Easter

This year's Easter egg dying included the obligatory Paas kit as well as some additional Pinterest-y methods.  My method: wrap the egg with rubber bands before dropping into the dye.  Dad's method: put the dye into a cup of rice, and then shake the egg and the colored rice.  Owen's method: pour as much glitter as possible onto the egg, and then wave the egg/glitter all over the table.

Egg hunting- not as important to Logan as getting the stickers inside.  He would find an egg, open it up and take out the stickers, and then toss the eggs aside.

Owen is a task-oriented, serious egg hunter.  He collected 19 out of the 24, and he also found Logan's eggs and gave them to him.

The highlight of Owen's day, according to him, was making the plastic eggs float over the air from the hair dryer.

Easter baskets

Sleepy L

Poor Logan sleeps very lightly like me.  Something woke him up about an hour into his nap. No way was I going to let him get up from his nap after just an hour (I need his naptime more than he does) so I brought him into our bed and cuddled next to him so he would snooze a little longer.

P.S. You know Logan is asleep when you hear the slurp slurp sound of him sucking his fingers.

Our Walks

One of the top reasons I love our neighborhood is the easy access we have to these bike paths. Now that the days are longer I'm excited to get back to weeknight walks.

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day is one of my favorite times of year to live in Dublin.  The city plans a whole weekend full of Irish-themed festivities.  And I like that our kids are both at ages when they can appreciate this stuff.

This year, Owen and I caught only the end of the St. Patrick's Day parade because he had his tae kwon do class.  Afterwards, we walked a few blocks to watch the parade until it was over.

The next morning we got to see the 5K runners run past our house.  I like to see the variety of runners, starting with the serious runners who are still going strong when they get to our house, followed by the semi-athletic and not-so-serious runners, then the families (those kids and/or strollers slow them down), and then the people who just signed up for fun and who are just walking leisurely.  (Last year I watched the runners from our kitchen as I made pancakes; the irony was not lost on me).

But my favorite part of the festivities is the St. Patrick's Day festival.  You've never seen so much green and Irish stuff in one place, and it's fun to be a part of that.

Me & Logan on the flying elephants; he LOVED this! (Check out the green t-shirt I found from 5th grade!  I think it was part of some kind of reading incentive program because at the bottom it shows that I read 9,500 pages.)

Owen was probably not quite tall enough to ride the Fun Slide by himself (not in an adult's lap), but with a little tippy-toeing near the height chart, he made it through.  From the look on his face (and the fact that this was his second slide in a row) he had fun.  He wore himself out with all the rides, and especially with his favorite thing, the bounce houses.

We came home from the St. Patrick's Day Festival to find some holiday cards and stickers for the boys in our mailbox.  This is how Logan does stickers: he puts each sticker on his shirt, one at at time, and they all end up in one pile.

A few days later, on the real St. Patrick's Day, Owen made a leprechaun hat at preschool and he thought Logan might want one, too.  He came home and decided to grab some construction paper, markers, and scissors and make a hat for his brother.

Ice Crystals

Living in the Bay Area, in a climate where the temperature rarely drops below freezing, it is indescribably AWESOME to find ice crystals on your car's windows when you visit someplace cold.

(photo taken with my iPhone; kicking myself for leaving my macro lens at home)

New Year, Old Friends

One of my favorite aspects of our trips to Quincy is watching the kids play together.  It reminds me of the olden days, when I would see my cousins at holidays, and we would be shy at first, but then we'd pick up where we left off the last visit.  Both Owen and Logan gobbled up the idea of a new house to play in and new toys to play with.  Poor Logan was just too little for so many things; he spent a good part of the trip just following the big kids around.

Logan trying to track down the action

Logan, still a step behind the big kids

Logan, Jakodi, and Emmery

Logan, unable to climb to the top bunk, and jealous of Jakodi (whose feet you can see) because she can

The boys (look at ALL THOSE LEGOS!)

Running down the hall...

...chasing each other...

...and just looking for his buddies

Seamas and Jeremy, and there I am in the background :)

I prompted them to just do something they'd naturally do.  Hmmm.

One final bit of Christmas magic

Not Quite Midnight

I remember years past when I would so look forward to having something special to do on New Year's Eve.  Oh, how things have changed-- I think that I can count this as the fifth year in a row that I haven't even bothered trying to stay up until midnight. 

We spent New Year's Eve in Quincy.  Right after watching "Elf" (Owen's choice), the kids conked out around 8 or 9 o'clock.  I didn't make it much longer than that.

