Cheekwood

After the Home Depot Kids Workshop, my mom and I took the kids to Cheekwood. They have a big Easter celebration for a lot of fun stuff for the kids.

They had some really cool giant carrots made out of balloons ...


The tulips were already a little past their prime, but there were some other beautiful flowers ...


We got to Cheekwood around 10:15 am and the events weren't supposed to start until 11 am so we got good parking (when we left, people were parking a mile outside of the entrance gates). And some things got started early, including the balloon animals and face painting stations (and there weren't any lines yet!). Carter was too scared to get his face or hand painted but he did want a balloon animal. He chose a dog and it HAD to be orange.


We were warned not to let the balloon touch the grass or it would pop. Carter eventually tripped and dropped his dog and it didn't make it. He was SO UPSET. By that time the line to get another one was super long. Luckily I was able to convince him that he wanted to hunt Easter eggs rather than stand in line.

Rylan's rabbit made it about 30 seconds before he dropped it and it popped. Luckily he wasn't as attached to it.


The first egg hunt was at 11:30 am so we spent some time exploring the gardens first.




On the way to the egg hunt field, we stopped by the bubble station and made giant bubbles.


We sat around the edge of the field for about 10 minutes before the egg hunt began. I mentioned to Carter that if he found the golden egg, he'd get a special prize. That was probably a mistake. He must have been looking for it because he somehow ended up with no eggs!


I figured Carter would be fine on his own and was staying with Rylan and helping him get a few eggs. When it first started, Rylan just sat down and pouted - I think he was overwhelmed by all the kids - but I convinced him to pick up some eggs eventually. The eggs were gone in about a minute (or less). When I found Carter, he was so upset. I was able to give him one of Rylan's eggs and a little girl with a bunch gave Carter a couple of eggs. There was another hunt in another field scheduled for 30 minutes later so I told Carter we'd do that one and he got over it enough.

Headed to the next field ...


The second egg hunt was much more successful!




We had a lot of fun and can't wait to go to this event again next year!

Kids Workshop

On Saturday morning my mom and I took the kids to the Kids Workshop at Home Depot. My mom helped Rylan and I helped Carter build their window bird feeders. We did most of the building while the boys did all the painting.


Carter had to paint his bird feeder his current favorite color of orange (it's his favorite because that's the color of his hair) ...


Home Depot gave us a bunch of free seed so we hung the bird feeders up on one of our back window for now.



We're still waiting for any birds to show up.

I did see a turkey in our neighborhood his morning. There are dozens of them in the large yards about 1/2 to 1 mile from our house. They've been coming closer and closer to our neighborhood and one finally made it. Hopefully we won't have a dozen in our backyard soon!

Lucky Ladd Farms

My mom and I took the boys to Lucky Ladd Farms on Friday. They were open for an Easter Celebration this weekend. Carter was super excited about the egg hunt. We tried to go to one at the Brentwood Library on Thursday afternoon but it got rained out. We had shown up anyway and Carter got his hand painted with an Easter egg (which took A LOT of coaxing - he was scared to death, just like he is of the Easter bunny). Then we showed my mom the beautiful library where the boys go to storytime and waited out the hail (it seems to hail every time it rains lately).

Anyway, Lucky Ladd was doing a continuous egg hunt in the field near the entrance so we did that first. Carter was a pro at collecting eggs ...


And Rylan joined right in (this was his first Easter Egg hunt) ...


"Look what I got!"


"You caught me. I'm grabbing as many eggs as a can as fast as I can!"




"I'm so proud of all these eggs!"


"Me too!"


"I know I can fit in more!"


"Just one more."


The eggs were empty and we got to turn them in for a prize bag. The prize bags included a coloring book, alphabet cards, and bubbles.

After hunting eggs, the kids visited the petting farm and fed the animals. Some of the sheep were dyed ...




Carter climbed up on this horse and kept yelling "Giddy Up!" ...



Carter had fun bouncing around on these cows. They also have the big balls with handles but these are a lot easier for our little guys.


The giant corn box was a hit again.



Carter tried burying himself in the corn ...


Carter liked being up here for about 10 seconds and then got really scared ...


These tires were more his speed ...



We stayed about 3 hours. The boys were slowing down by then but they still didn't want to leave. I was worn out!

Playground & Egg Dyeing

We were stuck at home today again while we had our security system installed but my mom and I got the boys out yesterday morning. We first went to storytime at the downtown library and then headed over to Centennial Park to play on the playground.


Rylan tries so hard to be a little monkey just like Carter ...


Rylan swung and swung and swung on the swing. We tried to get him out and this pouting ensued ...


I got Carter to climb (actually allow me to put him in) a tree. After a few pictures he got scared and asked to get down.


When we got home, the kids dyed eggs. I bought this dye spinner after Easter last year and it worked really well. There was a lot less mess and it was still fun for the boys.


Carter was really good at pushed down the top - I think he'd be excellent at performing CPR!



After Rylan's first turn, he didn't want to give it up. He hugged the spinner tight until we tore it away. On his next turn, he didn't even want to spin the egg. He just hugged the spinner.

Only one egg was dropped and broken. I think the eggs turned out great!


Tomorrow the drywall guys are supposed to finish putting up the new crown molding and then paint. So unfortunately we stuck at home again. At least my mom is here to help keep the boys entertained!

Caterpillar

My mom and I took the boys to the zoo this afternoon after their naps. It's open until 6pm now so we were able to get in almost 2 hours there before it closed. The last thing we did was play at the Jungle Gym. We found a caterpillar on the mats and the kids tortured it by jumping next to it so it'd fly in the air. I took a video with my phone (sorry for the poor quality) and then made them leave the poor thing alone.

(Rylan never actually hit the caterpillar, but he was close.)

This morning we had repairmen here to fix the holes made by the air conditioning repair. They patched the hole in the crown molding in the dining room ...


Unfortunately they didn't have the correct nails to attached the new molding, but they have to come back later this week to paint so they'll just do that first when they return.

The hole in the closet also got patched ...


While that was going on, I sealed/stained the arbor above our garage doors (the one on the right is completed in the picture) ...


And here is just a random, silly picture of Rylan from this weekend. He came down from playing in the playroom with this on. As he sat at the table, the goggles got more and more fogged but he didn't seem to care.