The Accidental Boilermaker

The girls and boys split up this weekend.  Evelyn and I headed to Chicago for my cousin's baby shower.  Nate and Jameson stayed home.  Evelyn and I stayed Saturday night with Katherine.  She treated us to New York style pizza at Dimo's.  Evelyn got mac and cheese pizza. Sunday morning Katherine and my dad ran a race downtown.  Evelyn and I stayed back at the apartment and played Ticket to Ride.  Evelyn won. Then, even though it was cold, we went to the park to get some fresh air. Finally it was time to drive to the shower.  My cousin Elena is due in April. My Uncle Glenn made the party food and it was all very good. The girls, just missing Meredith. My baby blanket for Sofia the baby.  It is my first project using color pooling and I love how it turned out.  When Elena opened the blanket, Evelyn made sure the whole room knew I had made it.  After the shower, we drove home.   ...

Today we took a trip to the Toledo zoo.  We were able to get in for free with our Fort Wayne zoo membership and it was only an 1.5 hour drive.  It's a big zoo with lots of animals our zoo doesn't have.  A couple giraffes left their indoor enclosure to enjoy some sun.  The Toledo zoo is open year round so they have really nice viewing areas where you can see the animals in their indoor homes. Of course we had to ride the carousel. Bald eagles I learned today that Siberian tigers should actually be called Amur tigers to better described where they live.  I guess Siberian tigers aren't found in Siberia.   In the aviary we got to help feed the birds.  Nate had the best luck getting a bird to land on his popsicle because he's so tall. Jameson kept asking to see the orangutans and I kept saying I don't know if there are any at this zoo.  Finally a nice lady took pity on me and said yes there's orangutans...

Evelyn's spring ballet recital was today.  She is in ballet 1 now and there were 6 other girls in her class. Dress rehearsal (one girl was a little late for the practice run).  The final performance.  Evelyn seems to continue to enjoy dance.  Lately she likes to dance while Nate plays his guitar.  As long as it's something she enjoys, I think we will continue to sign up for lessons. Being silly with Bella Coloring backstage. Couple of family pictures.  Bella didn't want to take a picture with her own family, but she happily joined ours.

We went to our first Lego club at the library. Every Wednesday you can come build. There's a theme you can use if you want. Today's was fruits and veggies.  I think if you come 5 times and build something related to the theme, you get a small prize. Evelyn's creation I think was a forest with a helicopter. To make it fit the theme she added a cucumber and we called it cucumber forest.  The Legos are then displayed in a case near the front of the library until the next Lego club.  My creation was based off the Netflix series Nate and I are currently watching - the worlds most extraordinary homes. It's basically a house, a lake, and a mountain. 

Evelyn and Jameson had their friend Harper's birthday party this weekend.  It was unicorn themed. Unicorn Evelyn Getting excited to watch the birthday girl open her presents. The party was held at a community center that has an indoor playground. We had never been before, so Evelyn and Jameson had lots of fun. That evening we went to Bella's house for dinner and just as the adults were finished eating, Evelyn starts to complain her stomach hurts.  I figured she was just really tired since we had had a busy day, so we start to clean up the toys and get ready to leave.  Then all of sudden Evelyn throws up all over the kitchen floor.  Not the best way to end a dinner party.  We clean everything up and head for home.  Poor thing got sick several times throughout the night.  Today was better; she didn't have much of an appetite, but wasn't sick anymore.

It was Nate's birthday on Saturday.  We started out with a trip to our local cider mill to celebrate the reopening of their tap room for spring.  Nate and I enjoyed a pint of hopped cider while Evelyn and Jameson colored. Later in the afternoon we headed downtown to check out a new brewery.   It is definitely a family friendly establishment.  They have a whole wall of board games, including ones like chutes and ladders and even mega blocks for little kids.   The beer was good as was the food. The birthday celebrations spilled over onto Sunday when we headed over to the Icehouse for Nate to pick out a pair of ice skates.  (Evelyn really wanted to buy Nate skates for his birthday.  She even did some of the sneaky leg work, like causally asking Nate what size shoe he wore.  But it's hard to buy skates for someone else without them being present.)  While at the Icehouse, we saw they were holding the final ...