An Evening At Crown Park

Easter Fun

The kids, along with all of the adults, had a ton of fun this year celebrating Easter (which was almost 2 months ago). Our activities included lots of Easter egg dying and decorating, shopping with the kids and Mary, meeting the Easter Bunny for the first time and getting pictures taken, filling Easter baskets and plastic eggs with goodies for the kids and an Easter egg hunt at my moms house with Cyndi, Tony and Roman.

I don't often have brilliant ideas, but while dying eggs I discovered that by using french press', you can keep hollowed eggs submurged in the dye liquid (food dye of course). Brilliant I tell ya!

The red was made with lots and lots of yellow onion peels and the blue with purple cabbage

Even Armando got in on decorating the eggs.

Mary discovered that her portable air compressor worked really well at blowing out the eggs.

We did hollowed out eggs and hard boiled eggs, which meant we were eating a ton of eggs. Lots of hard boiled egg sandwiches and wraps.

We went to meet the Easter Bunny at a local store with the kiddos and Mary. I don't have a digital copy of the actual picture with the kids and the Easter Bunny, but here is a picture of Mary and Esperanza I took while in line. The kids did Amazing! No crying, no breakdowns and no one was scared of the bunny. 

While we were waiting for our pictures to be ready to pick up from our Easter Bunny visit, we strolled down to a kids toy store and played with toys for awhile. Mary had fun putting dress up hats on Ezra. And here is where I got him his favorite red ball.

Fireman Ezra

Mary went a teeny, tiny bit overboard with the kids' Easter basket. When she said she was doing Easter baskets for the kids, I was thrilled...but then a bit overwhelmed when I saw what she got!!! Esperanza's basket was HUGE! It contained a bunny hand puppet, a purple stuffed bunny animal, a chicken finger puppet, some socks, hair things, a wooden flute, bunny ears, an egg dying kit, a cute little birds nest, a cute card, a cupcake, a chocolate bunny, lots and lots of chocolate candies and organic jelly beans along with various other little toys and trinkets. WOW!!!

Ezra's basket included the coolest three headed hand puppet dragon, a bunny finger puppet baby book and a few other little toys.

I did much smaller baskets.. Esperanza got paints, sidewalk chalk, some stickers, some bandaids and a few other little things. Ezra got the red ball and a few snacks. I also got Ezra that big walker which was a last minute Craigslist find, and something he was in need of anyhow. 

He liked the plastic eggs and cheerios that were inside of them

Esperanza loves a big surprise!

Since Easter fell on our 6 year wedding anniversary, Armando got his own little mini-basket which contained a replacement wedding ring for the original that was lost some time ago! 

Both kids enjoyed the walker and all the wooden blocks inside of it.

Overboard I tell ya!

Then it was off to moms house for the Easter Egg hunt!!! Pictures say more than words in this case...

Feliz Dia Mama

We had a relaxing Mothers Day this year at my house. Armando worked part of the day. My mom came over for a few hours to visit. I made us some yummy salads then we went to Burgerville for free strawberry milkshakes and shorcakes. It was a warm day so Esperanza and the neighbor girl Lili cooled off in the pool.
Esperanza made me an adorable painting at school of a butterfly (made from her two feet) and a beautifully painted gift bag. She and Armando also got me some flowers a couple of days before Mothers Day. Armando said they were at the store and Esperanza asked him if she could get me flowers for Mothers Day. It must have been school that put the idea in her head is my guess. Either way, it was sweet! I'm so lucky to be mama to Esperanza and Ezra. And I am lucky to have my own mama to celebrate and thank for being my mom.

Ezra At 10 1/2 Months Old

Yes, I realize Ezra is almost (gasp) an entire year old (gulp). I missed my monthly blog post update on Ezra at 10 months as well as 11 months though, so here I am again, backtracking with my blogging. I had Ezra's pictures done when he was 10 1/2 months old...so here's my update on him at that age, along with several beautiful pictures of my handsome little baby boy.

At 10.5 months old, Ezra crawls all over the place, pulls himself up to walk while holding onto things, waves hi and even says hi. Like Esperanza, "Hi" is his first word. Though I am not positive, it sounded like he said 'chicken' once. When he waves, he raises his arm and flops his hand around. I call it the floppy wave. Any time I pull the dishwasher open to empty or load it, he makes a bee line straight towards it in hopes that he can start pulling silverware and dishes out of it. He loves making really loud noises. Metal pots, pans, spoons, bowls are his favorite to bang against each other or onto the tile floor. It actually doesn't bother me, but it really annoys Esperanza. If I forget to put the cat food up after Lucy is done eating, he will dump it all over the floor and eat it (Esperanza did this until she was well past 2). He likes to eat dog food off of my moms kitchen floor also. He's still a yeller at times, but mostly is just chatty with that adorable baby chit-chat now. He thinks it's really fun to imitate each other with silly noises. He loves balls - any size, any texture, any color - he LOVES balls! He wears size 18-24 month clothes and a size 4 shoe. He weighs about 22 pounds and has 5 teeth. Two of the top ones are only out a tiny bit. He's had a very tough time with teething. They hurt him so much when they are beginning to come in. On top of that, he constantly bumps his already sore gums on various things all day long. And when teeth do finally emerge, he continues to bump them, sometimes hard enough to cause a little bleeding. I worry he might loose a tooth before he even gets them all! He eats almost anything. I'm not as picky with him as I was with Esperanza. I'm still not giving him dairy or wheat, but pretty much anything else is fair game. He loves oranges, but not grapefruit. He would eat avocados and banans all day if I had enough. When his teeth hurt, he will refuse most foods but will eat frozen blueberries no matter what. When I try to feed him something he doesn't want, or when he's full and I still try giving him a bite, he shakes his head no.

Ezra is my early bird. He wakes up at about 6:30 and even before his eyes pop open, he's ready to go. There is no putting him back to sleep or even nursing him for a few minutes so I can get a little more shut eye so I can slowly wake up. Fortunately for both of us, Armando is just like him: up and at it at the crack of dawn (as long as he hadn't been up all night studying, watching a movie or on the computer). On mornings he does get up early, which is several days a week usually, Armando will take Ezra for a walk with him. They go to Lacamas Lake and walk the trails up there. Armando either pushes Ezra in the jogging stroller or puts him in the hiking backpack carrier. On these days, I get to crawl back into bed with Esperanza and catch an hour or so of uninterrupted sleep. Esperanza and I both could sleep until noon if no one bothered us.

So here are some beautiful photos of our darling Baby Blue from about a month ago, when he was 10 and a half months old. These pictures make me sit back and wonder 'now why do I even bother with own camera when there's this!?'.

I almost started crying when I picked up my cd with these pictures of Ezra from Brienne. I fought back tears because of how utterly grateful I was to have these. Forever. I'll always be able look back on these pictures and reminisce on his baby days. They make me regret not getting professional pictures of Esperanza done when she was a baby (those crappy JC Penny pictures don't count.). Brienne really captured the best of Ezra with her magical touch (not that he isn't this adorable in real life - more actually). He is growing up so darn fast, I must cherish these last moments of baby! 

Thank you Simply Olive! You are Simply Amazing!