I had been trying to get an Easter picture of the kids to include in the cards we made for our families, and a friend came over and managed to get the kids to both smile at the same time! So this is the one I used. Nothing fancy, but it works! :-)

Carson got a little haircut out on the deck. Jason does a really great job with the clippers and he used the scissors on the top this time and it turned out really cute. I didn't get a good shot after it was done, but you can tell in the Easter pictures we'll post. Carson did such a great job sitting still and patient. He always gets rewarded with something yummy, this time it was a bowl of ice cream with whipped cream and sprinkles! Knowing that's waiting for him usually helps him sit still. :-)

Lovely Livi.....hmmm... try saying that 10 times fast!

Playgroup Easter Party

We had an Easter party with our playgroup this week where the kids decorated eggs and cookies and went on an egg hunt. They had a great time playing with their friends and enjoyed lots of treats.









Carson and Livi have the same expression on their faces!!! I think they have mouths full of jellybeans!

Signs of Spring

There are so many trees and flowers blossoming everywhere. This purple tree sits across the street from us and is especially pretty in the morning.

Once again, another treat from Trader Joe's...8 lovely daffodils for $1.99. They bring such cheer into our house. I love spring!

Peet's at the Park

On Friday it was a gorgeous spring day, so we decided to go over to the new Peet's coffee shop and then head to the Felton Covered Bridge park. We hadn't been there in a while and the kids had fun. The coffee was delicious and the sun felt great on our backs. It was a nice morning. Peet's is the 6th coffee shop in our little town of 11,000. We have 3 Starbucks (one is in Safeway), a Coffee Cat, a Surf City, and now a Peet's. It's great.

I tried to get some good pics of the kids together so we could make some Easter cards, but they just weren't in the mood. I think I'll have to try again when they aren't tired and hot and hungry!

Praying for our Kids

I was just looking at someone else's blog and came across this link which is pretty cool. It's about praying for our kids. It gives a suggestion for a prayer for each week of the year. I think it is mostly in relation to sponsoring a child through Compassion, but they are great ideas for us, too. Check it out.

Happy Birthday Gracie!

Gracie turned 6 today, so we made her a cake. Well actually the cake was for us, it was a great excuse to make one! She turned her nose up at the cake part (it was a really good Paula Dean banana cake recipe), but she loved the lick of frosting we gave her.

The kids love Gracie...she really is the best dog with them, she puts up with everything! We love her, too, despite all her wierd quirks and the many times she's almost been given away, she does bring us a lot of happy times, too. :-)

Happy Birthday, Gracie!

Fun Sunny Day

Carson got a new soccer ball and swim trunks and a swim shirt, he was so excited about it. We'll get a lot of use out of them playing outside.

We went to Skypark to play on the field with the soccer ball and the frisbee and to fly our kite.

Carson and Jason got the kite all put together, it was a good kite flying day, a nice breeze was in the air.

And they got it up!

The playing in the field was more fun for mom and dad, but the kids thought it was much more fun to play at the park in the sand, so we spent most of our time there, which was fun, too!

Peek-a-Boo Livi Lu

Livi has many different nick names...one is Livi Lu, I actually call her Lu a lot, although her middle name is Joy.
She loves to hide things in the closet and she also loves to hide herself there as well. Today her piggy tails stayed in ALL day! Quite amazing. :-)
Here is a list of some of the names she goes by:

Olivia Joy
Olivia
LaLu
Ooo
Livi
LiviLiviLujah
Livi Lu
Iv
Lu
Ivee
LuLu
Ivee-ooo
LuLa
Ooobear
Livzilla

I know there are more, maybe I'll have to keep adding to the list as I think of them. :-)

Water Baby

Livi loves to play in the water. I remember when Carson was right around her age, maybe a little earlier, he started to love the water, too. Every day she asks for "bup" which means "up" (onto the counter) and then "bup" again, which now means "cup". The weather has been so nice, so every day this week, we've been out in the front of the house on the driveway with the water table and the pool and the hose....it's been so much fun. I even get to relax in the sun a bit while they play. And we've gotten to know some of our neighbors better in the process, as they come over after school to play with the kids in the water. It's been great, I'm looking forward to more and more of it this summer. Carson's already starting to get a little tan. :-)
We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium on Monday with some friends, and we had a great time. We were there for about 4 hours and we were all very tired by the time we headed out. Good thing there was a Starbucks on the way to the car so we could get a little refreshment. :-) Fortunately I remembered to bring the camera (I have blogging in the back of my mind a lot these days) but unfortunately the camera had no batteries in it when I pulled it out to get a picture of the kids, so no photos to show you of our fun day. Maybe next time.
I'm so thankful for this life God's given me. I'm so happy I get to stay home with my precious kids and soak up all these moments when they are young and love to give me hugs and kisses and crawl all over me and just play, play, play...it's so great. And the sunshine outside has a really great way of making the days even better. And the tulips! Oh spring bulbs, I love them. I got a whole bunch of tulips for the kitchen table at Trader Joes for $5.99, there were 18 orangy/red beautiful tulips in the bunch, and it cheers me to see them.

