Little Sprouts March 2013

 Allison went to her second 'Little Sprouts' club this weekend.  It is a fun little club at a local nursery where kids get to do garden projects.  This time they made their own vegetable gardens - they are frost hardy and don't have to be replanted which I consider very exciting!  Allison's buddy, Annie, joined us with her family this time, too.  These girls have a great time together and took turns pulling their gardens around the nursery on a cart when we were all done.  I also picked up some new strawberry plants & Mark is now contemplating starting some gardening of our own since we've been going through so many vegetables with our green smoothies!  We'll see how that goes.  Next month it is all about bugs & worms....yikes!

The Six Week Mark

 

 

Heidi turned six weeks old this week.  She celebrated by growing out of all of her 3-month sleepers!  She also had her first 'sleeping through the night' episode last Saturday night - she slept from 9:30 pm until 6:00 am.  And ever since she's only been waking up once a night.  She is definitely a better sleeper than Allison was at this age.  My disability leave officially ended as well - so I'm starting to work from home a bit to save vacation & leave time. 

Kroon Day 2013

 Well, Kroon Day 2013 was a success!  I love it when Kroon Day falls on the weekend!  (Not familiar with Kroon Day?  It happens on March 3 every year.  It is when my family celebrates being Kroons and we do all things Kroon - which means we eat donuts and find fun things to do!).  Speaking of donuts - Allison was a little sad all of the donuts with colored sprinkles were gone but she had one with 'tiny white' sprinkles (a.k.a. powdered sugar).  I was a bit disappointed she took the last chocolate cake donut but there was no way she was going to give that one up! 

 We had a gorgeous, sunny Kroon Day in these parts so we got outside for a bike ride (a very Kroon thing to do).  Allison wanted to ride her red bike which is getting pretty small for her but she really likes being able to choose which bike she wants to ride when we head out.  The fountian park was empty and she was excited to ride around where the water comes out - she actually got a bit adventuresome and tried riding up and down the rocks - our little cautious girl is getting braver!

 And we ended the day with gluten-free pizza at our favorite pizza joint, American Dream.  It wasn't quite the same with the gluten-free crust but it had been so long (over 3 months!) since we had American Dream pizza it tasted pretty fabulous to us!  Heidi thought Kroon Day was so exciting she slept through dinner (loud restaurants keep her asleep like nothing else!).  And check out those cheeks!  She didn't even eat a donut!

Allison and her pulled pork pizza - yum!

Happy Belated Kroon Day to You!

Sister Love

 Now that Heidi is a bit more aware of her surroundings she is fascinated by Allison.  Allison is always happy to oblige in entertaining her.  And Allison is already coaching Heidi on how to crawl.  So far Heidi has made great strides - she can lift her head - and Allison provides plenty of encouragement for that first step!

Acting Grown Up

Allison is always watching what we do (which is good incentive to be careful what we do!).  Recently I was preparing Heidi's baby announcements and she kept asking for some.  Then she wanted envelopes and I finally relented.  A few days later I was cleaning up our desk and found these, she 'addressed' them and included a return address.  Most fascinating of all, she added sticker 'stamps' even though I hadn't even put stamps on the ones I was mailing yet.  She sure is learning grown up habits fast!  Now to help her write a real letter of her own & send it......

Meet Cinderella

 Ever since Allison picked the book 'Cinderella' out as a prize from our library's summer reading program she has loved Cinderella.  She had a hand-me-down Cinderella dress which she wore quite literally to rags and has mentioned it often since we finally disposed of it.  When our local Target had some in more in stock I picked one up.  Then Auntie Brittney found Cinderella accessories (purse, jewelry and gloves) - so she received those & the dress-up dress for Kroon Day (I don't plan to typically do Kroon Day gifts for her but I needed an excuse to give her the dress!).  Allison was on cloud nine all day yesterday in her Cinderella get up (complete with hand-me-down shoes from her cousin!).  And to add to the humor - when getting dressed for pre-school she wants to wear underwear with a matching princess on it and she tries to coordinate her entire outfit to the color of her princess dress (she also has Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel & Merida).  So far I've just been asked to pretend to be the prince so I'm okay playing along, I'm dreading the day she asks me to be the evil stepmother!

Allison's Spider Crackers

 Some time ago Allison found a picture of 'Spider Crackers' in an activity book of hers and she has been asking to make them ever since.  We made some just last week!  Since most of our snack foods around the house are gluten-free we had to make a few substitutions.  We used Hazelnut Nut Thins for the round crackers (instead of Ritz), peanut butter, julienned carrots for the legs (instead of pretzel sticks) & Craisins for the eyes (just didn't have raisins on hand!).  Allison wanted me to make the first one then she got busy making some of her own.  I think she did pretty well!  And with the substitutions we made it isn't a bad snack at all!

Allison's Spider Cracker!