We eat and the Turtles eat

My sis, Em and I decided to take the kiddos to the Botanic Garden for a little picnic and to see the turtles. The weather was PERFECT this day and there was hardly anyone out there. This is a GREAT activity to do now, while it's still spring temperatures. Here's a couple of shots. We had fun with the girls and the turtles took us over at the end.

Spinning and stacking

Isaac has taken to a new toy, his spinning ball. Now that he's really gaining some balance and sitting more he likes holding this between his feet. Check out some shots of sister stacking blocks in the background.

Vivi's Ballet Concert

We made it to the end of the season. I think overall, Vivi had fun in ballet but a lot of it was just learning to wait in line and listen to the teacher Ms. Diana. She did well though learning some of the terms and formal ballet moves. We just had a time dressing her up in this little leotard and handmade tutus by Ms. Diana. What a fun time. I hope she'll want to do some kind of dance in the fall but we'll see. It may end up being soccer.

Matching Mommy & Isaac

We captured just a couple of cute shots of Isaac and I in matching green outfits. Everyone told me I would be okay with boys, not so tempted to go overboard. I don't know friends! I've discovered that I pretty much dress him in brights and stripes, and I LOVE overalls! Gymboree can get me in trouble anyway I look at it!

Caleb & Katie's Carnival

A few weekends back, I had the priveledge of hosting my first party (since Isaac) for Caleb & Katie. Although we had a lot of things working against us, weather, a house remodel, the swine flu outbreak, and just normal life struggles, I think the party turned out well. This slideshow provides a sprinkling of the actvities. Unfortunately, I didn't capture as much as I'd hoped but this gives an idea. The kids seemed to have a nice time and it was definently personal to them.

Sitting and Saucer

Isaac's just growing and growing. Now he's working on sitting and loves his exercauser. He's already outgrown the bouncy and arches out of his bumpo. WOW, this equipment is so short-lived! Here's a few shots.

Hide and Seek

Vivi and her cousin's new favorite game is hide and seek. We had a little drama associated around this as I was watching the girls last Friday. The girls, after being told not to shut the doors, locked themselves in Vivi's closet. We ended up taking the handle off the door (with my neighbor's help!) so now Vivi has a closet with no handle. Thank goodness both girls were fine. In fact, I think I was more traumatized than they were. Here's a few pics of them hiding in Nick and my closet first. I was told one day I would laugh about this, not yet!

Remember this bracelet

Isaac received his baby bracelet from Nick's family recently. Most of you know the story of these bracelets but if you don't...here it is. These come from St. Croix, where everyone wears these. In Nick's family all the women (and men who wear jewelry) have these. Nick gave me mine when we were dating as an intiation into the family. Nick's grandmother got Vivi her 1st bracelet (just for the girls). She's now outgrown her's but hopefully we'll get a replacement soon. We decided to go ahead and get one for Isaac. The tradition on the island is that if your "u" is facing out you are available and if in you are spoken for. We decided to turn our kids in and that when they thought they were ready to date we'd have a conversation about that and what it means and we would turn it out.

Happy Mother's Day

This past weekend, along with being a wonderful mother's day, we had some fun food experiments going. We introduced Isaac to his first solids-sweet potatoes. I can say with each day he seems to like them more and more. Vivi also had a first-first time to try chopsticks. Nick treated me to Pei Wei for my mother's lunch and Vivi wanted to use what we used, so Nick let her take a "stab" at it after we were done. Sunday night we had some friends over for some dinner and roll around time of the boys. You can see Isaac kept trying to eat Aaron's bib. Aaron who is a few weeks shy of Isaac's age also just started on solids. At dinner he kept groaning that he was hungry so we tried the sweet potatoes on him too. I wish I would have captured this shot as he ate two whole ice cubes! This is a lot for a little guy who's only been eating solids a few days! Check out the short slide show of my lovely Mother's day weekend. The last pic shows my treats-two homemade cards from Vivi and some lovely flowers from Ecquador-via Central Market. Thanks Mari for sending me flowers (just my joke as I have a friend that lives there and is always telling us of the pretty fresh flowers!)

