The rest of our Easter

On our way to church this morning, Hank posed with his new mini Toy Story toys that he "won" :) for sitting for photos with his sisters.  Thanks Pearce and Luke! 

Hank with Jessie.  Very glad to have a Jessie.  We had a larger Jessie a couple of months ago but her head came off and ever since then he has asked if he could get a new one and not take her head off.

 (As a side note, I can't remember the last time I got to sit up front when we all went somewhere together including Brett.  Hank asks me to sit next to him every time.  Brett gets to shuttle all of us around in the minivan!!)

The girls participated in their first egg hunt ever!  Pretty amusing for Brett and me.  The girls walked all of three feet.  They just squatted and started eating all of the goldfish that had fallen out of random eggs all over the ground. It was kind of gross but I didn't really want to stop them and have them get all upset.  They both looooove goldfish.  They do not get them very often, usually only in their class at church or if they bum some off of our friends, so when they see them they lose their pretty little heads and gobble them up.

 

Ruby enjoying her single egg haul.

 
Ruby and Charlotte getting down to business.  It's all about eating the loot ASAP.

Charlotte trying to pick out the few goldfish that she actually picked up off the ground and put into the bag.

Hank lined up for the preschool set's egg hunt.  He surprised me.  I thought he'd be gung ho and start scooping up eggs right away.  Instead he ran with a few other kids all the way to the end of the egg hunt area and started working the back first.  He was also very selective.  He only got four or five eggs even though the limit was higher than that.  He was shaking them before putting them in his bag and really only wanted ones with candy.  Stickers weren't going to do it for him I guess.  He did a little hunt at preschool on Friday so I think he was expecting to find big ones like he found on Friday.  I pretty much had to convince him to pick up the ones he even did pick up.  I really was so surprised.  I guess he wants what he wants!

Comparing loot with Ruby.  She didn't have anything in her bag and she was so interested in looking in his bag.  (Oh our kids used bags because I forgot their baskets at home.  They weren't the only ones there with lunch sacks so I didn't feel too bad!)

While we waited to have some family pictures done (they had a photographer set up - very nice!) Hank started in on the eggs.  I loved watching him sit there and pick up each jelly bean one at a time and inspect it then eat it.  I am pretty sure he got this skill from my sister Courtney.

After we piled up some plates with pancakes and the fixings we found a little place to sit out on the lawn and start to chow down.  Hank wanted me to see that one of his eggs had goldfish and this would be good for his sissies.  Hank took one bite of his pancakes and focused solely on candy after that.

Over the last two months, Ruby has been wishy-washy on pancakes.  It has been killing me.  How can a child of mine not love the wonderful creation that is the pancake?  Today she was in favor of them and at one point decided to just take the plate right off of my lap and start tearing her own pieces of pancake to eat.  (Charlotte took pieces from me but didn't try to steal the plate.)
Then she realized she could just eat off the entire pancake and not tear pieces.

Charlotte wanted in on that big pancake action.

Girrrrrrl get off my pancake.  Ask me before you grab it.  I share everything with you!

She shared and they were both happy.

He ate every single jelly bean.  Then took off with his friends.

We've been going to the Easter breakfasts at our church for years and it is very fun to now have children that can participate and enjoy it too!  And we love to see Hank run around with all of the other little kiddos.  It's so so so much fun!
-a

Sept 2012 - This and that

I have been hoarding pictures since last August.  I think I finally have them all organized and now I'm able to blow up the blog with a lot of goodies.  So many random photos.  So unnecessary to post them so many months later but I'm so going to do it anyway!

Here are a bunch of random little things from September that were on my cell phone...

Hank often crawled inside our Moses basket which is now a toy box. One day he finally put it all together and realized this basket looked like the basket in the baby Moses story in his little Bible picture book. He wrapped himself up and declared "Mom, I'm baby Moses!"

We had our first meal out where Ruby and Charlotte sat in high chairs and ate with us at the table! Prior to this I think we just tossed them food in their stroller. Going out to eat with this trio is always an adventure!

