Nina and Papa Easter Gifts

For Easter, Nina and Papa sent Ivie and Macie each a $5 gift card to Target, with instructions for them to both pick out something fun! So, yesterday morning, we used the promise of a trip to the toy side of the store as a lure to get them both to behave while Dale and I did our much-more-mundane household shopping.

They took the bait, behaved, and off we went. Nina and Papa, I thought I'd post a couple of pictures with the girls' choices for their gifts. They both want to say "THANK YOU!", too!

Ivie with her approved-for-the-bathtub Sleeping Beauty


Macie with her TWO babies (what a bargain!)

Friends

One of Ivie's best friends from school, Kenzie, had her 4th birthday party today. I didn't go crazy with the camera (had to keep Macie from tumbling down the semi-steep stairs inside of the McDonald's PlayPlace intended for 3-year olds!), but I did get a few cute pictures of Ivie having dinner with her buddies.


And, when I asked them to make "funny faces", this is the reaction I got from (moving clockwise) Ivie, Kenzie, Micah, and Jack...


Friendships are sweet, even at age 4...

Show-and-Tell, Round 49: "Katie" the Doggy

Yesterday, Ivie took her Pucci Pup: Cave Dog to school, which she received as a Christmas gift from her favorite teacher. Until yesterday morning, her doggy didn't have a name (as I've mentioned numerous times, Ivie's not the best with coming up with normal-sounding-and-therefore-memorable names for her dolls). So I was actually surprised when I asked her for the doggy's name and she responded quickly with "Katie". Very normal! So Katie it is...



And, since Mac was feeling left out yesterday morning when I snapped Ivie's picture, I took one of her, too. With her crazy hair in full force and mandarin oranges everywhere!

Apparently I'm Pretty "Cool"...

Tonight after dinner, Ivie, Dale, and I wandered over to Jasper and Janice's house (our neighbors on the OTHER, non-Dever, side of our house) to chat with them before they jumped in their truck to go out for ice cream (yum).

Macie had been playing around in the garage, and, when she saw us at Jasper's, she sauntered our way. With a piece of sidewalk chalk.

Now, I've mentioned before that Jasper abhors sidewalk chalk. So he was not thrilled when Macie knelt down on his driveway and drew a purple line! I immediately stopped her, and she willingly gave the chalk to Ivie, who, at this point, decided she, too, wanted to "chalk". So I told her that she needed to go back to OUR driveway if she wanted to draw.

Off she went.

After Dale, Macie, and I said good night to Jasper and Janice, we headed back home. When we got close, Ivie ran over to me and said, "Mommy, I drew something for you! Come see!".

When I got to our driveway, I saw this:


I was at first very impressed by the fact that she wrote out my name with absolutely no assistance! Then, Ivie explained what the three circles were after my name.

"Mommy, it says 'Amy rock, rock, rock'."

Ohhhh, how sweet! This was her way of writing "AMY ROCKS!".

(Or at least that's what I'm going to choose to believe.)

Wordless Wednesday (#8): The Girls

The Good and the Ugly (Skipping Right Over the Bad)

GOOD

Ivie's book of choice at bedtime tonight was Clifford's Birthday Party. At one point in the story, it talks about one of his gifts being a pinata. Interested in Ivie's take on that, I initiated the following conversation:

Me: Ivie, do you know what a "pinata" is?

Ivie: Yes.

Me (surprised at her confident response): You do? What is it?

Ivie: Like on the Lion King!

Me: Hmmmm. I don't remember a pinata on the Lion King. Can you tell me when you saw one?

Ivie: You know, Mommy, "a-coooooo-ma nataada"!

Close, Iv. Very close.


UGLY

Generally, when Dale is home, he reads with Ivie at bedtime. Not only does he love this quiet time with his little girl, but it also seems that Ivie handles going to bed much better when it's Dale that is in charge. (Dale says it's because I'm "not firm enough" and I "give in" too easily to her requests for a longer hand-holding session. I guess I can't argue with that.)

Anyway, sometimes I feel guilty for putting this responsibility on Dale every night. Particularly when the bedtime process for Macie literally takes 11.8 seconds from start to finish.

Tonight was one of those nights. When Ivie asked if I would read her a book, I said "Sure!" and asked Dale if he was okay with swapping kids for the night. He didn't balk...

Book-reading went fine. So did the first 3 minutes of hand-holding. Until, that is, it was time for me to leave. At which point she broke down into a sob, climbed out of her bed, and literally chased me to the door, screaming, "Noooooo, Mommy! I want you! Don't leeeeeeeeeave me!!!".

Trying to be the "firm" version of myself, I left.

But 3 minutes later, when she was still crying out my name, I went back in to calm her down (this usually works, as she wears herself out and is ready to go to sleep).

Didn't work this time. And, 5 minutes later, I was again walking out and closing the door on a weeping 4-year old. Then, for the next several minutes, I listened to her cry herself to sleep.

There's something about ME putting Ivie to bed that just isn't working right now. I envision bedtime being pleasant, snuggly, and sweet. And it's exactly the opposite these days.

MAN it makes me sad.

My Movie Monday (#1): Easter Egg Hunt

A friend of mine, Chrissy, over at Traveling Light, has started a weekly feature she calls "My Movie Monday", wherein she features videos each week of, well, whatever happened the previous week that was worthy of recording!

So, this week, I'm joining her with a video of the girls on their Easter egg hunt at our house yesterday morning... Macie receives the majority of the footage, since she's the one still "learning the ropes" when it comes to egg hunting. Although you can rest assured that Ivie makes a few appearances, as well!

