Mother's Day

I had an outstanding Mother's Day! It started with my little buddy and his cold feet cuddling with me, watching Netflix in bed, while Jason and Alia went to Starbucks to pick up my favorite breakfast. I enjoyed my breakfast and the newspaper in my pj's and then took a long, hot (uninterrupted) shower! After that, the whole family went to the farmer's market for our first trip of the season. We were excited to see so much going on already, but no berries quite yet. Next, I went down to the outlet mall ALL BY MYSELF to do a little shopping (for me, not kids). It was productive, strange and amazing all at the same time.

When I arrived home Jason and the kids had prepared a scavenger hunt for me "pirate style". (Alia is really into Jake and the Neverland Pirates all of the sudden.) The treasure was the "relaxation cave", aka the upstairs bathroom, all set up and ready for a bubble bath for me later that night. We had Prosecco and appetizers and then the most amazing dinner EVER!!! Jason made fillet oscar style. Easily his best dinner to date. Then, as if it could get any better, he made peanut butter cookies that had little peanut butter cups in the middle of them. They were amazing and I hope he never makes them again. I inhaled them at an alarming rate. 

Here are a few pictures from my perfect Mother's Day. I am so lucky!

Another big accomplishment of Jason's that day, was getting the table into the dining room all by himself while I was gone shopping. Alia helped set it for dinner :-)

AMAZING!!!!

They were all dressed up and adorable when I get home too.

So, I changed into some of my new duds and we were all fancy together.

My Smart Little Cookie

As many of you know, Alia has really taken off with her reading. She has always loved books and loved being read to. Now, she reads to us every night before bed. It's crazy! With all of this natural interest in reading, I haven't really been pushing the writing too much. She still has over a year until she starts kindergarten so I'm just trying to capitalize on what she shows interest in and then go from there.

SO ... on Mother's Day Jason was cooking dinner and Alia was needing something to do to keep her out of Jason's hair. I suggested she get some paper and make a list to help Daddy. We gave her some of the ideas, but she did all of the sounding out and writing on her own.

corn, cup, wine, pot, pan, bread, fire

The Move (and stuff)

To say that we have been busy the last month or so would be a grand understatement. However, we are finally "settled" in the new house. We close on the old house on Friday and are looking forward to only managing one residence. We are also looking forward to putting a freeze on all house related projects for a bit and just enjoying the summer in our new neighborhood. The kids are signed up for some summer camps, we are hoping to get in some swim lessons (registration is this Saturday) and we've already purchased our plane tickets to my dad's house for a week of relaxing on the lake this summer. We are hoping to do lots of playing outside at our new playground, swimming in our community pool, play-dates with friends, trips to the farmer's market, zoo, etc! 

Here are some random photos from the last few weeks ...

In the midst of all this insanity, I turned 35. Ugh! I got a brand new giant gym bag just like I asked and some other special little surprises that the kids picked out for me. 

A view of the pre-move insanity

Alia and Max were both very in to helping load and unload the u-haul. We used it to move as much as we could (without throwing out our backs) on Friday, then had movers come on Saturday to do all the heavy stuff. So worth it!!

First play-date at the new house ... with Carson and Landon of course. We had a picnic lunch on the back porch then walked to the playground and played for a bit.

Best Friends!

(PS. We've had some fabulous weather here and I have some great pics and video of Alia on a slip 'n slide in the backyard. I'll get around to posting it soon.)

Fun Stuff We Are Doing

A few random pictures of some of our activities and outings lately. I fully admit I have been absolutely horrible about taking pictures so far this year. We have been so busy with house stuff, time has just gotten away from me.

My poor kids ... I make them earn those gummy bears!

Alia's version of the activity - I was pretty impressed. She did this with ZERO help from me!

Sorting colors and matching them to the numbers with Easter m&m's.

Max needed a little help with this one. He had a hard time focusing once he realized he could eat the treats when he was done.

At Alia's suggestion, we stopped to take a picture here after a trip to one of our favorite play places "Outdoors In'. We were killing time for an entire morning when our house was being shown.

Last Sunday, during our open house we took the kids to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). They have an amazing play area for little kids. We spent all of our time there and in the fancy cafe. The food is great!

more playing and learning

*pretending to be chipmunks*

That's Alia's chipmunk face :-) As you can see Max managed to gather quite a stash of nuts.

An outstanding little project that arrived by way of the Easter Bunny (and the Dollar Tree). The kids had a great time putting these together.

Alia Reading

Here is a short clip of Alia reading for those of you who aren't on Facebook and haven't seen it yet. You may need to turn your volume up a bit to hear her. She is reading to us every night before bed now. It is amazing how much progress she has made in the past month.

Easter 2013

I think this was the first time all 4 of us colored Easter eggs together. You'll notice we are wearing short sleeves and tank tops on the night before Easter ... in March. It was an absolutely gorgeous weekend here!

My handsome little buddy

Max was very excited to find bunny crackers and colored goldfish in his Easter basket. He also got a Francesco car , a  Cars book, Silly Putty, some art projects and a toy shaving kit for the bath tub.

Alia found her Easter basket hiding in the pantry. Alia's had many of the same things as Max, but also received a Bob the Builder DVD, bath tub crayons and two "My Little Ponies".

Two of the cutest kids around in their Easter best.

Sibling LOVE!

Poor Alia had a fever and was under the weather most of the weekend, but still loved wearing her beautiful dress and flowery headband. Max even let me put gel in his hair and make it look just like Daddy's :-)

Blake and Kelli Visit

We had a great visit with Blake and Kelli. They came all the way from New Jersey and somehow managed to get a direct flight. I'm still pretty impressed with that, since we never get so lucky! Here are a few pics from their stay. 

On Monday, we went to the zoo while Jason worked. Uncle Blake was on an elephant ear mission and finally managed to get one. He was kind enough to share with the kids and it was a big hit!

Pretending to be eagles in the nest ...

Max "way up high"

Jason, Blake and Kelli did a wine tasting trip

More pics from the zoo ... this one is ridiculously cute!

My attempt at getting a picture of all 4 of them together. Blake and Kelli bought the kids those little stuffed animal snakes. They gave them a choice of just about anything in the zoo store and that's what Alia wanted (which was therefore what Max wanted). Alia named hers "Petty", so Max did too. 

On their final night in town, we got a babysitter (who took this picture for us) and the grown-ups went out to Toro Bravo, our favorite restaurant :-)