Little Explorers

For the past month, Forest has been partaking in a nature/hiking class through Valley Parent Preschool called Little Explorers. The kiddos range from walking toddlers to 3 year olds and each week we meet up at an area trail or park to do some light hiking and heavy exploring. 

When I first heard of the class I thought it was perfect for a kiddo like Forest and I was right. For the first time I feel like we've tapped into a mommy&me extra-curricular that encourages and celebrates his adventurousness and curiosity. 

I'll say that he's hands down the MOST exploratory kiddo in the class but he's in pretty good company. I like that there are kids of mixed ages and developmental and activity levels. I think it's important as they get older to be exposed to different personalities, and I think sometimes being around calmer kids calms him down, while at the same time, cautious kids seems to get a bit more courageous with Forest leading the charge.

It's been a really fun activity and we have signed up for another session this spring. I think it's safe to say that Forest is glad we dropped out of Music in order to do swimming, hiking, and church. He's got a pretty busy schedule for a 2 year old but we are loving all the fun things on our to-do list and learning a lot of things in the process. 

If you are more interested in Valley Parent Preschool or their explorer classes (they have a separate class open for older age groups), you can find more info here.

Easter!

Hey guys! I hope you had a fabulous weekend celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. As if that weren't a good enough gift in itself, Forest also greatly enjoyed the goodies in his Easter basket as well as an egg hunt with one of his best buds from the neighborhood. 

Just as I predicted, The Good Dinosaur DVD was the runaway hit of the Easter basket, but once his high from that wore off, he also had a lot of fun with his stretchy dinosaur and his Paint with Water book. 

After the early early EARLY church service (thank goodness they serve coffee) we headed a few blocks over to our friends' house for egg hunting. Natalie was super-hostess and made traditional hot cross buns which were so yummy. 

The boys enjoyed their Easter lunch with baby-cinos which was just about the cutest thing I ever saw. 

While the boys were occupied with snack-time,  we set off to hide the eggs. We decided to just fill a few of them with special treats, but left a good bit of them empty. 

I thought the thrill of the hunt would be enough for 2-year olds, but it turns out, it wasn't. Both boys caught on pretty quickly to the fact that only some of the eggs had hidden treasures and would only bother with the ones filled with candy. Forest went a step further by discarding the plastic egg carcasses and just putting the candies in his basket.

He must have thought this was a really complicated and inefficient form of trick or treating. 

Regardless, it was a really fun time for all of us! I just love this age and watching Forest begin to enjoy and take part in holiday traditions like this. 

I hope your weekend was joyous too!