Happy Easter!

I know the kids enjoy coloring eggs. And we enjoy watching their fun. But neither of the kids eat hard boiled eggs, Josh likes deviled eggs ok, and I'm the only one who eats egg salad.

An erupting egg

A dozen colored eggs makes a lot of egg salad. So, this year we did eggs two ways. With the vinegar and baking soda like years past, and this year I made like a play dough out of baking soda, hid some foam cut outs inside and shaped it like an egg.

She made that face every time the vinegar overflowed the bowl, and then got excited when the egg came back into view

Then the kids used droppers and cups and poured vinegar on them to watch them dissolve and collect the little shapes from inside. Still a dozen eggs worth of fun, but only a half dozen's worth of egg salad. Win/Win!

The Easter bunny came to our house and hid lots of eggs full of lots of candy all over. Both kids had fun hunting, and Luca was super good and didn't try to steal all the eggs before Tessa could find them. So proud =)

Emptying all the eggs while eating some of the candy!

Then we went over to mom's where the Easter bunny had also stopped by and found a whole bunch more eggs full of a whole bunch more candy. Poor Tessa had caught Luca's cold earlier in the week and still hadn't gotten rid of it, so she and I stayed behind while Luca and Josh went to his grandparents for even more Easter festivities. So much fun and family for one day!

Happy Easter!

Ok Guys

Consider the last 365 days "The Lost Year"

I could make all sorts of excuses as to why the blogging stopped, from the pitfalls of modern technology to the struggles of two kids, and anything in between, but does it really matter why?

I also have a couple of posts that I was writing that never got finished, but it seems silly to post about last years egg dying now. So, we're moving forward. Except for one on Luca turning 5, cause that was just a week or so ago. Going forward, I'll try to be better.

My dad likes to talk about how the first kid has a flip book of every moment of their early childhood, the second kid gets a picture of two of the highlights, and by the third kid they just appear at about 5 years old in the background of someone else's pictures. I am going to try very hard for that not to be true.

So, with that, I'm pregnant! Tomorrow I'll be 19 weeks along. We are not finding out the gender this time, and all plotting to find out without our agreement is just plain silly. Everyone will be surprised in the middle of August with us. Woo hoo! The first 14-16 weeks were ugly, which was disappointing, but I'm finally feeling pretty good. I think at first I thought the miracle second trimester would somehow provide me with more energy than I had when I was just mothering two kids, and now that I have more realistic expectations, I can finally start to enjoy this pregnancy.

Tiny Bumping

I'm thinking we might do another baby pool this time, except a very traditional one. Guessing gender, date, and time. Details to follow

Josh is good, I'm good, kids are good, Luca is enjoying preschool and tae kwon do, Tessa is enjoying ballet. And so I begin again =)

Rocket Ship Birthday Party!!

This year Luca decided he wanted a rocket ship/volcano birthday party. I couldn't figure out how to incorporate the volcano part, and thankfully it fell to the wayside as we discussed more rocket ship ideas.

I started watching the weather report two weeks before the party, hoping for nice weather. We've had one extreme to the other for his party, and naturally I was hoping for a pretty day this year. The closer the day came, though, the worse the forecast. It went from 60* and partly sunny, to 40* with a chance of snow. Bummer man.

Despite the chilly temperature, we had a whole bunch of people come out to celebrate our little (big) man! And we had fun! A nice lunch, lots of friendly conversation, and a lucky dude.

Happy to be able to celebrate our handsome fella with so many friends and family. Happy Birthday Luca!

The Big Oh-Five!

It happened. Luca turned five. I tried to tell him that four was a way better age, but I guess I shouldn't have already told him that when he's five he gets to go to kindergarten, cause he's pretty set on doing that.

He's loving preschool and comes home talking about what he played with his friends and what they had for snack. He also brings home crafts and letter/number learning worksheets, so I'm pretty sure he's learning too. ;)

He's been doing tae kwon do for about a year and really seems to be enjoying it. In December he had his promotion test and moved up to yellow belt. Because he's under 7, he has a white stripe in it. Any belt that he earns before he turns 7 will have the white stripe, but he doesn't have to earn them again when he's older. We're taking the classes through the park district, and this last session he was the only one enrolled, so he's basically been getting private lessons. So far he's the only one signed up for the next session too. The instructor has offered to let him take the class with older boys so he's not alone, but so far he's content with it just being him so we'll see if that changes next session.

Speaking of kindergarten, I finally ended up calling around to school district offices to figure out where he'll be attending next year. Our address is on the edge of the city, so we have weird divisions of services. One city for the address, we have fire and police protection from another city, and now it turns out we are in the school district of yet another city. But I got it all sorted out, we'll go to registration at the school in a couple weeks and hopefully all my questions will be answered. Can't believe he'll be going to kindergarten!! I'm a little anxious about that, and it doesn't help that his first day is also my due date. Yikes! I told my OB I have nightmares that my water will break while I'm bringing him into school and he'll be known forever as the boy whose mom peed her pants. She very politely didn't laugh at me. =)

He is really looking forward to summer and everything that goes with it. He wants to play outside all the time. He keeps asking when we can play water guns and get out the pool and ride in his power wheels and I keep explaining that he just has to wait. It's pretty impossible.

By and large he plays well with Tessa, though it often seems that it's mostly because Tessa doesn't mind being bossed around. He usually decides where and what they'll play, but she seems happy to go along with him. He's also pretty excited for Tiny to get here. I've taken both kids to my last couple OB appointments and he gets a kick out of hearing baby's heartbeat.

Can't believe my little dude is growing so fast! At his five year check-up he's in about the 25th percentile for weight and the 51st for height. My little bean pole. =) He got all his shots so he's ready for school and taking the bandaids off was by far the worst part of it. Sad five years have passed so fast, but excited for what the next year will bring.