Grandmommy and Granddougie

Grandmommy and Granddougie came to visit a couple weekends ago so that Sam and I could go away for TWO NIGHTS ALONE(!!!) to a friend’s wedding.  Everyone had a blast.  Nicky and Kate got a break from their normal drill sargents and quickly figured out how to wrap Grandmommy and Granddougie around their little fingers.  Grandmommy and Granddougie got to enjoy the total adoration of their little angels.  And Sam and I came back refreshed and ready to tackle the challenges of parenting our two spicy little munchkins. 

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Dinosaur

This morning, as Sam was opening the front blinds, he calls out, “hey Nicky, want to see a dinosaur walking down the street?”  What??  Sure enough, there was a woman walking down the street in a full size green dinosaur costume.  May I remind you that it’s 7am on a Friday in the middle of April?  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Nick’s obviously never seen anything like it.  His very literal 3-year old mind was so amazed that there was a real live dinosaur walking down our street.  He ran outside and shouted out, “Hi dinosaur!” and then he spent the rest of the morning glued to the front window begging to go out to find more dinosaurs.

Hike

I realized this morning that this weekend was one of the most relaxing weekends I’ve had in a while. I didn’t do a single errand or cook a single meal. We had a park playdate, swim lessons, scooted around the neighborhood, played soccer in the back yard, did some coloring and writing, went on a playdate hike, went out to ice cream and just relaxed. I had a date night with Sam on Friday and a date night with some other mommies on Saturday. I have my wonderful hubby to thank for such a great weekend – Sam had a crazy burst of energy this weekend and kept the household afloat running all our errands and cooking on Sunday.

One of the highlights of the weekend was our playdate hike (more pictures here). The hike was perfect for seeing all the beautiful wildflowers, was a flat one mile each way so the kids could walk it, had all kinds of neat stumps and trees to climb on along the way, and had a cool farm to check out at the end of the hike.

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Temper Tantrums

In case you thought my princess was all hugs and kisses and snuggles, here’s a snap shot of her at her maddest for posterity.  She can throw a killer fit and is an expert at turning the simplest things (say, telling her she can’t splash in the toilet) into high drama. 

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Easter

On easter day we had a relaxing and pleasant brunch at far far’s house. Far far, Aunt Michelle and Uncle Todd went above and beyond in their preparations. From fun easter baskets for the kids, to beautiful wild pheasant lunch to these fabulous deviled eggs, everything was perfect.
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And I have to say that the Los Altos Hills easter bunny really knows how to do things right with 48 candy stuffed eggs outside and 18 dyed eggs inside. Nick pretty much had all of these to himself. True to their personalities Nick’s competitive side came out during the egg hunts and he was completely focused on the end game of collecting all of the eggs – as a result, it was nearly impossible to get any pictures of him because he was moving so fast from one egg to the next. Kate, on the other hand, was much more interested in enjoying the experience. Not to mention that her chocolate radar goes completely haywire when she’s surrounded by so much candy so she couldn’t help but stop at the very first egg she found, drop her basket and open the egg to eat the candy inside. Since Nicky quickly filled up his basket with eggs and raced over to trade baskets with Kate so he could keep hunting, it was hard to get her back into the hunt. Why bother really if the eggs are going to be delivered to you directly by your brother? Pretty good system if you ask me.

Anyway, here are some pictures (more here):

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