Butterflies with Aunt Becca

My sister, Becca, is visiting us for Easter weekend. She arrived Wednesday night, and we had planned to spend yesterday with Megan at the St. Louis Zoo, but the temperature in the morning lingered in the 40s and low 50s, so we opted for an indoor activity. We went to the Butterfly House, located in a park that includes a nice playground and an antique indoor carousel. Afterward, we ate lunch at the nearby Sweet Tomatoes. It's a restaurant I'd been wanting to try for a while, and its main feature is a huge salad bar. Delicious!

Here are some Canada geese with babies just outside the Butterfly House.

Megan admiring the waterfall and butterflies.

Butterflies eating bananas.

Lots of beautiful orchids.

Megan in a bubble, surrounded by giant cockroaches! The Butterfly House has a small collection of various other bugs like these guys, tarantulas, millipedes, centipedes, and miscellaneous beetles. Sorry about the glare.

Megan and Becca also had fun on the playground outside for a few minutes.

And we saved the carousel for last. We love this because it's only a dollar per person per ride!

Megan's announcement:

Baby number two: Due around October 30

Bug boxes, birthdays, and visitors

Here are a few photos from this past week. The first is of Megan enjoying a bug box my parents gave her. We found some type of beetle perched on the back door last weekend and I put it in the bug box. Megan loved looking at her bug, but I'm not sure he survived for long. I later found leg pieces inside the box.

Megan looked cute in this sundress last Sunday, so we snapped some pictures. 

Josh's birthday was Thursday, so I picked up fixings for mushroom and Swiss burgers (his favorite), corn on the cob, and roasted seasoned potatoes.

Last night, we hosted my Aunt Debby and her (and my dad's) cousin, Linda. They were on their way from Texas to Indiana to visit family, so they stayed overnight at our house to break up their trip. 

                                                                                           
Aunt Debby gave Megan a very fun playset with reusable stickers. This kept Megan occupied for a long time this afternoon.

Easter Bunny fail

I took Megan to a nearby mall this morning to welcome the Easter Bunny. They had a free egg hunt and Megan got a few pieces of candy along with a free movie pass (clever how the adults will have to spend money just to use that one pass, too). She also colored an Easter picture and got to meet the Bunny himself, who was mingling with the crowd and available for free candid photos. Just like with Santa last December, Megan loved watching the Easter Bunny from a distance but was anxious about getting too close. I thought she might be more willing to have her picture taken with him if I was right there. Apparently not.

Here's Megan with her little bag of loot after all the fun.

And here she is enjoying a coloring page.

Visit from Grandpa and Grandma

Here are a few pictures from the past week, including Hildegard giving Josh a "hug."

My parents came to visit for the weekend. Megan snuggled with her Grandma while enjoying some hot chocolate in a sippy cup.

And Grandpa is always willing to share his soda/pop with Megan.

And this morning at church, some friends gave us this dress for Megan. It's quite fancy, and Megan has been wearing it around the house all afternoon. We are in the "I want to wear dresses all day, every day" stage.

Happy Spring!

Because spring is around the corner, we pulled out a box of Easter/spring goodies this afternoon. Here's Megan enjoying her "like new" toys.

On Thursday, the temperature got into the low 80s, which was a record for our area, and our house stayed toasty through the evening. The next day we went out and got Megan some new pajamas for warmer weather. It's a shirt, shorts, and pants that came in a set, but Megan thinks the shorts and pants are meant to be worn together.

We've seen a wide range of weather this week. On Monday we had snow. Here's the snowman we made. I think he was completely gone in less than 48 hours.

We found a new park!

For some time now I've been meaning to check out one of our local parks I hadn't yet visited. I'd heard some people talk about feeding the ducks. From the road I could see it had a playground. But that was about all I knew. This morning, Megan and I finally visited it and discovered it truly is a hidden gem, and I mean hidden. Tucked away behind a strip mall and a church along the main business corridor, we pass this park often, and I never realized how large it was or all it had to offer. We'll definitely be stopping here more often!

Megan saw other people feeding the ducks and geese and asked if we could feed them. I know it's bad for them, but we just might have to bring some bread one time to feed them.

All my ducks in a row ...

 A grandfather and grandson were out flying a kite while we were at the park.

Look what I did!

Last night I pulled out a Sesame Street workbook on colors that a friend gave Megan for Christmas a few years ago. She's finally old enough to start using it and following its simple directions. Megan was thrilled to do "schoolwork." These pages focused on the colors red and blue. Megan was asked to circle the red trucks and color some objects red, and then she circled all the blue bowls and colored some objects blue. I thought she did great at circling the correct objects, and I thought it was funny when she drew one giant circle around the red trucks instead of circling them individually.