Go Big Or Go Home

We made the most of our Easter weekend and had more fun than any one should really be allowed to have.  Our weekend was so jam packed with activities that the kids were at a whole new level of crazy by the time Sunday evening rolled around.

Friday's light itinerary included playing in the backyard.  This was followed by a play date with Gina and Atticus at the Mountlake Terrace pool where they had open swim and then an Easter Egg Hunt in the pool.  The kids loved all the pool toys that were out during the open swim.  The favorite was floating mats that stretched across the pool that they could walk on and then jump into the water.  I could not keep them off it even though it required McKenzie to jump 2 plus feet from the edge of the pool to get onto the mat. My children are destined for extreme sports and I'll be along for the ride, holding my breath all the way. 

Here's McKenzie preparing to gather the eggs from the pool.   Such a fun activity for the kids!

Ben preparing for his favorite pool activity - jump!

After swimming we all came back to our house and met up with more friends, Rachel, Keaton and Katie and Cody for a pizza and cookie making party.  In total we had five kids three and under with four of them boys!  We sure did have some fun but I also learned some lessons like don't bother picking up before a play date and to have premade food so I could concentrate on the fun.  We started off with some treats for our friends just in case there was any doubt that we weren't going to get enough sweets over the weekend. 

Here's the crew minus Keaton who McKenzie insisted on holding as much as possible.  Cody is 2, Atticus will be 3 in May, McKenzie will be 4 in June and Ben is 2.  Ben is only 25 days younger than Cody and might possibly be 25 pounds lighter.  These two are complete opposites in size but very similar in their sweet personalities.

McKenzie and her favorite little guy Keaton.  She was holding him and told Rachel that she could babysit.  She is 3 going on 16, I guess!

Photo Courtesy of Gina

Ben was so excited to have friends over to play in his room that he got a bit out of control and turned into "The Dumper"and his friends barely made it out alive after he dumped two huge bins of Legos and GeoTraxs on them. 

Photo Courtesy of Gina

Once we finally settled down from our fun night the kids had a great night of sleep and actually slept in a little on Saturday morning.  We then went to McKenzie's ballet class and then out to enjoy a wonderful sunny day at our favorite park, North Creek Park or as Kenzie calls it "Pink Park."

McKenzie practicing pumping by herself on the swing.  This is such a happy day for a Mom when your child starts to do things on their own.  Especially if you have to run across the playground to catch your other child who is trying to jump off of various parts of the playground equipment.

Ben climbing everything he could find then yelling for me to "Look" and 'asking "Jump?"

After lunch and naps we headed out again to meet up with our friend Kim and her dog Muki to play some ball.  These two can't get enough of Muki and luckily for them she's handles all the attention very well.   

 

Another good night of sleep after all that fun in the sun and then it was Easter morning!  The Easter Bunny hid eggs all over our house starting on the stairs.  Here's the kids opening and eating their eggs as they found them.  

  

McKenzie finding the Easter Baskets.  I couldn't believe it took them so long to find them.  They were sitting on the dining room table.

After we found the baskets we got dressed and headed out for Yakima to visit Great Grandpa Z with the rest of the family. Here's McKenzie, cousin Claire and Ben ready for the egg hunt!

Too cute McKenzie with her basket of eggs.

Little man trying to shake an egg out of a tree since he couldn't reach.  He tried everything to get that egg out, shaking, climbing, jumping finally his sister came and got it down for him - so sweet!

Ben and McKenzie taking a break from the hunt.  McKenzie is yelling, "We love Easter!"  We do love it and can't wait for next year when we have even more fun than this year.

Double Take

When you have two of anything it's hard not to notice the how different they are especially when you are comparing two people.  For all the million things that are different about McKenzie and Ben there are a million things that are the same.  One of the things they do share is their love of trains in any shape or size.  There is nothing better to them than spending a sunny Sunday afternoon at the Country Village riding the train.

If nothing else as they grow older I can always show them this moment in time when they were completely on the same page at the same time just being together.

Getting Ready for the Bunny!

In our typical fashion we are gearing up for Easter with our practice egg hunts, our explosion of stuffed bunnies, chickens and lambs and of course dying eggs!  This year Ben actually got to participate in the egg dying process.  His contribution was shouting 'blue' over and over again while dipping his fingers into the blue vinegar egg dye cup then licking them repeatedly.  Lovely doesn't even come close to describing it.  McKenzie on other other hand was quite the seasoned veteran at dying and we only lost three eggs in tragic accidents with the floor.

We are very much looking forward to the Easter Bunny's visit and have lots of Easter fun planned!

 

Our beautiful eggs which we want so badly to look at and hold every day.  We'll see how many make it to Easter.

