Thurs. April 11, 2013 - continuing our winter activities

 Riley and Micaela playing in the water area at the Building for Kids

 Catching the ducks as they fall off the bottom of the slide

Riley checking out the world

 Micaela LOVES to push buttons

 My little firefighter

 Micaela enjoys our weekly "Scribbles and Dribbles" class with lots of different toys and activity stations

 Playing with the adorable knitted scoops of icecream

And doing a little painting

 Riley learned how to mount the balance beam

 And walked all the way across with the help of Mr. Tyler

 Sisters playing together (I know there are a lot of adorable pictures of them playing nicely together, but honestly its rare enough that I'm usually reaching for the camera when it happens)

 Riley and Daddy measuring out the spot for the raised garden beds we are building

 Silly neighborhood friends

Tuesday: the rain FINALLY melted all our snow! Spring is here!

 Wednesday: Maybe not

 We had quite the icestorm

Riley and I have been planting seeds for our garden and we already have seedlings! I wonder if the weather will ever be nice enough to plant them outside? 

Chad had warned me that March/April would be the worst in our new town as the winter drags on and on. He was right. The snow had piled up so high and our temperatures were so cold it had taken until this week for it all to melt. I was pretty depressed when we woke up Wednesday morning to a fresh coat of snow and ice. The kids had a snow day because the roads were dangerous and power was out all over town (guess we were lucky in that respect) and there is more snow in our forecast. I'm looking forward to our trip south (IL, which I now consider to be part of the warm southern states) in a few weeks for some nice weather! 

Luckily we still have our indoor activities to keep us busy. I love the "Building for Kids," Appleton's children's museum. We have so much fun playing there and we do different things every visit. I'm so impressed with these museums and am so glad we live in a family-oriented community that has one. This is the last week of Micaela's Scribbles and Dribbles class and Riley's gymnastics class. Given the forecast, I'm signing them both up for the next term. Riley has decided she wants to try ballet again, can't wait to see how that goes. I'm happy we can give both of them these opportunities to explore what they enjoy, especially if it tires them out!