QT with the Santillanes cousins

Greta and Lincoln had a great week with cousins Matthew, Allison, and Emily. Between rounds of serious Playdoh sessions, the girls enjoyed dressing up and cooking for their moms in the Rose Petal cottage, "skating" on the ice at the playground and stomping around in the fresh Friday snow, playing at the local library, painting their hair, and establishing themselves as dancing queens. Lincoln supervised from either his Exercaucer or his "sitting spot", and also provided instruction on cube rolling, hand clapping, and peek-a-boo. Matthew hurried through his homework every afternoon to help lower the estrogen exposure Linc had suffered during the day, and might have had something to do with Linc's recent interest in making more funny noises (neither are saying for sure...)

We headed over to Grandma Vickie's on Friday night and she babysat while Colleen and I enjoyed a design-your-own-handbag party hosted by one of her friends. I really didn't need another purse, but couldn't resist creating one. Plus, I couldn't remember when the last time was that I actually bought myself something not based on my "mom" status...'tho I did make sure the purse was big enough for diapers and snacks and such.

Saturday was incredibly busy. The day started with us shopping for seeds with Grandma for our flower and vegetable gardens (she'll make a trip to Jersey in a month to help us plant everything). Then we met up with the cousins to celebrate Allison and Emily's birthdays (March 27th and 19th). First, the kids enjoyed The Museum of Science & Technology and then we joined the masses at Chuck E. Cheese's (to say I felt like I was part of an Excedrin commercial is an understatement.) After two hours of whack-a-shark, catch-a-bee, and zap-a-bug, Greta charmed the prize lady into getting a snazzy "300 ticket" wand with her mere 36 tickets. We returned to mom's for yummy cake and ice cream: Barbie Mariposa and Barbie Fairytopia cakes Colleen had made!

Oh, in case you are wondering why, in the shots of Allison and Emily's birthday party events at The MOST and Chuck E. Cheese's is Greta the one who looks like the birthday girl, here's the scoop: On Saturday morning, I stumbled across a 75%-off sale on the Easter items at Target...which led to me purchasing a "Princess Easter Basket" for only $3.74. It included a dress, tiara, necklace, earrings, and ballet slippers, which Greta insisted on wearing (and has worn for about 24 of the last 50 hours)...and which inspired her to get the aforementioned new wand!

We are now in Rodman with Grandpa Jerry, Grandma Pat, and Great Grandpa Bob. I'll post about our North Country adventures tomorrow!