On Ellie's last day of school before spring break (St. Patrick's Day!), the preschool held a little Easter celebration that included a concert, parade and egg hunt.
...we went into this performance with much lowered expectations. A couple of weeks before the performance I was talking to Ellie about it and, operating on a hunch that she only sulks like that when I'm around, I asked her if she wanted me to come watch her sing on stage. She answered "no," and I lied through my teeth and told her okay, I won't come. LIES.
I went. We all did. Eric left work early, Grammy came to visit, E.J. rode in the baby carrier on my back. But, we snuck in at the very last second, found seats in the back, and literally spent the entire show hunched down to stay hidden behind the people in front of us so Ellie wouldn't spot us. We must have looked absolutely ridiculous.
The glamorous world of motherhood, my friends.
BUT IT WORKED. She still didn't sing, but I didn't expect her to given that in addition to seeing her prior performance, her teacher specifically mentioned at our parent-teacher conference that they can't get Ellie to sing. So I didn't expect singing; I was just hoping for at least a neutral expression on her face. Not only did she rock a neutral expression, but she DID THE HAND MOTIONS. To every song! She actually did it! It was so great.
GO ELLIE!
Look at her doing it!
Here's a little snippet of the closing number so you can see for yourself:
(pardon the shaky camera work - I was hiding and just holding my camera up, plus had an antsy E.J. strapped to my back!
After the performance, the parents were invited out to the walkway alongside the church building to watch the kids in a little Easter parade, led by the Easter Bunny himself. They were all so cute - each class made their own Easter bonnets and looked adorable!
E.J. waiting for the parade to start
Here they come!
E.J. was so excited to see the Easter Bunny!
Ellie on parade!
When the parade reached the front of the church, each class posed for photos with the bunny.
The cutest.
Then, they went into the garden for an egg hunt!
They're off!
Ellie on the hunt
I don't think he was supposed to, but E.J. couldn't resist lending a helping hand!
Ellie gave him a soccer ball egg!
Ellie had so much fun playing with her friends, even after all the eggs had been found.
Playing with her best friend
It was such a nice morning! I'm so pleased with how it went. We're so proud of our Ellie!
Way to go, Ellie!
And you better believe that we're going to be hiding behind people in the audience at Ellie's ballet recital this month!
We had our first beach day of the year over spring break! The weather has been heavenly lately and we took advantage with a morning at Jacksonville Beach a couple of weeks ago. The kids loved playing in the sand and the kiddie pool we brought with us, and as the tide went out, Ellie really enjoyed playing on a little sandbar and in the pools of water left behind.
Hugs on beach day!
Officer E.J. is here to make sure nobody has TOO much fun at the beach.
Chasing the seagulls is a favorite pasttime!
E.J. was a little more low-key about it.
Eric and E.J.
Building sand castles (which E.J. immediately came over to and smashed because BOYS)
Eric and Ellie off to find some seashells
Ellie had an absolute blast!
Beach fun with Daddy
It seems like every time we go to the beach and take pictures, I'm struck by how much Ellie has grown since we moved here. I have a few pictures of Ellie from various beach trips that stand out in my mind, and it's amazing to look at them and remind myself that she was younger than E.J. is now when we moved to Jacksonville. It hardly seems like it has been that long, but the proof is in the photos:
Ellie at the beach: August 2013, June 2014, May 2015 and March 2016. So grown up now!
They're both getting too big too fast, don't you think?
After our day at Sea World, we spent the night in a hotel in Orlando, then hit the road again the next morning, en route to Kennedy Space Center. Ellie has been super into outer space lately, and loves to tell us that she's going to be an astronaut when she grows up. So, we figured we should take advantage of Eric's free teacher admission and take Ellie to Kennedy Space Center!
The kids were so excited, and dressed the part to boot.
Our little astronaut in her flight suit, and her little brother in his rocketship overalls!
When we first arrived, we got our tickets then took some pictures out front, including with the big rocket launch countdown clock.