Living The Dream...

Each Winter and through the long endless Spring while we wait for the reward of Summer to show up sometime in July, Matt and I discuss moving.  There are many reasons we think about moving most of them weather related.  In the end our reasons for staying are not ones that can be picked out of a town's statistics or a weather forecast. We stay because of the friends and family we have near by and how much we appreciate and enjoy their company.  However this does not make us give up our list of reason we want to move.  One of our big move discussion points is always the desire to have a pool at our house that we could use longer than the short summer season here.  The happiness I see in my kids faces when they are in the water makes this a must have item.

About a month ago we discovered the next best thing when we joined Columbia Athletic Club in Mill Creek.  We have been members of the local gym for a few years and have enjoyed it for Matt and me.  But the kids were not allowed to swim there and we have tried to fit in other local pools schedules into our weekend time around naps and other activities but we always felt rushed.  The "jum" as the kids call it has open family swim available all the times we could actually use the pool.  We have been going swimming with the kids every chance we get and we are all loving it.

Ben has turned into quite the swimmer these days with this help of his puddle jumper life jacket.  He can be a free agent in pool and just kick his little self all around.  This life jacket is seriously a life saver as it makes it possible for one of us to take both kids to the pool by ourselves and actually get in a few worry free moments to relax. 

 McKenzie continues to advance her swimming skills.  She also has a puddle jumper life jacket that we bought for her before Hawaii.  She is also confident enough to take it off and practice actual swimming and has been going underwater with her Daddy to pick up some dive balls from the bottom of the pool.  So looking forward to swim lessons this summer and watching her swimming continue to blossom.

We are still looking forward to the Summer since the "jum" has an outdoor pool as well and then we'll really be living the dream!!

Rainbows Out of Rainy Days

One of the things I love about the kids is their eternal optimism.  They seem to be able to turn any situation into something fun.  Last Saturday it was typical Northwest Spring day which called for morning sprinkles, mid day showers and afternoon drizzle.  My first thought on seeing the rain in the afternoon was that we'd be stuck in the house for the rest of the day with nothing to do.  Luckily the kids came up with a much better way to spend the afternoon by using their new umbrellas!  What could be a short five minute trip to the mailbox turned into almost a hour of fun.  Mind you, this same principal can work horribly against you as well.  Any normal activity that should take you five minutes to complete will take you at least half an hour if you have the kids along.

Here we are heading out with the excitement of umbrellas way over the top!  Ben, though, has not mastered the umbrella as he doesn't grasp its purpose and holds it over his shoulder.  McKenzie on the other hand was all about not getting rained on.  Love that Ben has a little get-up-an'-go in his step.  He loves to try to skip. 

Serious umbrella user balancing his need to use two hands and his desire to hold my hand while walking with the umbrella.  In the end I got to hold the umbrella and he ran free.

McKenzie strolling along without a care in the world about getting wet since she has on rain boots, a rain coat and her umbrella.

Ben discovered a nice puddle and did some serious splashing!  McKenzie was having none of it as she might get wet she told me.  Imagine that.  

Ben did get wet but he loved every minute of it! 

Benny's Buttons

Our guy Benny loves pushing buttons on anything, anywhere, everywhere, even better if the button actually does something.  He loves to get his hands on the remotes, Wii controllers, computers, car key fobs, a landline phone is pure heaven with that lovely dial tone just waiting for the push of a button.  You name a button and he's pushed it.

We had that in mind when we made his Christmas list last year.  He received many Benny approved items that included buttons.  One of his favorites is his own little laptop " 'puter."  He loves to tote it around and push the buttons to his hearts content.  Lately he's been making little makeshift desks out of things to put his " 'puter" on and I found him in the laundry room the other morning happily working away.

He was probably trying to hack into our wireless  network to trade some stocks.  He's still cuter than the E-Trade baby any day!

Daddy's Girl

One of my all time favorite pictures of McKenzie was taken when she was two months old and just starting to smile.  She was practicing one of her favorite activities even to this day, waking Daddy up.  I have the picture on the wall upstairs and this weekend she was telling me about it when we were in the car.  She likes to talk about when she was a baby.  She said, "remember when I was a baby and I was supposed to be in a picture with Daddy smiling?"  She tends to throw in a "supposed to" when talking about the past for some reason.

Later that afternoon Matt was laying on the bed watching the kids playing in the landing and McKenzie decided to recreate the picture.  She was very exacting including making Matt close the curtains since she felt that it was dark in the first picture. 

Still cute together even almost four year later. She really is a Daddy's girl!  Hopefully she will retain her love for her Daddy as the years pass and also her tolerance for having her picture taken for my sake.