More New Tricks

Nathaniel has been growing in leaps and bounds, both physically and in his abilities. He has a very strong personality and knows how to get exactly what he wants. He may not know how to say much, but he knows how to ask for his favorite foods. Some new words he learned this week are cookie, cake, chocolate and candy (he's really mastered that hard "C" sound). He has also developed an independent streak and wants to do everything himself. He likes to walk instead of riding in the stroller, but he refuses to hold hands even when crossing busy streets. He likes to go down slides, all by himself, to pretty darn cute effect. He is also very interested in bicycles and kites.

 

 

 

And now we are six . . .

After some initial disappointment that the festivities weren't scheduled for the actual day of her birthday, Lillian was excited to have all her friends over to Mercy-Bush park to celebrate her sixth birthday this past weekend. It was a beautiful, sunny day and almost all of her friends came out so it was really nice having the extra space at the park for them to run and climb. The egg hunt for puzzle pieces was somewhat successful, as we only found 94 of the 100 pieces hidden, and many of the kids lost interest in assembling the puzzle. But Lillian's hand-made egg pinata was a big hit, in more ways than one. We were very proud that it held up to more than one hit, yet didn't require the adults to smash it open. Finally, at Lillian's request we had a stacked tower of cupcakes with pink frosting except for one with a white rose at the top just for the birthday girl.  Happy Birthday Lillian!

 

 

 

 

 

Spring Break

This past week was Lillian's school spring break. Since we had just returned from Auntie Erin's wedding it seemed silly to turn around and head off for another vacation so we decided to have a stay-cation, we spent our days doing lots of hanging out at home plus visiting some of our favorite local destinations. Without school to worry about, there was time for lots of dress-up and arts and crafts. Lillian made good use of her free time (and the paper that Auntie Erin sent for her birthday) to make elaborate paper crowns for herself an her brother. We visited Stanford's Robot Block Party where Lillian got to play with all sorts of cool robots. We also spent an afternoon at two of our favorite places, Happy Hollow and the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo. Good fun was had by all, but all the activity left us looking forward to a week of normalcy.

 

 

 

 

 

Auntie Erin's Wedding

We all traveled to Phoenix for Auntie Erin's wedding over Easter weekend. The kids had a great trip, the weather was fantastic, everyone was in great spirits, the baby slept on the plane and miraculously no-one got sick on the trip. Erin and Preston created a fantastic wedding party weekend for us all to celebrate their marriage. We were happy to see many friends and family who we had not seen in many years. It was wonderful to spend so much time catching up with everyone. Lillian quickly made friends with another 5 year old and they had great fun dancing up a storm at the wedding. They were also quick to retire early for a sleepover with a babysitter when the evening grew long. We have many more photos posted in a webalbum here.