Hoppy Easter!

Last night, we dyed Easter eggs (and made a huge mess, but that's half the fun, right??) Pop-Pop, Justin, and Jack had a blast making very colorful creations for the Easter bunny to hide. (Caroline is still a little too young, and SuSu had fun playing crawl chase with her and tickling her belly enough so that she didn't mind.) 

Look at all those pretty colors.

Some of the finished product. We tried to explain that "all the colors mixed together"
made brown, but Jack didn't believe us...

He was really good at gently putting them in this year. Much better than
the throwing he did last year.

So excited!

Daddy and his tongue diligently working on an egg.

Oh la la.

Missy Moo (drooly face)

So happy!

 Easter morning, the kids slept in (amazing) and woke up to big baskets and lots of eggs to find.

Caroline, it seems, wasn't quite awake yet...

But she quickly got into the swing of things.

Digging through the insides of all the surprise eggs. He was most excited about
"all the money the Easter bunny gove me!"

Jack's haul...that he was supposed to share...hmmm.

Jelly beans!

They were adorable. Holidays are SO fun with kids.

First taste of chocolate. Not so sure about it.

"Hey, brother, whatcha got there?"
"NOTHING! Back away!"

Jack and I went for a walk this morning in our beautiful California weather, and all the boys just headed out to see The Croods at the theatre ("NO GIRLS ALLOWED.") Looking forward to my cheat day (ha ha!) with great food, candy, and family!! Lots of love from our house to yours.

Edited to add:
I forgot I didn't post this yesterday. Cupertino had it's annual Big Bunny Run in the morning, so I ran the 5K (in a personal best time of 31:33! So proud of myself!) and Mom & Jack did the 2.5K walk. Afterwards, there was a kid's race by age group. Jack had a blast!

Starting line!

Pop-Pop cheering Jack on!

He has a slightly competitive streak. I love it.

Easter egg hunt @ Preschool

Every year, the local senior center (which is right next door to Jack's preschool) hosts the kids for an Easter egg hunt. The seniors fill and hide the eggs, and then watch the kids duke it out on the egg hunt. It's absolutely precious to watch, and the kids have a blast. Today, Caroline and I joined in on the fun...

Lining up to walk. Jack put on his ears when he woke up this morning and hasn't taken them off!

Love lines of little kids :) So cute!

Listening intently to his teacher's instructions.

"Hey, look friend!"

All the kids & teachers.

Digging through the bushes.

Caroline tried...but as fast as she could crawl, she was still too slow for the big kids.

Looking...

Digging...

Found one!

Doing some running to another part of the park.

Caroline gave up hunting for eggs and started playing with the seniors. To
say she stole the show is an understatement.

Saying hi to EVERY. SINGLE. ONE :)

She liked this lady, Mary, the best. I am pretty sure it's because of the wheelchair.
She couldn't figure it out. But Mary loved petting Caroline's soft head while she
explored. It was so cute to watch both of them.

Jack had a blast with his friends, even though he was slightly upset that he didn't find the Golden Egg. Oh well, there's always next year :) And now he's well-practiced for Sunday morning!

How we spend our days.

Life has been busy busy lately! (No surprise with these two...) We've had lots of things going on and reached a lot of milestones lately. Here are some snapshots:

Happy Easter!! (From Jack. Caroline says Bah Humbug.)

This little girl had just finished a huge dinner of her own...
I put her down from her high chair and she immediately crawled over
and eyed Jack's pizza (which he wasn't done with!) ...

...and proceeded to chow down. Nothing is safe from this vacuum cleaner!

Kissy face, smooch smooch!

Making out with herself. 

Breakfast with Daddy at Apple! She loved it.

I love that she has to have her own visitor nametag now :)

Over Christmas, I burned myself with some boiling hot butternut squash soup and
(I swear) a faulty blender. This is the scar I still have. I think it may be permanent...

Her favorite thing? Standing up in the bathtub. One day, she will learn her lesson...
with a black eye and a busted lip, just like Jack at this age.

Jack found an old pair of my glasses laying around, so he's been wearing them on and off.
(Luckily the prescription is nothing - they were more for show.) He loves looking
JUST LIKE HIS DADDY.

Eat dirt? YES PLEASE, YUMMMMMMY!

We spent some quality mommy-daughter time going bike
riding last week! I loved hearing nothing but giggles coming
from the backseat :)

While hiking, she got brave and stood with no hands! She's getting much steadier
on her feet now. She still has jelly legs when you hold her hands and try to help her walk,
but she's getting the hang of it slowly! Her newest thing is crawling up stairs. Only UP - not down.
Sigh. In some ways I can't wait for her to be mobile...in others, I know my life is going to get harder!

She did this one day (standing up in her swaddle.) The next,
she took it off and threw it out of her crib all by herself. I decided that was it,
and we went cold turkey. Now she sleeps like this:

Swaddle-less!

And like this! I can't take enough pictures. She's so funny!

Justin giving Jack math lessons. He's used these sorts of props to help him get addition,
subtraction, and even basic multiplication. It's really amazing. Justin is a great teacher.

After 11 months, she decided she'd deign to hold her own bottle. ONCE.

This is random, but I saw these at Target and thought, WHOA CREEPY. Agree??

Jack loves (LOVES) to run in the big field at Apple after we eat.

Playing in the playplace at the mall. She loves it now because she can crawl
over and through things.

After seeing the Easter bunny, I bought them these ears. Jack hasn't taken his off.
But for some reason, in this picture, he was more excited about checking the price
on this prom dress than posing. Weirdo!

And finally, every day I give Jack little "tasks" to do while we play outside in the
afternoons. This was from a few days ago. He has to do things like find me "five yellow flowers"
or "six brown rocks." He loves it...and I admit, it makes me feel really special :)