On Monday we took advantage of the warm weather and made our annual trip to the Wye Mountain Daffodil Festival.
The boys did what boys will do and pretended that the flowers were swords.
Thank you Days for a lovely afternoon!
After the birthday party and lunch at Chili's (Trip calls it Tili's) YaYa treated the kids to their first trip to Build-a-Bear. Trip picked out Alvin the Chipmunk and Ruby wanted the Chipette, Brittney.
After they were stuffed,
given a bath,
and dressed they were ready to take home..... or cruise home in their new ride. Trip was instantly attached to the car and pretty much refused to leave without it.
Thank you so much for our new friends, YaYa!!..... Oh, and I forgot to mention that Alvin and Brittney sing. That makes them EXTRA special and fun. ;) 
This past Friday we celebrated Trip's 3rd birthday with friends at The Wonder Place.
James
Allison
Gavin
The 2nd Pres gals: Kate, Avery. and Ruby
For his Disney Cars themed party they painted wooden cars.
Ruby and Vivian aka Ruvian!
I made Trip's T-shirt.
Uncle Jer sent Monsters, Inc. Cool! Happy early Birthday Trippy! (His actual big day is coming up on the 30th). Thank you to the many friends that helped us celebrate!
A ride on the carousel at the zoo.
We had our first visit of the season from the ice cream truck. Ruby can hear that song playing from miles away!!
For breakfast on St. Pat's Day we had green eggs with green pancakes.
80's night at Bunco!
Well, I'm officially a minivan-drivin' soccer mom! Saturday was Ruby and Trip's first soccer practice.
It took Trip a while to warm up to it, but was soon having fun.
Ruby looked so cute in her soccer skort.
Way to go, kiddos!
Tonight was the Daddy Daughter Ball at New Life Church.
and a good time was had by all...... Ruby's baby curls have sadly gone away and tonight was the first time that I've curled her hair. She loves the curls and asked if we could roll her hair every day. .....I found her dress at T.J. Maxx for $19.99! Wahoo!
Even Trip and I made a good time of our evening at Chuck E. Cheese!
We keep coming up with different ways that we can "have a pet" without actually having a pet. First, it was the neighbor's cat (and now there are 2) that sleeps in our attic and hangs out on our back porch every day. For the longest time, Ruby thought that was actually our cat. She even included it in a family picture that she drew at school one time and said that it's name was Petie. Then we won as a gag gift at a Christmas party a light-up fake aquarium that is now on Trip's nightstand. He absolutely loves it! Recently we hung up a birdfeeder on our kitchen window which has become the hot place to be for birds in our neighborhood. At any given time during daylight hours there is atleast 1 bird but often as many as a dozen at our birdfeeder. The kids have really enjoyed watching them and we got a book from the library to help us identify what kinds of birds we see.... And so far, the cat that hangs out on the porch hasn't conflicted with the birds at the feeder!
Trip has thoroughly amused us this month with his continued discussion of "Balemtimes." If anything is red or pink or a heart, then it must be for "Balemtimes." If he sees a red car, "Ooh Mommy, that car is red for "Balemtimes!" We filled our many snow days by doing a few Valentines activities. The kids cut and pasted items that they love from some old magazines.
We made Chocolate-Glazed Shortbread Hearts
and had heart shaped pancakes (by the way, with Batter Blaster that I found in the refrigerated section of the grocery store by the yogurt. Super cool product. Makes it really easy to just make 2 pancakes at a time.) On V Day, the "Valentines Fairy" came and brought the kids some candy, balloons, and pajamas. Trip's new Superman PJs, complete with cape, have been worn almost every night since the 14th. He tells me to hurry and wash them so he can wear them again. I'll take a pic of those soon and post.
It's funny how quickly the excitement over snow can quickly dwindle. A good snow in Central Arkansas is pretty rare but even more rare is the kind of snow that can produce a decent snowman. I was super excited to build our first snowman with the kids. Well, I get everybody bundled up and we start to head out the door when Trip decides that he's NOT going outside. He wouldn't even stand on the front step and watch. He was content to just admire it from the comfort of our warm house. Then about 5 minutes into our snowman building, I turn around to see Ruby heading back into the house. What party poopers!! The kid in me was determined to make a snowman so I completed the task all by myself. I'm sure the neighbors were amused.
Maybe they'll be ready to brave the wet and cold with me the next time we have a snowman-worthy snowfall...... And if the weather follows the same pattern that it did when I was a kid, that won't happen till they're 30!
