Aloha Festival

The first Saturday of Spring Break we took the kids out to the Aloha Festival at Tempe Town Lake. MaryKate wanted a picture of what this flower looked like in her hair before she decided it was the one for her.
It was a long, hot, fun afternoon, this is us on the way out, overlooking the lake.

The kids picked out these cute little birds that move and sing for a souvenir.

Sara was so tuckered out from the sun, she fell fast asleep. You can still see the remains of lunch on her tray! We got her a couple of really cute Hawaii outfits (not the one she is wearing, that is an old one of MaryKate's)

Snippets of the first half of March...

Ever since her birthday Sara has been in love with helium balloons... or "Blooo! Blooo!" as she calls them. She got this particular one when we were leaving Fry's one morning, they had them hanging everywhere near the entrance, when she saw them she excitedly started squealing her "Bloooo! Bloooo!" The greeter at the door thought it was too cute so he untied one and handed it to her. I tied it to her wrist and we spent the next 20 minutes in our front yard with her running around with her new Bloooo.

A couple of weeks ago was Seuss Week at school. There was a lot of fun activities that the kids got to do in honor of reading and the great author, but their favorite by far was Friday. MaryKate's class got to do pajama day and Nikolai's class did cowboy day. They went dressed up like this to school, got to bring a "bedroll and a book" in Nikolai's case and a pillow and a book in MaryKate's. They had snacks all day and a relaxed, reading, game playing Friday.

Another thing Sara has discovered is climbing into the car all by herself. She gets such a kick out of getting into the front seat and pretending to drive. Now if I could get her to willingly get into her car seat in the back and wait to be buckled....

Because another awesome thing happened in the car this month... Sara got to turn around in her car seat!!!! When we finally took this step she wasn't quite at 20 lbs yet but a real close 19 1/2 lbs. We deemed it close enough when the straps on her infant seat (that is only rated to 20 lbs) started cutting into her neck and hurt every time we went anywhere. She is still getting used to sitting forward, she likes it but at the same time complains when we buckle her in, she's still not used to the idea that she is SUPPOSED to face forward and it disturbs her for a minute (she's really into everything being the same lately and even though it's been almost 2 weeks, she's still not quite into it). It makes her look like such a big girl.

Two of Sara's favorite things caught into one picture... running around naked and coloring! (By the way, this has a funny side story, it was taken about 5 minutes before she peed all over this chair and onto the floor, actually a rare occurrence when she runs around naked, I was trying to run around, cleaning up after her, getting the kids to do homework, cleaning up the kitchen enough to be able to make dinner and put groceries away since we had just gotten home and it was past 6:30 pm. Kevin innocently walked through the door in the middle of all this chaos after being gone since 7 that morning and asked me "What's for dinner honey?!" At which point I looked around at everything that was going on, felt completely overwhelmed and sat down on the kitchen floor, sobbing. Kevin walked around the counter, looked at me, and said "So.... we're going out to eat?" I couldn't talk, I was crying too hard so he got Sara cleaned up and diapered and dressed. Got the kids shoes on then asked if I was going too. By then I was calm enough, I got up, cleaned my face, and enjoyed a dinner OUT with my family. Wow, you've got to love those pregnancy hormones and an understanding husband!")

Our Peanut due October 7th

I'd like to announce the newest arrival to our family, a definite peanut if I ever saw one! We got to see our baby for the first time today and see a heartbeat and the little fluttery moves. It really is hard to tell, even watching it live, but I'm pretty sure the baby's head is pointing down here and you can see one little leg bud up in the upper left corner.

I am doing really well. For you who are aware of the pregnancy-from-hell that I had with Sara, it has been nothing like that, thankfully! I've decided I'm going to have the perfect pregnancy, no morning sickness (none yet and only 3 more weeks of 1st trimester) and no preterm labor this time (we'll see how that one goes, I've had three out of three so far but if I am bound and determined to talk my body out of it... THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING!!!)
Nikolai took a picture of my 8 week bump for me, I think I'm going to commission him to do one of these for me every 4 weeks so I can watch my baby grow. Still little but I'm big enough that I can't button my jeans any more (thank goodness for Bella Bands!) and my shirts are getting too short (thank goodness for transition/maternity shirts).

Kevin is so ecstatic, of course, Sara is oblivious, and Nikolai and MaryKate want to know NOW if it is a boy or not.

February

Sara discovered how fun it is to ride in the wagon and Nikolai willingly obliges to please her.
She loves to help MaryKate with her coloring.

and adores that her big brother or sister can read to her.

Messy baby eating an ice cream cone...

And everybody needs at least one spaghetti picture in their babyhood!

MaryKate's Dolly

I am so proud of my MaryKate. Last fall when we went to Utah for a family reunion MaryKate picked out a sew-your-own-ragdoll kit at the church museum in Salt Lake City. Over President's Day we finally got out my sewing machine and she got her first lessons in sewing. I did all of the hard seams (curves basically) but she did all the stuffing and sewed all of the straight seams herself so she made the dress and apron almost all by herself. She also braided the hair herself and it turned out perfect! She did amazing for her first sewing experience ever.

Sara Helping in the Kitchen

Sara likes to stay within eye sight of me at all times so I come up with creative ways to keep her occupied when I'm working in the kitchen. Here she had been playing with cereal boxes, rearranging them, stacking them, putting them in and out of cupboards, when she discovered that this one had fallen open, she carried it around for the next thirty minutes, getting a snack whenever she felt like it!

This is my own personal favorite, I was trying to bake something that had to get done. Kevin was gone and Sara was plain under foot. I got her her own plastic bowl and put only about 1/2 cup of flour in the bottom. It was well worth the good vacuuming then mopping my tiles needed to clean it up to have her this entertained for this long. Kevin eventually came home and shocked, said "Do you know what kind of mess Sara is making!" when I said yes he has learned enough to just let it go.

Happy Actual Birthday Nikolai!!!

Since we had cake for Nikolai's party the Saturday before I made him an enormous chocolate chip cookie for his actual birthday celebration. I wrote in white chocolate chips "Happy B-day NEO" We were almost out of candles but I found three trick candles in the cupboard. Since Nikolai is learning multiplication I told him it was 3X3 and he totally got the joke.
We got him a remote control lifelike T-Rex. It's a cool toy. He had asked for a reptile pet to keep in his room and specified a snake or maybe a turtle. We weren't ready for any more pets in our house and flat out said no to a snake but this dinosaur was a perfect addition to our family.

Roaring at each other...

This is oh so funny, the video of Nikolai not blowing out his candles...

Happy Birthday Nikolai!!!

My little guy is 9 years old!!! He wanted a pirate themed birthday party and this is what I came up with. I love his goofy approval grin over the cake...

And here is a close up of how the cake turned out (this was RIGHT after I finished, I didn't even wash the counter off yet, so sorry for the messy background) If you can't tell it is a treasure chest.

And here Nikolai is blowing out the nine candles... one at a time. Isn't there a rule about not getting a wish if you do it that way? Oh well, we didn't tell him.
For an activity I designed a treasure hunt all around the house and yard where the boys had to find clues. The treasure at the end was their goody bag to take home, which actually ended up being eaten as we watched "Pirates Who Don't do Anything", a Vegetales movie to round off the party.

We kept the numbers small, Nikolai had invited one more boy from school who couldn't come but here is MaryKate, Braxton Bogle, Michael and Austin Cox, and Nikolai.

Everybody was required to come in pirate gear. I love MaryKate in her getup with our puppy Spot, both sporting an eye patch.

Nikolai and his best friend, Braxton, playing on the trampoline before everybody else arrived.