March 2019: Spring has Sprung!

"I'm a teacher, mommy!" Allison got her glasses at the beginning of the month. These were the best shots I could get since it's hard for her to stay still and look directly at the camera.

The doctor said most kids her age need time to adjust to wearing glasses and said he'd be surprised if she kept them on for more than an hour or so the first day. She actually kept them on for 6 hours, but when she was done she just threw them off and tossed them across the room. She's doing better now and can wear them all day sometimes, but every once in awhile she decides she's had enough of them.

My boxhead girl sure loves her rubber duckies! Tyler randomly but a box on Allison's head while she was eating. I thought she'd be upset, but instead she said "I'm a boxhead girl!"

We brought several puzzles for Allison to work on during Stake Conference. 3 other girls decided to join her. It kept them happy and quiet for a good long time!

Tyler likes asking our Google home mini to set lots of different timers, like million million seconds.

We celebrated my birthday on the 4th since Oscar was unavailable most of the day on the 5th. Oscar made me a tasty steak dinner and a warm cookie with ice cream. The kids gave me a whole bunch of dollar store gifts and ran up enthusiastically to bring them to me. Tyler earned a Donald Duck hat through his rewards program at school and told me "my teacher gave this to me to give you for your birthday." How sweet! He then accidentally broke the chocolate Easter bunny gift they gave me then said "I was just breaking it into 4 pieces so we can share it!" He's already learning salesmanship!

The kids made cupcakes that night but had to go to bed before they were cooled down enough to frost, so we had them for breakfast the next morning on my actual birthday. We had a 3 and a 4 from previous birthdays, so for my 37th birthday we did a 3 on one cupcake, a 4 on another, and 3 individual ones on the last one for 34+3. I'm offically 37, Oscar's favorite number. It's been his favorite number since we met at 22 and 23 years old (because it's a prime number that's made up of two prime numbers).

Allison spent one night crying all night long because she couldn't find her blanket. The next morning we found it stuck deep under Tyler's bed. When she found it she immediately fell down on it saying "I'm all tuckered out like a resting raptor!"

After February's Snowmaggedon, we got even more snow in March! It snowed for about 24 straight hours, but thankfully school wasn't cancelled and it was the type of snow we're more used to. The temperature stayed well above freezing through the night, so it didn't stick, and it melted away fairly quickly.

On March 9th we took the kids to the Children's museum in the morning before heading over to the nearby YMCA for their annual obstacle course fundraiser.

Allison figured out how to do this scarves in the wind machine on her own. Hallelujah! That and her figuring out how to do the Let's Go Fishin' game on her own at home have made things so much nicer for me. She loves both things but I get really tired of sticking the scarves in for her or getting the fish for her over and over again endlessly...

The kids had lots of fun on the big obstacle course. Allison especially liked all of the balancing obstacles and when she got to ride daddy's back around the tires.

Oscar and I tried the course too. I have no shame in admitting that I could not crawl through the tunnels. I tried, but I would have had to scrape myself up and lose my pants to get through it.

100 days smarter crown! 

Sweet kids enjoying some bedtime stories with mommy and daddy.

Watching Allison rocking out to her lullabies is hilarious!

Jumba does an excellent job of stretching Allison's shoes for her, Allison got a kitty scratch from playing too intensely with Leela, and Tyler randomly wanted a picture with Fry.

One time while we were at the museum Allison saw the sign leading up to the outside playing area and told me "Eagles like to eat hamburgers and soda!" LOL!

Allison discovered that the rings on the ducks game is a lot easier if you just go up and put the rings directly on their heads.

Allison is my active girl who always likes to go outside and run around whenever possible. Tyler is my engineer who generally stays inside and works with his hands.

For St Patricks day Oscar made green waffles and green eggs and ham for Tyler. He'd just read the entire "Green Eggs and Ham" book to me the previous night! 64 pages read by a Kindergartner!

After church we took them over to play at Lake stickney park.

It's not a huge play area, but they still had fun swinging, sliding, and climbing.

I love this cute trio!

Later in the month we had an awesome heat wave that lasted about 5 days. In these pictures Allison's wearing a shirt that says "Happy Spring!" She wore it last summer, and I joked then that we'd have to move to Florida for her to wear sleeves this short in early Spring. I was wrong! It was 63 while we were at the park and it got up to 76 later that day. It was March 19th, so it was technically still winter. It was the hottest winter day on record during the same year we had the snowiest February on record.

"I went to the top!" At preschool playgroup Allison and Samson discovered that they are perfect Teeter Totter partners, both weighing more or less the same and balancing each other perfectly. She played with him for something like 20 minutes. Usually I have to help when another kid gets on who's bigger or smaller than her. This was great!

On the drive home Allison said "I see my home! It's where my house lives!"

The following Friday we made another Museum trip since Allison needed her glasses adjusted and it's 4 minutes away from the optometrist. This was followed immediately by another museum trip with Tyler the next morning.

On the dog in the picture on the right Allison is both happy to be riding the dog and distraught that it was time to leave.

Cute kids getting in some snuggles with daddy!

The Playground at the YMCA finally opened back up. Someone crashed into their gate and broke down a chunk of it in February. They haven't fixed it yet, but they at least put up a wooden board to patch up the empty piece. I wish that'd been there during our heat wave!

And to finish off the month we took the kids out for an adventurous day swimming at the Sammamish YMCA Aquatic Center then hiking down to the base of Snoqualmie falls.

The kids found a natural playground on the way down.

There were lovely views at the bottom with a great viewing area that I don't remember being here when I last visited in 2008. The waterfall is always beautiful, but it's typically much bigger in the Spring. It goes to show what a dry March we had. I believe it was the dryest one on record too!

 Tyler threw a fit when we told him not to take his coat on the hike, then he got so hot he took his shirt off on the hike back. It was a bit rough for the kids to have to do the hard part on the way back rather than on the way to the falls. Tyler whined a lot, and Allison asked for hugs a lot and really wanted us to carry her the whole way, but eventually we all made it back. She did really well for this being her first hike. She seemed just as happy to play here as to play on a playground. She had a bad fall right at the beginning because she was so excited she took off running downhill until she tumbled down face forward. She got some mommy snuggles and went back to her sweet little self soon enough.

I love these pics of me with the kids, but I need to have someone photoshop Allie's face on the left with the better picture of me and Tyler on the right.

From there we took the kids for lunch and enormous Rootbeer floats at XXX Rootbeer. The kids wanted to ride the elephant and the llama while we waited for our food. That elephant was REALLY moving! I don't think I've ever seen a mechanical kids' ride that was quite this intense!