Elephant and Piggie Party.

My coworker, Jen, and I hosted an auction event at school this afternoon- an Elephant and Piggie Party! Mo Willems, who writes many fantastic books, has a series for young readers that the kids in our class absolutely adore, called Elephant and Piggie.

We began by reading Should I Share My Ice Cream...

... and then we ate ice cream sundaes.

Then, we made Gerald and Piggie hand puppets from paper bags.






(I will scan and attach these templates as PDF's once I figure out how to do that, for anyone who might want to reproduce them...)


After, we read Are You Ready to Play Outside?

And then we played some games outside!


We came back in and read I Will Surprise My Friend!


And then we made surprise flower bouquets to give to a friend.






To end the afternoon, we read We Are in a Book! and then gave the children a banana to take home. Seems random, I know- if you want to know about the banana, read We Are in a Book! It's hilarious.



We had a great time, and we think the kids did too!

Easter.

The Easter egg hunt at Bethel.

The booty.

Cousins!

Charlotte in the bounce house, where we spent most of our time.

Adeline.

Samuel.

We were playing around at a park in Norridge and there were baby bunnies in a nest underneath the play equipment!

Charlotte was a little afraid.

Charlotte enjoying her first Peep!

Family.

Artsy Schmartsy.

I read a few blogs by amazing women who take beautiful photographs and they have inspired me recently to get out my camera more often. I am a very NOVICE photographer. I do not know what most of the buttons and settings on my camera do. I don't know what words like "aperture" mean. But. I like taking pictures. Here are my beauties from the week.

Charlotte really likes to stand and sit under this tree.

Almost as much as she likes to pull up these little red flags that are all over campus.

Love him.

Charlie Cat.

Charlotte is such a blast to be around lately. She's always been fun, but she is making us laugh and smile so much lately.

Here is Charlotte "cising." Or, exercising like I do on my core training ball.

Charlotte is really into playing cards lately.

Last Sunday, on Palm Sunday, our church had the children process into church with palm fronds. Charlotte was skeptical.

But she did great!

Later that afternoon, she enjoyed a story with Daddy. She still LOVES to read.

Just before dinner we decided to go for a walk, and in addition to her bucket of chalk and bubbles, Charlotte decided that Clifford would be joining us as well.