Someone likes to eat

Someone got a new highchair this weekend, which beats eating in the bouncy seat by a mile! Easier on our backs and so much easier to feed a baby who is not bouncing up and down between each bite. And the best part, now he has a bird's eye view of the dinner table. He is not happy unless he's sitting at the table, watching us all. He hates not to be a part of the action, I guess.



This little someone has added applesauce to his repertoire, which now includes sweet potatoes, banana, avocado, carrots and rice cereal.



Someone really likes applesauce.



Someone also looks really very tiny in his new highchair but in actuality has probably gained a full pound over the last week because Daddy has been overfeeding him, I think! Daddy really likes to see such a good appetite! This kid's cheeks are the proof, they have doubled in size in a very short amount of time.



This little one's Grandma was highly enjoying their moment together.

Vintage Spring

I found this picture of The Boy with his Easter basket, circa 2004. He would have been about three and a half months old. I know this only because his cleft lip surgery took place the day after this photo was taken.


The Boy, 2004

I wonder who ate that chocolate bunny? Probably me!

Poor kid, what an outfit I have him dressed in!! I know I got this in a lot on Ebay and it just reminds me of the rich guy on Gilligan's Island.

But he sure had more hair than Baby D does!


The Boy and Baby D, Easter 2012

This is a picture of the kids last Easter, 2011. After church we did lunch and a hunt in the yard of my mother-in-law's house. After dinner, the kids flew their kites in the front yard. Hee-hee, The Boy was missing all his front teeth!


Easter Sunday, 2011

This was our day before Easter in 2010 when we were on Spring Break vacation. This was taken in Pismo Beach. There was an Easter Egg Hunt at a beautiful park overlooking the ocean, with free games and face painting. Right after this we drove Hwy 1 through Big Sur on our way to Monterey Bay.


Pismo Beach, 2010

And in 2009, when these two were so tiny! We went to a local egg hunt at the lake. This was one of the first outings we had together, right after Danny & I started dating. Such baby faces!


Santee Lakes, 2009

This photo is me and my brother on Easter, I'd guess that I was probably 7, which would make my brother 5. The dress I'm wearing was my only dressy-dress and I wore it every holiday for about 3 years. It was dark blue velvet with a scallopped white lace trim. It's actually really cute, I love the Peter Pan collar! However, by the time I outgrew it, I was really tired of wearing it. As you can see in this photo, it was pretty darned short and this was probably the last time I wore it.


My brother and I, likely 1980

How did my brother get away with wearing a ringer tee to church on Easter Sunday?

Easter Hopping

Easter Eggs that the kids colored

Easter was a beautiful day!

We had the boys with us that morning and after The Boy found their baskets, we headed off to church.

Very happy with this book from his Easter basket

After church, we went to my parent's house. It was my mom's birthday the following day, so it was a joint celebration. The weather was so glorious that we spent the entire day in the front yard, under the big Mulberry tree.

Me and Baby D

We ate, the kids ran around and everyone took turns passing around Baby D.

Smooches from Big Brother


Could NOT get him to look at the camera!

Fortunately my husband was able to pick up The Girl and we held a two-lawn Easter Egg hunt (my parent's house and my mother-in-law's next door). It didn't take long for those kids to find the 150+ eggs that had been carefully hidden, they are a clever bunch!



We stayed until after dark, chatting and eating trifle for dessert.

All in all, a joyous day!

Tourists in our own city

We live in a beautiful city and wow, the weather certainly cooperated with us today! With the kids off on Spring Break this week and my husband and I both having the same rare weekday off, we headed out to the city.

Seaport Village

Downtown San Diego is less than a half hour from our house and we were at Seaport Village in no time. With so many off for Spring Break right now, I guess many San Diegans are off visiting other areas of the world! The downtown streets were not that busy and even at 9am, we were the first ones in the parking lot for the day.



We wandered down along the waterfront, then down to the harborside. There was a Celebrity cruise ship in port and a long line of travelers were lining up. We spoke to a couple from Washington, who told us they were headed to the Panama Canal...how exciting! We noticed that there were no children boarding the Celebrity cruise, probably because it's a more upscale line. Or maybe because the cruise was over two weeks long!



We walked past the Midway, with all the aircraft aboard. We wandered down as far as the Star of India sailing ship, then turned around and came back. We met up with my mother-in-law, who works for the Navy in one of the buildings facing the ocean. She bought us sandwiches from the deli and we sat down to eat (swinging our legs constantly under the table to keep the brazen pigeons away!). We discovered that Baby D likes pickles!! He sucked on this one for a bit, never even making a sour face, what a silly boy!



We meandered back to Seaport Village, where the kids rode the carousel and we watched this man stacking stones.


Balboa Park

Next stop was the west end of Balboa Park and a playground where the kids could run around for a while. They had a kind-of "teacup" ride to sit in and spin around and they were in there a long time, spinning like crazy!

It was a warm day but very windy. Baby D was tired of sitting in his stroller so Danny carried him around. We'd left his sunhat in the car, so we improvised with a blankie. Look at those chubby cheeks! He's really starting to fill out.



We walked down onto one of the canyon trails then drove to the next location for dinner.



Little Italy

Mona Lisa Italian food...yum!! Salads, garlic bread, canneloni and pizza...all so delicious! We very rarely eat out so this was a special treat indeed.

We walked off our full tummys down the city streets, glancing up to watch the planes (larger than life!) zooming overhead & going in for a landing. We headed home exactly at 5pm.

Home by 5:25...it was a nice day. I would like not to have had this cold, but I think getting out and walking around helped.
That is definitely something we need to do more often!

