Easter 2013

I was about to start our Spring Break pics but realized I haven't posted Easter yet...so here ya' go...

The Easter Bunny came bringing hula hoops, kites and bubble guns!  For some reason, the children had some hard questions about the "Easter Bunny" this year, trying to make sense of what bunnies, dying eggs and Jesus dying on the cross all have in common.  I must confess, I didn't have good answers.  So this is the last year the Easter Bunny comes and we'll move on to Easter baskets somewhat like this and this.  I might do my own version but I like the idea of the Baskets linked to redemption and God's great love for us.  But that's next year...let's focus on this year.

Not much candy because Timo doesn't like chocolate, but he does love Resses and was so excited to get a whole bag of them.

The hula hoops were the biggest hit.  I got the cheap ones at the Dollar Store to see if they would really enjoy them, thinking I would invest the $4 in real plastic ones if so.  I think I need to get the plastic ones now.  Non stop hours of fun!  This is just the beginning...it's been weeks of rolling them down the hall, having animals jump through them, setting up stunt cars to fly through, the possibilities are endless!

We celebrated our Risen Lord at an amazing Easter service and then headed over the the Lantow's for lunch and an egg hunt.  I just have to say how grateful I am that the Lantows invited and accommodated us last minute.  We had originally planned to go see the Easter parade and festival on Union Street but it was raining all weekend.  I saw Marcia at Good Friday service and she insisted we come over and join their family since our plans were going to be rained out.  Even though they already had about 20 people coming over, she happily accommodated our family seeming with ease.  So I made a tasty strawberry shortcake, gathered our eggs we had stuffed for the egg hunt and headed over to the party.  About 10 min after we arrived there was a quick break in the weather to do the hunt and all the kids were so excited!

All the kiddos at the lunch!  Hard to believe I've know most of the older kids since they were Timo and Cameron's age...

Lunch was so yummy and all the kids played so well together.  Timo loved playing nerf guns and video games with the older boys...I didn't hear a peep out of him the whole time.  It was nice to be able to sit and chat with all the adults and just enjoy our community of friends, not to mention enjoy a huge yummy lunch!

Once we got home it was time to open the eggs and check out the loot.  Our children are so different...Timo opens and closes each one, looking for instant gratification, putting them all back in the bag and moving on quickly.  Cameron carefully spreads her out, opens one by one, separating each item into like piles and assessing her goods.  She then gives away the things she might not like or might have too many of.  Two completely different children.

We finished our day by testing out the bubble guns.  It had been raining and cold most of the day, so it was a quick but fun test.  We'll be getting more us out of these this summer. Our lazy Easter Day I had envisioned turned out to be a whirlwind of activities, we didn't even get a family photo...oh well, it turned out to be just perfect.

The Planets

Ah, Spring Break is over, the monkeys are back in school and I can finally clean the house and de-clutter! We had a fun and very busy week and a half school break but Mommy is glad to have some time to myself again and catch up. I need to organize our time off pics but here's a short one for today...

The kids are singing a little song they learned in school...The Planets in the Solar System.  They worked on it for a few days, singing it non-stop in the car.   There is also another one, "The Contenients" but Timo was acting far too silly to get a useable version of it...maybe next time.

MVI 0128 from Sara ko on Vimeo.

More March Birthdays

Easter weekend the kids got to celebrate two of their friends' birthdays. Unfortunately the parties were on the same day at the same time...so we had to split them up for separate parties. It actually worked out well because one friend was Timo's good buddy and the other friend was Cameron's best friend, Aidan.  So Young took Timo to the "Nothing But Hoops" party for Rylan and they had a great Daddy and Timo day together.  The basket was lower and the kids had a blast playing basketball...Timo even made a few baskets himself!

The boys love to go downtown and hit the big Apple store and Best Buy, see the cable cars and just wonder in and out of stores.  I texted at one point to see if they were having fun and these are the pics I got back!  I guess so.

Apparently the pizza at the party wasn't enough...they had to stop for a pizza snack.

Meanwhile, Cameron and I were having fun at Aidan's Dragon party.  They had a balloon man, face painting and a dragon eggs hunt!  Dragon faces all around.

The egg hunt was perfect because it was the day before Easter.  They must of had 150 eggs out there for the kids.  I loved that the eggs were filled with sticky bugs, dragons and other animal toys...kinda like opening the eggs and finding babies inside.  Each guest had a personalized egg too that was filled with glittery silly putty.  Such a great idea.

Aidan and Cameron were inseparable the whole party.  He took her all over his house, showed her his room, insisted they sit side by side for lunch and wanted her next to him when he blew out his candles.  Aidan's Great Grandma was there and mentioned wouldn't it be cute if they grew up and got married!  Slow down Grandma!  But it was pretty darn cute.  I'm glad his family got to see the special friendship us moms have seen for a while.  Thanks for having us at your party Aidan!!

We got loaded up on loot when we left too...blow up dragons (which Cameron sleeps with in her bed), balloons, and bubble guns...on top of our eggs, butterfly balloon and face paintings!  What a great party.  And it was so nice to just concentrate on Cameron for the whole day.  But as much fun as she had, she couldn't wait to get home and tell Timo all about her day!

