March Events

Here are some activities that our family did prior to the COVID-19 quarantine. These photos, of us surrounded by so many people, now seem a little strange. We definitely took our many social interactions for granted. We are excited to return to times like this again-- and prayerfully soon!

Family Fest

Our school always kicks off Lutheran Schools Week in March with this carnival-like event. Our kids love it! Jaden and Cody spent a LONG time at the cake walk and (after many, many, many rounds) won some heavily-frosted cupcakes. Adley enjoyed the petting zoo and the sucker tree. All three kids stood in line for the face painting. It was a professional outfit this year-- and a quite impressive one at that! What a fun day!

Grandparents' Day

Another big component of Lutheran Schools' Week is Grandparents' Day. Jaden and Cody were honored to have both sets of grandparents join them for this special occasion. My parents and Jason's parents split their time between both boys' rooms. 

The boys could choose which activities they wanted to do with each set of grandparents. They played games, did word search puzzles, made a Venn Diagram comparing the grandchild and the grandparent, decorated cookies, and even went on a tour of the school--led by the boys. Jaden and Cody had a wonderful morning. It helps that they have some pretty special grandparents!

Extra Grandparent Time

In addition to the big events like Adley's birthday party, Grandparent's Day, and other large family dinners, we enjoyed seeing Grandpa and Grandma during some quieter downtime at our home. Here is Grandpa, helping Adley with her puzzles.

We didn't get a lot of photos of Grandpa and Grandma during this particular visit to Texas, because they were extra busy--- buying a new home! We are thrilled that they have decided to move here and look forward to spending more regular time with them in the near future.

One day early this month, my parents graciously agreed to watch Adley for a day while I taught some make-up piano lessons. Adley had a marvelous time with Grammy and Papa and didn't miss her mommy one bit! She loved learning how to use their apple corer/peeler/slicer to help make an apple pie.

Grammy and Papa fed Adley lunch and spoiled her with one of her favorite desserts-- ice cream sandwiches. Papa had bought them just for her!!

Frisbee Golf

One weekend day, we planned an outdoor event with our Connect Group from church. Unfortunately only one other family ended up attending, but we still enjoyed our frisbee golf date with the Honeck crew. The entire sport of frisbee golf was new to everyone except for Jason and me. We all had our fair share of frisbees go way off course-- including several in ponds and gullies that we really had to climb around to retrieve. It was a fun time though. This particular course was designed and installed by a local Boy Scout for his Eagle Scout project. Pretty impressive!

Mrs. Boldt's Birthday

Also at the beginning of March, Cody's teacher celebrated a birthday. I coordinated a classroom party so that Cody's class could show their appreciation to her. We played a few games like "How Well Do You Know Your Teacher?," a funny over-the-head drawing game, and team charades. Other moms helped out by bringing in decorations, party hats, and a yummy cookie cake.

We surprised Mrs. Boldt with a framed word cloud picture, made up of adjectives that the class had brainstormed to describe their teacher. The kids also brought in homemade cards for her. We are thankful for Cody's wonderful teacher this year and enjoyed the chance to celebrate her!

Birthday Interviews

Shortly after Adley's birthday, I conducted some interviews with her to ask about some of her favorites. I loved seeing her little face scrunch up as she thought about her answers. Some of the things she said surprised me! I included the text for her answers as well, since some videos are a little hard to understand. I enjoy having these clips as memories of the way our little 3-year-old thinks.

How old are you? 3

Who are some of your friends? Nathan and Ben and Noah and Micah

What is your favorite thing to do? dance

What is your favorite color? red and green

What is your favorite food? mac and cheese

What is a food that you don't like? I don't like blueberries.

What is something that makes you happy?

 that I play hide and go seek with Daddy

What is something that makes you sad? 

when the boys come in my room

What is your favorite book? a new Pinkalicious book

What is your favorite show to watch? Baby Bum

Where do you like to go? to eat

What is your favorite dessert? ice cream sandwiches

What is your favorite animal? monkey

What is your favorite song? Step by Step

What is your favorite thing to wear? (looking at her shirt) Happy Birthday

What is something you are afraid of? of the darkness

What is something you are really good at? Lite Brite

What is something you're not very good at? I'm not very good at reaching so high.

What is your favorite restaurant? Old McDonald's

What is something you like to do with Mommy? do a puzzle

What do you like to do with Daddy? play hide-and-go-seek

Three Years Old

This new little 3-year-old is such a delight and a blessing from God! She seems so grown up with her tall height, confident communication, and her knowledge of the world around her. Adley is a happy, yet opinionated girl with a kind heart and a ready willingness to help. She is very mothering, is such a fast learner, and can make everyone laugh with her deep giggle. 

Here are some current details about Adley:

PHYSICAL

• 39 inches, 37 lbs (90% percentile for both!)
• Has a favorite pair of PJs with large buttons that she can button independently
• Transitioned out of her crib into a toddler bed
• Can use scissors independently (thankfully just sticks with cutting paper!)
• Learned how to ride a bike with training wheels-- and in just a week's time, was able to easily pedal faster than Mommy or Daddy can walk!