Hopping all over

I've been sick.

I haven't been sick like this in a long while, longer than I can remember. I get my share of the sniffles occassionally and headaches that might lay me up for the afternoon, but whatever I got this time knocked me out for two full days.

Tuesday morning I started feeling really achy, like "in-the-bones achy". My stomach was hurting, I started feeling feverish, and my throat was really scratchy. I got a call from my husband while on his lunch break at work and the first words out of his mouth were, "I don't feel very good". We have similar symptoms but not all the same, which makes me think we don't have the same thing (whatever IT is!).

After two days inside the house napping, hanging out in my pjs, eating nothing but soup and toast, my dizziness seems to have finally disippated a bit. I still feel a bit out of sorts and my neck glands are still swollen but I'm feeling well enough to get around. And I was able to go to work today which was good, because I had a boatload to do and about 75 emails had piled up in two days!

VIDEO PLAY
The kid's video is up on the Disney Website. If you have a moment, check out the final version (I had to edit and take out their hometown for privacy reasons or they wouldn't put it on the site). Please give it a "LIKE"!

BABY GAMES
Baby D is proudly rolling from back to tummy quickly now. He has been doing it every chance he gets, including at 4am when I had to get up, roll him back over and put him back to sleep! He hasn't figured out yet how to get his arms out of the way so he can roll himself back.

I've read that once a baby learns a new "trick", they do it over and over again until it's mastered. Well, he's getting that one down pat, and also pulling out the pacifer. At least I keep that on a leash, attached to his pajamas, otherwise I'd be really tired of fishing around the crib for it! I'm looking forward to when he can put it back in by himself though.




Still has his blue eyes, they haven't changed much

He's eating one small serving of baby food daily now. His reportoie includes rice cereal, sweet potatoes, banana and avocado all pureed in the Baby Bullet with formula. He's enjoying eating much more and sometimes gets so excited that he kicks the bowl right out of Daddy's hand...oops, that has happened more than once!
 
Sorry Daddy, it was an accident!

TRIPLE THE PARTY
We attended my cousin's triplet's first birthday party this past weekend. I can't believe Baby D will be scooting around like these three before the end of the year!





We got to see my aunt and uncle, who had not yet met my husband, so that was nice. And another cousin was in town with her new baby girl, who is exactly four weeks younger than Baby D. She was not in the mood for photos! Maybe on the next visit, okay?






He was loving all the attention from Uncle Eric

EASTER BLESSINGS
I made cupcakes early in the week for The Boy's Easter party at school. I used edible grass, have you seen it? It was the first year I'd seen such a thing. It's made of potato starch and tastes like green apple? Not really (at least to me) but the kids got a kick out of it, I guess. They came out looking pretty cute though.

Darn, those SweetTart jelly beans are tasty!

I also got a few Easter decorations set up and have all the basket goodies purchased and put away. I'll assemble everything on Saturday night.



Looking forward to making the Baby's first basket this year. I don't have anything new for him to wear because by the time I realize it, I went out shopping and all there was left were long pants/sweater vest outfits. It's going to be at least 80 degrees here on Sunday and I'm not going to torture him in a sweater vest! I'm sure he won't mind wearing a "repeat" outfit. What a difference a week makes. A week ago it was raining and we were all freezing at the triplet's birthday party and this weekend it's going to be very warm. Hurray for small blessings!

Hope you have a wonderful Easter weekend with your families. Blessings to all!!

Our own Haunted Mansion

Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm nuts about Disney. I love Mickey Mouse, I love their movies, I love to go there (and right after I go there, I start planning my next trip almost immediately!). Being a SoCal native, I'm fortunate enough to live relatively close to Disneyland and have gone many times over the years.

I've not ever been to Walt Disney World and it's definitely a goal of mine to make it there someday.

However, did you know that it's really really expensive?!

Not just the tickets, but I'd definitely want to stay on the resort property and that's pricey. And of course, we'd have to fly to Florida which in itself, is certainly out of our budget. So what's a Disney-maniac to do?

Well, for starters, she enters every online contest she can to win a trip to Walt Disney World, Disneyland or on a Disney Cruise! In a search for Disney contests, I came across one for a 5-day trip to WDW, including the hotel, tickets, a video camera and $500 Disney Dollars.

This is a video contest and I've never entered a video contest before. I had to borrow a video camera from my brother as we don't own one. In my research on video contests, I discovered that odds of winning are better because many people find it too time consuming to enter so there aren't as many entries as ordinary contests where you simply type in your information. In this contest, there are still 3 days left to enter but there are less than 750 entries as I write. Those are pretty good odds, right?

The kids and I discussed our video for a few days. They were wanting to recreate the Alice in Wonderland ride but I told them that we really didn't have the props to carry that off. We determined that the Haunted Mansion was our best bet. We wrote up a little script, gathered some props from around the house and in the span of a few hours on Sunday morning, we got our video done.

Tell us what you think!



Personally, I think it came out pretty darned cute. The Girl had some trouble with her lines and we had a great many outtakes (she kept saying her lines and then asking, "Was that perfect?"). I do think her Madame Leota is classic though! And The Boy really got a chance to ham it up on the re-creation of the Doom Buggy! Don't you love his Pluto hat? He wears that every time we go to Disneyland.

And I think our ghost looks great, even if I didn't get much cooperation on that end... I would have liked to see him wrapped up more like a mummy but he was having NONE of that!

The contest closes at the end of this week and the winner is announced at the end of the month. Keep your fingers crossed for us!