Spring Updates in a Nutshell

It's hard to upkeep this blog let alone take pictures when the two kiddos are so busy and the house is always messy. But lots of good stuff has been going on. I'll try a photo essay to sum up some of the highlights of the past couple months.

Here we are in Santa Monica in February. We picnicked on the beach with the Juniors  (Kev and Kel, who are expecting their own bambino/a in September!) and had our usual lovely visit of hanging out with them. 

D has been taking gymnastics every Tuesday. She loves it. And she's good at it. She's already moved into a higher level class that is mostly 5 year olds. Brag much? Not really, but today I am. She's strong, coordinated, motivated, and a great listener. 

In March we went to Tahoe with the Rau-Bergs. As you can see, snow was not abundant but we still enjoyed getting bundled up and playing outside.

This was the biggest snowman we could make but Riley and Dahlia thought he was perfect enough.

In late March Auntie came to visit. Dahlia had a great partner for playing card games. She loves playing Memory (aka Membering) and is VERY good at it. When she first learned how to play we would let her win. Now we play our hearts out and she can beat us. We've had lots of conversations (some very sad) about being a good sport. 4 year olds are competitive and she does not like losing. But she handles it ok most of the time. We also had a nice, pseudo-Passover celebration with Auntie with Matzoh Ball Soup and Mandel Bread. When Auntie left we had a super great seder at the Grossmans where Dahlia and Milo got to experience a kid-friendly Passover, including putting bandaids on toy animals that were sick and hurt from one of the plagues. 

Bath time is Daddy's area. Things can get pretty wild and 25% of the time end up with Milo being booted from the bath for throwing toys one too many times. But otherwise it's a happy time for all.

Dahlia and I had lots of fun dying Easter eggs. The egg part of Easter is all we do to celebrate Easter. That and brunch out with Tito (Tita was in Texas). 

Hunting for Easter eggs in our backyard.

His sister did most of the finding of eggs this year. Next year--watch out, Dahlia!

Tito, sporting his new retired-man-mustache, was our Easter Bunny. In Tita's absence he put together two Easter baskets of goodies for the kids all on his own. So cute. 

This past weekend we were at the Russian River with the Sieberts and Savilles. We all had a wonderful time. The girls were a hoot, had a blast together, stayed up late partying, and of course had their not so fine moments, too. The kids all loved the forest, learning about redwoods and fires, and spotting banana slugs. 

The girls also orchestrated a wedding at an amphitheater where Erik, Jessica, Tula, Sophia, and Dahlia all got married to each other, with Adam officiating.  

Our Russian River gang also all went to the beach and got to see hundreds of seals laying at the shore and even some baby seals. By "we" I mean the grown ups. The kids didn't/couldn't realize that the lumps all along the shore were seals and not spotted rocks. They kept saying, "I see the rocks. Look, there's a spotted rock," and just didn't get that they were seals! Milo just enjoyed  throwing sand and eating snacks.

All along the shore are seals! So special. 

Even though they missed the seals, the beach was the beach. Tons of fun!