Ruby

Henry - who looks like he has ten plates of food in front of him

Charlotte

Until recently, I hardly ever shopped with any of the kids in tow.  It just made me all types of crazy to tote them with me.  I finally broke down and took the girls with me by myself to Target one day when I had child care for Hank.  I needed to get some serious shopping done so I was desperate.  This was the first time I had to wear one/push one.  Charlotte enjoyed her first time sitting in the shopping cart!  It was a wee bit stressful because the little one kept trying to stand up in the seat so I had to keep one hand on her at all times.  Ruby, of course, enjoyed riding with me.  The girls love to be worn!

 

Hank saw his first lady bug in real life!  Big deal around here.

Last, but not least, my precious babies had pancakes for the first time.  And they loved them!  This mama was so proud.  Also a big deal around here.

 

-a

Easter

 

Easter 2012...where to begin?  Pretty much nothing went as planned but oh well.  What's that they say about the best laid plans?  Such is life with three little ones!  And this little life is a pretty good one so I can't complain.  

First up, on Saturday morning we went to the city of Menlo Park's annual egg hunt with the Chen and Koranda/Forcier families.  I was so excited because it was going to be Hank's first official egg hunt ever.  We had practiced at home in our yard the day before so he was trained and ready.  I was totally going to be there right up front to take pictures and everything.  Well, the girls weren't ready to leave the house when it was time to go so Brett and Hank went without us.  By the time I was able to get there, find a parking spot, unload the girls into a stroller and walk several blocks to the park...the egg hunt had started and was over almost immediately.  I missed it.  No pictures of Hank scoring his loot.  Brett was too busy with Hank to be able to take pictures.  Afterward, all of our crew's kiddos played at the park and then we went to Chipotle.  The kids were so adorable sitting together at the end of the table.  Hank was on his best behavior and even sat there and ate really well.  He always does better when he's with other kids.  We all kept saying that Teagan and Hank look like they could be siblings!  Random side note:  At the egg hunt, two different people asked if they could take pictures of the girls.  People are fascinated by twins I tell ya.  They are like a tourist attraction.

Before bed time that night we dyed our Easter eggs. Hank wasn't as into it as I thought he would be.  He cared more about trying to cook them in the toaster oven.  (We keep the toaster oven unplugged because a lot of things get put in there on a daily basis.) 

Our final product...which we never did anything with and they stayed in this carton the rest of the weekend.  Except for the one or two that Brett handed to Hank on Easter morning and he promptly bashed open in the living room. We ran out of time to hide them in the morning.  But it was fun to look at them!  Such high hopes...

Easter morning...where to start???  I spent the time to make Easter dresses for the girls and some fun little pants for Hank and this is the best picture I got of all three of them.  It was my own fault.  The TV was on and not a single one of those kids would look at me.  (I couldn't turn off the TV yet because that would mean Hank would be upset and not sit for a picture anyway!)  One second later Hank tried to move the girls off of him so we scooped them up and got ready to leave.  The girls rarely see the TV so this was so funny to me to see them engrossed with it so much.  I was kinda freaked out by it so they only got to watch for a minute.

At church, they always have a pancake breakfast and egg hunt after the service.  I was looking forward to getting pictures of Hank hunting eggs finally!  Well wouldn't you know, that didn't exactly happen.  After Hank sat like a little angel and ate his pancakes he ran off and found a patch of soggy, muddy grass and fell in it.  Mud covered his back side and he didn't like it.  He wanted his pants off immediately.  He started stripping his own pants off.  Letting Hank hunt for eggs with no pants on didn't seem very polite and since he was real upset about being muddy we decided to head home.  I learned a valuable mom lesson...always pack additional clothes for the toddler too.  At least I was able to have a couple of pancakes so it wasn't all a total loss.

Once we got home after church, Hank headed straight to the back yard to play.  Within 10 minutes he was butt naked and running around in the yard.  I'll spare you those photos.  How is that for an Easter morning?

We rounded out the day with a super delicious dinner over at the Chens' house.  Hank talks about Max all the time and he has been saying "I go to Max house" all week since then.  It is so cute to see their budding friendship.

