Third Annual Easter Egg Hunt

What a fun time we all had yesterday with the Easter egg hunt in our back yard. This year we even had two toddlers participate in their very first egg hunts. The three older kids really got into hiding the eggs for the preschoolers. A couple of dads oversaw then to make sure they don't hide them too well. I think the trickiest hiding spot this year was the pink egg Gabriel hid in snow. One could just barely see a hint of its color. He was a great big brother and told his sister where to find it after the hunt had gone on for a while. I picked up some 25-cent camera trinkets this year and the kids went nuts over them. They ran around pretending to take pictures of everything. Linus continued playing with his right up to bedtime, then woke up early this morning and was immediately at it again. Last night he took pictures of birds in one of his bird books. Now he is off at the zoo with Matthew. He wants to take pictures of the animals with it. I gave him my old camera a while back and he has a lot of fun with that, but the little plastic one is even more fun in some ways. He pretends to hook it up to a computer to upload the pictures and change the backgrounds.

March

Matthew and Linus planting peas and spinach.


Chase and Linus at the zoo, our second to last play date. Linus is holding a bird field guide.




The month has flown by. I don't know why I continue to be amazed at how quickly time flies, but I do. This year Linus started anticipating his birthday around the beginning of the month. Birthday parties for two of his friends, as well as our annual Easter egg hunt in our backyard, broke up the routine; so now his own birthday party is just under a week away.

Linus' friend Chase departed to Hong Kong. Her father has taken a job there. Linus has been attached to her since they met at the library when they were 17-months old. He was very sad when I broke the news to him. We discussed that we are still friends with people in Wisconsin, even though we moved away. Friday was the first day for him at preschool without her there. I asked him about it to gauge how he was feeling about it, and he was just fine. He said, "I thought of her, but then I played with Noah and that was fun."

Linus came down with a cold that had him walking around for a week with a runny nose, which then morphed into terrible congestion, then pinkeye, followed by an ear infection. I felt that the ear infection was a blessing, because that meant we could quit fighting with him to get the eye drops in for the pinkeye. Until now, I have not had to wrestle him down. It was not a pretty sight. I straddled him on the floor and pinned his arms at his sides with my legs. Then I tried to pry his eyes open and get the drops in them and not on his cheek, nose, or the floor. He put up a big fight. He takes the oral antibiotic like it is candy, and we don't end up in tears like with the eye drop fight.

Teddy Bear Tea Party

When Matthew and I attended the auction fundraiser for Linus' preschool we bid on and won for him a seat at a teddy bear tea party hosted by his teachers. The other three attendees at the soiree were girls from the morning class. The kids were to dress up and bring a teddy bear for the party at Laura's house. Linus was irresistibly handsome and the girls were lovely. Sadly, we forgot to bring his teddy bear with us, but he was able to borrow one from Laura. She ran upstairs and got one from her son's bedroom. Linus was perfectly at ease being in a new setting with kids he didn't know. Amazing what three-quarters of a school year will do for a kid's self-confidence.

When I picked him up later he regaled me with stories of all the things they did and he said he had three new friends. And there are pictures to document the event because I left my camera with the teachers and asked them to take pictures for the parents.