Holiday Craft Time with Aunt RaRa

 The kids are so lucky to have so much family close by. Lately, Aunt RaRa has been finding some fun crafts to do on Pinterest and then she comes over to do them with the kids.  This Easter craft was very fun (and tasty)....She helped the kids make jelly bean necklaces!

 The finished product...

I later found Gray with a blue mouth from sucking on the jelly beans (not eating them, just sucking!) So that was the end of that!

As usual, whenever Aunt RaRa is here, there is a lot of goofing around. Here she is in the tub with the kids. At least there was no water in it yet!

Avery and Grayson love their Aunt RaRa!

Cinderella Tea Party

Avery had so much fun at the Cinderella Tea Party last spring held at Jessica's Tea Room, that we decided to do it again this year (and will probably continue to do it every year until we are out of the princess phase! Wonder when that will be?) We made reservations months ago and this time we invited Avery's best friend and her Mommy to come along too! 

Curtsy...(note the matching nail polish)

 The girls were fascinated by her....

 and had a nice conversation with her about her coach and her mice friends. 

I can't believe this is really happening!

Since Avery was about two years old, I have been telling her that she couldn't get her fingernails painted until she stopped sucking her thumb. (However, occasionally a grandma or two didn't follow my rules! ; )

We have noticed that in the past few since Grayson has gone sans pacifier, we have not caught Avery sucking her thumb at all. It's like something clicked and she realized that if her little brother was a boy big now, she could be a big girl too! We were all very excited about this....so I had to keep my promise!  

A few Friday nights ago, I let it happen!  Avery chose to alternate red and yellow so that it would match her Snow White dress that she would be wearing for her upcoming princess tea party (see future post). I talked her out of polka dots...I don't know who she thinks her momma is! I don't even paint my own nails!) 

 Here she is proudly displaying her polished nails...

The entire time I was painting them she kept saying over and over "I can't believe this is really happening!" "I can't believe this is really happening!" Then the next morning, the first thing she said was "I can't believe it REALLY happened!" Every hand and finger movement for the next two days was very exaggerated...as if she wanted everyone to notice her nails!

Sleepover with Ben

A few weeks ago, on a beautiful weekend in March, we FINALLY got to have the highly anticipated sleepover with cousin Ben at our new house! The kids had a blast and we got a small dose of what it could be like to have 3 kids (except that this was three kids aged 2, 3, and 4!) It was so much fun and also quite exhausting!

Our first stop was the Lehigh Valley Science Festival held at the Coca-Cola Park. The kids did various simple experiments, crafts, etc. But I think their favorite part was getting tattooed (boys chose glittery super hero tattoos for their arms) and face painted (Avery got a beautiful butterfly painted on her face - this was the first time I gave in to allowing face painting. It helped that it was free!) 

 Grayson *loved* having his big cousin Ben around and our affectionate little boy was not afraid to show it with plenty of hugs and kisses. Ben, however, was not always a fan of these!

 Of course, we had a visit from Aunt RaRa to get the kids all riled up before naps (but amazingly, they did ALL nap!) Ben, of course, was the first one down.  

 It was a great day for the park....

Followed by dinner and ice cream....

 

Sitting between these boys kept me busy!

While Daddy got to relax sitting next to this delicate butterfly...

Bath time for three in the "big" tub was a special treat!

 Then the kids got to introduce Ben to their current favorite movie "Frozen." 

(clearly, this was a very serious moment in the movie!)

Best buds for life!

Lots of laughs were shared! We all had a really fun weekend! 

Hope that we can keep these cousin sleepovers up!

 By the way, our house guest was a perfect, sleepy angel while he was here. He didn't even mind that Grayson continued to talk, play and sometimes whine until almost 11 pm that night while they shared space on the floor.  Ben was the first one asleep and the last one to wake! He is awesome!

p.s. Can you spot two boys in this mess? 

Happy St. Patty's Day

As per Levine tradition, for St. Patty's Day, Daddy heads to the beach for a fun weekend with the guys and Mommy stays home with the kids to do all things green!

We started with green milk, green pancakes and  rainbow of raspberries for breakfast. The milk was made green with food coloring, but the pancakes were made green with spinach...yes, spinach! I packed a ton of spinach into these little buggers and they were still so well received by them (they were just bananas, eggs, flaxseed and spinach...but syrup can make anything taste good!)

 Our traditional "green" smoothie turned out to be not so green! I added every green fruit and veggie I had in my house, but nothing could overpower the darkness of blackberries. It was delicious anyway!

 Later Aunt RaRa came over with some St. Patty's Day bling...

 We went to dinner and she stayed for a sleepover.  The kids introduced her to Frozen and now there's no turning back - she sings "Let it Go" all the time.  She was also the first one to fall asleep for the night - good girl, RaRa.

There's Something About Grayson

 Similar to the scene in "There's Something About Mary," but this was actually just a boogie in Grayson's hair!

 He created this look on this own. 

Seemed worthy of taking a picture!

Sleepy time

Our favorite evening ritual is coming upstairs to look at our kids sleeping. Lately, we end up cracking up at what we see....

Avery is always "reading" her Bible to sleep.

 Grayson's horse "Giddy Up" is riding on his head...

 Avery is asleep and snuggling with her Bitty Baby, "Julie"

 Grayson apparently using a book as a blanket

 Here is the full scene...a stack of about 15 more books behind him plus just about everything in his room crammed into his bed. I can't even make sense of this one!

 You gotta love his little belly...this is one of my favorites. And note - just one slipper on!

 Bible reading again with Julie in the background...

 More belly shots....

 More Bible shots....

 I am sad to say that the funniest one of all time I did not catch on camera! Two weeks ago, Adam and I came upstairs to find Grayson at the top of the steps, asleep on his belly, naked from the waist down. .....with the baby gate lying on top of him!! There were even little circular imprints on his butt checks from where the gate met his skin.  We still cannot figure out the series of events that led to this discovery!  We did notice that there was tinkle in the potty, so he must have gotten up to pee. But it doesn't explain why he never called for us if he was being taken down by the gate. There was no crying or screaming at all!!! He was totally fine though and giggled when we woke him up to re-diaper him and take him back to his bed. Oh, how we wish we had hidden cameras in our house!