Frozen Girls

The girls are obsessed with all things Frozen, and they were ecstatic when I made them matching Elsa dresses.  The dress is designed to be a sundress that they can wear all summer long to play in, but they had to layer a long sleeve shirt underneath because it is still really cold here.

 Amelia asked why the dress didn't have a big slit up the front like Elsa's, and I told her that she had to be 30 before she could wear a dress with a slit.  I also made a cape out of some fantastic glittery fabric that Mom found at Joanns.  It's removable, so that it doesn't get in the way when they are playing.  The only problem with it is that it sheds glitter EVERYWHERE.  Ben is going to have to vacuum the couch while we are gone for spring break.

 Here is their best Elsa pose:

And here they are singing "Let It Go".  You do not need to watch the video, but I wanted to save it for posterity, since they sing it constantly at home.

Megan's "allergy"

Megan must have inherited her food allergy from the Johnson family.  No, she's not allergic to mint like her Aunt Anna.  She announced this completely seriously at the dinner table the other night, and I decided I needed to get it on video.

Nathaniel is four months old!

Nathaniel is still a pretty easy baby, but his sleeping has gone down hill this month.  He wakes up at least once each night, anywhere between midnight and 5:30am.  And his daytime napping is hit or miss.  Some days he'll take two 2 hour naps, one day he took one 3 1/2 hour nap, but most days he'll sleep maybe 20 minutes in the morning and 40 minutes in the afternoon.  At least he has figured out how to put himself to sleep, so that I don't have to spend an hour getting him to sleep for a 20 minute nap.

He is smiling a lot now, and holding his head up really well.  He sits very nicely in the bumbo seat, and would rather be held in a sitting position than any other way.  In fact, he usually cries when he his held like a baby now.

He also loves to laugh; he laughs most often when Megan laughs with him, when I lean in and make silly faces, and when I tickle him under his chin.  Sorry the video is upside down!

He really likes to lay in his gym and bat at his windchime toy, or hold onto the links, or try to eat one of the animals on his hanging toys.  Sometimes the gym can last a half hour!

Nathaniel doesn't mind bath time, although I think he'll really enjoy it when he gets to take a bath in a real bath tub instead of in the kitchen sink.  Megan loves to remind Amelia that she and Nathaniel like baths, while Amelia used to hate them and scream and scream.

Nathaniel had forgotten how to roll over for most of this month, so he actually had a chance to do some tummy time (which he does NOT like!)  He just recently remembered how to roll over again, although his limit seems to be four times in a row, and then he'll just stay on his tummy and fuss.

His new favorite thing this month, though, is sucking on his fingers.  His fingers are almost always in his mouth - when he's in the carseat, when he's in the bath, when he's playing....

He is quite a drooly boy, too:

Botanic Gardens

Since we went to church last night, we were having a quiet, indoor morning at home (the weather was 17 degrees again), when I announced that we were going on a surprise adventure.  Everyone got in the car, and I told them that they were going to have to guess not only where we were going, but also which direction to tell Daddy to turn to get there, because Ben didn't know where we were going either.  The girls thought that was really fun!  Ben figured out that we were going to Olbrich about 10 minutes into the drive, but the girls didn't figure it out until we were a block away and could see the gold roof of the Thai temple.

It was the last day of the spring flower show, which we had enjoyed last year and the year before.   The girls loved using a guide to find all the different flowers and learn their names.   They could recognize daffodils and tulips, but were stumped by the tulips with frilly petals.  They really liked the ranunculas (because they were full and pink), the hyacinths (because they smelled good), and the snapdragons (although I didn't let them pinch the flowers). 

 This year, the flower show had wooden puzzle dinosaurs scattered among the flowers, which the girls thought was fantastic.

They particularly liked the stegosaurus that looked like she was eating a big bunch of purple daisies.  They also liked the polka dotted pteranadon flying from the ceiling, and the baby pteranadon hatching from an egg in a nest in a tree.  We think Grandma should add dinosaurs to her garden this year!

Here they are posing with all the flowers:

It was too cold this year to walk outside, and there would have been absolutely nothing green or spring-like to see, but we did go in the conservatory to enjoy the warmth and humidity.  Nathaniel enjoyed walking around and drooling on his carrier.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Mom and Dad spent the weekend with us last weekend, and Becky brought Natalie and Noah up for the day on Saturday.  It was such a fun way to celebrate my birthday!  Mom brought along a three layer chocolate cake, which was delicious, as always, and the girls helped me blow out my five candles (Amelia decided that there should be five, I have no idea why).  Nathaniel looks like he wants a piece, but as the girls say, "No teeth!"

At lunch, Megan needed help getting the last of her bean soup of out her bowl, so she asked Grandma to help her. That made Natalie think that she also needed help, so Amelia jumped at the opportunity to feed Natalie.  The girls are very excited about getting to feed the baby solid foods in a few months, and feeding Natalie was good practice.

The kids dressed up to play "Elves on the Shelf" in the basement, which is a game they had invented when the Weidners came up in December.  I don't know what they do in their game other than sit on our window ledge...

They all love to dress up!

They spent a fair amount of time putting Grandma in a jail made out of blocks - I have no idea why!  Then they played quite a few rounds of Hullabaloo - thanks, Kim, that was a fantastic present!  When they started getting a little rowdy listening to the game voice tell them what to do, Becky decided to give them funny actions, like a conga line, or really hard Twister-like suggestions.

When they started getting a little too rambunctious, we sent them outside to play.  They started fighting over a stick, so Mom gave them each a big spoon and they decided to dig in our mostly melted snow piles.  These photos make me think they are in a chain gang.  :)

Becky gave me a scarf made by her sister-in-law, but she told me I had to choose the color myself.  I had the kids model the scarves so I could decide which one I liked best.

Amelia lobbied hard for her brown, pink and white scarf, but I ended up choosing Natalie's pink and gray one.  I wore it to church on Sunday, and I thought it looked very nice.  It was so much fun to see everyone!

The Zoo!

Finally, we had a nice weather day!  Last Monday it got up to 56 degrees, so Ben left work a little early and we headed to the zoo.  There weren't a whole lot of animals out, but we didn't even have an hour before the zoo closed, so it worked out perfectly.  The otter was doing backflips, so we stood and watched him for quite some time.  The girls said he was their favorite animal this trip.

You may have noticed - the girls aren't even wearing coats!  That's right - it was warm enough to just wear a hoodie!  We saw a guy wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and a girl wearing only a spaghetti strap sundress, but I was the mean mom who made the kids wear fleece.  As always, the girls also really liked the prairie dogs, who were digging burrows in the few non-snow covered spots in their exhibit.

The zoo had a new animal - an aardvark!  The girls weren't too interested in him, but I thought he was pretty interesting.

And although I keep saying "the girls", we did bring Nathaniel along with us.  He was very good in the stroller while we were walking around, but as soon as I tried to take a photo of him, here's what happened.

Because most of the animals weren't out, we spent a lot of time playing on the statues and peeking through the cut-outs.