I do have to mention one cute story about Cameron at the party.  The balloon guy made a big dragon out of balloons that Cameron thought was really cool and I guess she thought Timo would like it too..  She then started yelling for Timo, running through the room looking for Timo to tell him about the cool dragon.  I had to stop her and remind her that Timo wasn't with us.  She stopped, thought a second and then said "oh yeah, Mommy, I forgot.  Mommy, he would love this dragon, let's call him and tell him."  I guess she is so used to having him around all the time, it's hard NOT having him at her side, but not far from her thoughts.

Palm Sunday and Egg Coloring

We kicked off our Easter season on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter, and the children made some pretty cool palm leaves in Sunday School.  They later found these big, real palms from our service and dropped their paper ones for the real thing.  They were showing us a little demo from what they learned that morning in class...
MVI 0130 from Sara ko on Vimeo.
Young started singing "Hosanna" and Cameron decided to do an interpretive dance..
MVI 0131 from Sara ko on Vimeo.

A few days later we did our annal Easter Egg coloring.  I can tell the coloring is getting more and more sophisticated. Timo was dipping in two different colors, Cameron was drawing on her egss and both were trying to mix colors to get new colors...Timo even cracked his shells so the actual egg inside would be colored. I think I might have to up the creativity medium for next year and get stickers and glitter!

Cameron's eggs are on the left, Timo's on the right.  Cameron wanted to write on most of hers and we tried a little strip using rubberbands but didn't turn out so well...need to read up on that for next year.  You can see Timo trying to be creative by having two and three colors per egg.

This is one of Timo's egg that he cracked the shell...the egg white got colored too!  Of couse all he wanted to do was eat it.  Cameron took a long time to make her name egg...and wouldn't let me peel it for deviled eggs on Easter.  We still have it.  For how long?  I don't know.  Hoping she'll forget about it soon...

My little boy who does not like to get his hands dirty was actually OK with dirty hands...after much talking to about how it will come off with soap and water...but it didn't. 

We had some yummy and colorful deviled eggs, or doubled eggs as Timo calls them, for Easter!

Hiking Trail--Edgewood County Park, Redwood City

We met some friends for lunch down in Redwood City a few weekends ago and it was such a beautiful day we decided to carve out a little time for a hike.  We stumbled on Edgewood Park which had the most amazing views of the bay.

But to get up to this view, we had to go UP!  Way up!  The trail was long and steep...a well deserved break at the top.  The kids seemed fine, Timo found a trusty walking stick, but it showed just how out of shape I am...I think lobster rolls for lunch wasn't the best idea.

We were hiking with our friends Liz and Salvador who have 4 month old twin girls.  They did better than I did and they were carrying babies.  (Oh, how I remember the baby bjorns)

We made it to the top and enjoyed the sun, views and animals.  We saw a beautiful hawk flying, deer, a rabbit and lots and lots of bug.  I think I've mentioned it before, but living in the city, we have to really diligent about getting into nature so kids don't just think animals are in the zoo!

We're always looking for new places to go hiking...we're wide open to any suggestions.  We want more shots like this!

Tying Shoes

MVI 0132 from Sara ko on Vimeo.
I know this video might not be exicting for the majority of our readers, but I think it's pretty darn special. Remembering our blog is also like our memory books for the kids, I wanted to document Cameron's big milestone.  This is her first pair of lace shoes, she loved the rainbow colors.  I told her she needed to learn how to tie them if we got them...so my little determined girl practiced for a few days and voila!  She can now tie her own shoes!

March Birthday Parties

For the second time this year we've had two friends' birthday parties on the same day. I kinda like the efficiency of it all but know it tends to be a little too much on the kids by the end of the day...too much junk food, too much cake and too much action.  But we love our friends and love being invited to spend their special day with them...so we buck up and planed to party all day!

The first party was Matthews Herzel's.  I made a huge mistake by looking at the time wrong on the invitation and showed up an hour early for the party!!  What's wrong with me???  Jen was such a sweetheart and put us right to work helping set up and we were glad to help.  Young kept the kids busy playing twister while we got the party ready.

Finally it was party time and Rolo the Clown showed up.  Oh boy, do Cameron and Timo LOVE Rolo!

We had the usual face painting and balloon animals...that have now turned into balloon guns per Timo's request.

Happy Birthday Matthew!!  We needed to leave and get going to the next party but Cameron wouldn't leave until she finished her cake...takes after her mommy!

Luckily the next party was just a few minuets away at Pump It Up to celebrate Karissa's Tang's birthday.

We're no stranger to PIU but we've never been to this particular location.  They had some great new inflatables and activities we haven't seen at others.  One was the cannon shooting inflatable...guess where Timo spent most of his time? 

Another new one was the climbing rock.  Cameron was a "rock star" trying to reach the top.  She tried 4 different times, trying to reach the top but just couldn't ring the bell.  She would get almost there and her hands would be sweaty start slipping off the knobs.  She did an amazing job but I felt so bad for her, she was so upset when they closed it down to move on to the party room.  Such determination!   But at least we have something to work for next time.

Happy Birthday Karissa!!  More cake?? 

We had about an hour drive home and the kidos were out before we even hit the freeway.  The fun we had was worth the food/sugar crash they both had...good times.