As I write this I can laugh at all the mishaps.  None of this is what Easter is about anyway.  I know with my whole heart that Easter is first and foremost about Jesus but all the other things are fun too.  Here's to many more chaotic holidays!!  

-a

A great holiday weekend

Hopefully you had a nice long Memorial Day weekend!  On Sunday we went to a BBQ with our friends.  It was great food and great company even though the weather was chilly.  (NorCal is such a bummer sometimes.)  Hank ate a watermelon slice for the first time!  We used the bib for this because we knew there was going to be a big mess.  He did not disappoint!

Sandy brought her picnic blanket and she soon turned it into a magic carpet ride of sorts for Hank.  After pulling him around several times it was time for Brett to step in and take over and give her a break.  Hank LOVED this "ride".  Any time Sandy or Brett stopped, he would lean up and sign for "more, more".  We were all laughing every time he did it so of course he kept hamming it up and begging for more.

Enjoying the ride.

On Monday, after a pancake breakfast at our fave diner in Los Altos, we headed over to Stanford to take a walk around campus and let Hank get some of his ya-yas out. 

We went to check out a fountain and Hank tried to scoot right in.  It was funny to us but he was so annoyed that he couldn't go swimming.

Sadly waving bye bye to the fountain as we walked away.

We loved having Brett around for an extra day.  Even if it was only a little bit of the day since he went to work anyway.  Such is life at a start up!  That's OK, we'll take what we can get!

-a

Happy Easter

We hope you had a great Easter Sunday!  We celebrated this wonderful day - one of the most important days in Christianity - by having a fabulous brunch after church this morning.  It was so good!  As an added bonus, the Easter Bunny was at the same restaurant as us.  So cool!  (Hank punched him in the face after I took this picture.  Sorry!)

Hank watching a  little bird walking around outside the restaurant.  

Hank was really good at brunch and only threw his food a few times and only threw his spoon once.  It was quite a successful outing!

Yes, yes we had pancakes.

-a

Dream baby. Dream husband. Dream day.

Please allow me to be obnoxious for a moment.  It's my blog and I can do that.  

This dream baby is so stinkin' adorable!  Look at this pose!  I mean, really?  He just keeps getting cuter...how is that possible?!?

Today was a dream day...  

Hank slept until 6:45am.  (We're going on over a month of pre-6am wake up times over here.)

We went to our favorite diner in Los Altos for breakfast and Hank had a bite of pancakes for the first time.

Our weather was beautiful and in the upper 60's.

I got a manicure and pedicure while Hank took his morning nap.  

When I returned home, we took a nice long walk over to Stanford so Hank could play on the playgrounds before lunch.

After his afternoon nap, we went back to Stanford to let Hank roam the campus to get his ya-yas out before dinner and so I could take some pictures of him that did not have our brown couch in the background.  (I wanted to take advantage of having Brett as my wrangler.  It's getting harder and harder to take photos of Hank when we are out and about when I am by myself with him.  Let's just say he finds trouble real fast because he's real fast.)

Using Daddy to help walk down some stairs.

Peeking over a wall and getting excited at what he sees!

I love days like this.  Brett asked me..."Does everyday seem like a weekend to you?" (Since I don't go to an office to work).  My response was "yes" just to make him jealous.  But honestly the answer is yes and no.  Yes, because I don't work for the man anymore!  Woot!  No, because weekends are actually different for me.  On the weekends, Brett and I spend most of our time together with Hank.  I love that Brett gets to experience everything that I get to do all the other days of the week.

I love this dream baby and I love my dreamy husband!

-a

Favorite things

A week ago, I got together with some of my girlfriends for a "Favorite Things" exchange. It was SO MUCH FUN! I highly recommend that you get some of your girlies together and do this because it really is a fun way to spend time together and get some new loot! Sandy organized it and we all had a blast.

Shannon and me

Pam, Sandy, and Ann

We met at a breakfast joint which was another favorite for me. And of course, I ordered pancakes and ate every last one of them.  I can't wait to get together with these girls for our next spoiling session.

-a

Our little pumpkins

 

We hung out with the Chens today so we could get some pictures of our little pumpkins together and so Sandy could make us her DELICIOUS pancakes!

 

Max - so adorable

-a