A NorCal Easter

The boys enjoyed their Easter baskets

We never had baskets before, and it was a big hit. There was just a small Batman Imaginext set for LT and a Thomas train & Tag book for DT and a small chocolate bunny each. It was just the right size and they played for quite a while with the new toys.

Then we headed off for a family egg hunt on the beach!

Do you spy any eggs?







Tallying up the eggs to be sure we didn't leave any, one green egg was missing


Found it!


Sweet rewards



Oh look! The kids do have parents!


I'm glad we went even though it was quite cold for April and I had come down with the flu overnight. It was worth it! Happy Spring!

Diorama

Today's Kindergarten students have to do book reports every week. It's true, started after Christmas. On Thursdays, they bring a book home and you read it twice. Then they have a list of things they can do as their project. We have made a new book cover, made a collage, done alternative endings, written a song, made a puppet, and, by far the favorite, made dioramas! These weeks book is Frederick. Here is this morning's effort:


LT used what he termed "the technique" which involves pastels colored over with crayong for a layered, vibrant look. I cut out the pieces for him to save approximately 2 hours - 15 minutes of cutting and 1 hr 45 min of complaining. It's all a team effort at this stage!

All he has to do tomorrow is add the title, author and his name and we are done!

Happy Hallow Happy Again!

Our local zoo/park opened once again after being closed for remodel for almost DT's entire life. Yeah! We went to the member preview and back again this weekend, 1 week after the grand opening.

Now there's even a roller coaster! (LT's not so sure about that.)

A new playground

New maze

New petting zoo, although no petting was done by us!



I expect we'll be there a bunch more this summer.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

From the little leprechaun that came home from school today ...


Love the ears!

Happiness is ...

pancake batter!







DT takes after Auntie M and likes his pancakes gushy. So gushy, in fact, that he forgoes the cooking altogether!

Front yard, about one year later

Remember the front yard before?

After our rainy winter, it is looking wonderful! We love it everyday!






Look how it's grown in since the after last spring. The plum trees have already bloomed. They were beautiful. The weeping cherry is just starting to bloom!

We'll probably change out a few plants this year and there is always weeding to be done!

(P.S. Didn't TT do a nice job with the mowing?)

Sunday

Went down to Monterey and mixed it up this time.

Our first stop was Dennis the Menace playground. This sign welcomed us, which gave us pause. We countinued on. Good thing we did, because this is a fun playground!


The conveyor belt slide is totally awesome. DT could have gone all day.


We followed this with the aquarium and lunch in the cafe there.

Final stop was the site of Sea Kelp Round-up from almost exactly one year ago. LT was happy to get another game of this in and we all had fun on the beach.

LT and a found treasure.

DT in the midst of a rock throwing game.

Where's Waldo(s)?

Shell nose!

Return of the Beaver

I was pretty excited to see an old friend when I gathered up LT's pictures after school today. It's the Beaver from Beaver Pictures. Only this time he's back for revenge. Evil laugh here.



Some other fun pictures of late.
Eating human soup.

Three headed dragon, but of course, you could see that.

Can you recognize everything? Puffer fish, electric eel, stingray, and lots of hungry sharks!

Xīn Nián Kuài Lè

We celebrated Chinese New Year at the art musuem. They had crafts, lion dancers, tae kwon do, Chinese music... all sorts of things. Fun!

Happy Year of the Tiger!

A serious artist embellishes his Tangram

Another artist shows off his Dancing Tiger

I call this "Two Boys, Six Palms"

Now just one boy

That's becuase the other one is busy doing this:

Our photographer, ahem Daddy, was able to capture this rare stopped moment


And, Happy Valentine's Day, too! We didn't celebrate too much, but the boys enjoyed opening their valentines from Gma & Gpa A this morning. How did Gma pick just the right valentie for LT?

Musical Me

The Kindergarten at LT's school put on a musical event last Thursday. It was super cute. Each class sang 2 sonds and they all joined together for the finale.

See if you can spot LT! His BFF is in the top row, 3rd from the left.


Here's a video of their performance.


It's a bit long, so here's where the other songs start, if you want to skip ahead.
1:38 Singing in the Rain
4:40 Battle Hymn of the Republic

DT is expressing his artistic tendencies, too. He draws spirals - lots of them!

Valentine Factory

The Valentines are all made! Poor LT will have to fill out all 29 of the to/from labels for his class this weekend. That's a lot of writing. I'll help DT with his.

I saw this idea (with a lollipop) on a message board, but I think the poster had blog-lifted it, so whoever's blog it was from: Thank you!

Steps:
First, I got approval from LT on the plan. Very important. He wanted to do the heart crayons again. This was much easier, so I'm glad he liked it. He did want to make sure there would be hearts involved. Got the boys to hold the pose, one slightly better than the other, while taking the pictures. Then, we did a little photo-shopping after the boys went to bed and sent the finished product on over to Costco. Picked up the pictures and some pencils and labels at lunch. Printed out the labels while putting DT to bed. Assembled after the kids went to bed.

Not bad execution on an idea. Total time, ~90 minutes, not including Costco/Target runs.