Living like Laine

When Laine gets excited about something, she really gets into it.  These are some of her current passions:

Rainbow loom - using YouTube to make all kinds of creations on her loom.

And playing with friends - setting up playdates, having fun at recess, writing notes and letters back and forth, and everything in between.

Playing at the park

The weather is finally warming up enough for us to play outside a bit.

And I've been bringing my camera with me more often to test out the new lens.

We had a fun afternoon at the park recently...

Just love all these smiles!

These two are becoming better and better friends - fun to hear their conversations lately as they mature and enjoy one another's company.

Fort Building

One of the great things about the kids' school is the giant lawn they have to play in.

They are allowed to move wood, build forts, climb trees, and play to their heart's content.

One Saturday morning Laine recruited the whole family to help her build a fort for school.  Starting at the top picture - just a pile of branches.  Next, more organized space, with a coat rack (to the left) and seating for friends :-)

Finally Penny did the heavy loading and fortified the walls for the finished fort.

The kids at school have loved playing in/with the fort all week!

Kids at Work

This latest round of snow didn't stay long because the temperatures were already warming.

The kids got out nonetheless and managed to play with it.

Digging, shoveling, filling up those dump trucks!

New lens

I got a new lens for my camera last week, so I've been trying it out around the house...

First shots of Mead and Cole.

Saturday morning pancakes, made with terrific helpers!

Mardi Gras Parade

Some friends invited us to join them this past weekend for the Mardi Gras Parade downtown.  

We've never taken the kids to a big parade before, so we weren't sure how they would like it.  We rode the Metro to get there, and they had a blast with that.

Mead is a pro on the Metro - she's ridden it with Penny several times on the way to baseball games.

We had to wait a bit for the parade to start.

We decided to camp out at the very beginning of the parade - before the crowd got too rowdy!

Excited to get things started (Cole has his mouth full here!)

The Anheuser Busch clydesdales started the parade off right.

Fredbird made an appearance too - all decked out for Mardi Gras.

Cole watched for a while and then retired to his seat to continue munching on animal crackers :-)

The girls collected well over 100 necklaces combined.

A fun experience for all - glad we joined in the adventure!

Secret spies

In the 20 minutes between breakfast and school the other morning Laine convinced Mead and Cole to become "secret spies."  They all love playing make-believe, so that morning they were on a mission.

Not sure who they were spying on or why they had to be so "serious," but they were having a good time.  Rain boots, sun hats, and raincoats were essential - even though they never made it outside.

Such fun - perhaps the saga will continue on another day when they have more time!