Being Thankful & Coloring Eggs

I have to start out by saying it's amazing how the Lord knows what's best for us before we even have a clue! We've had a trip planned to go to Ohio to see Young's family twice now and twice have had to postpone it. Both time have been because of Young's work travels (he would have had to work most of the vacation) so we postponed it first from the beginning of April to the end of April, just after Easter. The week we were supposed to go, it snowed the day before we were to arrive and rained the whole week as well as being really really cold! It would not have been a fun vacation. The second postponement was leaving Monday after Easter in which Timo, Cameron and I all got so sick from a bad cold. We're still not over it and I'm so thankful we didn't end up going, we would have been sick the whole time...plus Young's mom said it's been raining all week there too! Praise God for interfering and rescheduling us! But I have to say, after the week we've had, all sick and Young has been gone, I am SO READY for a little vacation!!

Now on the happier times, before we all go sick, Easter Egg Coloring!

We headed down to our buddy, Matthew's house. Matthew's Mommy made a wise decision to move the decoration outside...very smart. As soon as we showed Matthew how to drop the eggs in the cup, he started plopping eggs in all the cups, splashing colored water everywhere. And some eggs rolled right off the dipper and some rolled off the drying tray...so glad we were outside.


We were almost out of eggs when we remembered the crayon that came with the kit. We tested it out on the last few...and it worked!

There were all kinds of stickers ands fancy egg holders that we wanted to use but all the kids had short attention spans...they were eager to finish and go ride all Matthew's fun cars...oh well, maybe they will get into more the older they get.
But we got some great looking eggs and delicious deviled eggs a few days later!

First Easter Egg Hunt

Two weekends ago Young had his wisdom teeth taken out...ouch! I didn't make any plans for the weekend because I wasn't sure what shape he would be in and I wanted to be able to nurse him back to health. They pulled the tooth on Friday and by Saturday he wanted to be left alone to sleep off all his pain medication...which meant I needed to vacate the house with the kids to give him some peace and quiet. I did a quick search online of local activities and found an egg hunt/family day in Mill Valley (about 20mins away). The kids and I loaded up and head out for our very first egg hunt!

We got there just before the hunt started...litterally. As we were rounding the field they were lowering the tape and the kids rushed out. Since it had already started, I just lifted the Timo and Cameron up and over the barriers and into the field to go hunt. Later I found out there were two age groups...1-2year and 3-5 years...we invaded the 1-2 year old hunt...opps! (It was better that way anyway, my kids are small for their age and would have been run over by all the older kids). It took Timo and Cameron a few eggs to really get the hang of it, but when they did, they were off and running!(I forgot their Easter baskets so my two were the only ones walking around with brown paper bags...)

There were lots of other activites for all the children too..bouncy houses, train ride, face painting, music man and of course, the Easter Bunny!

While we waited in line for the train (the slowest train ever...and I've been on a lot of trains) the kids open their eggs to see their loot! Surprisingly, they didn't even know the eggs opened and had surprises inside, I had to show them.

After the festivities we still had some time to kill...I wanted to give Young as much quiet time as possible. We were right next to a baseball field, bingo! We killed an hour watching Timo run the base while Cameron did more sampling of her goodies.

We stopped for lunch on our way home just to extend our fun sunny day...and I'm glad we did. This was what was waiting for us when we were coming back over the Golden Gate Bridge...foggy and cold weather! Gotta love SF weather...

Easter Cookie Outreach

I'm a little behind on posting due to sickness between us all. Young had wisdom teeth taken out that later got infected, Cameron and Timo got colds and then gave them to me x2...I had it worse than anyone. But I wanted to skip ahead and get our Easter activities posted before Easter was forgotten.

Outreach Event: A bunch of moms from our church got together and decided to have the kids do an outreach project. We came up with the idea of decorating Easter cookies and then deliver them to a local retirement home. Just something simple so the children could see the joy in giving and how happy simple acts can make people...how to be a blessing. So we split the job up into two days...one day of decorating and one day of delivering.

Decorating...was so much fun! For some of the kids it was their first time decorating cookies. We did it at Rachel Blackwell's house and she has all kinds of colorful decorating supplies. But all the moms chipped in with cookies, bags, bows, pizza for lunch, snacks and flowers...it was a community event to say the least!

And of course...quality control...

Cameron was the last person still decorating. Most of the boys dropped off pretty soon, then the girls...but not Cameron, she kept going and going...my decorating energizing bunny!

I think they all did a great job! We did about three dozen all together.

Delivery...was so amazing and so simple!! We called ahead to the center to make sure it make sure it was OK to bring 10 toddlers into the rest home. They seemed really excited to have us come...so excited that they were waiting on us in their activity room when we got there! We weren't expecting to be the center of attention...but we were. All the children did really well passing out cookies and flowers (some of the elderly couldn't have cookies) and then we sang some songs for them. When we were done in the activity room they took us down to the cafeteria where there were more folks waiting!! So much fun! But the end, Timo was totally into giving cookies away, he was practicably tossing them into every one's lap. And he was giving out a "high 5" to all the old men. So cute.