LANGUAGE

• Loves telling us stories that start with, "When I was a baby, I did..."
• Likes to talk to herself while playing and occasionally while falling asleep too
• Asked how to write her name and can now write the letter A in her name
• Recognizes all of her shapes
• Can identify all of her numbers 1-9; Can almost count aloud to 20, but mixes up a few of the teens
• Often switches the names for giraffe and zebra
• LOVES listening to many books in a row and will often ask for repeat readings of her favorites
• Favorite book series include Curious George, Clifford, Berenstain Bears, Pinkalicious, Elephant and Piggie
• Can recite a few books (even some long ones!) by memory

PLAYTIME

• Favorite playmates are her cousins Nathan, Ben, and Noah whom she talks about often
• Loves imitating whatever her brothers are doing (creating a library, playing air hockey, etc.)
• Some new favorite games include Too Many Monkeys, any Matching game, Feed the Woozle, Outfoxed, and ALWAYS Hide and Seek
• Still loves assembling puzzles and does so almost daily
• Enjoys telling (and retelling!) a joke about an interrupting pig; Took a while for her to get the timing down on this one!

SLEEPING & EATING

• Still takes 1.5 hour naps fairly consistently, but then takes forever to fall asleep at night (often up until at least 9:15)
• Usually sleeps through the night now (woo-hoo!), but will awaken on cold nights since she always kicks off her blanket
• LOVES ice cream sandwiches, dislikes blueberries, and most veggies are a hard sell
• Often moves to Mommy or Daddy's lap after dinner just so she can beg for bites of our dessert!

OTHER

• Likes helping Mommy with laundry by folding the washcloths
• Knows how to find and start her own shows on Netflix using the "ca-mote"
• Enjoys pushing and filling up her own grocery cart at the store

We thank God for our Adley-girl each day!

Adley's Ice Cream Party

On March 2nd, our sweet Adley girl turned THREE! We celebrated with a large group of family on the weekend before her birthday. Adley was so excited when she saw her purple ice cream cake. I think she was especially pleased about the M&M's!

We love our new three year old!

Because our family group is already quite large, we kept the invitees to just relatives this year. We were excited that Grandpa and Grandma joined us all the way from Minnesota, too. Once everyone arrived, all of the kids sat down to decorate their Blue Bell ice cream hats.

The kids used markers, crayons, stickers, and dot painters to spice up their hats.

There were enough ice cream hats to pass around to everyone! 

When the kids finished their hats, I gave them playdough mats which depicted a large ice cream dish. The kids used playdough to create ice cream sundaes and then topped their sundaes with sprinkles (cut straws), cherries (pom poms), and candy (pony beads). Yum! :)

Here is the cousin crew, wearing their fancy colorful hats!

Next on the agenda was a scavenger hunt. We paired each of the younger kids with an older cousin so they'd have help finding the ice cream pics hung around our property.

The younger kiddos marked off the items on a checklist as they were found. We were so proud of how the older kids patiently helped their younger cousins!

Then, Jason led the group in a few games. First, the kids used paper cones to pass an "ice cream" ball down the line to one another.

For the next game, kids raced to carry a ball in their paper cone across the driveway. It was so fun seeing Adley's enthusiasm with these games!

After that, we played the ice cream version of duck, duck, goose-- rocky, rocky, road. Jason had Adley demonstrate, and she purposely took one LARGE lap around the entire yard (instead of just around the circle), giggling the whole way. Goofy kid!

Our last big project was an adventurous one with this whole group-- making homemade ice cream! We figured it'd be doable with so many helpful adults. Hooray for a wonderful, willing family! In small groups, we had the kids measure out the ice cream ingredients into a bag.

Then, the groups put the ice cream bags into large buckets of ice, added ice cream salt, and started SHAKING!!

Eventually, the melting ice started leaking out of the buckets, so we took the mess outside. My brother Andrew decided we needed to motivate the kids a bit with the shaking process, so he made up a few impromtu relay races. The kids LOVED this and were much more productive in their ice cream making!

As the pictures show, everyone worked so hard to shake up their buckets-- the ice cream turned out thick and delicious! We scooped the homemade ice cream into our Blue Bell cups and added some sprinkles for the win.

Ice cream before dinner?? Dee-licious!!

After a pasta dinner, it was time for even more dessert. But first, we needed to sing to the birthday girl!

I know I'm posting a ridiculous number of cake photos here, but Adley's expressions were so precious that I couldn't pick just one! Our little girl knew EXACTLY what her role was as the birthday girl-- ha!

And finally, because it was a Blue Bell sponsored party, we had to serve Blue Bell ice cream along with the cake, of course! We offered a variety of ice cream flavors and tons of topping options for sundaes. Yum, yum!

After Adley's party, I made a little photo collage to send to our new friends at Blue Bell. They loved it and offered to give Adley a VIP tour whenever she wanted to visit the Blue Bell factory. :) So fun!

What a special day to celebrate our special little girl.

Happy #3 Adley-girl! We love you!