Glory King!

"Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!" We pretty much yelled our verse of the week as if we were cheering at a big football game, and we waved our palm branches too. It was a lot of fun, and Alden would keep repeating, "Glory King. Glory King!" I guess the verse made him think of Hark the Herald. It's fun to see how his brain works. The other day he was trying to walk across a bunch of large rocks, and he started singing a song that I used to sing him in the rocking chair (it's a Nanny Kim creation from the infant-Skipper days). "Rock, rock, rock a baby" is what he sang as he stomped across (although he took some artistic liberty since we sing Rock, rock, rock my baby).

For the countdown to Easter, we did Benjamin's Box with both of them this year, and had to clean a lot of hay off of the floor after each devotion. Another special holiday activity was watching The Sound of Music during a couple of lunches. They were both transfixed from start to finish, which is a HUGE feat for Alden. Normally he only lasts 15 minutes before he's off to something else. But this movie just captured his attention.

Now this boy knows quality movies.

We've been getting ready for another nursing home visit, and I decided using a felt-board for storytime might be fun, so I made one along with some felt pieces for Rhi and Alden to play with. It's super easy, cheap, and beats the scare of magnets getting stuck in little intestines.

Here's how they found it in the morning. Rhianwen asked, "Is that a map?"

And here's what Rhianwen did all by herself. She totally understood using shapes to create an image without me explaining anything! I was pretty surprised that she could do it without help. Maybe this is normal for a 3.5 yr old?

I bought a prism to show the kids rainbows more easily and to talk about colors. Rhianwen loves to peer through it, and she discovered that you can always see a rainbow if you do this. It's so funny to be on the other side the prism looking at her little face changing from the refracted light. She'd often have 4 eyes.

We spent the good part of the week in the yard. Alden and Rhianwen did their first ever team sport all on their own initiative:

They rolled this barrel up hills, down hills, across ditches, all kinds of things.

Alden tried to make lawn-mowing a team sport too.

Dying Easter eggs. A good many were "smashed" by Alden.

You can see his handiwork in the front.

Easter morning chocolate. Rhi ate the ear off first (what I would have done), and Alden ate the middle off first (takes some skill to do that without crushing the whole thing).

Aw. Look at the bright family. (All these pics are for both sides of my family!). Rhianwen has been so excited about her Easter dress for weeks. She was SO happy to finally get to wear it.

"A jellybean for me? Really?!"

My most favorite Easter picture of all time. Notice the egg on the orange portion of the climby thing that she is completely overlooking. For 5 minutes or so she walked around and around and stopped right over top of it to search.

And here's a little movie for my mom especially, who is just going through grandchild withdrawal.

Funniest statement of the week:

Rhianwen in a weepy voice when informed that there were no more clean und*erp*an)ts b/c she'd had too many "accidents": "Well, I guess I'll just have to wear b*utt then!" Sniffle.