Happy 70th Birthday, Mom!

Well, let's see.....for my mom's 60th birthday, I was still living in San Francisco, so we flew my mom down and we all celebrated together in San Francisco. That was a lot of fun - and very memorable with all the touristy things that we did - Alcatraz, Pier 49, Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower, Cable Cars etc etc etc. This year was a bit different since most of us kids are living in Spokane (except Todd) -- we wondered what we could do that would top SF! Well......we took her to Cheney! Hey....don't knock it -- it was actually quite fun. After Church, and lunch at our house, we drove to Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge park and just enjoyed the quite of the outdoors. We hiked a bit and the girls brought their binnoculars so they could look for signs of Spring. We saw ducks, all kinds of birds, beaver dams (but no beavers), osprey in their big nests, and squirrels. I think Jay and Mom had a good time -- and I know they really enjoyed watching Audriana and Sofia get excited about nature and Spring. It was low key -- and it certainly didn't have the WOW factor that SF did, but it was a nice day to be together as a family. We missed Todd and his family -- as well as Mike as he was driving back over to the Seattle area for work. Here are a few pictures of our outing.....

Looking good, Mom!

Sofia amazed us all with her puzzle skills on http://www.jigzone.com/. She's doing 16 and 20 piece puzzles all by herself - expertly navigating the site all by herself! Wow!

Turnbull -- Cheney, WA

Audriana and Sofia with Grandma and Grandpa.

It's hard to see, but this is an Osprey nest -- way up high in these huge nests!

Sofia had such fun finding and picking yellow and purple flowers!

Awwww....aren't we cute. Still in love after all these years!

eASteR!

The girls woke up this morning to a couple of very sweet Easter Baskets that the Easter Bunny had left for them in their room sometime during the night. Earlier in the week we had written an email to the Easter Bunny to let him know that we would be at Grandma and Grandpa's house again this year, so he could just hide the eggs at their house. Well, he must be a very "connected" bunny, because he did just as the girls requested. They had a ball running around Mom's yard looking for all the plastic eggs. Thank goodness the rain waited until after the egg hunt!

Yum -- a Reses egg, a chocolate bunny, a pez, a Easter water globe, and a small stuffed bunny.

Here they are just before we got into the car to go to Church. They brought their baskets so they could have them for the egg hunt at Grandma's later. By the way, we did something very special this year that I wanted to share -- we filled a little cardboard "rice bowl" with money throughout the Lent season. Our Church would be collecting the offerings during Holy Week and would be using the money to buy rice (and other items, I'm sure) to families in Central America that are less fortunate than us. The girls were very gracious and put money in the bowl each night. This morning we dropped off our rice bowl at our Church -- it felt really good and used the moments to teach the girls such a wonderful life lesson.

Geez -- Audriana was moving at lightening speed this year and her basket filled up very quickly

Sofia did a fabulous job collecting and finding eggs, too!

On the hunt!


Money and candy were found in the eggs! Wow!

Such sweet angels........

After a big meal, Audriana and Daddy headed outside to practice ball. Sofia decided to take a nap -- after all, all that egg hunting takes a lot out of a 3 year old!

April......so far.....

I thought I would post some pictures of what we have been up to the past couple of weeks! Time goes so fast that I would never remember any of this if it weren't for the pictures I take! LOL!

Well, since it was absolutely freezing (either raining, snowing, or just plain freezing!) during Spring Break this year, we had to get creative and find some indoor things to do. I had taken a few days off during the week so that I could spend some really good quality time with the girls. We did many fun things, but one of the best was when Joye and I decided to take the girls to Polka Dot Pottery and let them each paint something. Audriana and Maria have done this a few times before, so they knew just what to do. Since they were the "experts", they had fun "teaching" Sofia how it is done. It was a great way for us mom's to sit back and let the girls' creative juices flow. By the way....do you know how hard that is! I contantly wanted to "fix" their projects! I really wanted to tell them how or what they should paint! Shame on me!!!

Here is the plate that Sofia did (with her handprint in the middle) and the light cover that Audriana did. I couldn't resist....I caved! I had to "decorate" the little eggs she painted on the lawn!!!

Here is us on Martin's b-day -- just after we had enjoyed a very yummy dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory! Happy Birthday, Babe!

The girls love their Daddy so much! He got a super special b-day kiss!

Her is Sofia ready for racing!

Last weekend we had such sunny weather that we decided to take a little hike up in the hills of Eagle Ridge. It was still a bit cold out, but the sun felt so good and really brightened up our day!

Tonight was Thursday -- "Uncle Mike Night" at our house. The girls love it when Uncle Mike comes over to see them. Aunt Kristi usually comes too and we all have dinner together, play with the girls (I mean....watch Mike play with the girls), and then the girls go to sleep and we watch Survivor. Anyway, tonight Uncle Mike helped the girls dye Easter Eggs. Memories worth sharing -- that's for sure!

The finished product -- they look pretty good!