Hamster Haven

Easter Delivery

 In addition to their new furry friends, Grandma and Grandpa Hoskins also surprised the kids with a special Easter Delivery--A Live Butterfly Garden.  

The kids are super fascinated by the little black caterpillars,

And it plays in perfectly with our recent Animal Classification Lesson.  Now we've just got to cross our fingers that we get to see them emerge before we head out to Washington D.C. for two weeks.

Easter Surprise!

There are next to no holidays at our home that are not planned out to the very last detail—at least four months in advance!  As previous posts explain, that proved to be quite the problem for our most recent Christmas celebration.  It likewise bit us in the backside for our Easter plans this year.  With a new home and new furniture for Christmas, what would be more perfect for Easter than something for the outside of the house—say, a new kids play set.  That had been our plan for ages, and should have been the perfect present.  Once again; however, our dependence on other people to do their job and do it on time threw a wrench in our plan.  This time, it was the landscapers who dropped the ball.  We met with them back in the fall so we could be top on their list in the Spring.  Still, when Spring came, they just couldn’t get the cement curbing and Astroturf in in time.  What a disappointment!

Nick and I were like lost puppies without a clue how to move forward.  We hummed and hawed and tried to come up with a plan B, but nothing seemed to measure up.  Finally, we settled on a new idea: Rollerblades.  For the whole family.  It wasn’t a park in our backyard—the kids would simply end up getting that anyway—but at least it was something fun the whole family could do together.  So, though somewhat anticlimactic, we researched the brands, made the purchase, and had everything ready for a Sunday morning surprise.  It wouldn’t be the best Easter, kind of like it wasn't the most outlandish Christmas, but it really wasn’t the end of the world.

What was the seemingly end of the world; however, was two days before Easter when a girlfriend sent me a text asking where I got our family’s roller blades and Madison and Spencer intercepted it.  Present #2 down the drain.  I had no other choice but to tell the kids that I had bought them rollerblades as a present from Nick and I and was left once again without a present from Mr. E. B. himself.  Now I was really in a pickle.  There was no time to order something new—it would have to be something we could purchase in Bismarck.  And since I had spent the entire Easter budget on roller blades, Nick wanted it to be something dirt cheap.  What on Earth could we get though?  We had no idea!!

Easter Eve morning arrived with no stroke of genius to speak of.  We kicked off the day with a special Easter Egg hunt—the kids are having a candy blitz (no candy) until Halloween, so this year we did a hunt on our own with eggs full of money.

Then the kids got to open their Easter presents from us and give them a go.

Then it was play time with friends, preparing the Easter Eve picnic, and straining our brains to figure out what we could possibly do.   Evening arrived, and we took our picnic and roller blades down to the river.  The kids ate and then we all took a ‘roll’ down the river walk on our new wheels.

 Maybe it was the fresh breeze in our faces, I don’t know, but as we rolled along by the river, my stroke of genius finally came.  I sent Nick to the store for them and I took the kids home and got them ready for bed.  When Nick got back we made our Easter Eve pavlova, carefully placed it in the oven, and tucked the kiddos into bed.  Nick was still somewhat in doubt about my ‘crazy’ gift selection, but I was convinced it would be a hit with the kids, and for a cool $30, (we already had most of the gift) Nick couldn’t complain too much.

Easter morning the kids awoke and lined up on the stairs.  After a quick picture, 

they ran down the stairs to be greeted by an unfamiliar sight.

  There, right behind their Easter baskets, sat......

Yep.  A cage.  A hamster cage.  

With two adorable black and white fancy hamsters in it.  The kids were mesmerized!! 

Within ten minutes they were cuddling them and taking turns suggesting names.  As the naming session extended, I suggested we name them after two of the seven dwarves.  My sweet children; however, immediately thought of another set of dwarves and presto: Fili and Kili the hamsters were added to our family circle.  There wasn’t much else of excitement in their baskets, but the kids didn’t care.  All they wanted to do was play with their new furry friends.  It was exactly the kind of Easter morning I was hoping for.  I only hope the Easter excitement doesn’t wear off too soon and the Easter Bunny doesn’t regret such a rash decision.

Here are the kids in their new Easter outfits. (We did finally tear them away from the hamsters and make them go to church.)

Oh, and here are some pictures of us dying eggs and doing the traditional egg roll.  We had to do it a few days after Easter since the weather didn’t cooperate.

The Barstools

Who knew something so simple could make a person so happy!?  

The barstools arrived this week--our first piece of main floor furniture to come.  They were kind of a splurge, at just over $300 a piece, and not what I thought I would order at all.  I had been looking at much more traditional stools, and then bought these on a whim after seeing them in the Restoration Hardware catalog.  They're super industrial, but the wood is a rich tobacco color and the metal ties in with our stainless steel appliances.  They are much more trendy than I normally go, (my girlfriends are all so proud!) but surprisingly, Nick and I both love them.  What a relief.  Every out-of-state furniture order is a bit of a gamble, and it's always nice when something works out.  It's also nice to have something actually arrive in a week instead of waiting three months for it!!

Animal Classification

Time for the little kids to start their animal classification binders.  It's crazy to think it's time to start repeating all of our science and history classes already!

Preschool April Fool's and Silly Days

As far as preschool co-ops go, sometimes the lessons and activities go better than others.  That said, this weeks classes were definitely some of the best we have had--and after years of home preschools, that's saying something.

