Easter Basket from Mema and Papa

Egg Hunt

I had a rental car for a week so I made sure we did some Easter things since we will be alone and with no car.  Butler's Orchard opened today, we went last year too but this year she was able to do more things.  They have little areas they set up for Easter egg hunting just for fun, kids collect plastic eggs and then return them for them to set it up in another area.  She really enjoyed doing it but after a while she was not impressed by the obvious ones and wanted the more difficult ones like finding a treasure.  Also at the Orchard was giant slides, pony rides, face painting, rubber ducky derby's, hay rides and some animals.  We mainly focused on the hay ride, seeing the animals (she even got to pet a baby chick!), doing the egg hunt and playing on some small slides.  Also a thanks to Auntie Jan for Lillian's dress she is wearing!

The Cup

I had read several articles that said children should not have any bottles by age 2.  I asked about this at one of our doctors appointments and tried to find out if the main point was to teach kids how to drink from a variety of cups using various methods (ie. sippy cup, straw cup or a regular cup with no lid)  The doctor said cups without lids provide practice of different oral muscles so we have been giving Lillian a cup for a while here or there as long as it was supervised.  She has gotten a lot better at it now and doesn't often spill when she is drinking.  I find the only time she makes a mess now is if she gulped too much and tries to hold it in her mouth while she swallows.... then some spills out down the front of her.  The only other times she spills is if she is trying to put the cup down by herself or scoot it closer to her with one hand.  Here is a video of her taken today of her using her cup.... with a bit of a surprise at the end :)

Maryland to Cali

This is our second time making this trip.  The first time we decided to take the Southern route and follow Route 66 most of the way, stopping at the Grand Canyon, some cliff dwellings and catch a show in Branson.  Rather than doing that trip again, we decided to take the Northern route and went up through Niagara Falls and Mt. Rushmore.  Hopefully Lillian enjoyed this trip more than the last time when she was just 3 months old.

And her feeding the animals at Bates Nut Farm.  They were very gentle animals and I was surprised she tried it by herself.

Crayons

Every time we go to a restaurant and Lillian gets a kids menu we practice coloring, we have not done any of this at home.  She has the hang of it now, on our trip from Maryland to Cali I let her use a pen and the marks showed up a lot better so I think she has it down now!  This video was before that.

Big Balls at the Soccerplex

We have an indoor soccer field here and on certain days they close it off for kids.  A friend told me about it so Lillian and I went with her to go check it out.  I think Lillian was so overwhelmed by the amount of things to do that she ended up not doing much at all but running around the entire field.