70 degrees in February??

Yes, three days after we were playing in the snow in Elkhart, it hit 70 in Indianapolis. Happy Leap Day to us! We met Heather and Silas at the zoo, and had such a great time running around without coats.

Face to face with the tiger! Evie jumped back at first, but then she got a bit more bold.Checking out the bear. Of course monkey girl had to climb up to get a better look.They got so close to this duck! It ran away pretty quickly though, just after Ollie said "I want to touch the duck!"I mean, the duck was way more exciting than the actual zoo animals!She was so cute petting this kangaroo post!That is, until she decided to lick his face... Gross!Holding hands on their zoo date!Hey there, buddy!

Calling all Superheros!

Sunday afternoon was Ryder's 2nd birthday party. It had a superhero theme, so everyone had to wear a superhero shirt. The decorations were so cute, and so were the awesome party favors (capes and masks). We had a great time!

Superhero Evie running off to fight some crime!Ella and Eva had the same cute superhero shirt. Here they are with SuperGrandma! The birthday boy had a little help blowing out the candles from his big brother Reggie.Ollie eating the fondant Superman 'S' off of the cake. Me and my Superhubby!All of the grandkids! Hey, it's the best we could do with so many little ones. Reggie(4), Oliver(3), Ella(3), Ryder(2), Lanie(9), and Eva (18mos)Super Ollie fell asleep on the way home holding his balloon. So cute!

Snow day!

Sunday morning was sunny and gorgeous, so we all bundled up and headed outside to play in the snow. We have barely had any snow in Indianapolis this year-the kids have only had to wear their winter boots twice! So they were thrilled to have sled rides and get to build a (tiny) snowman.

Sled rides! This is awesome!
Evie scaled the ladder, snowsuit and all to head down the slide. Raking a path. Working on Frosty. Oliver used the sled as a snow mover. Eva hid on the porch when she decided she was done with the snow. The finished product! Grandma didn't have any carrots, so he got a red pepper for a tongue.

Cousin dance party

Over the weekend we headed to Elkhart to celebrate Ryder's 2nd birthday. We got there on Saturday, and after some delicious Da Vinci's pizza, all of the kids had a dance party with Papa. They were so cute! Evie was hiding in the other room so she wouldn't get trampled, but the rest of them were going to town. Soul train, here come the Krouse grandkids!

Ryder, Lanie and El showing off their moves.Marching around Papa. Reggie sure gets those knees up!So fun!Ollie had to show off his break dancing skills.Evie made a quick appearance to play with Ryder. The two littlest aren't very small anymore!

Pizzeria Haug

We have been trying a lot of new recipes lately thanks to Pinterest. After planting our herbs, we were going to order pizza, but I knew we had a lot of pizza toppings in the fridge, and I remembered that there was a recipe that I had pinned for pizza dough and cheesy sticks. I whipped up the dough, let it rise for a few hours, and we were ready to go!

Ollie ready to spread the sauce.

Daddy helped a little.Putting on the toppings. Note that Oliver is licking his fingers, and Evie probably put a lot more pepperoni in her mouth than on the pizza... Yum. She LOVES pepperoni. The finished cheese sticks. The finished pizza.
They were both quite delicious. Here is the link to the recipe if you want to give it a try!

http://www.laurenslatest.com/fail-proof-pizza-dough-and-cheesy-garlic-bread-sticks-just-like-in-restaurants/

Herb-tastic!

Since the kiddos are getting a little bit bigger, and since they both love their veggies, we have decided to try to plant a garden this summer. So Jon and I lived in an apartment and then a condo for 4 years, and have attempted various flowers and plants since we have been here, but we have never tried to grow anything to eat. We spent some time on Saturday with a nice lady who worked at Lowes who gave us some tips and ideas. We have a bit of time before we can plant anything outside, but we did buy a cool herb kit that she showed us. So, with the help of O and E, we got to work.

First we had to add water to some pellet things that expanded them into some type of potting soil. The small, compact pellet almost filled the entire planter after expanding!
Breaking up the potting mix. Ollie wouldn't get his hands dirty, but Evie seemed into it. Getting ready to sprinkle the seeds in. We had good assistants! The herbs are living in the kitchen window for now. We planted cilantro, basil, chives, oregano and parsley. Hopefully we will see some sprouts at the beginning of next week!

Dress-up

One of Evie's new favorite things to do is to get dressed, and undressed. Lately she will pull her extra clothes out of her backpack, or raid Oliver's drawers, and proceed to pull on whatever she hijacked. She can put on pants, shirts, socks, and hats. It has been making laundry a little tough, because she is always trying to steal the clean, neatly folded clothes to layer on over whatever she is already wearing. I think she is pretty advanced. We learned that she knew how to escape from her pj's on New Year's Day when we found her standing in her crib in her diaper, and her jammies were in a ball on the floor.

Putting on her pants.Guess I should pull on my shirt too! Playing with Ollie's pirate hat. On a side note, whenever she wears the pirate hat, she also talks like a pirate with a big "Arrr". Her latest escape attempt from her pj's. I heard her crying, and went up to find her standing in her crib like this. She had already half-zipped the zipper, so she couldn't get her leg back in. I finally put a t-shirt over her pj's like we used to do with Ollie so she couldn't get to the zipper. Man, did that make her mad! There were tears and everything...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ollie and Evie both had "school" on Valentine's Day, and I was feeling a little guilty because Jon and I were in Chicago until late Monday, so we didn't get to do any Valentine's crafts for their classes. So after school we decided to make some Valentine's cupcakes. The kids both LOVE to help cook and bake, even though they are a bit messy...

They took turns pouring the ingredients in the mixer. Oliver was on cake mix: Evie was on water and oil.
Gotta make sure the mixer doesn't go anywhere! Yum, chocolate batter! Time to decorate! Eva didn't get very far as the first cupcake I put in front of her went straight into her mouth. Oliver got one frosted and decorated, and proceeded to start eating too. So delicious!As I was helping Ollie with the heart sprinkles, Eva grabbed the pink sugar and dumped it all over the table. Awesome. She then started shoveling into her mouth as quickly as she could. Valentine's sugar high!!

Even though my formerly clean kitchen was covered in sprinkles and cupcake crumbs, I still had fun with my two little Valentines!