Monday, May 28, 2012

April...

S'mores with neighbor friends

 
 
Baskin Robbins with Shelia & Ben


Maren's first soccer practice...complete with soccer earrings!
Joel was Albert Einstein in his music class program!

I painted this dresser orange for Joel's room!

Fun breakfast face :)

50 tulips!

A family of deer wading in the water.  We enjoyed the beautiful weather and took a bike ride on the Orting trail.
 

Then had donuts afterward...it was a great day!
 

Saturday = soccer. Above, Maren is going in for the goal...

and she scores!!!

Joel also scored a goal in his game!
 
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April...ish

Somehow my pictures got mixed up and a bunch of March pictures were in the April folder...so these are from both months...

Maren lost her first tooth!  It's the one on the bottom...she just has a big space on the top :)

An interesting place to get ready...yes, she's IN the sink...

Greg & I celebrated our 10th anniversary in Portland!  We stayed overnight at the hotel we got married at (the Benson) and did a driving tour of all the places we lived (4 in two years!).  It was a really fun time reminiscing and spending time together in the city where we started life together!

The building behind us is where we lived when Joel was born, right before we moved to Chicago!

The kids stayed with Mimi and had tons of fun - they even got to dye eggs!
 

Visiting Friends

And family.  This is my grandpa...he didn't know who any of us were, but he seemed to enjoy having us around!  He played with Maren a bit and seemed like his old self to me (mostly).  

Thanks, Aunt Ruth, for arranging this visit!
 

Beka gave us a record player (they had 2)...so now the kids can listen to the records I have had since I was a kid!
 

I turned 35!  We had a small celebration with our neighbor friends - thanks for the strawberry pie, Andi!!

Maren had a "birthday box" for me that she had been adding things to for several weeks...these are all the things that were in it! She is so thoughtful and makes birthdays feel special.  Thanks sweet girl!

Best Dad in the neighborhood!

Easter Sunday
 

We had neighbors over for Easter dinner...complete with ham, potatoes, deviled eggs and fresh fruit!

Drinking pineapple juice out of the shell...
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March!!

We started out March with MORE snow...just a little bit this time. :)

Katie came for a nice, long visit...we LOVED having her here!!
It had been almost FIVE years since we had seen each other, so we had A LOT of catching up to do.  We talked, and talked, and talked and talked and talked...this is not an exaggeration.  It was a wonderful time!

Maren visited Salon Katie and got her hair cut and curled  :)
 
  
Joel impressed her with his snowflake-making abilities :)

On March 5th, I was laid off from my job...this was the first morning I got to sleep until 7 and then have breakfast with my kids (on a weekday!).  It has been a wonderful change for our family!

Greg & I got to dress up and go to dinner for his work (thanks, Katie, for helping me pick out this FUN dress!)
 

Maren and I took a spontaneous trip to Portland (because I can!) to see my mom and Grandad.  We had a great time.

It was a quick trip, but it was so fun to spend time with Grandad...

and time with Mimi is always special.

All this snow is really unusual for these parts...especially in the middle of March!
 
 

They had time for some snow angels and a quick snowman before school!
 

Joel got an award for getting 2nd place for A/R (reading) points for the whole second grade class!  Go Joel!!

Cute haircut...funny face...

An interesting place for a nap (yes, she really is asleep!)
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