Yay, Easter!

Our Easter celebration kicked off yesterday with egg dying and a mini egg hunt with our neighbors. Fun! 

Clara wanted to make sure she dyed her hand, too. 

Both kids were lucky enough to find a couple of eggs with M&Ms inside. 

What's better than an eggful of candy? 

This morning, the kids woke up to find Easter baskets in their room! How cool! 

Clara was a tiny bit disappointed that she didn't have her chick basket from yesterday. 

All better... 

After finding a few eggs and lots of candy in the house, we headed outside to see if the Easter Bunny left anything in our backyard. 

He did! 

Lots of eggs... 

Lucky kids.

Happy Easter, everyone! 

Busy March

We have had a wonderful and very busy March. In addition to the visitors that I've already mentioned, we also were lucky to see my brother and his family from Chicago. His two daughters are the same age as Peter and Clara, and the four cousins had a blast together. My mom came from Iowa, too, and she enjoyed seeing all of her grandkids together and also celebrating Clara's birthday. The pics below are a small assortment of their week in town. 

Vivi playing in a tunnel at Huntington Gardens. 

Clara and Grace investigating the fountains. 

The four sillies running through some misters to cool off on a hot day. 

Navigating the rocks. 

Clara and Grace, the birthday girls. 

Sweet cousins. 

Clara's actual birthday -- a crown from school and lots of presents. 

Loving her bunny slippers! 

Quick change into a special dress for dinner. 

So pretty. 

Birthday dinner with Nonnie. Pretty cool. Love those mozzarella sticks. 

Happy Birthday, Clara. 

Disney!

Last week, Clara turned TWO and as a special birthday treat, we headed to California Adventure for a day. 

We got there bright and early. Good morning, Mickey Mouse. 

Our friends, Jonathan and Courtney, joined us for the day. Jonathan, a Disney employee, hooked us up with passes to the park and knew all the ins and outs of where to go and what to do. I think a 2:1 adult to child ratio should be required for all trips to Disney. I can't believe I ever considered taking the kids by myself! 

We spent most of the day at Cars Land, and the first thing we did was check out the crazy tractor ride at Mater's Junkyard. Peter loved it, laughed the whole time and wanted to go again as soon as it was over. 

Clara absolutely hated it and said, "Want get off!" over and over again. That was the last ride she did the whole day. Oh, well. Happy Birthday, Clara. 

Spectators. 

We watched Peter and Ben do the crazy tire ride in Luigi's Tire shop. Pretty fun... like a mix of air hockey and bumper cars. 

As we were leaving Luigi's, a celeb drove right by! Lightning McQueen! 

Next, we headed over to Bug's Land and Peter and Ben rode the bumper cars. 

There was also a splash pad, which was a highlight for Peter. Clara, the spectator, was content to watch from the bench. 

Joy. I'm so glad Peter so thoroughly enjoyed Clara's birthday trip. 

We met another celeb in Bug's Land. Hello, Flick! 

Pretty fun stuff. 

By this time, Clara had fallen asleep in her stroller and so we headed back to Cars Land to try the super fun Radiator Springs Racers ride. Too bad my Mister is one inch too short to ride it! That was really disappointing, but we made up for it with a little Lightning McQueen face time before we said "Bye Disneyland!" We'll certainly be back... 

Glad for Guests

Ben's brother is in town visiting. He is fancy and has a film showing in a festival in Hollywood this weekend. All the kids care about is that they have a new BFF.

Peter somehow got Uncle Mitch to run him around the house in a pink toy basket (his airplane), and yesterday at school drop-off both kids demanded to hold Uncle Mitch's hands. It took us about 30 minutes to walk up the hill to their classes, but they were pretty happy!

An Assortment

It's been a while since my last post. Here is an assortment of what we have been doing. 

A flu bug made it's way through our house. Ugh. Here is Peter having a pretty good time during his sick day improvising a baseball tee with my old high school cheerleading megaphone. I'm just glad someone is using it. 

I left last weekend for a girls' trip with two fun friends. Ben stayed home with the kids and managed to get them to eat tilapia for dinner by bribing them with special treats and a movie. 

Peter's special treat was a Cadbury egg. I would have chosen the same thing. Nice job, Mister. 

Clara chose this gigantic cookie. Do you think she is happy to eat it?

Ben also took them to the Farmers Market the next day for strawberries. Yum. 

Afterwards, they went to the park to check out the (sort of gross) koi pond. 

Cool! 

This week, it was school as usual. Doesn't my Peter look like a big boy in this pic? Jeez, Peter, how old are you? 17? 

Clara loves wearing her "fancy" shoes, dresses and carrying her own lunch box. Big girl. 

Have a great weekend, everyone!