the event this year after we over-sold the event last year.  Not a bad problem to have at all.  And, we sold out again this year!

   

   

As in past years, we had tons of themed Easter baskets for the raffle and also a couple of American Girl dolls in a silent auction.  Emily had her heart set on a basket of Beanie Boos.  She put most of her tickets in that basket, but she also put some in the American Girl craft basket and a couple of others.

Unfortunately, the Beanie Boo basket was not to be this year.  Our neighbor's daughter, Abby won it. Emily was VERY disappointed, but she handled it well and she did end up winning the American Girl Craft basket, so that helped a little.  Luckily, the day still had a highlight.  Emily got to be on the news talking about why she liked coming to bunny brunch!!!  She was on the late night news on Sunday night.  Luckily we taped it so we got to see her.  She was very excited to be on TV.

Coloring Eggs!

Saturday, March 19, 2016

I was unable to convince Emily to wear her Easter shirt.

'Tis the season for egg coloring!  This year we tried something new.  We bought artificial eggs.  Daniel hates the smell of hard boiled eggs and they always stink up our fridge so we thought this might be a good solution and the fake eggs were not that much more expensive.  Well, it was basically a total fail.  The eggs did not hold much color at all and they floated in the dye, rather than sinking so keeping them in the dye was really hard.




But it was still pretty fun and now we know you just can't beat REAL eggs for Easter egg coloring.

  

Beanie Birthday

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Emily is totally enamored with Beanie Boos these days.  She takes them everywhere and her friends have them too.  They all have little tags that have the animal's name and their birthday.  Emily loves the fact that they have birthdays.

So, this weekend we didn't have much going on...and any excuse for cake works for me...so we had a party for all the Beanie Boos.  With cake.  And party hats.  Emily loved it.  We even invited Reagan from next door over for a second little party the next morning.  It was fun.

   

Easter Mini Session

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Immediately after we got home from Great Wolf, we had to get Emily changed and ready for her Easter mini session out in Hurricane.  I signed her up for a session with baby chicks and a baby bunny a couple of weeks ago.  I have been wanting to do one of these with her for years and I finally got the chance.  It was definitely everything I  hoped it would be. So sweet!!

First up - the bunny!

Then it was time for the chicks!!

     

I loved every minute of this session and for the first time ever, Emily wasn't ready for the photo session to end!  It was absolutely wonderful and so many great memories! Happy Spring!

Great Wolf!

March 4-6, 2016

We gave Emily a trip to Great Wolf Lodge for Christmas this year.  She has so much stuff and she LOVES Great Wolf, so this made a great gift.  Unfortunately, we had 18"of snow the weekend we had booked the trip so we had to wait until March to go, but even that worked out ok as it was a little cheaper!

We got Emily a Kid Camp room again this year so she had her own space and she loved it.

She brought along a few friends...

We arrived just in time to grab a quick bite to eat and then hit the pool.  Emily could. not. wait.  First stop was the lazy river (her favorite).  Then it was off to hit the slides!

 We finally got her to bed about 10pm.  Finally.  The next morning we had to kill a little time in the arcade since the pools did not open until 10am.  So we put some money on the arcade card and off we went.  Em earned about 300 tickets, but opted not to use them on the "junk" they had.  Ha!  Guess we're doing something right.

By the time she used up all her credits on her arcade card, it was time to swim.  We spent the whole rest of the day swimming, floating and sliding (and sometimes freezing).  We rode every slide and went in every pool.  We even ate lunch at the pool.  Em was definitely in seventh heaven.

After a very full day of swimming fun, we got cleaned up and headed out to dinner.  We found a Cheesecake Factory just a few minutes from the hotel so that's where we went.  At first we were quoted a 60+ minute wait, but then a table opened up in the bar area (first come first served) so we grabbed it!  We all had great meals and then settled in for dessert.  Cheesecakes for mommy and daddy and fudge cake for  Emily.  I swear her cake was bigger then her!!

After dinner we headed back to the hotel for evening adventures including glow golf!

Then it was finally time to turn in for the night and unwind with a little iPad time.  We still had big plans for the morning.

The next morning we took Emily to try out MagiQuest.  She had never done it before, but she is into scavenger hunts these days so this seemed right up her alley. Unfortunately, the whole game apparently takes some 6+ hours so saving it until Sunday morning when we only had 3 hours was not a great plan, but we tried it out anyway and Emily LOVED it!  We actually all liked it and we made good progress in the time we had. We told her we  would take her to the MagiQuest in Myrtle Beach this summer, but sadly, apparently MagiQuest was sold exclusively to Great Wolf Lodge and so the location in Myrtle Beach is closed now.

  

We definitely had a good time and it turned out to be a great gift to everyone to have a whole family weekend together (even if I was freezing for 75% of it).   :-)   Great Wolf really was Great.