Duck, Duck....Duck!

For the past 3 days we've had this cute clan of ducks coming to visit us! They are very friendly and love to eat just about everything we've tried giving them, except for a bag of old almonds I found in the car...so picky! We've seen this little group of 3 in our neighborhood for about a year. The kids and all the neighbors get a kick out of seeing them come so close!













This white one is really cute!

Livi gets sad when they waddle away, she calls after them, "Dutty, nooo, dutty! Bye bye dutty!"

Blue Tongues and the Beach

This is what happens when you eat blue markers! Yuk! She's so fast and sneaky when it comes to snitching nibbles of crayons and markers...good thing they make them non-toxic!

We got to go to the beach on Saturday, the weather was so nice. We sat for a while and played in the sand and water and then got pizza, it was a fun day. It makes me excited for the summer, we plan to spend lots of time at the beach playing. Every time I see the ocean I just can't believe that we get to live here...it's awesome! Thank you, Lord!

You Speaka English?

This is a post I saw on a friend's blog, and I thought the test was fun! Here's how I came out. :-)

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

20% Upper Midwestern

5% Midwestern

0% Dixie

0% Yankee

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Fudge Pops & Feeding Babies

Livi was having some applesauce and decided her baby was hungry, too. So she offered some to her. It was so cute, she made all the sound effects and even washed off her face when she was done! She loves her baby. :)

We made some fudge pops the other day from a recipe we got from Alton Brown off the Food Network. They turned out delicious! The kids loved them....and so did I...I found myself sneaking bites throughout the day. Sometimes I have to be a closet eater...when I don't want the kids having what I'm having...that's bad, huh.

Grandma Time

Grandma Warkenthien came to town for about 4 days for a visit. It was a lot of fun! The weather was so good we got to go to the beach on Saturday, and afterwards we went downtown for the best pizza in the world at Pizza My Heart.
We went to the Buttery for some pastries on Monday, and again got to sit out in the wonderful sunshine...what a treat for the middle of February! Then we headed up Hwy. 1 for a trip to Half Moon Bay where we walked around downtown and enjoyed the sunshine some more and on the way home stopped to watch the kite surfers...what a fun day we had! And of course we went to Trader Joe's to pick up some goodies for Grandma to bring home for Bumpa. :-)
So here are a couple pics from our time together.


Grandma brought a new outfit, I think she likes it!

Pajamas

Jason's in Colorado this weekend with some friends from college. So I was downstairs tonight getting Livi ready for bed, and I came upstairs to find that Carson had gotten into my pajamas. He was very proud of himself...and it was so cute. He's pretty big into "doing things by himself" now, actually both kids are, so he thought it was pretty funny that he put my pj's on while I was out of the room. And look at that funny camera smile. He's a crack up. He keeps us laughing. :-)

Children's Museum

We went to the children's museum in San Jose this morning with some friends. The kids had a great time. Livi has a bit of a cold, but it didn't stop her from having fun! Despite wearing her apron, she was covered with paint, all over her face and arms and shirt. She was handpainting on a wall. It's a neat museum, with tons of hands-on activities for all ages. It was a gorgeous day today, and it was fun to play outside for a bit before we headed home.

Sunglasses and Valentines

Carson fell asleep on the way home from a friend's house with his sunglasses on, I thought it was so cute, he loves his sunglasses.

We had a picnic on our living room floor for Valentine's Day dinner and then we had fondue for dessert...Carson loved it as you can tell by his face!

Painting and Baking, our Favorite Things

Carson loves to bake. Today we made some sugar cookie dough for some Valentine's Day cookies that we'll decorate tomorrow. By the way his pants look, it doesn't seem that his apron is doing much good. :-)
Our "official taster", as he calls himself. Gotta love licking the beater !
Carson and Livi both love to paint. It's always a messy process...but what can't be washed, right? Well, we've ruined a few pieces of clothing, even the "washable" paint, isn't completely washable, we learned. O'well, it's worth the fun and the portraits that come of it.

Cute Kids

I've decided to start a blog for our family! I actually started one last May, but I was at a point where I didn't have as much time to devote to figuring out how to do all this techy stuff, but maybe I do now, so I'm going to give it a shot. I'll try to be good about updating it often, I know I sure love reading other friend's blogs. So to start off, here are a couple recent pics of our kiddos, I thought they were cute. :-)