Easter 2016

Happy Easter from the Smith Family!!

Isabelle had a wonderful Easter!!  We spend the morning with DJ's parents and then went to the Klowak's for dinner.  Isabelle had lots of fun opening her Easter baskets.  We also had an Easter egg hunt in the living room and decorated Easter eggs.  We weren't too sure about marshmallow peeps at first, but they were eventually a winner!!

Our Favorite Easter Board Books of 2016

Isabelle and I - now almost 14 months old - have busy reading all sorts of Easter books together. Here is a list of some of our favorite Easter board books that we have read this year:

#7 Ollie's Easter Egg by Olivier Dunrea
Ollie's friends are all dying Easter eggs and he comes up with a plan on how to get them.  After going through a range of pre-school type feelings, Ollie comes up with a plan to have the best Easter egg hunt they've ever had.

#6 Easter Parade: Funny Faces by Roger Priddy
We loved reading this super simple and cute Easter book!  Isabelle spend almost an hour with her Grandma Carla entertained by the "googly-eyes" and eye holes.  Each page features a different Easter animals with big and bright illustrations.  Plus the sheep's name was "Belle" - to that's always a plus for us!

#5 Happy Easter Mouse! by Laura Joffe Numeroff
From the creator of the popular If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" series comes this wonderful board book in which Mouse tries to find out who is leaving the Easter eggs all over his house. Each page features different colored eggs and readers can help Mouse find and count the eggs.

#4 Llama Llama Easter Egg by Anna Dewdney
Just like the popular Llama Llama picture books, the board books by the same author introduce babies and toddlers to simple concepts with simple phrases and cute illustrations.  In this book, Llama Llama and his friend find all sorts of Easter treats to put in their baskets.

#3 Duck & Goose Here Comes the Easter Bunny by Tad Hills
In this fun and colorful board book, Duck & Goose are in a search for the Easter bunny.  Filled with will lots of laughter and, of course, Easter eggs!

#2 Here Comes Easter! by Caroline Jayne Church
One of our favorite books to read this Easter!!  This is a super cute and simple story about a little girl going on an Easter egg hunt.  The pictures are bright and colorful and there is a "touch and feel" part on every page.  Little can have fun looking for the Easter eggs and counting them as well!

#1 Owen's Marshmallow Chick by Kevin Henkes
This book features Owen (from the Mouse books) as he opens his Easter basket and discovers all sorts of candy and a toy chick.  The story is cute and simple and the famous "fuzzy yellow blanket" also makes an appearance.  We are looking for forward to read the other four books in the series as well!


Let us know some of your favorites - we are always looking for suggestions!  Happy Easter!!!

How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon?

Isabelle hasn't been feeling well all week so we've been spending lots of time reading books, watching some of our favorite movies, and drinking lots and lots of juice!  Today we got our one of our favorite books by Jane Yolen, How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon?  Super cute book about teaching kiddos how to behave when they are sick - but mostly just a great book to enjoy reading together.  And Isabelle has since decided that she LOVES making dinosaurs noises, especially when we are suppose to be trying to fall asleep!

Playing Piano and Pink Balloons

Isabelle is 13 1/2 months old today!!  Her new words include "hi," "hot," and "hat" - and, of course, some version of "dada."  Still no "mama" yet, but I'll keep trying! We have been going to lots of different storytimes at the library in the past couple of months and Isabelle is enjoying spending some time with kiddos her own age.  I even caught her trying to share the other day - I think!  We also made it to another stuffed animal sleepover in Waukesha a few weeks ago.  Isabelle spends Tuesdays in Germantown and we usually alternate between Lomira and Waukesha for the rest of the week.  I picked her up from my parents the other day and found this going on in the family room:

I think we might have to sign up for piano lessons a littler earlier than I thought ;)

Isabelle continues to be a great eater - we still haven't found anything that she doesn't like yet!  She is completely in 18-month clothes now and even some 24-month outfits.  We are looking forward to hopefully some warmer weather soon and swimming lessons in Hartford starting next weekend!!

We spent the afternoon today at my best friend Jessica's baby shower.  Isabelle loved the balloons and can't wait to meet her new friend, baby Ava!!

Isabelle has had lots of fun the past few months helping me with Jessica's shower gift: