Jurassic Tech

For weeks, after seeing this poster, I have been telling Miles, "The Dinos. Are coming." The first time, he looked concerned and said, "But I don't like dinos when they bite me..." But upon being reassured that these dinos would not be allowed to bite, he's been looking forward delightedly to Dino Day, which was what we called the Dinosaur Petting Zoo traveling exhibit.

While we were observing Naptime, the other children in Blacksburg (and I'm pretty sure every one of them came) did a scavenger hunt and dig. But we arrived in time for the Dinosaur Petting Zoo portion. Basically, giant puppets, but the puppeteering was so effective you really could forget the puppet aspect and completely buy that this really was a traveling dinosaur show.

There were several varieties. We got photos of a couple:

These guys are from Victoria, Australia, which at the time they were alive was inside the Antarctic circle. So their big eyes are supposedly due to the white, snowy environment.

Check out T-Rex!

This is supposed to be a juvenile.

She roared terrifyingly, but not as often as Adele. Adele just sat on my shoulders and shouted "ROAR! ROAAAAR!" with sheer glee.

Miles did not cry like the boy behind him. But his eyes did get very, very big...

Not only was the puppeteering effective, but the acting by the emcee character was excellent. He really seemed alarmed when she charged the kids!

Miles got to pet a few afterwards...

Afterward: frolic on the lawn!

Adele is also wearing dinosaur babylegs, as well as her first pigtails.

Note Miles' dino sweater. They were pretty pumped about this.

What does Blacksburg have in store for us next??

Children at Play

Our kids have been very busily playing and growing in the past weeks. In no particular order, here are a few of their escapades:

First, the fan tent! Jon found on Buzzfeed, which for him functions like Pinterest, the idea to make a tent using a fitted sheet (we used a duvet cover) and a box fan. Fold the edges around the fan, turn it on, and instant airy igloo! This was brilliant for the very warm weather we were having at the time:

It was quite spacious!

Someday he will be reading with a flashlight in here.

Adele quickly found the courage to enjoy the tent experience too.

Speaking of Adele being courageous....

We barely took our hands off her for a second!, but she is able to hang unassisted. Seems to like it, too!

Adele says "Rock rock rock!" when she sees one of these:

Miles seems to prefer balancing to dangling.

Miles is also becoming quite the chalk artist! Below is a drawing he did of a kid named Patrick who is sad because he has no Mum and Papa (!!).

But cheer up, everyone. Miles informs us that Patrick is going to be adopted into our family someday. So he can look forward to that, I suppose.

a "Present"

Miles drew Patrick a fully stocked house to try to make him happy in the meantime.

We've made a couple of weekend trips to the library and enjoy walking around the library once we've picked out our books. They've taken to walking hand in hand:

What he was telling her was this: "We have to hold hands in the road, Adele, because if you don't the cars will not see you and they will  hit you and break your arm, Adele!"

 

She's got a lot of eyes and hands looking after her.

Prospera Pascha sit!

At long last, here is an Easter post, otherwise known as, a series of adorable pictures of Adele.
She is my queen of hearts lately; I can't stop staring at her little face. I think it's the age, or the fact she's the baby of the family, or her capacity to wear the heck out of her adorable spring dresses. Case in point: Easter!

But M. continues charming and savant as always. This morning I said to Adele, "Adele! Why are you so beautiful?" And Miles put in, "Mum, why are YOU so beautiful?" You can't not kiss that boy.

I would really love to have a bunch of still life pictures of the church service, perhaps of the sunrise, an early daffodil, and some meditations on the resurrection. But I am tired, today, and with small children, life is rarely still.

We attended the 6am service, as has become customary. Although, I was completely certain that it started at 6:30 until about 5:40 when we checked the website again... The kids have never been dressed so quickly nor so thoroughly against their will. Fortunately, I thought to buy some donuts to use as breakfast bribes rewards. We got to church only a few minutes late and, more amazingly still, no one was crying.

We missed the outside dawn fire portion of the service, but as it was drizzling pretty thickly, I'm fairly sure that's for the best, this year. We did get more cooperation out of Miles in the children's pageant, though. Our dawn service includes a play put on by the children and youth that presents a tableau of redemption-themed stories from the Old Testament, done by candlelight, before sunup when we proclaim the risen Christ. It's pretty amazing. Anyway, this year Miles brought the stuffed Walrus to be created in the Creation Story and to be saved from the flood in the Noah story, and there was absolutely no crying or falling limp to the ground like last year. Progress.