They even had a little snack put together for all the children...sweet!

As we enjoyed the snacks they came around and told us to come back as often as we wanted, all the residents really enjoyed the kids. I think we're going to try and plan a quarterly event at the home. I was so surprised at how fun and easy it was. They were as much of a blessing to us as we were to them!

Revival!

We've been reading the kids the Easter story in the days leading up to Easter. It's kinda tricky in that they don't understand death/dying and both get really upset with they see "sad" people in their books. So we've been focusing on Jesus lives and His friends were sad He was gone but now He is Alive! There's been a lot of shouting "Praise the Lord", "Hallelujah", "He has Risen!"...the kids really get into the shouting part!

This was one evening just before bath, I was getting their clothes and such out when I heard them in the hall...there was a little revival going on!

Praise the Lord! from Sara ko on Vimeo.

Dinner Out With Friends

A few weeks ago I ran into one of my good friends, Virginia, that I met through our twins club here in SF. Her twins, Trevor and Lexi, are the same age as Timo and Cameron and basically spent their first two years together as friends. Virginia and I were both first time moms, mom of twins and stay home moms...so we spent a lot of time together, trying to make it through those first few years. But then last year she went back to work and Trevor and Lexi started preschool, boo hoo. We haven't been able to really hang out with them much since so it was so nice to run into them at our twins club spring family outing. As we started chatting, we realized the kids still remember each other and that friendship was still there. We made to plans to start getting together more often and our first date was dinner date.

Virginia and I talk about how far we had come from our first few outing with the "double snap n go" and feeling like we were never going to be able to go out with twins...my how things have changed...for the better, I must say. We had so much fun and look forward to hangin' with our best twin buddies more often!

Emotions

The kids are really into emotions right now...emotions they are feeling, facial expressions of those emotions and word expressing emotions. I have to be careful sometimes of my reactions to things because they seem to pick up on every facial expression I have. They are also concerned with how their face looks when they are feeling sad or angry or happy or surprised...they like to practice these expressions in the mirror too! This is Timo trying to make an "angry face". He was trying to be an angry friendly pirate...go figure. He was laughing so much, it was hard for him to keep a straight face! (don't ask about what he is wearing...they were friendly pirates dressing up to go to work to play basketball...)
This was his surprised happy friendly pirate!

Traintown, Sonoma, CA

Last Saturday, believe or not, we didn't have any plans so we decided to take the kids up to Sonoma to Traintown. It's this great little amusment park, consisting of about 6 kiddie rides, a train and a few animals in a petting zoo. Just big enough for a half day retreat out of the city...perfect for the kiddies!
Of course there was a train but it was one of the best train rides we've been on. The track was long and made a little 10min stop in the woods at a cute little petting farm and miniutre little town. The kids were a little scared of the animals because they rush you as soon as you reach the fence (hoping for food from the little vending machines) so we explored the little town.


After the train we made our rounds on all the other rides. Of course we had to take a spin on the Merry Go Round. Timo picked his usual chair to sit in as he doesn't like the to sit on the horses. And Cameron made sure she walked all the way around before picking out just the right horsey for her.
The big surprise came when, half way through, Timo decided he wanted to sit on a horse! I think because he saw an older little boy on a horse. But it was short lived...he wanted off almost immediately...
I was so happy to see that the kids are now tall enough to ride some of the rides by themselves. They were so excited to ride the little airplanes together, without mommy and daddy. As we were leaving for the day, we realized we had a few extra ride tickets and this was the one ride they wanted to do again. Timo even figured out how to pull the handle and make the airplane go high the second time around.

They both wanted to ride the Ferris Wheel but the closer we got, the more Cameron decided against it (I think it was my own fear rubbing off on her...I'm terrified of ferris wheel). But that didn't stop Timo! He walked right up with his daddy and climbed in. Each time they came around he had the biggest smile on his face...what a big boy!
When we rode the train, the kids saw the roller coaster in the back half of the park and kept asking to ride that. I wasn't so sure, even though it was a kiddie one. We measured them and they were tall enough...
So we grabbed a seat in the Dragon and the kids were super excited.
Let's just say we rode it but won't be riding anymore in the near future. "Mommy, that was too fast and too bumpy" were Cameron's words. Oh well, we recovered. Afterwards we took some time for a snack and explore the rest of the park. Really cool miniture trains!
Checking out the real box cars and caboose and various cars they had all around "town".
Timo had passed by a gum ball machine all day and kept asking for one (he thought they were balls) so we told him if he was a good boy when it was time to go then he could have one. We always have trouble getting Timo to leave a good time. We're generally "those people" carrying out a screaming child, so I'm always on the lookout for things that will give us an easy escape! Bingo!
I packed a lunch to have a picnic in the park just up the street but it was getting pretty windy outside so it was quick. The kids were so tired anyway and fell fast asleep before we got back on the freeway...a sign of a good time had by all!