Such a cool event and opportunity for Jeff and the girls to make some special memories.
These are some of the decorations we did. Look at all the cute goodies people donated.
It was an enchanted forest theme. Overall and then three closeups of the three main components.
Homemade playdough is always a big hit at our house! This is Annika's favorite meal: shrimp, pork chop, homemade french fries, and mashed potatoes. 
I let Tanner made prints of his toes. Notice we are still in jammies, it was noon. ;) 
Phoebe made an assortment of animals. I loved this little squirrel. 
We went to Pilcher Park for hike to find spring. Even though Phoebe hated leaving the house, she was soon won over along with the other kids. They love a good trek! 
We found bugs, chickadees, bark, beaver bitten trees, holes for critters, you know all the good stuff. 
We found lots of long logs to climb. 
And we discovered the nature center with more critters and the greenhouse. Definitely headed back! And we hear they have backpacks for real trails with compasses, binoculars and all sorts of good stuff. 
One of the sets of toys that came out of storage was the Thomas train stuff. I swear they prefer to set up the track more than anything. We also got out ALL the Barbies and ALL the stuffed animals. And some other stuff. It was a mess around here, but they were actually quite good about putting it away. 
We played a lot of games. Jenga is always a fave. Tanner is quite the daredevil at this one, but also quite good at it amazingly enough.
This is the handiwork of Miss Phoebe. She loves to decorate our pear tree. With natural items.
She spent an hour doing this. Walking back and forth, eyeballing, moving, getting it just right. So Phoebe.
She is quite the kid. And definitely a 2nd grader sense of humor has kicked in. She finds her jokes quite hilarious. She sings in a high-pitched "lilting" sound that only she appreciates. (Actually we do enjoy her happiness and the joy she spreads. ) 
Posing appropriately with the big win. Not as excited as Mommy had hoped, but then again he just expected, believed, we would pull through. Nothing to get to worked up about.
Although he did put on the goggles and try it out right away. Since then he has enjoyed his other gifts, but that night he was pretty focused.
He really liked his grizzly bear cake and ate the chocolate chip eyes right off. He only ate the frosting and none of his piece of cake in regular Nelson child fashion.
And then by 10 am the next morning we were outside using the chainsaw. Tanner marched right down to one of our biggest trees and went to work. He was slightly disappointed that it didn't actually cut. But he says that he can wait until he is a grown up for a real one if he has to.
One more morsel about this little charmer. He is a reader. Voracious. He has several of his favorites memorized. So it is not completely odd that Tanner likes to use his time wisely in the bathroom. And nor is it strange that he has figured out how to manipulate the situation so that he can force Mommy to read to him in the bathroom, even if he doesn't have to go and just wants a book. 
Sometimes in your ravioli.
Sometimes squeezed into a twin size bed by morning.
Most of Jeff's favorite recipes revolve around his fryer. :) This pic is actually not fake staged excitement.
MMMMMMMM. Who will eat the most today?
I love that I caught this look. I totally get this one all the time if I question his authority on something. Which I wasn't at this point, I give him all the credit for these delicacies. So I don't know why I got the look.
She hit one over the house. Tanner picked up the bat and wanted to go lefty yesterday which pleased Jeff immensely. And excited Daddy even more when he got a hold of it.
