On The Hunt

Besides coloring Easter eggs, we had a lot of fun this year hunting for Easter eggs too. On Saturday, we were blessed with the warmest day of the year so far, at least thats what it felt like. We picked up Esperanzas cousin Rafa (after the zoo trip, we decided we needed to use this kid to everyones benefit more often) and headed to an Easter Egg hunt put on by a local church. We met Val and her kids there too. After a short and entertaining instructional service inside the church, we headed to the grassy fields with hundreds of other little kids to hunt down colorful plastic eggs full of colorful candy.

They didn't make it too hard to find the eggs

Don't let that face fool you, he had fun...I thinkShe just wants to eat the candy - "Pleeeeeaaaase mama" Awww, aren't they so cute!
After the hunt, we took the kids to the park to play before taking Rafa back home. Again, Esperanza made Rafa dizzy with all the fun she had. After about 5 or 6 times of trying to get Rafa to go down the slide with her, he finally gave in. And guess what happened? He laughed! Whew, a breakthrew. Not a chance was Rafa gettin on the tire swing with Esperanza though On Easter Sunday, we stayed home all day long. Well, with the exception of walking across the lawn to the neighbors for dinner. When Esperanza got up in the morning, she found a basket full of goodies from the Easter bunny. Later, with the rain and cool weather back, Esperanza was armed with a wool hat and rain boots as she set off to the back yard to hunt down more colorful plastic easter eggs filled with colorful candy, money and little trinkets.
Last years felted eggs & a sugary, colorful 'something'.
Esperanza's Easter basket with new watercolor paints, a play cupcake for the play kitchen, a chocolate bunny, a play silk, a dalmation dog figure, a punching baloon, a pez bunny candy thing, wildflower seeds to plant outside & an egg or two with money & treats.
Happy Easter!

Dying Easter Eggs

This year was our first time dying Easter eggs. For both of Esperanza & I. I honestly have no memory of doing this as a kid. But then again, I have a bad memory. Maybe a sister or my mom can refresh my memory? Anyhow...last year I felted Easter Eggs and decided against dying. This year, I came across several articles and information on easter egg dying with foods. I had a lot of the optional ingredients already in my fridge & freezer that had met the end of their edible days. So off we were with brewing up some easter egg dying concoctions.

1) Blueberry/blackberry mixture, 2) red cabbage, 3) spinach & 4) tumeric/orange spice tea combination simmering on the stove for awhile

After simmering, we strained the food out of the water and soaked hard boiled eggs in the concoctions overnight in the fridge...

And here were our results in the morning Who would have thought red cabbage would produce such a bright blue colored egg?

That evening, we went to my moms for dinner. Esperanza had to bring her eggs to show grandma, and of course I let her. When we got there, she not only wanted to show grandma and grandpa her cool eggs...but the dogs too. And wouldn't you know it, the dogs love to eat hard boiled eggs. I decided it could just become tradition from now on to dye hard boiled easter eggs to feed to grandmas dogs.
The next day I decided to do another batch, just a little different. Same dying process, but I blew out the egg yolk/white. That way, Esperanza could carry around her eggs all day long without me thinking of how bad they would smell from rotting soon, and we can save them for next year too (and they wouldn't get eaten by the dogs). I got the idea to add some sparkles to a few of the eggs from my sister too.

Aren't they pretty!

Zoo With Rafa

Last week we picked up Esperanza's cousin Rafael and took them to the zoo together. Rafa doesn't get out much so it took a lot of persuasion on Esperanza's part to get him to let loose and have some fun with her. He did have moments of laughter and running around, but for the most part it was pretty funny watching Esperanza run circles around him, pulling on him and telling him to play with her. He's so sweet and serious. It was great for us too because having someone Esperanza's age with her at the zoo made for fewer temper tantrums and more fun for everyone.

Rafa was scared of the goats at the petting zoo. Quite the opposite for Esperanza. This was the site of temper tantrum #1 when it was time to move on
Pulling the wagon together
Train Ride - site of temper tantrum #2 when it was time to get offDucks Esperanza wanted to hold his hand the whole daySnack time Black Bear Driving the Safari jeep
Hippos
Looking for the Sea Lions

Soakers For Blue

I love wool soakers for cloth diapering! They are warm, cute, breathable, leak proof and when loved properly by lanolizing and hand washing/drying every now and then, they last forever. New ones can set you back about $30 in the stores or online. I did invest in a few pairs when Esperanza was a baby. I had more money than time back in those days. These days, time is more abundant than money...which is much more rewarding in so many ways. So I've been practicing making some wool diaper covers for Blue, with pretty good results.

