Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny sent Papa Ray to our house with some buckets of fun! It was perfect timing because our summer buckets from last year all fell apart. 

Easter Eggs!

We dyed Easter eggs! 

Almost as good as the beach!

It's sunny, 71 degrees, and we're playing in the sand with unlimited water. 

Are we at the beach today?

Nope, just in the backyard! 

The irrigation water finally got turned on!

And this fantastic Pasco soil is basically beach sand. It's crazy! We just love it for play. Too bad when we move to West Richland, we will lose the beach sand.

We'll have to try to put in a big sand pit in our new backyard. The kids have such fun in this one. 

Spring Blossoms

The house we're renting has a lot of fruit trees in the yard. We've got some beautiful spring blossoms! The downside is that now we've got bees. The kids do not like bees. The plum, apricot, and peach tree are showing their blossoms. We're still waiting on the cherry trees to blossom. 

Plum tree-white blossoms

Peach tree-pink blossoms

A Warm Spring Day

It was so nice out today! We had fun playing in the yard and riding bikes. Nathan blew bubbles and Elizabeth rolled around in the tunnel. 

Bikes, bikes, bikes

Now that Elizabeth is great at riding a bike, we have been riding all over! It's WONDERFUL to have them both riding bikes. In fact, they are so fast I almost have to run to keep up with them when we ride to the park. 

Our new house

Well, I'm going to start posting pictures of our new house being built. No one else might care, but it will be fun for us to be able to look back and see our house being built! Here is the empty lot with nothing on it. Our house will be directly behind the dark brown house. We're actually getting the same floor plan so that is what our house will look like from behind!

Countdown Chain

We will be moving into our new house in approximately 92 days. Our closing date is June 17th so we'll move a few days after that.  Nathan keeps wanting to start packing so this is a good way to remind him that 92 days is a long way away! Jeremy and Nathan made this chain last night. Every morning, Nathan is going to rip a link off. A few weeks before the move, we'll let him start packing. 

New Bikes!

Elizabeth has been doing so well riding on her trike, that we decided it was time to upgrade to a bike! Here is her new bike. She LOVES it. At first, she didn't ride for long and said she would "practice more tomorrow." Now, she's like an old pro! She can ride so well! She likes to put rocks in the backback on the front of her bike for her "collection." 

Nathan's old bike was getting way too small and the chain kept breaking constantly. (If the chain hadn't been broken, Elizabeth probably would have gotten a hand me down bike). Here is his big new red bike! He loves it too! They want to go out riding all the time now. 

The Many Faces of Elizabeth

It's March in the Columbia Basin

It's March in the Columbia Basin, and that means one thing. Lots of wind! Pinwheels are a fun toy that make the wind a bit more enjoyable. They really fly when the wind is blowing strongly!

St. Patrick's Day Flashback 2008

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We're wearing our green today. And making our green jello.

Park Days!

What do we do when the weather finally hits 70 and sunny? Park time! 

Eggs!

First, you peel the egg ALL by yourself. 

Then, you slice it! What a fun snack. 

Gymnastics Fun!

Richland has a great gymnastics place. We had never gone to their 0-6 year old playtime before so decided to give it a try. It was free our first time! Of course, they want to go back after all the fun they had!

The foam square pit. A big hit. 

A bar to swing on that's just her size! 

A huge trampoline that she LOVED!

Walking on the balance beam. He did pretty well!

Monkey bars! He went all the way across by himself and was quite proud. 

Kindergarten!!

I registered Nathan for kindergarten today! Well, I picked up the registration packet anyway. It was so long I couldn't get it all done at the office. I'll have to bring it back in tomorrow.

Of course Nathan wanted to come. I started filling out the paperwork, but he was getting pretty impatient just sitting there in the office. He wanted to meet his teacher and see his classroom. I had to explain to him that that wouldn't happen for awhile! They'll be having something in April so he can go in and see classrooms and meet the teachers.

Due to bussing schedules and the location of the new house we're building, he will be in afternoon kindergarten. We were really hoping for morning due to Jeremy's schedule. Sadly, when Nathan starts kindergarten he won't see Jeremy for 5 days in a row.

Nathan will get on the bus for kindergarten just as Jeremy is waking up. And when Nathan gets home from kindergarten, Jeremy will already be gone. So basically, the 3 hours Jeremy is up and home are the 3 hours that kindergarten takes place!

Swing shift isn't a really great shift to be on when the kids are in school! Jeremy will be able to change shifts in January so he might shift to graveyard so he'll be waking up just as Nathan is coming home from kindergarten. That might work better. We will see!

Park Play!

Well, it's that time of the year when we FINALLY get to go play outside since the weather is going to cooperate (and it's about a month sooner here than it was in Suncrest)! Time to hit up the parks. Today, we went on a playdate with some friends in Richland.

Elizabeth on the famous elephant slide. 

Nathan ziplining with a new friend he met. 

Big Girl Bed!

Elizabeth has a big girl bed! We got her a mattress about a week ago so she's been sleeping on a mattress on the floor. She's done fine. Today, Jeremy built her the actual bed frame. We got the same one Nathan  has(except in white)  since he likes to put his things on the little shelves. 

Here's the completed bed. She loves Rapunzel!

She set up some of her favorite stuffed animals and water cups on her shelves and we tried to put her down for a nap. Nope. No nap today. She talked for a while. Looks like an early bed time tonight!