We're ready for a day of space fun!
Countdown!
Let's do this.
Once we were inside, we spent some time perusing the Rocket Garden. The kids especially loved the ones they could go in themselves! In particular, you could walk along the service arm that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked across to get to Apollo 11. Fancy! (We must have walked through that thing a billion times by the time we left at the end of the day.)
The rocket garden
Astronaut Ellie is ready to go!
Off in search of more rockets to ride
Walking through the service arm to her space shuttle
E.J. took a turn too, of course!
A trio of astronauts
Ellie got a ton of compliments on her outfit as we were walking around! She looked so awesome.
Honestly.
Next, we went into the Atlantis exhibit. You go into a big room and watch a movie about how it was developed (at the end of which, E.J. yelled "YAY!" and got a pretty good chuckle out of the crowd), then you go into another room with a video of a shuttle launch. After that, the back wall becomes transparent and you see the giant Atlantis shuttle suspended in front of you. Very cool! We went right in to explore.
Ellie and the space shuttle
It was huge!
The back end
Astronaut! (Or, as E.J. said a million times that day: "ah-naught!")
We spent a ton of time in there. They had lots to look at, and a ton of interactive stuff. Ellie got to "work the controls" of the shuttle, and she and Eric tried their hands at repairing a ship via simulator. There was model space station to crawl through (Ellie loved this thing), and all sorts of other fun stuff. Eric also did a launch simulator ride while I hung out with the too-short-to-ride kiddos.
Manning the controls like a pro
Repairing a space shuttle
Ellie in the model space station
Exploring the exhibits!
When we finished in the Atlantis exhibit we decided to grab some lunch. Eric ordered food while I let the kids run around the rocket garden some more.
Cuteness.
After lunch we went to hear a real astronaut talk! Astronaut Don Thomas (of Cleveland, Ohio!) gave a great talk about becoming an astronaut and what it's like to be in space, and shared some stories and personal photographs of his space days. It was really cool! E.J. ran around the back of the auditorium like a crazy person the whole time, but Ellie listened pretty well. When the Q&A portion of the program came, Ellie raised her hand to ask a question! I thought she might ask "When can I go into outer space?" because we had talked about that previously, but when I asked her what she was going to say she said, "BOO BOO BUTT!!!!!" (That's a line from The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak, which Ellie got for her birthday and was OBSESSED with and now both my kids say "boo boo butt" on the regular.) Of course, the guy with the microphone came over to her right at that moment and I was frantically signaling him to keep on going, no questions here! But he quietly asked Ellie what she wanted to ask and she said, "I like people," because obviously. So he just chuckled and said she can take a picture with the astronaut soon and moved on, thank heavens. We escaped the astronaut talk without calling him a boo boo butt in front of an auditorium full of people.
Of course, when the talk was over, they did allow everyone to meet the astronaut and take a photo, When we had our turn, Astronaut Thomas complimented Ellie's flight suit and she responded by calling him a "blueberry pizza head" (another phrase from that book), so. Lesser of two evils, I guess?
Meeting Astronaut Thomas!
After calling a real life astronaut ridiculous names we decided to blow off some steam by playing in the kids' playspace that Ellie had been asking about all day. E.J. was a bit too small, so I ran around the rocket garden with him, but Ellie had a blast in the play area.
Play area for Junior Astronauts
She liked the "moon rocks"
Our last major attractions to see were very exciting for the kids: we got "space ice cream" (Dippin' Dots, which they both LOVED) and hit the gift shop, where Ellie got a bracelet with her name on it and E.J. got a toy space shuttle.
So excited for her ice cream!
New space shuttle for the big guy!
And with that, we decided to call it a day and head back to Jacksonville. Needless to say, both kids passed out immediately in the car!
We had such a great time, and I would love to go back again! There was a good bit more to see (we didn't even make it around to the bus tour part), but we really enjoyed all that we were able to do. I'm so glad we were able to get our little astronaut to the space center and pique her interest in space travel even more!