The brown & white pair are toddler size and actually were intended to be 'longies' but as I began knitting the legs, I realized they are way too skinny for chubby baby/toddler thighs. So they became shorts, and the legs will likely just get unknitted and re-done a lil looser at some point. The blue pair are newborn size and I'm going to add some cuffs to the legs holes for extra absorbancy & to prevent leaks. These cost me probably around $3-$5 each plus a few hours of time.

If you gotta change diapers, you might as well make it fun and stylish right?

Monique's Tribe

Long time family friend Monique showed up in Portland recently with her family. They were able to come out to our place one evening to visit for a few hours. She & Dre have 4 beautiful, energetic children: Enrique, Apache, Julian & Elijah (not sure if I spelled everyone's names correctly).

4-9-11

Just some photos of Mary, Armando, Esperanza & I out and about recently...

Somewhere Around 32 weeks

Have I mentioned there isn't an actual due date? Baby will come sometime around the end of May and beginning of June. Both ultrasounds I had gave me completely different due dates and I wasn't keeping track of things myself. So there's an open window of a couple of weeks that Blue will arrive. I kind of think thats a good way to think even if someone did give me an exact date, give or take a week or two from a certain 'day'. With that being said, and because it's just normal to have an answer when someone asks how far along you are, I'd say I'm currently around the 32nd or 33rd week. Here's a couple pictures of the belly thats getting bigger and bigger by the day.

I looked at a web site just for fun to see the development info in the womb for this time frame and here's what it said:

In the latest womb reports, your amazing baby has now developed sensitivity to temperature! Which means you’re likely to get a swift kick if you put a hot pad or bag of ice on your ginormous belly. For the Elton John lovers out there - baby’s got blue eyes. Actually, even if you're too young to know who Elton is, all babies have blue eyes at this point. This could easily change after birth (or even between now and labor), but for the time being, blue it is. Thanks to their recently matured lungs and a strengthening immune system, over 90% of babies born in their 32nd week survive! So - go ahead and throw a mini-party right now because it’s pretty much a done deal - you've got a human-bean that's going to make it! That's not to say you actually want your wee womb-squatter to pack their bags and move out now, because they'd still end up in the ICU for a good while, rather than in your arms at home. Babies are best when fully baked!

Just one more reason to call him Blue!

Chop Stix

We went to eat at PF Changs recently for our 5 year anniversary. As usual, our sitter didn't come threw so Esperanza joined us. Along with chop stix, crayons and the childrens menu, they gave her a little plastic tool. It works amazingly well at keeping the chop stix together so the user (child or adult) can actually eat. Esperanza loved it and I was able to get a couple extra to take home. Here she is at home, eating lunch with them.

A Real Spring Day

As I write this, some very dark clouds are dumping loads of hail outside. And the thunder that literally just shook the house will likely wake Esperanza from her afternoon nap. Spring in it's idealistic form, still seems far off in the distance most of the time.

Yesterday, however, we had a nice little tease of warm & sunny Springtime weather which lasted the entire day. A bright & pretty Spring dress found it's way on Esperanza then she and I spent some time outside soaking in some real vitamin D (the drops just aren't the same). She picked some flowers and ran around barefoot in the grass. We listened to some very happy birds singing from the trees. I eyeballed my little veggie garden and noticed the peas I planted the beginning of March finally sprouted. All it took was a whole lot of rain and a little sun. Later in the day, Armando, Esperanza and I took a walk around the neighborhood together. Esperanza picked some flowers that we later put in a vase and set on our nature table inside. She had so much fun running up and down the sidewalks and in random open fields screaming & laughing with joy as the sun shone down on her (and I thought she loved the rain - watch out Summer!). For dinner, we had hot dogs and brussell sprouts! The sun convinced me that the pellet stove would be most useful as a table over the next six months so I re-arranged my living room to accomodate all the baby stuff that will likely be taking over soon. Even the tote with all the wool hats, scarves & gloves made their way into the garage. I looked threw all the veggie and herb seeds that have been waiting for me to plant them, then decided to put them back in the basket until next year when I'll have two extra sets of little hands to help with the garden. This year, I'm growing something different.

Picking flowers I tried convincing Esperanza to go ahead and poop on the grass outside. Hey, it would have been a step ahead of the diaper thing...no luck though.

Notice the dandelions in her pigtails - so cute!