Happy Easter!

Easter festivities lasted a couple of weeks. Jeremiah was more engaged in all the activities this year, so that made it more fun. (Which means there are lots of pictures of him on this post.)

Josh's work had Easter festivities the week before Easter. This is our second year to participate, and I am very impressed with how well organized it is. They start with coloring pages while you wait for everyone to arrive. (Jeremiah had a little help.)

The Easter Bunny did a meet-and-greet.

Jeremiah wasn't impressed.

We got a great photo with the Easter Bunny! (That has become a tradition now. See last year's post.)

Micah didn't think it was that bad.

It happened to be snowing outside, so the Easter Bunny hid the eggs inside. (Ignore the blurry images. They're action shots!)

The nursing home in our town hosted a community Easter egg hunt on Good Friday. They have a golden egg that gets you a new bicycle if you find it. Maybe next year. 

They have age categories; Jeremiah was in the 0-3 group. The teacher/mom in me had to tell a couple kids they were in the wrong group and needed to wait for their turn.

Easter morning, the Easter Bunny left eggs for Jeremiah from his room to his Easter basket. Each egg had a cereal puff in it. (Someone should tell the Easter Bunny to put the basket closer to his room next year. Or use less eggs. It took him forever. And church was 45 minutes earlier than usual. We were on a tight schedule.)

He loved that the Easter Bunny brought him his favorite cookies. 

He also got a kick out of this wind up bath toy.

I made Resurrection Rolls for breakfast. I've made them for years, but this was the first time I got to use them to teach the Easter story.

At church, they take a photo with all the kids. Jeremiah "held on" to Micah the whole time.

Jeremiah used his new watercolors to paint an Easter egg picture.

He also made a cotton ball Easter bunny. For days, he would point at the googly eyes and say, "Eye," every time we were near it.

We had Easter dinner with some friends. They had all the supplies ready to dye Easter eggs when we got there. Jeremiah loved it!

We also had a friend take a family photo. Best one we've had of the four of us!

Another great Easter in the books on the blog!


"The earliest Jewish polemic presupposes the historicity of the empty tomb. In other words, there was nobody who was claiming that the tomb still contained Jesus' body. The question always was, 'What happened to the body?' The Jews proposed the ridiculous story that the guards had fallen asleep. Obviously, they were grasping at straws. But the point is this: they started with the assumption that the tomb was vacant! Why? Because they knew it was!" -William Lane Craig, Ph.D., D.Th. as quoted in The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel

"On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus." -Luke 24:1-3

A Dog Party!

Jeremiah loves dogs. And the Pi family loves Seuss. So when it came time to pick a theme for his second birthday, "Go, Dog. Go!" was perfect! (Note: The book is actually written by P.D. Eastman, but is part of the "Dr. Seuss I Can Read" series.)

It all started with the invitation. (The actual invites included where, when, and my contact info to RSVP.) I made them in Microsoft Publisher, saved it as a 4x6 jpg, printed them as photos at Wal-Mart, then put address labels, return address labels, and a postcard stamp on the back. This is how I do our Christmas cards too. Works great!

When guests arrived at the party, they were greeted by these two dogs from the book. We had the dogs printed on a large printer, and then Josh and I painted them with craft paint. (Images from here.)

I also made a cardboard box car to loosely mimic the car on the invitation. (Yellow car, big dog, orange hat, green scarf...close enough!) This was just inside the door as you came in.

We stuck with the orange, white, and green theme throughout the party. Decorations included streamers, balloons, a birthday banner, color-coordinated table cloth, and buntings.

I cut the triangles for the buntings out of cardstock and hole punched the top two corners. Then I strung them on yarn. For the bunting on his high chair, I used my Cricut to cut out the letters T-W-O and glued them to the triangles.

I also painted Jeremiah's birthday shirt. I just used craft paint, so it will probably wash out. I wanted to use a shirt and paint I already had, so the dark brown dog is hard to see on the navy shirt. This was a labor of love, if you know what I mean.

My main thought in planning the party was, "What do two-year-olds DO at a party?" I wanted to have age-appropriate activities that were especially for them.

We started with coloring pages.

