Easter '09

Easter was great! We had brunch at our house and the bunny visited twice! Somehow, after Neil and Heather got to our house, more eggs were in the back yard! We are so lucky to have our LA family to share holidays with. We love you guys! 

If she skuut's to find eggs, she covers more ground, quicker. Genius!

Hmmmmmm

Sweet baby Owen

Checking out the baby's piggy toes

Some Easter Photos

What do I do with this?

Oh, I smash it and throw the yolk in the yellow dye.

Lily made some beautiful eggs! The wings helped!

Answer

Slizzards are Slivers! 

Good tries everyone!

Lily had 4 of them in one night. :(

Survey

Lily got 4 "slizzards" the other night. Matt is wondering if anyone has any idea what a "slizzard" is! Anyone??

answer to come........

Rebecca and Nana are disqualified! 

Caught!

So Ben thinks he's tricky. He doesn't realize that I have eyes in the back of my head and super human hearing. I know the sound of him getting into trouble....because it happens constantly. 

Thinking he's tricky

Sneaky

Ever so carefully putting the candy jar lid back on

Oh shit

I didn't even want to take the lollipop away at this point, but I did. 

Dear Ben

Benjamin Patrick, 

I'm sorry I made you cry this morning when I put you in time out. I was just trying to get Lily dressed when you decided to break 15 eggs on the kitchen floor. I know you are just a boy and it probably felt really cool to smash them on the floor. I get it. It sucked cleaning them up though, especially when Gracie was trying to lick them up and spreading them around with her paws. If you are 16 and reading this, get out of your flying car and go clean the bathroom or do something nice for your mother. 

Truck

I had to get a blood test on Thursday and take both kids with me. I was a little worried about having to wait and....well.....about Ben. Turns out that we didn't have to wait at all and the kids were great. Lily was very interested in the test. I explained to her what was going to happen and she wasn't scared at all. She thought my blood was pretty. She chatted up the phlebotomist and told him that she didn't have any blood because she was wearing bandaids. (She had on about 10 of them) We finished so quick that we had extra time to hang out by a fountain and watch this truck dig in the street for 20 minutes. You could have stuck Ben with a needle and he wouldn't have flinched. He was that possessed by machinery. Lily waved at all the men and asked me about 800 questions. 

 

Dada

Yesterday: Matt put Bn down for his nap while I was at class. When I came home, Matt went back to school. When Ben woke up, I went in his room to get him and he had a puzzled look on his face. He held one hand out, palm side up and asked, "Dada? Dada? oh". "Dada? Dada? oh". ..........about 50 times. During the diaper change, after he started playing, he kept asking and answering himself. 

Happy Easter Everyone!

We've been having a great Easter weekend! We went to see the Easter bunny on Friday and the kids actually sat on his lap and talked to him. Ben high-fived him a lot. I think it was the basket of lollipops that did it. My photo wasn't the best one, but it was the free one!

We walked to a huge Easter egg hunt near our house. You may have heard the story of last years hunt where the giant bunny barfed through his mask. Beat Easter EVER!! This year, we were late and missed the hunts. Lily still got her leg painted and they jumped in the bouncy castle. Matt thought it would be funny to give the kids a snow cone for the walk home. HIlarious! Sticky red juice everywhere! It poured down Ben's fat neck, through his shirt, into his pants, all over the wagon and everything in its vicinity. Oh well, that's what a hose is for right? Line 'em up! 

Under the Sea

Spring Break (for Lily) has been GREAT!! Lily loves her school and we do too, but man we've had some fun this week. Maybe it's just the change of pace, but we've just had a wonderful week. We tried to meet up with friends that are on the MWF schedule this year. We're still on T/TH, so we don't get to hang out much. A friend Cory (Lily and her daughter Delaney started school together last year) and I have tried to plan something for a while and Monday finally worked out. We went to meet up at Under the Sea, an indoor play area. Turns out there is more than one location and we went to opposite ones. Oops! Someday Cory! I had a blast with the kids anyway and I think they had fun too: 

Ben's got some tricks

Can you tell what he's thinking? How can I flip this all the way around?!

