Easter 2013

Happy Easter!!!

Such a crazy fun weekend.  =)

Saturday afternoon, we dyed eggs at home.

Sunday morning started off with an Easter egg hunt that led to an Easter basket FULL of fun things.....

 

.....followed by the obligatory family pictures!

 

Then it was off to church - where a pretty big Easter egg hunt was waiting for all of the kids!

 

After church, we headed to our usual spot for a late breakfast (Einstein's), and then headed to Jen's Mom's house for lunch.  There, Noah dyed more eggs.....

..... got another Easter basket of goodies.....

..... went on another Easter egg hunt.....

..... and drank from the faucet after playing hard outside and enjoying the nice day.  ;)

Couldn't have asked for a better, more perfect day. 

 

 

Sunny San Fran

It's become part of our normal routine around here for Greg to leave Jen and Noah for a few days and travel for work.  Lucky for us, it's not that often. Lucky for us, Jen and Noah get to go with him whenever they want.  Lucky for us, his district is in California!  =)

So...... for the last few days, that's what we've been up to!  Greg decided to extend the end of his trip, Jen flew out and met him, and we made an actual mini vacation out of it! Sightseeing in San Fran, driving down the PCH, seeing the sights in Monterey and Carmel, having lunch and shopping in Santa Cruz, making the "17-mile drive" and spendng some time at Pebble Beach, stopping at random beaches to enjoy the sights/sounds, etc.

We had WAY too much fun getting away for a few days, being alone and just enjoying each other.   Next time we'll take Noah though. That boy loves the beach! :)

Here's a few pics from our adventure.......

 

 

Does this house look familiar?  =)

2 of the best lunches we had..... =)

We're already making our list for the next time we go out - there's just so much to see/do!

Gonna Take a Walk Outside Today.....

..... gonna see what we can find today......

It was a BEAUTIFUL day outside today, so we decided to take advantage of it and do some exploring in the hills/mountains behind our home. 

Coloring Fun

(By Jen)

 

Last week, while coloring on some of his jet coloring sheets, Noah excitedly called me over.....

"Look, Mommy!!!!  I drew you - two times!"

 

 

I had to ask Greg.... "do I REALLY look like that?"  ;)  

 

 

On a different note.... I don't always come up with the best and most creative ideas, but when I came up with this one, I totally had to toot my own horn.  =)  I printed up some "Jake" coloring sheets off the DisneyJunior website.... and LAMINATED them!!!!  Now he can color his favorite characters, over and over with dry erase markers, and I'm not constantly printing off coloring sheets!!!  He LOVED the idea and thought it was big fun to color and erase, color and erase, color and erase.....  =)

 

 

 

 

We love, LOVE!

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

We had such a fun day today celebrating love!  =)

 

 

Easel Fun

Noah got a new easel for Christmas.  Total fun.  He absolutely LOVES it. 

It has a dry erase board on one side (that also is magnetic for his letters and numbers!), a chalkboard on the other side (that has a clip at the top so you can add paper and color with crayons/markers!) and four nifty little holders for chalk, erasers, markers, crayons and magnets.

Jen and Noah work on lots of things throughout the day, but on this particular morning, they practiced him writing his name.  After many tries, he got it!!!  Yay!!!  (please excuse the jammies, the sun streaming through the window and the poor quality of the picture)  ;)

 

 

A day or so before that, Jen was upstairs putting laundry away and heard: "MOM!!!!!!!!  MOMMY!!!!!!!!!!!  MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  Thinking his arm had been cut off or his hair was on fire, she raced downstairs in a frenzy..... "WHAT?!?!"  "Look, Mommy!  I made a happy face all by myself!!"  Hmmmm..... not heart-attack worthy, but definitely picture worthy.....  ;)

 

 

Completely non-related to the easel...... last week while we were out shopping, Greg decided "Noah needed" his first set of Legos.  (Ahem, WHO "needs" them?)   It's almost a nightly tradition now and they have SO much fun.  =)  (again, please excuse the poor picture quality)

Big Boy Room!

This past weekend, we worked feverishly to transform Noah's little boy room into a big boy room!  It was both sad and exciting - such mixed emotions as we took out the old and brought in the new. 

After it was all said and done, we stood in his doorway in silence and were saddened at how it no longer looked anything like a little boy's room..... it's almost like we have a 13 y/o living in the house.  =(  But thanks to a combination of Pottery Barn Kids and Pinterest, the room looks absolutely amazing, and we couldn't have been happier with how it turned out!  Neither could Noah.  =)  We videoed him walking in his new room to see it for the first time, and the combinations of both awed silence and little gasps of "I love it!!" "I love my room!!" were more than worth it to us.

Here is a sneek peek of his room.  If you want to see the whole thing, just ask Noah.  He's proud as heck and will excitedly take you on a "tour."  =)