Twinkle Toes

Egg Hunt

Mia’s first Easter Egg Hunt took place this past weekend at the home of one of the lovely ladies that I met on a local mom’s group online. She opened up her beautiful home to almost 70 parents and children!

Mia wasn’t so sure at first, but once she saw some of the shiny plastic goodies she knew this was a good thing!

Daddy lends a hand:

Ugh, wretched balloons. She had developed such a fascination with balloons lately, and you know how I feel about balloons… I am TERRIFIED of them. It all stems back to a birthday party I attended as a little girl overseas and a balloon was filled with something other than helium.  It got too close to the birthday cake and exploded, burning the birthday boy severely. I know chances are that will never happen again, but I can’t stand them. And now she loves them. Sigh.

We had such a great time at the party, though, and it was good to see everyone!

Farm Mobile

Sometimes I forget how easy things are here in the city.  I complain about having to drive OTP to get real Chinese food or having to fill up the tank more than once a month, quickly forgetting how different things were when I lived in Florida.  But we have so many great things available to us that make living here grand (and yes, I should blog about those more).  For instance, Farm Mobile.

Farm Mobile is a mobile farmers market on wheels brought to us by local organic farmers Riverview Farms. Inside, shelves are stocked with organic locally- grown produce, free-range eggs, breads from H&F Bread Co., and sustainable meats.  They stop at various neighborhoods around town, alerting people via Facebook or Twitter to their schedule updates, and one of their stops is right in our neighborhood.  Could shopping locally-grown get any easier?

Little Farm Mobile fan (whose face and hands are purple from eating Super Puffs!)

Mia picks out some turnips and greens

Our haul – H&F bread, hakurei turnips, swiss chard, braising greens, and Riverview Farms hot italian sausage – yum!

Zoo!

We met up with friends & neighbors to take advantage of a sunny day at the zoo.  We are members and have taken Mia several times, but this was definitely the first time she recognized the animals and reacted to them in such a lively way. Since it was morning/ feeding time, almost all of the animals were out and active, and it was a lot of fun to see her so animated.

She also got to wear her new “I love tacos” t-shirt:

Mia watching the meerkats scurry about:

Afterward we had a fun lunch at Six Feet Under (oysters and beer for mommy – yay!).

Natty Narwhal

It’s coming!

$10 DIY Sandbox

Spring is in the air and the weather has certainly warmed up around here.  Despite the insane amount of pollen, we have been hanging out on the deck at home and enjoying stretching out our toes and wearing short sleeves.

We don’t have much in the way of “outdoor toys” for the little one since she was immobile this time last year, but this post from Prudent Mama seemed ingenious.

So off we went and got some play sand from Lowe’s and a plastic storage bin from Target. Add a couple of plastic beach toys and buckets from CVS and we spent a total of just about $10 for infinite fun.

She loves the texture of the sand and picking it up and tossing it. Then I turned around for a second and found this:

Little stinker hopped right in!  Whee!  And when all is done, we just pop the lid back on and wait for another sunny day.  Can’t beat that!

Us girls with our dads

In like a lion…

What a month March was!  The Mr. was out of town for the entire first work-week at a conference, leaving me to tend to the little all by myself.  Confession time:  I’m a little bit very spoiled in the fact that The Mr. is pretty much a super husband and father, thus I’ve never really had to tackle handling the baby alone.  Like ever.  It seemed a bit daunting, but we actually had a fantastic week and both survived – hurrah!

Then I exacted some revenge (I kid, I kid…) by leaving them at home and flying down to Florida for a girls weekend at the beach with some of my besties.  It was a fantastic time – the weather was gorgeous and I loved spending time with my friends who I haven’t seen in ages.  This, of course, tested the Mr.’s solo parenting skills and wouldn’t you know the baby got a fever + vomiting + general yuckiness.  Poor baby, but Super Daddy took care of her like a champ and luckily it was at the end of the weekend and I was on my way back.

The following week we finally were all in town at the same time and headed up to the mountains for a weekend of well deserved R&R.  It was super relaxing and there’s nothing cuter than seeing how excited the Mr. gets when he’s in the mountains.

(And I think we’ll stay put at least until summer!)

Day 15: Shopping List

Just my current shopping list.  Groceries for my husband’s birthday dinner and stuff for the pantry.  Instead of the usual corned beef and cabbage I make for him, this midweek affair will be a grilled rack of lamb with yummy veggies.  Oh, and Fudgie the Whale’s attendance is required.

I’ve also got to get some things from Target – and we all know I’ll end up with much more in my basket than that list!

Day 14: Things I love about…

NARWHALS!