We enjoyed a fabulous brunch at church after the service, and were home by about 9:30. That's right, at 9:30, we were home from church on Easter Sunday. More hours for celebration! which we did in our home, since it was pleased to RAIN all day.

The good news was, the kids got to give their full attention to their baskets and eat more candy than they might have done had we been less sluggish and lazy :-)

Baskets were pretty simple, but the kids thought they had riches. Among the wealth was M.'s first jump rope, a new hat for Adele, who loves hats, and some of those eggs are sidewalk chalk.

The windup toys were a big hit!

Easter gave us lots of quality time with family. Michaela and Marshall joined Grandma and Grandpa and we had a happy, festive and crowded living room for Easter :-)

Miles got a new audience for his stories.

Adele got more Adoring Tall People to read to her!

Miles got to harmonica for far longer than usual before being asked to stop.

Adele got to be the Beloved Happy Sprite of the room... actually, that's the normal state of things.

Often when you hold a child, you do so in hope that some of their beauty will rub off on you. Whether this means they actually make you look better, or whether it means some Ineffable Glow will get into your bloodstream and make your heart lighter, I'm not sure if we know. I just know I can't stop marveling these days.

Even as I reach for another cup of coffee, because she's still not sleeping through the night (by a long shot). I'm in a bittersweet place, where I know that on the one hand, someday, we will sleep! and do things in the evenings! but also, someday, she won't be 16 months old and wearing tiny sundresses, and someday, he won't want me to look at and hear all about his 27th drawing of a rocket going to space.. Someday can wait. On balance.

Pre-Easter Romp

Good Friday is a decidedly less somber day for the under 5 set.

It helps that Grandma and Grandpa were able to come to town to help us celebrate the holiday weekend! Jon took a day off, too, so while I toiled away at work, the rest of my family did this in the sunshine:

A visit to Hand-in-Hand Park was long overdue.

See how Miles has improved his balancing skills!

And he's so much more audacious on slides!

One of Adele's recently acquired phrases is "rock, rock!"

Grandpa & Adele

Grandma & Adele

Is she not huge?

We are working on developing Miles' upper body strength.

On Saturday, I was able to join the family as we made the rounds of some jolly community Easter Egg hunts. The first one we attended was at the Veterinary School.

Miles-eyed view of the hunting grounds:

And they're off!

Adele ditched her basket pretty quickly. She wanted to imitate a cat today, darn it, forget these silly eggs!

Miles got 3 eggs... good enough for him!

One perk of the Veterinary School venue: they got real rabbits!

 

This made. Adele's. day.

Miles was pretty chuffed too! Especially did he love feeding them, as the kids were encouraged to do.

They probably could have stayed in that hutch all day. Probably. Could have. It was a gorgeous day.
But, I kinda thought they might be disappointed with the slim egg pickings at this event, so we hauled them to another, at a local shopping center.
...Yeah, it was a mob scene. But we were valiant!

Miles has a bit of shell-shock; don't mind him.

He was very intentional about finding five eggs in different colors so he could have a rainbow.

Adele learned what she was supposed to do very quickly. I'd just point out an egg and she'd go grab it for her basket. I would like to say, too, that these tiny egg seekers (this was a 5 & under only hunt) were very well mannered! Almost no physical combat occurred at all, as far as I could see. Several older children refrained from grabbing eggs when they saw Adele making for them. How refreshing!

And well, if there were going to be bouncy toys there, why not let Miles wait in the enormous line to play?

....Twice?

We left JUST before everyone started to lose it, so really, I consider it a successful Egg Hunt.

Later that afternoon, Miles drew our house & family and Grandma and Grandpa's house & family.

...While Pater and Mater Familius enjoyed a date to celebrate our 7th anniversary. Grandma & Grandpa were so kind as to provide the babysitting, and we walked downtown on a very pleasant evening to enjoy dinner and froyo, just us. Just what we needed. Best Holy Saturday since we've had kids? I think so.