Remember Dating

Nick surprised me with tickets to the opera this past weekend. It was an early Mother's Day treat. It was a nice night out- despite the crazy rain. God kept it cleared so we could get out and have dinner and the opera. When we came out the rain had stopped again and started pouring the second we pulled out of the garage in the car to head home. Talk about beautiful timing! We had to make sure and enjoy this night as it was a CRAZY busy weekend and so much was going on, but Nick had done this extra special for me including letting me get a new dress for the night. It was really fun to dress up and enjoy dinner without having to cut up someone else's meal and be disrupted 10 times-I love my kiddos but it's nice to have a real date every once in awhile. Thank you honey for a sweet time.

Tabasco Baby

I had to post a couple of shots of Isaac in his new Tabasco jammies from Nana and Papa. Check out this hot tamale! I posted a couple of shots of Isaac drooling over daddy's dinner. Don't worry we're starting him on solids this week! But the answer is no to daddy's beer.

Chucky Cheese

What kids do before the swine flu outbreak- go to Chucky Cheese. Nearly every day we pass the Chucky Cheese and Vivi says "We're not going to Chuck-o-cheese (her pronunciation) today." After much debate, and quandering how Vivi even knew about Chucky Cheese, I decided to cave. My sister and I took the kids last week, and I finally got to change her response- "We get to go to Chuck-o-Cheese!" Here is a small slideshow of shots. It really was better than I had remembered or expected and I'm glad I got it in before all of this, as it will probably be awhile before we return there.

Happy Birthday "D"

As mentioned before, we have a lot of birthdays in April. At the end of the month is "D" (what Vivi calls daddy)/Nick's birthday. It was a lot of fun this year thanks to all the family. Saturday night was Nick's company annual dinner and party. Nana and Papa babysat both kids so we could enjoy a night out kid-free! After the dinner they have a casino night which Nick dominated at the crabs table and ended up scoring a $100 gift card to Home Depot with his winnings. Sorry for the late night! Sunday we had a nice lunch at nana and papa's with my sister, bro-in-law, and niece joining us and then the grandparents watched all three kids and let us sneak in a movie! WHAT A TREAT! Sunday night we took Nick to his favorite burger joint Pappas burgers. It was quiet because Vivi had finally passed out in the car from a long day with no nap and Isaac slept pretty much the whole time we were there until the end. Happy Birthday honey!

Weekend of family time

This is from a few weekends back but I wanted to post some shots of our fun family weekend. Nick was out of town during this week for a conference and when he came back we just had a nice time hanging out as a family. Before daddy got home Vivi kept busy with a new dollar store find- Kung Fu Panda stickies. We also downloaded this movie so Vivi and I could watch it for the first time while we waited for daddy to get home. We enjoyed the time with popcorn and juice. (Now Vivi asks for movie and a popcorn every day after nap!) Friday night we went to our favorite family restaurant Pizza Hut. We just love dining in at the Benbrook Pizza hut! It's quiet with good big booths and Vivi loves the pizza and mommy loves the salad bar and breadsticks. This night Vivi loved messing with mommy's hair (don't worry this is afterwards when waiting for the check!) Saturday Vivi and mommy went to a friends birthday party that got moved from the park to her home because of rain. What is up with this rain?! I haven't "remembered" such a wet spring in awhile. It turned out a fun time with bubbles. Vivi was so into it that she slipped in the bubbles not two minutes into the party. We had to borrow a pair of pants. Thanks Randi! Vivi loved the bubbles so much we played with them more at home after naps. When the rain finally cleared on Sunday we had a nice afternoon. We packed sandwiches and headed to a local park. Vivi munched on an apple while watching daddy and mommy (attempted) frisbee time. Then daddy treated us to our favorite dessert- Braum's ice cream. See, you didn't know old Benbrook had such fun family treats! Thanks Nick for such a nice lowkey weekend. These are some of my favorite memories.