Happy Easter!

We had a good Easter. How about you?

We showed up two minutes late to the community Easter egg hunt, which meant all the eggs were gone by the time Sara got on the grass.
 

This is the second year we've shown up two minutes too late for an Easter egg hunt. We really need to work on our punctuality. 

Luckily this adorable little boy, probably only a year or two older than Sara, saw that Sara didn't have any eggs, so he started taking eggs out of his own basket and re-hiding them for Sara to find! How sweet is that?! 

So Sara ended up with a basket full of eggs after all, thanks to the generosity and kindness of a cute little neighborhood kid. We slathered him with all kinds of verbal thanks and praise, and I think he thought hiding his eggs and watching Sara find them was even more fun than finding his own eggs in the first place! We sure were grateful for his kindness.

On Sunday morning we set up another little Easter egg trail up the stairs leading to Sara's gift stash. She had so much fun putting the eggs in her basket, she didn't even care about the books and toys waiting for her at the top of the stairs!

She was excited about the gifts after I pointed them out to her. She spent several minutes reading the books and making up her own stories to go with the pictures. Adorable. 

Here's how her little basket full of eggs looked after she finished collecting them:

And here's how it looked about 20 minutes later:

Sugar-high anyone?

bubbly

Last time we were at the grocery store we saw these no-spill bubble tumblers and decided to buy one as part of Sara's Easter basket.

Well I forgot to get it out of its post-purchase hiding spot and actually give it to her on Easter, so I gave it to her today instead.

I must admit, I was a little skeptical about its advertized "no-spill" ability, but it only cost a few bucks, and Sara loves bubbles (and has been known to spill them in the past) so it was worth a try. Well guess what?! It actually works! No spills! And the little tumbler is just the right size for Sara to hold herself. She loves it!

We tried blowing bubbles outside, but it was too cold and windy. (It's raining out there right now as I type this).

So we did bubbles inside instead. Look how sideways Sara is holding the bubble container, and it's not spilling! I even turned the whole thing upside down over a bowl to test it before giving it to her. Not a drip. Now I don't have to worry about Sara spilling the whole container of bubbles anymore when she inevitably wants to hold it herself. This thing is perfect!

p.s. No, this is not a paid endorsement. I really do just like it that much. :)

overload

See that? That's our bedroom. Notice that tall bookshelf in the corner. Looks like just an ordinary bookshelf, but upon closer inspection you will see something peculiar about it....

Did you see it? Notice all those little white tags on the spines of each book? Yes, that's right, those are all library books. Rob is obsessed. This bookcase has six shelves, and the top four are filled to capacity with library books. Plus he has a few others strewn throughout the house. I counted 62 books total. 62! That is an insane amount of books to have checked out from the library at one time. He's addicted. In his own words, he is "a hoarder who eventually returns his hoard." Sounds healthy doesn't it.

When asked about this book collecting habit he replied, "It's a good thing I don't buy 62 books at a time instead of checking them out from the library!" -- well that's true, but I previously failed to mention that he does own quite a few books already; there is a large pile of boxes stacked full of books in the basement that once occupied those upper four shelves before the library books took over.

Rob would like it mentioned that this collection of checked-out books comes from two different libraries, his university library and the city library. I don't know how that helps matters any, but Rob seems to think it does.

I just don't now how he can manage to read and retain information from so many books at the same time! But he told me some of them are just for reference for a particular school assignment or work project. Others he actually reads from cover to cover. But still, that's a lot of information to try and capture simultaneously! Looks like he needs some of that NZT from the movie Limitless (which, coincidentally, is based on a book that Rob has read and loved). Then he would be an unstoppable superpower with all the knowledge he gets from his mass amounts of reading.

When he found out I was writing a blog post about his book hoarding, Rob commented, "All your friends are going to think I'm weird now." So was he right? It's time to weigh in: Weird? Cool? Other? Let's hear your thoughts.

p.s. We did see Limitless last night, and it was good. Go see it so you can wish you had more brain capacity. I know I wish I did!

as of late

A few of Sara's recent escapades at the house:

ready to play outside

 

Looking at the chickens across the street

a rooster close-up

Wearing a bee costume while holding a bee pillow-pet

making a train out of foil and plastic wrap boxes

pretending to take a nap in the recycle bin

  making a snowman who became very crooked the next day 

(this was back in February)

playing dress-ups. 

She came downstairs dressed like this and said,
"I a pirate. Follow me!"

coloring

 feeding the horses

 

"Ta-da! A castle!"

drawing on the mirror with dry-erase markers (she loves this!)

And just because I noticed there are zero photos of Rob and me recently on this blog, here's a little snapshot of us. Not the greatest, but it'll do.

 p.s. - the poor quality photos were taken on my phone. I need to either 1) get a better phone, or 2) keep our small camera with me during the day, because there are always cute photo-taking moments, but I only ever have my phone on me. Drats.

Thanks Christie!

Another post about awesome family members finding the perfect thing I've been searching for and buying it for me!

We've been looking for a cute, affordable, solid-wood rocking horse for Sara for a while now. I had basically given up after not wanting to spend upwards of sixty bucks on one of the only ones I found that I thought was cute. But then I got a call from Rob's sister saying she found one at a local thrift store for only $2. Then later I found out she talked them down to $1 because it was a little wobbly (just needed to tighten the screws). After hearing this, I was a little uncertain about how it would look, but I was so pleasantly surprised when we went to pick it up. Check it out!

  {only $1 from D.I. Seriously.)

Can you believe what a steal this was?! Especially considering I was at one point willing to spend $70 on this strikingly similar rocking horse?

{$70 from Amazon}

Hmmm, glad I talked myself out of making that purchase!

Oh, and Sara loves it by the way. It is just the right size for her.

Thanks again Christie!!