The first class of the week fell right on April Fool's Day.  At first I wasn't very excited about this.  I'm not much of a prankster, and we've never been really outgoing on this holiday at our house. (We did move Daddy's car last year, which was pretty funny--but that about sums it up for us.)  After enlisting the kids help to search online for ideas; however, I started to get more enthused.  We would start the day with some simple pranks--like telling the moms preschool wasn't at our house, or throwing plastic bugs, etc.  We could then listen to our April Fool's song on our Brite Music CD, and follow it up with a talk about the difference between nice, silly pranks, and pranks that were really mean. (aka: bullying) After that it would be time for snacks--and I had just the thing: french fries and ketchup with pink lemonade.

Or at least that's what it looked like.  It was really sugared bread dough and pureed

 strawberry jelly with food-colored water!

The kids were tickled by the surprise.  So tickled, in fact, that I had no trouble getting them to agree to forfeiting preschool play time for another fun April Fool's activity.  We would pull another food prank, but this time on the kids' parents.

For the next half an hour the kids made faces as we mixed together the ingredients for meatloaf muffins with mashed potato frosting.  

They looked pretty good when they were done, and the kids were super excited as they each gave one to their parents.

Then Thursday's preschool was a silly day, special request of Mason.  He had been to Emma's Joy School silly day and wanted to have a silly day of his own. The kids dressed up silly, 

 

we did silly art projects, sang silly songs, read silly poems, and had an all around silly time.  It was a fabulous way for me to close out my last preschool day of my last preschool co-op for the last time in my life!

Utah Shopping Trip

Well, we have been in our new home for two months now.  While it is wonderful to have all of the space, it is a little disconcerting that there is practically nothing within that space.  As previous posts have delineated, the kids have their bedrooms done, and we bought ourselves a new mattress so we could stop sleeping on the floor, (Our queen set is down in the guest bedroom ) but that is about the extent of the new furniture we have purchased thus far.  In other words, the second floor is livable, and the basement has the kids entertainment center, toys, and beanbags from our old house--but the main floor is all but barren.  Gratefully, thanks to Nick's insisting, it does have a few things.  Much to my dismay, he made us move our old kitchen table and the love seat and chair from our original study.  I had wanted to get rid of them before the big move, both to avoid having to move them again, and because I couldn't bear the thought of having to move anything old into the new house.  Since Nick did the moving; however, he got the final say, and they made it to their temporary home on the main floor of the house.  Without them we'd be eating and sitting on the floor.  Still, they look rather ridiculous, and I wish they had a huge temporary sign on them so everyone knew they weren't there to stay.

 Finding something to replace them, though, has proven to be as much of a full time-job as building the house was.  For example, we have been to every store in Bismarck to try and find the right kitchen table.  We've even worked with several vendors to have one custom made.  We cannot; however, seem to settle on which one will work best without breaking the bank.

The living room is likewise a problem.  Since the music room got cut out of our plan, the living room got a little extra square footage and must host the grand piano Nick has dreamed of owning.  I'm fine with this purchase, but without the piano in the room, it is a little hard to figure out how to arrange the furniture around it.  And since no place in Bismarck has the piano we want, we are likewise high and dry in the living room furniture department. It is frustrating and tiresome, especially since I can't seem to be blessed with the female quality of enjoying shopping for it all.  On the contrary, it all just seems like a big waste of time, not to mention a waste of babysitting funds, and I'm ready to be done doing it.  Consequently, with winter wearing on us, and the chance to meet up with both parents in Utah, we decided to use another of Nick's vacation weeks (He only gets thirteen, after all!) and see if we couldn't have better shopping luck somewhere else.  

That somewhere else would be Salt Lake City. We packed our bags and were off!

On our way into town, we took our usual stop-over in Garland to visit my Carter Grandparents.  My parents were also there, and our two-hour stop morphed into an overnight and all-the-next-day visit.  It was wonderful, and we decided it was high time to get a few updated pictures with them.

Afterwards, we headed down to Salt Lake where we had double family weddings to attend--cousins on both sides of the family.  Then a day of rest on Sunday, and a week of playing with Hoskins' cousins interspersed with more trips to furniture and decor stores.

 Here are some shots of the kids ice skating with their cousins.

Of Daddy fixing up cousin Harrison when he crashed on the ice.

And the kids at cousin Harrison's birthday party.   

The kids had a great visit, and thankfully, during the week we were there, Nick and I were also able to square away a few things: two classic leather chairs and an ottoman for the library, a ridiculously expensive sitting chair for the kids' music nook--which I'm sure the kids' piano instructor, who happens to be obliging enough to come to our home, will fully appreciate--and some extra material to refinish the kids piano bench with.  Additionally, after stopping in a few piano stores, which were supposed to be just for fun, we ended up taking the financial plunge and just buying the piano Nick wanted.  Well, the refurbished 1920's Steinway he really wanted got the wife veto, since I would like to purchase other furniture in the next ten years, but the brand new, high gloss walnut, Knabe Parlor Grand, complete with it's own wi-fi and player system, got the thumbs up.  Thus, we categorized the trip as a great success, and went home recommitted to finishing off our furniture purchases.  We made it as far as finally deciding upon an informal dining room table and bar stools, as well as ordering all of our bedroom furniture, but stopped short of finding what we wanted for the living room.  That will have to wait for a month or so until the piano actually arrives and we get another out-of-town shopping trip on the calender.