Easter, 2010

I think the best way to organize this year's Easter post is to do it by location of the hunt. Because there were a total of FOUR. Which is, admittedly, a little much. But Ivie had a blast with each and every one, and, by the end of her last, Macie was a pro, too.

School

Thanks to Brooke, who attended the festivities armed with her camera, I've got a few pictures of the girls at their first egg hunt at school on Thursday. Ivie's was outside in their play yard, while Macie's was a smaller-scale version in her classroom.



Neighborhood

Saturday morning, we had our annual egg-dyeing session at home and then headed up the road to the Kelly's for our first neighborhood egg hunt. Macie's interest in the eggs was minimal, which might have had something to do with the fact that there were bigger kids there who quickly scooped up the easy-to-find ones. But she "found" 3 or 4 with my help, and then moved on to something much more interesting - the play car in the driveway, which belongs to Hudson Kelly (who, interestingly enough, was born just hours after Macie, both at UNC Hospitals).

Ivie, though, stuck with the hunt long enough to find some of the more difficultly-hidden eggs that the bigger kids had overlooked. She was most excited about the two Spiderman eggs she found!




Chapel Hill Country Club

After a quick lunch, Dale and Ivie jumped in the car to get to the country club for the 12:45p start to THEIR egg hunt. Though, as you'll see below, it wasn't much of a hunt. There were a lot of kids, but hundreds of eggs on the driving range.

I stayed home with the Mac-ster so she could get a solid afternoon nap, but Dale filled in admirably with the camera at the club. Complete with a shot of Iv with the Easter Bunny!



HOME!

By the time Easter morning actually got here, one might think that the girls would have grown weary of all of these egg hunts. Ohhhhh, not so! When we told Ivie after church that we had one more egg hunt at home, her reaction was almost as if it were her first of the year.


And the practice earlier in the weekend was good for Macie. By the time the home hunt rolled around, she actually knew what she was supposed to DO with the eggs lying on the ground!


After the egg hunt was over, all three girls (Ivie, Emerson, and Macie) stole some playtime on the swings. This, along with our evening hamburger and hot dog dinner cookout, was the perfect way to conclude our Easter celebration with the Dever clan.


Yes, the Easter holiday for our 3- and 1-year old girls this year was centered around finding plastic eggs and trying to convince their parents to let them eat the candy hidden inside...

But I can't wait until they're old enough to truly UNDERSTAND what the Easter story really means for all of us. Thank you, Jesus, for giving us such an amazing reason to celebrate!

North Carolina Zoo (Asheboro, NC)

Since we all had off of work and school yesterday for Good Friday, the Herman and Dever clans decided to trek to Asheboro to take the girls to the NC Zoo for the first time (though Dale and Brooke both remember going on school field trips there as kids).

The drive is a bit long (~1.5 hours), at least by Ivie and Macie standards (who clearly aren't growing up in Owensville, Missouri, where you have to drive at least an hour to get anywhere!). So we popped Snow White in the DVD (which is used only on long trips, usually to Grandma's house) and off we went. All was well until we hit Asheboro around 9:45a and realized that everyone else in the state of North Carolina had our same idea... Traffic was slow-moving getting into the zoo, but our good spirits prevailed and, once we got inside, we headed immediately to catch the tram to the carousel and the 4-D Dora and Diego show at the "Junction" (the area of the park between "North America" and "Africa").



The girls were happy to be OUT of the car and in the midst of "lions and tigers and bears, OH MY!".

We then headed into "Africa", where we saw chimpanzees, lions, elephants, giraffes, ostriches, and a zebra (from afar), along with a few chimp sculptures made for climbing...




And I probably shouldn't include this next picture, but I don't want to forget how funny the scene was when we happened upon it. When Ivie peered through the fence and turned to ask me what the lions were doing, I told her they were "just playing!". Then we sat back and listened as many parents around us were coming up with other answers, as well. Although a couple just steered their older children in a different direction. We were glad that our young girls took "playing" for an answer and thought nothing else of it...


Following our quick (though it didn't seem quick, since it spanned almost 3 miles, the second half of which were all uphill) trip through Africa, we headed back to the Junction to eat lunch and make our way to North America. And that, my friends, is when our "plan" went awry.

It was noon, and everyone at the zoo was trying to dine at the various cafes in the Junction. We ultimately decided that it was in our best interest (mostly that of the three hungry and tired little girls we had on our hands) to pass on lunch followed by "North America". So we, instead, bought a couple of frozen strawberry lemonades to share, stood in a very long line for the tram, headed back to our cars, and grabbed lunch at the-first-fast-food-restaurant-with-chickey-nuggets-we-could-find (turned out to be Chick-fil-A) in Asheboro on our way back home.

So, while we had fun in our short 3-hour stint at the zoo, we certainly won't be returning on Good Friday in future years. And we might also try to pick a day that isn't going to be 88 degrees, since there's a lot of sunshine and a lot of walking. But we continue to live, learn, and have fun along the way!

Show-and-Tell, Round 48: Donald Duck/Bunny

Another holiday... More greeting cards to buy... A trip to Hallmark for Dale...

Put the three of these circumstances together, and you're sure to end up with another Hallmark singing toy!

This Easter is no exception. Meet Donald Duck, playing the role of the Easter Bunny this year - destined to be this week's Show-and Tell from the second Ivie laid eyes on him...