This is when she told me that the girl she had met five minutes before was her BEST FRIEND!

Lily came flying off this slide and smashed her face on the floor. Drama! Ben said more, more!! I have about 20 pictures like this. :)

The Gnome

This is Lil after her Spring party at school. She hunted for eggs, made a magic wand and a gnome hat! I was supposed to help, but I was late. Ben had a monster blow out on the way and I had to go home to get more clothes. She was painted for 2 days, as she should be. :)

 

The park by the beach in Playa del Rey has been closed for a while. We drive by it periodically to check it's status and this weekend it was done! They had a huge reopening party on Sat. and we caught the tail end of it. We will be back to the "palm tree park" for sure. 

College Fest

We are so lucky to live near campus. Matt walks to work, I walk to class, we visit campus with the kids all the time. So yeah, maybe the students are loud sometimes and break the neighbors baby swing by getting in it while wasted, but hey! I totally would have been the one to say, Guys, wait, I wanna get in that swing, someone push me! There was a concert on campus recently called College Fest (Jimmy, Drew, it doesn't even hold a candle to Dillo Day at Northwestern). We got some burritos and walked over to hear a few bands. We spent most of the time running up and down the hill in the Sunken Gardens, watching Ben wipe out, much to the amusement of the students nearby.  A fire-truck and ambulance were there to aid an over served co-ed, so it was basically the best day of Ben's life. Lily is pretty much the best dancer of all times. No matter what type of music is playing, she can rock out. She mixes ballet with break dancing and everything in between. She could care less who is watching her and that, for me, is the best part. 

When did we move to East L.A.? Ben is such a gangster. 

Still waving to the fire-truck an hour after it left. 

Random dinner

So yes, Ben is still wearing his helmet all the time. He eats with it on, but of course didn't have it on when he fell off the stair onto the driveway the other day. :(

 

My beautiful girl. 

Lily is so excited about turning 4....in July. She talks about it all the time. Apparently, everything happens when you're 4. "Halloween, Christmas, Happy Valentines day, the Leprechaun." 

More of the hike

Gina and Nicole, our hiking, road trip, duck feeding, ballet buddies :)

Ben, watching the big kids run with their butterflies

Teacher Joyce is silly

Lily and Bella, picking berries

Running down the hill!!!!!

Highlights from the Hike

Another field trip! This time we went to Franklin Park, WAY up in the hills, for a nature hike. The drive was super windy, but you could see all of LA below. It was a beautiful day and the kids had a blast. Ben was so excited to be one of the big kids. No stroller. Of course, I took a million pictures, here are a few:

Huge turtles that were not the least bit bothered by the kids. 

Run, Ducky, RUN!!!

Bike rides

We needed milk one day last week and decided to ride our bikes to the store to get it. On the way home, Lily insisted we stop at the "dolphins." The is an area on campus dedicated to the Native American tribe  of this area, the Tongva. It's a really cool memorial on the bluff, overlooking the ocean. I'm so glad we stopped. The kids just ran around exploring and saying goodnight to the sun. I love when we have the freedom to just let the kids lead us and the time to let them explore. We need to make it happen more often. 

This is just goofy Ben. He has trashed Lily's baby stroller by getting in it, loading it up with so much stuff, trucks, animals, books, etc. and by biting the handle until most of the foam is missing. He looks great in that hat though.

This shirt was a gift from Papa Mustache. It just cracks us up. Papa M. wears shirts like this all the time, so we always say that Ben's going to work or fix something in it. He's getting picky about what he wears, mostly truck shirts, but if he sees this shirt, it must go on, no matter the state of it or the temperature outside. 

Lily loves to take pictures. She asks you to take pictures of her or something she made and then show her. She also is a fan of the "taking pictures of ourselves" thing. See Brett, we're not alone!!! It must be hereditary. (Brett and I always take picture of ourselves when we're together. Usually, my face looks huge, which is gross.)

This is right before the bike ride: