French Braid Test Run

Laina's dance recital comes up in June and her pictures are in May. Laina's dance teacher had this great idea - - the girls should wear their hair in French Braids for the recital - GREAT, right! Yeah - - - if my three year old had long hair! Laina has been growing her hair for 3.5 long years now and its still barely shoulder length. Needless to say, we cannot do a french braid! So, I consulted with our trusty stylist, Jaime who thought she'd be able to put Laina's hair in two french braids. We decided to do a test run this week to make sure it would work before the recital and after adding lots of hair product to her head, the french braids came out very cute! Take a look!

Jaime and Laina

The braids! Pretty!!!

Laina's patience pays off with a lollipop from Jaime - she's rather proud of herself

My Gardeners

Joe has been wanting to plant a rose bush at our house since we bought it 6 years ago. This was the year! I think this was the perfect year to do it because Laina could totally help out and we will always look back at that bush and remember that she helped to plant it with Daddy.

A quick chat before heading out to garden

Helping Daddy

Teamwork!

Cooper gets in on the action

Always time to strike a pose

What child labor laws?

Almost done!

Now we wait for it to grow and bloom. Laina is looking forward to watering it often!

Play date with MacKay

On Saturday, Laina invited MacKay, Gannon, Kim and Rick over for a play date. We spent the afternoon playing with bubbles, swinging on the swing set, eating pizza and enjoying the 80 degree April day.

Laina draws a bunny

Laina has really gotten into drawing on her doodle. She started drawing dogs and cats and now she has drawn a bunny. I think it looks pretty fabulous!

Laina and Colby's Play Date

Colby and Karla came over to visit yesterday. Colby had a craft he had made for Laina that they delivered to us yesterday. It was this very cute picture frame he made with a nice photo of Laina and Colby together in the frame. It is so cute and is going right up to Laina's room. Laina had a great time playing with Colby. She loves when friends come over. This morning she asked me "Mommy, who is coming over today?" -- Sadly, the reply she received was "no one"....

Eating grapes

Grapes and smiles

Getting ready for the slide

Having fun with bubbles - I love their giggles!

Easter Sunday

As predicted....the Easter Bunny made an appearance at our house! He left Laina lots of fun goodies in her Easter basket including a Disney Princess hopping ball, walkie talkies, a Cinderella tiara to match her dress, lots of movies including the highly coveted "Backyardigans, Tale of the Mighty Knights", a ton of books - - - and a very fun indoor Easter egg hunt. The eggs were filled with chocolate eggs, quarters, lip gloss rings, and new jibbitz for Laina's crocs!

Because we celebrated the holiday with family on Saturday we made Sunday a complete day of rest. I cooked us a nice breakfast of french toast and then we just did nothing for the rest of the day and we went out for dinner so that it was a nice mellow low stress holiday - my new favorite thing!

Laina's easter basket

Cooper and the kitties easter basket, with Laina's in the background

Laina opening her eggs after the hunt!

Max finds his catnip sack left by the bunny!

The egg hunt

Laina and Daddy survey the loot!

French toast breakfast

Easter Saturday

We had an early Easter celebration with Grammy, Grampy, Auntie Di, Uncle Tom and Cuzzie Nik down at my parent's house. Cooper took his first long road trip and did great in the car, mostly sleeping on the floor in between my legs. Laina had a grand old time as she always does at my parent's house. It was nice to spend the holiday with family.

Laina in her springy butterfly dress

See Grampy does like animals

Happy Easter!

Cooper reunited with Auntie Di