Preschool: Peter Rabbit

We recently studied The Tale of Peter Rabbit in preschool.We learned about the United Kingdom and looked at some pictures of London and the English countryside. We learned about Beatrix Potter's life and saw some of her sketches of animals and then made our own sketches. (She had rabbits names Peter and Benjamin!) We learned about gardening. We did an experiment with food coloring and celery. We discussed rules and why we have them. We also learned about English culture and some of the words they use in England that are different from the words we use in the United States.

The celery in food coloring. Although it is a bit hard to see, the dye turned the leaves the color of the dye.

Closer view of a few--the sunset orange was the most pronounced.

My, what big feet you have!

Sarah's done it! Her feet are just about the same size as mine (although hers are narrower). She is definitely growing up!

Happy Easter!

We hope everyone had a great Easter! Here are a few family pictures we took on Easter.

And a few pictures of the kids.

And lest anyone think we got a great picture on our first try, here are some of the 40 pictures we took before getting everyone smiling nicely at the same time. We're thankful for digital cameras!

Easter activities

The day before Easter, we had a lot of activities. It started at home where the Easter bunny stopped by and left some baskets and eggs.

The girls looking at their baskets.

Sarah on the hunt.

Megan hunting.

Matthew looking at the contents of his eggs.

Excited about candy!

Matthew liked his stash!

U wearing the butterflies the girls received.

Then we went to the church, where we had a yummy breakfast, an Easter egg hunt and some games.

Megan munching.

Lots of eggs!

What cute bunnies!

Megan doing the egg walk.

Matthew doing the egg walk. He had his technique for keeping the egg on the spoon down!

Doing a gunny sack race.

Dad, Megan and Matthew.

Then we went to the neighborhood activity where there was lunch, sno cones, balloons, face painting and bounce houses. Plus an Easter egg hunt. Of course.

Matthew's balloon sword was bigger than he was!

Cute balloon turtle. Sarah enjoyed eating a ton of sno cones!

Megan getting her face painted. These gals were good!

Ahhhh! What cute birds!

Bunnies and a rainbow for Sarah.

The Easter egg hunt. The kids got a ton of eggs!!!

Megan and Matthew with the Easter Bunny!

It was a fun and busy day!

Spark!

Last weekend, we went to the Spark! festival at the Mesa Arts Center. They had all sorts of fun activities for people to do. I heard that a lot of them are college student's senior design projects--pretty cool stuff.

When you put your hands over the holes on the tubes, it made all sorts of noise. Sometimes it was music, sometimes it was birds, sometimes it was a cow.

Spinning tops!

Playing this board lit up the lights on the tree and also changed their color.

Making little clay sculptures.

With the sculptures before adding them to everyone else's.

A portion of the agglomeration of sculptures. U's and Matthew's are in the foreground.

Megan's. She made it all by herself.

Sarah's.

Some of the perler bead creations we made.

Grandma and Grandpa O Visit

Over Spring Break, Grandma and Grandpa O came for a visit. We enjoyed having them with us. With all the sickness we were having, we did have to scale back our plans a little but we still managed to do at least most of grandpa's traditions.

The silly side of grandpa!

On the porch swing.

Beautiful sunset!

Matthew and me at the Desert Botanical Garden during the day. It was really beautiful. We saw a roadrunner, a number of hummingbirds and some rabbits who were playing with each other.

U, the kids and Gramps.

The kids meditating on the labyrinth.

We took this picture on the posts again.

Matthew, front and center.

Grandma and Matthew.

We ate lunch at In N Out. After dinner, we had dessert at Kokomos.

The evening light exhibit at the Botanical Garden. These first few pictures are from a display that lit up an entire hillside. It was quite impressive!

A couple of color-changing orbs.

Part of this huge dome. The filaments inside kind of look like Rapunzel's hair.

Grandpa left Monday morning to go back to work. Grandma stayed a few more days, even sleeping in Megan's room with her (which Megan was super excited about!).

Sarah, Grandma and U went to pack food at Feed My Starving Children. They all really enjoyed it, although Sarah didn't particularly like the hair net.

We went to the Easter Pageant at the Mesa Temple. Here are the kids with a centurion.

Playing Uno while waiting for the pageant.

A friendly angel sat down and joined in the game. (She's not wearing her angel clothes here since those would get dirty easily.) She was the angel at the front and center of the angel scenes. She was super nice!

You can see that Megan and Matthew are entranced.

Thursday was St. Patrick's Day. The kids found the leprechaun's hat, which had sticky bugs and balloons.

Dividing up the balloons.

Grandma had a few stowaways when it was time for her to leave.

Strong grandma!

Grandma leaving with the kids.

(I have to add that Matthew got really panicky when Grandma started the car with him in it. He might have been joking about going with grandma, but he actually wanted to stay at home. He just never figured she'd start the car with him in it. Once we assured him it was just for a brief moment, he enjoyed the ride.)

It was sure nice to have Grandma and Grandpa visit!