December, Abridged

I've really been slacking on the blog.  I blame the start of the school year because, well, that's how it is when you're a teacher.  I've been neglecting it so much so that I don't remember enough to even write very much.  So here is December in a nutshell.  Looking back, it was a pretty amazing December.  I love getting to relive the magic of the Christmas season through the eyes of my boys.  This is such a fun age, and I hope I remember it fondly forever.  Because years from now I will miss the days when the bottom half of our Christmas tree was either empty or in complete disarray (due to Owen and Logan taking off the ornaments and playing with them like they are toys until they are broken; 24 ornaments on the one day I counted).

Random Christmas quotes from Owen:
-While listening to Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer: "I think this song is sad because I love my grandma."
-"When Santa watches us when it's not Christmas, does he watch us like on a TV?"

Christmas pictures with Santa- Logan was too scared to sit by himself

Cuddly reading time with Dad in matching pjs

We were looking at our Christmas DVDs and thinking about which one to watch later that evening, when Logan saw the Home Alone DVD and did this.

Christmas lights at Deacon Dave's

I love "our Iron Horse Trail" (as Owen calls it) in the winter- cold, crisp, and sunny

Just a normal, everyday walk for my goofy Owen.  He picked out the outfit himself and decided to bring along his new trumpet, a gift from Robin & Matt.

Giant mudslides on the bike path near our house, the result of rains so heavy that- gasp- they had to close our schools for a day.  You can see the mud wrapped around the tree and spilling into the gutter.  There is an enormous hillside above, outside the frame, and I think that one of these days the whole thing is going to slide right down.

I don't remember why Logan was wearing sunglasses in the house, but he looks like a cool dude.

Christmas card art by Owen: Santa with little snowballs and one giant snowball

Christmas card art by Owen: a snowman with snow falling down

Christmas card art by Owen: a deer in a forest with clouds.  "Not a reindeer, just a deer."

Christmas Morning

Last Christmas I tried this idea I read about, recording Christmas morning in a series of photos and putting them into a YouTube slideshow.  While I doubt this would be of any interest to anyone but myself and my immediate family, it is still fun to look back at last year's video, so I did it again this year.

P.S.  Owen picked the crappy, uh, I mean lovely music.

First Haircut

My dad recently told us the story of his first haircut: He was at the beach when a woman came up to my grandpa and told him what a fine looking little girl he had.  My dad's longish curly hair and lack of boyish swimsuit (just a diaper I think?) led the woman to the wrong conclusion.  First thing my grandpa did when they got home was grab the scissors and cut my dad's hair.

Well I wasn't concerned about anyone mistaking Logan for a girl or anything, but it was obvious that Logan's hair was getting pretty long.  At 20 months old, he had never had a haircut.  His hair was such a part of HIM, however, and I couldn't bring myself to cut it.  He had the cutest little ringlets that would form, especially right after his bath, and people would always comment that he looked so blonde compared to Jeremy and me.  Logan's hair was just a little wild and crazy, kind of like Logan.  And most of all, I was afraid that it would transform him into looking like a little boy, and not like my baby anymore.

I knew it was time for his first haircut when his hair started getting in his eyes and he would awkwardly try to blink it away.  Or when he said, "Hair! Messy!" and tried to sweep it off his face.  Yes, it was time. *sigh*

I took Logan to a kids' hair salon because I was so nervous about how it would turn out.  He loved getting to sit in the special chair that looked like a bike, and he was the perfect client.  And while I do miss his long, curly hair, I am in love with his short hair.  Now I can see his bright, smiley face because it's not hidden behind a mop of hair.  I know I'm partial, but damn, what a cutie-patootie!

BEFORE

AFTER

Ho ho ho!

Finally, something that was NOT a Pinterest fail- our Christmas card photo.

Rain Boots

Rain boots make all the difference.  They turn a stuck-inside, rainy day into a play-outside-in-the-puddles day.  Our trip to rainy Oregon prompted me to replace Owen's 2-year-old boots with some new ones.  (With the drought, there hasn't been much use for rain boots in California lately.)

Costumes Part 2

I read a lot of griping online about how people only post the perfect pictures of their perfect families and their perfect lives how it isn't really real.  When I posted a picture of Owen and Logan in their Halloween costumes, I laughed to myself, thinking of how the photo shoot really went.

This is the good one, the one where they are both content and cooperative.

And the rest show what it took to get there.

At the end, we finished with a hug.  Which, if I'm being honest, I told them to do.