The Littlest Turns Four

March 18, 2012: LEGOLAND for Caelum's birthday! Fun times the day before his actual birthday playing with tons of Legos and looking at cool Lego creations I would never have imagined! Here are some pics:

We love green!

March 17: Happy St. Patrick's Day! :) Busy day for us! It was slightly amusing that we were just about the only people at church wearing green for the holiday, but since we are by far some of the only people of European descent there, I guess that is not surprising. :P Aileana's Sabbath School class sang for the church service, and she loved it! Then we had a fun time at Adventurers in the afternoon, and went to some friends' house for the evening! Overall, a relaxing and enjoyable day. :)

Forklifts and Scones

March 14: The long-awaited day has arrived! We got our truck back today! Yay! We were a bit disturbed and amused at how they brought it to us at the impound lot, but nevertheless thankful to have it in our possession once again. Now to get it repaired so we can actually drive it...

Also much-anticipted was Aile and I's Mother/Daughter date! Aile wanted to "relax and have fun and look at books", so off we went to A Real Bookstore, a locally-owned version of Barnes 'n' Noble. We had a great time, found some neat items, and even stopped for a scone and hot chocolate to top off the evening! Love my special girl! :)

Friends! A Fun and Colorful Day!

March 12: Today we took advantage of our friends' Spring Break and had a field trip! :) We started off the day at Color Me Mine, a local pottery painting studio. The kids all had a great time being creative, and they are excited about the "Prayer Request Boxes" they made! They each decided on their own that they wanted to use their special creations in this way, which I thought was a neat idea. Here are some pics from our pottery experience:

After the fun at Color Me Mine, we headed to Frisco Commons Park for a picnic and to play. It was a beautiful day, I only wish I had remembered to take pictures! Ahh! :) But we did enjoy the bonus: a girl selling Girl Scout cookies at the playground. :P So glad to have friends!

Climbing Around the Grapevine

March 11: Family Fun Day took us on a small road trip today! We headed out to explore the very cool little town of Grapevine, TX! They have a neat vintage railroad there, and while we were disappointed that we missed the ride, we had fun exploring the grounds and visiting the blacksmith shop, where the blacksmith taught the kids how to make miniature cowboy hats out of nickels! :) After the railroad, we found a pretty little botanical garden and park in the center of town. It was relaxing to walk through and see the foliage and flowers, and also learn a bit about gardening and composting! We explored a bit more of the town, and then took the kids out for special treat--Rainforest Cafe! They loved the thunderstorms every 12 minutes and the animation of such animals as the gorillas, tigers, and elephants. We were seated next to one of the large fish tanks, so there was so gap in conversation around the table. We told them that Caelum's birthday was that coming week, and they sang to him and brought him a huge brownie volcano! He was startled by the attention and cried for pics, but afterward said that was his favorite part. :) Here are a few pics from our day:

Fun at Fair Park!

March 4:

This was a great family fun day! We headed down to downtown Dallas for the first time, to Fair Park. We discovered it is named this because it is the location of the state fair each year, and has a huge permanent ferris wheel, named the Texas Star, towering over the grounds. When we arrived, we discovered that this weekend was Irish Fest, which sounded fun until we noticed that every ad for it spoke of large volumes of beer being consumed. So we stuck with our plan to go to the Dallas Museum of Nature & Science and Children's Museum. A good choice because it was way more kid-friendly, and it was FREE! (Thank you, Tellus Science Museum reciprocity!)

When we were finished touring both buildings of the museum, we strolled around the Lagoon at Fair Park and watched the turtles and the swan paddle boats. It was a very pretty and relaxing was to spend the afternoon!

After all that fun stuff, we were sure hungry! Aile really wanted Italian food, so we did a quick search, only to find our two favorite Italian restaurants! Maggiano's and Buca di Beppo! So we decided we should treat the kids to the Buca experience. It was superb. Sean has pics of the total splurge dessert we had on his phone, so I will try to add those to this post sometime...