Egg Hunt

 Looking at the next clue

 Found another one!

 Jules wants to read the clues too.

 Finding her way back up the hill

 Using her new garden bag to collect eggs.

 The crew on their hunt.

 Princess Rory looking cute!

 Finally found the special eggs with the treats!

 Checking out the eggs.

 The little sisters.

 Jules and Daddy

The racing ramp makes an appearance at the Easter party.

Happy Easter!

Easter Eggs

It was a gorgeous afternoon, so we dyed Easter eggs outside on the patio.  Both of the kiddos had alot of fun, mixing colors and experimenting to see what the eggs would look like when dipped multiple times.  We used some crayon to make their initials, although, I think it was too warm, so it didn't show up well.  We put rubber bands around the eggs too, to make lines and then dipped them after doing that and they actually came up with some cool designs.  Add in some bubbles and it was a pretty good Friday afternoon!

Easter Party

 The flower garden

 The carrot patch

 Jello Jiggler eggs

 The hunt is on!

 Snack time!

Miss Debbie hands out more loot

Alex's class had their Easter celebration today at school.  They dyed eggs, made Easter bunny ears, had lots of snacks and went on an Easter egg hunt.  Throw in some songs, a Bible story and some special treats and it was quite a morning.  We made some Jello Jiggler eggs, per Miss Debbie's request and I was pleasantly surprised at how they turned out.  For some reason there was a shortage of lemon jello at the store, so I didn't get to use yellow as one of the colors for very many eggs as I would have liked to, but the kiddos enjoyed them regardless of color!  Since there were also some Rice Krispie treat eggs, we decided to balance out the choices, by making a couple of "gardens" with bunny snacks to share as well.  I'm happy to say that there weren't many veggies left at the end of it all, even though it seemed like I received quite a few "no thank yous" when passing them around.  Oh well, one can only try, right?

Valentine's Day!

We did a few projects to get ready for Valentine's Day in the past few days.  Alex and Julia made valentines for Daddy and Alex made Valentine bookmarks for all 19 of his classmates.  Yesterday, we made crisped rice treats with crisp brown rice cereal and browned butter drizzled with dark chocolate and LOTS of sprinkles, as you can see.  We took some to a friend's house for a playdate yesterday and then had some after our Valentine's dinner tonight.  Hope everyone had a fun Valentine's Day!

Happy New Year!

 Ready to go, with her purple monkey blanket which she received for Christmas.

 Ready to draw up a storm on the way there.

 Cutie patootie exploring Point Reyes Station.

 Enjoying some salami on the beach.

 Picnic time!

 Goofballs on the beach

 Family shot #1

Family Shot #2  (as you can see, it was windy!)

We took a little road trip to Tomales Bay, near Point Reyes today to enjoy the sunshine on this first day of the new year.  We enjoyed a little picnic of goat cheese, salami, bread and some olive and artichoke spread on Chicken Ranch Beach.  Although it was windy and pretty chilly, it was bright and sunny as well, so the kiddos had fun running around the beach throwing rocks into the water.  They also enjoyed a nice long nap on the way back, so it turned out to be a fun day for all.

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year to everyone!  Hope that you had a good evening.  We spent ours eating some fondue, drinking some wine and playing with the kiddos.  The photo above is us wearing our hats that the kids and I made earlier in the day, ringing in the new year at about eight o'clock before the kids went to bed.  We managed to make it to about eleven o'clock ourselves ;-)

More Lights!

Thanks to our neighbors, Ray and Gina, for providing exciting entertainment for Miss Julia every night starting around five o'clock.  David and Alex put our Christmas lights up last weekend and Julia loves to go out and see those every night, but they have now been trumped by Ray and Gina's display, which clearly has been perfected over the past thirty years.  It is hard to see from the photo, but it includes lit snowmen, moving reindeer, lots of blinking lights of all colors and all kinds of other fun stuff.  Every evening she catches a glimpse of our lights in the front, which go on a bit earlier, and then runs over to the window in the living room to see if their lights are on.  I have now placed the stepstool in front of the window, so she has her own viewing platform, sans someone holding on to her.  Just wait until we take her down the street to Lynwood, where they really go all out for Christmas...oh my!

An Early Thanksgiving

 Little cowgirl ready for Thanksgiving

 Alex and Tadhg on the Mayflower

 Julia checking out the setup

 Rory and Julia enjoying the meal

 Over 21 table with mood lighting...ha!

 More of the Over 21 table.

 The Under 21 table with the fabulous 70's chandelier, complete with fake candles.

Under 21's enjoying the meal.

We had a nice early Thanksgiving on Saturday, since Ah Mah and Ah Kong will be leaving to go back to Singapore tomorrow.  We had eleven adults and nine kids, I think, so it was a pretty busy place.  Thanks again to our ex-box room, which also serves as our banquet hall.  Luckily, it is big enough that we were able to get everyone in the same room to enjoy the meal.  Thanks to all of our friends who pitched in and brought yummy food and the great company to make it a success!