Summertime

Summertime is here in northern California! School is out, Swim lessons are done. The kids are having lots of fun just being kids going to the park and playing in the sand.

Lillian's Favorite Dolly

Lillian is very fond of her two dolls Cradle and Lulu, now she can add Nathaniel to the mix, dressing him up, and putting him to bed. Nathaniel has also shown a lot of enthusiasm for being dressed up as a princess. When he's not being a pirate-knight that is.

We have a new tree climber . . .

Lillian has been teaching Nathaniel how to climb trees. He was very proud of himself for getting up in this tree, with a little help from his sister. It's only a matter of time before he will be a pro like his sister.

Bobcat!

Look what we found while taking Nash for a walk! Nathaniel's favorite construction vehicle parked right on the street and open to climb on. I'm glad someone is enjoying all the construction going on around town.

Lillian's 7th Birthday

Lillian turned 7 this past week, and despite the whole family getting sick with a stomach bug, we managed to pull off a pretty awesome birthday celebration. We celebrated in her classroom on Friday with her birthday buddy Jaz, who shares the exact same birthday as Lillian. The party had to be delayed due to Passover and her illness, but by Friday both birthday kids were ready to share rainbow fruit-kebabs and 'frutamilas' (animals made out of fruit) with their class.

Lillian specifically requested a blue princess cake with white flowers for her birthday party. Eric was able to deliver on the request with some pretty awesome results. Eric baked the cake and layered it up with jam, custard and whipped cream, while Lillian helped out sculpting the flowers out of marzipan all by herself. The cake was a masterpiece, and kids and parents agreed and quickly gobbled it up. 

Everything is Awesome . . . at Legoland

We made a requisite trip to a theme park while in Florida with a visit to Legoland. We've been hearing great things about Legoland in California, but haven't make it down to San Diego yet so we decided to eschew Disney and opt for Legoland instead. Legoland has taken over the former Cyprus Gardens in central Florida and the former gardens are still there, complete with Lego ladies in fancy dresses and Lego-men water skiers. The main attraction is the grotto full of fantastic Lego miniatures of landmarks from around the country. Nathaniel could have spent hours checking out the creations, but there were a lot of other things to see, such as meeting Emmett from the Lego movie.  The most memorable ride was "driving school," where kids were able to drive little Lego themed cars around a track. Nathaniel tried out the one for kids 3-5 with some pretty entertaining results (2 and 5 months counts as 3, right?). He really had no clue what he was doing and didn't manage to get the car to go more than a few feet from where he started. Lillian got to try out the version for kids 6-11 which featured a realistic road with traffic lights, stop signs and intersections. Lillian did marginally better than Nathaniel since she was able to get her car to go, but proceeded to drive on the wrong side of the road, ignore signage, and get her self stuck against the curb many times. Thankfully, we've got 9 more years before she actually starts driving.

Spring Break

We spent our spring break visiting Grandma Betty and Grandpa Terry in Florida. We spent our week visiting the Ringling Museum, going to the Beach, and swimming in the pool. Nathaniel loved splashing in the water and we eventually discovered that a pool noodle could be used to keep him afloat in the deeper water. We capped off our week with an early birthday celebration for Lillian.

Dia Del Niño

Lillian's school has a carnival every spring to celebrate Dia Del Niño, which is a holiday to celebrate children in Latin America. This year Lillian got to preform with the schools Mexican folkloric dance troupe. She has been practicing every week after school for the big day and finally had an opportunity to display her skirt twirling skills with the fancy skirt that her Grammy made for her.

Inchy's Garden Home and Other News

Lillian lost her two front teeth, she is proud to join many of her friends and classmates in the "double gap" club.

Lillian's climbing abilities are growing every day, she recently mastered rope climbing, by climbing the rope that her tree swing is attached to, even managing to climb up the baby swing while her friend Allison is sitting in it.

The kids found a little green inchworm in the backyard, they named him Inchy and spent a good hour building him a nice home in the garden so he could hide from the hungry birds.

Mardi Gras

Happy Mardi Gras! We celebrated Mardi Gras with our fourth annual Mardi Gras Potluck.  This year Mardi Gras was late and we were blessed with a beautiful sunny day so the kids could enjoy playing in the back yard.  Grammy was in town so she organized felt mask making for all the kids, the masks turned out beautifully and even Nash got in on the costuming, when Jessie made him his very own cape to wear. This year we discovered how much Nathaniel likes Gumbo. He is very interested in food and was curious to try some, he liked it so much he devoured three bowls before the party even started.

Happy Hollow for All

Happy Hollow, the pint sized amusement park and Zoo in San Jose, is one of Lillian's happy places, and now that Nathaniel is a little older he is able to join in on the fun. At just barely 36 inches (with shoes and a hat) now tall enough to go on most of the rides and has the staying power for a multi-hour excursion. The highlight of our visit was a close up encounter with the Jaguar who had just eaten his lunch and was lurking just a few inches from the window into his cage, watching us, watch him. The close encounter ended as the Jaguar lunged mouth open towards Nathaniel's head, banging his head on the glass and promptly retreating to nap on a sunny rock. A bit shaken by our close encounter, we retreated to the petting zoo to visit with teeny tiny and very docile pygmy goats. Nathaniel promptly fell asleep in the car and took a nice long nap after all the excitement at Happy Hollow.

Rainy, Rainy Portland

For the president's day weekend we made a quick trip to Portland to visit Uncle Joe and Aunt Deb and cousins Raquel and Lucas. We were also joined by Uncle Matt and Aunt Jenn.  It was Lucas' birthday weekend so there were lots of balloons, funny hats and of course cake.  Nathaniel was a big fan of their dog Nacho (or Nacko as Nathaniel prefers to call him).  It was a bit rainy so we spent a lot of time indoors, but that didn't slow the kids down a bit from having a great time with their cousins.