Easter

This year Luca was excited to look for Easter eggs and he was entertaining! The Easter Bunny left his basket outside of his bedroom door and the first thing he said when I went in to get him in the morning was "Mommy, toys!" The Bunny brought him some toys and food and a car shaped piggy bank! Which was perfect because as he found out later some of the eggs he hid had coins in it.

We explained to Luca while we were getting ready to come downstairs that the Bunny came and hid eggs and he should find them and put them in his basket.

So when we got downstairs he found an egg, shook it, realized it had something in it, opened it, took a bite, put it back in the egg and then put the egg in his basket. And that's how it went with just about every egg. It is a good thing he doesn't have older siblings or would have gotten about two eggs before the older one would have cleaned up the whole house of eggs. It was funny to watch him though!

Mmm... fishies...

After he found all the eggs, had breakfast and had gotten dressed, he went through his basket again--just to see if he missed anything I'm guessing.

Then we went over to Oma's and, wouldn't you know it, the Easter Bunny hid eggs in her yard too! Those pics are on her camera, but by this point he had become an egg hunting pro and was having a blast. He sent Pa out to hide the eggs again in the backyard, and then sent him to the front yard to hide them yet again. He really had a good time finding eggs.

We even made it over to Great Grandma and Great Papa's where the other side of the family was all gathered so we got to wish everyone a Happy Easter! Bryce and Ry got bubbles in their baskets and were sweet to take turns with Luca. We hope everyone has as happy an Easter as Luca did!

Goodies for Aunt Aimee

I have seen sprinkle coated cakes all over the internet and wanted to try my hand at making one. The next birthday coming up was Aimee's so I asked if she maybe would want one. She however had seen the polka dot cakes all over the internet and wanted one of those. So, I let the birthday girl decide her cake and made a polka dot one.

Very Tall!

 Unfortunately, I wasn't there when she cut into it, so all I have is pictures of the outside. It was very, very tall and made for a very, very scary delivery. Luckily she lives close and the speed limit isn't more than 45. And the turns are so often that if I didn't make it all the way up to 45 before I turned, it wasn't super annoying to the other drivers. But it made it in one piece, and her family agreed it was not only super cute (inside and out) but also super delicious. Win Win =)

I had to use a least some sprinkles...

And Aimee needed cookies for a meeting, simple little flip flops. I tried a new icing technique that cut literally hours out of the process and other than it being very fickle, I'm really pleased with out they turned out.

Icing the old way I'd shoot for a 2-4 second icing for the edges and a 15-20 second icing for flooding. For these cookies I found that 3.5 second icing is what worked. Did I mention it was very fickle? But definitely worth trying again since it really did go so much faster!

Happy Birthday Aunt Aimee!

Birthday Party

I kept hoping that this birthday party would be like his first, and I would be able to wear a sun dress and set up the picnic table outside. No such luck. Instead of making room on the patio for more chairs, I was making room in the bedroom for coats. Ah well. We still had fun!

Luca was a big helper leading up to his party, dusting with the wand from the vacuum cleaner (the only non-scary part of it) and making decorations for the cupcakes Uncle Dan brought.

Mom does not look entirely convinced of his helpfulness

Naturally, I made cookies. They turned out pretty cute too! I didn't actually eat any, but lots of people took home leftovers, much to Josh's disappointment--less for him!

It's like an old air mail envelope

With our birthdays not that long ago, Luca had become a pro at blowing out candles and he was very excited for his chance! We had to do it twice because he blew out the first one faster than people had their cameras ready. Which was just fine with him =) And we switched out his pretty candle cupcake for one without frosting when he started eating, so he managed to avoid itchy face. Win Win!

It was wonderful getting to see and chat with all of our family, plus Alan surprised me by bringing my Kindergarten teacher too. Last year Kimmer surprised me, this year Mrs Simpson, wonder who the surprise guest will be next year!

We are excited to start planning for Luca's new wooden swing set. The "garden" needs to be torn out of the backyard and we need to buy lots of lumber, but we are waiting for the weather to cooperate. I am really looking forward to being able to send the kid and the dog in the backyard and letting them play without being at the park and having to keep a close eye on Luca and a leash on Jude. It's gonna be a good summer. =)

This year we also had a surprise for everyone else. The last present Luca opened from Josh and I was a t-shirt that said "Big Brother." We're expecting a little one in September! We are all very excited!

Thank you to everyone who came to help us celebrate Luca's Birthday!

Two years old!

I can't believe it's been two years since we met this little sweetheart...

To say it has flown by is the understatement of the decade. We had a rough first month learning how to be a kid and parents, but it all got sorted out. He has a huge personality and makes us bust a gut regularly. Just in the last couple weeks it seems he's grown up a lot! His vocab expands daily and his motor skills are improving too.
He's started walking up the stairs like normal with just putting his hand on the wall for balance. (I think it's funny when he does it at my parents house because the one thing I remember my dad getting mad at us for the most growing up was running our hands along the walls.)

Luca saw this pic and said "Baby!"

When he doesn't want to do something or eat something he says what I'm pretty sure is "No, no fun." Like the reason he doesn't want to is because it doesn't sound like something that would be fun.
We love Sandra Boynton and have all of her CD's. He has taken to singing the song "Singing in the shower" and it is the funniest thing. In his own tune he sings: "Singing....shower....singing...shower" Cracks us up.
He also likes Phineas and Ferb and sings some of the words with the opening theme song. My favorite part, at the end of the theme song when Candace yells "Mom! Phineas and Ferb are making a title sequence!" He says Mom about a beat before her. Love it.

2 Years later the blankey doesn't cover as much

He does this sumo walk that's pretty funny, spreads his legs out like he's in second position and sort of staggers around.
His imagination is amazing, we especially see it in his kitchen. For example, the other day I was loading the dishwasher and he would do something in his kitchen, run to the garage door, run back to the kitchen saying "more," and back to the garage door again. After a couple passes I wondered what he was doing and looked. In his kitchen he would cup his hand under the faucet for a second, then run over to Jude by the garage door and pet him. When I asked him what he was doing he said "Jude, wet." Another day I was doing something in the kitchen and he was taking stuff from his kitchen into the table. I thought he was feeding Bunna who was siting in his chair. Then from the dining room I hear him yell "Dinner" so I come around the corner and the table is set with a plate, fork and cup at my place and his place. We dined on a felt ravioli and blueberry. He's such a sweetheart.
We have a tradition where the birthday fairy visits and the birthday person wakes up to a decorated house. This year the birthday fairy hung streamers and ribbon in the door to Luca's room. He had so much fun walking back and forth through it that he didn't want to come down for breakfast.

Tonight we will be having grilled cheese and fruit salad--Luca got to pick his birthday dinner =) We feel so lucky to call this little character our son!