Then a game called, "Give the dog a bone." It was loosely Pinterest inspired. I covered a box with red wrapping paper, leaving the bottom of the box open. I glued a cardstock dog to the front and cut out the mouth. I cut out the dog bones from cardboard (the lids of paper boxes). I used packing tape to tape the box off the floor at two-year-old height, then just tossed the cardboard bones on the floor. The bottom of the box is open, so when you put the bones in the mouth, they just drop onto the floor. 

This was a big hit with Jeremiah! He'd laugh when the bones dropped onto the floor. 

We also had cardboard box race cars. I painted paper boxes with craft paint (the spray paint was in a mood). I printed headlights, grills, tail lights, license plates, and steering wheels and glued them onto the boxes. Can you spot the '65 Mustang and '69 Camaro? We even had a stop light that randomly switched between red and green to make the races more fun. (It's called a Yacker Tracker.)

Of course Jeremiah loved these, too.

The "work smarter, not harder" mantra in use.

I planned a scavenger hunt for the older kids. The "Go, Dog. Go!" image was printed on the opposite side of the clues. The final treasure was in the yellow cardboard car by the entry.

Jeremiah helped find the clues and put the puzzle together. Doesn't he look like he's trying to think where the treasure might be?

And of course there was cake! Another idea from Pinterest. This is straight from the dog party page in the book. For the cupcake toppers, I printed the image on cardstock, cut out the dogs, and taped them onto toothpicks.

We had orange (Tang), white (milk), and green (a watermelon flavored juice) drinks.

It wouldn't be a dog party without puppy chow!

Doggy bags of the puppy chow were the favors/take home gifts for the guests.

Jeremiah had a GREAT time! He's smiling and laughing in every picture we took.

"What a dog party!"

Happy Birthday, Jeremiah!

Jeremiah is T-W-O!

He got a birthday blueberry muffin for breakfast. (He didn't know what to think of the singing and fire on top of his food.)

He also got his very own scoop of vanilla at the soda fountain!

He also had a "Go, Dog. Go!" birthday party (see that post here).

Here are his pictures compared to his birthday a year ago.

Some stats and likes (mainly for my own records):

He weighs 22.8 pounds. With clothes on. And shoes. And soaking wet.
He is 2' 8.5" tall.
He has 15 teeth (7 on bottom and 8 on top).
When he "runs," he bends his arms with his elbows shoulder high and pants. But it's just a fast walk.
He can open doors without assistance. Sometimes letting the dog out when we don't know it.
His favorite food is vanilla yogurt with frozen blueberries. He had a mild dairy allergy, but outgrew it. Now he loves anything dairy. Especially "eese" (cheese).
He does not like any vegetable.
He likes to dip his food in ketchup. (We're going to start trying vegetables with ketchup.)
He uses a fork and spoon very well. He'll even wipe yogurt off his chin with the spoon.
He favors his right hand.
He likes to "write," draw, color, and paint. And is very good at keeping it only on paper.
He likes to use Mom and Dad as a jungle gym.
He is very good at completing wooden puzzles.
He still loves books. Any kind. Even grown-up books without pictures.
He will sort anything. Sometimes he arranges his food into rows. He'll match shapes (circles with circles, etc). He'll put objects into groups by color or size. He'll line his cars up in one long line.
He can pick out the correct color item when asked (most of the time) (i.e. Where is the red ball?).
He uses sign language consistently for milk, eat, hungry, all done, ready, more, play, please, thank you, wash hands, and ball.
He can identify common body parts (head, mouth, neck, knee, etc.).
He loves to help cook. He'll get a dining room chair, push it into the kitchen, and sign to wash his hands.
He is just starting to speak understandable words. "Dee" is deer, "eese" is cheese.
He knows many animal sounds. Instead of saying "dog," he'll say "woof, woof" when he sees one. "Moo" when he sees a cow; "Neigh" for horse. He does a great pig impression. (He also does monkey, cat, tiger, dinosaur, rooster, owl, duck, and elephant. I'm probably missing some.)

He is a quick learner and craves new learning experiences. He prefers to play and do things independently, only wanting help when he asks for it. His smile and laughter are contagious. I pray God continues to equip us for the years that are ahead!