We're Leaving on a Jet Plane

Our bags are packed, we're ready to go.... 

Tomorrow we leave for Europe for 2.5 weeks.  2 weeks in Germany and 4 days in Paris.    If you have even a twinge of jealousy just imagine us, all 4 us, and 3 seats on a 10 hour flight to Paris and then a 2 hour layover and then another 2 hour flight to Berlin.  That might help :)  

I don't know if I'll be able to blog from there... but you never know.  

Friends

 We've been having a lot of fun with our friends lately.  Thankfully, most of Josie's friends have younger siblings so it makes a nice double play date for the kids and the moms.
A couple weeks ago we went over to Josie's friend Will's house.  He has a younger brother named Charlie who will be in Benjamin's co-op class next year.  Here the 4 kids are playing "rocket ship" inside Will's closet.

We met my friend Molly and her kids Dawson (2 weeks older than Josie) Reagan and Gavin (2 weeks younger than Benjamin) at the Sculpture Park.  When we got there it was snowing.  Thankfully, the indoor pavilion was a great place to play and kept the kids entertain so Molly and I could talk and catch up. 

A quick pic of Josie's building structure before Benjamin, AKA "Godzilla" knocks it down. 

The crazy spring like weather... snowing when we arrived and sunny when we left.  Crazy!

 Josie's best friend, Bryn, also has Fridays off with no school.  The past few weeks they have been having fun play dates together.  Thankfully Benjamin is napping for most of the time Bryn is over otherwise I can only imagine Josie's frustration at her little brother who loves to destroy anything Josie sets up... like this little tea party.

 Last week the sun was out and the girls thought that it was summer time.  They brought their chairs outside and wanted to enjoy popsicles in the sun.

Preschool Days

 Benjamin has been loving his co-op preschool class.  He only goes one day a week but is very excited to say good bye to big sister and Daddy and take off in the car to his very own preschool class.  He has made some good friends... or should I say, I've made some good friends and we both have a great couple of hours playing, talking and learning.

Spring 2012

Every year we determine when Spring starts roughly by when our daffodils open up.  This year it was on March 11th... or at least that is when this photo was taken.  The weather has been far from "spring-like" however.  Just about daily since this photo was taken we've had some mixture of the following: sun, rain, wind, hail, snow, sleet, fog.... hmmm, think that is about it.  We are waiting rather impatiently for warm sunshine to fill our days.

On March 7th you can see them just starting to open up and then a few days later they are in full bloom.  A fun tradition to take family photos in front of the flowers.  Every year they open at different times. Here is a look back to our previous spring photos. It's interesting to look back and see when the daffodils bloom each year.  Also, I'm sad that I tried to hide my pregnant belly in the 2010 photos, although tired of it at the time it would be fun to see it now.  I remember not getting around to taking the photos last year as it was just around the same time Benjamin had his first trip to the emergency room.  Thank God he has been seizure free since then!!

Priceless

 

We were at Home Depot once again... actually I think it was Lowe's.  Same difference really.  The paint and other supplies were expensive.  The other two cuties in the cart, PRICELESS!!  

ALKI

Last weekend we spent some quality time down at Alki.  It doesn't need to be sunny and summer time for us to have a good time there.  It was quite windy and a bit cold but we had fun at the whale tail park first, then to the beach and our final stop, as usual, was to Pegasus to meet friends for pizza.

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The video depicts a daily scene  in our house.  Josie builds things, then screams wildly for one of us to take a photo or video... anything to capture her work of art and then yells for Benjamin to knock it down.  That kids loves to knock things down!

And then off to the beach. It was a beautiful winter day, perfect for throwing rocks into the water and digging in the cool, wet sand. 

For Marty's birthday I had bought him a commemorative brick that would support the parks around Alki.  We all had fun trying to find our brick. In the end Marty ended up finding it.  

Home Depot

 We have been visiting Home Depot quite a a bit recently while we fix up our new investment property.  Before and after photos of the building coming very soon.   Normally when we go Josie wonders where the princess section is and Benjamin runs around crazy in the big wide open aisles and pulls anything and everything off the shelf.  Last time he stuck his hand inside an already opened bag of mortar and started playing with it like it was sand in a sandbox.
Last week when we went Josie really lucked out.  They were having their Saturday morning workshop and so she was able to make a race car and a heart box (left overs from last months project)  She glued and hammered and painted.  They provide all of the supplies plus a handy little work apron with her name on it.
 Benjamin on the other hand still had to run around like crazy, hiding in between stacks of chairs and using a big duct tape roll like a soccer ball.

Hair

  Last week was hair cut time.  I had a coupon for the "expensive" kid's salon in town that we had never tried before.  The hair cuts went smoothly and both kids had a ball in the salon.

Before we left we took photos of the their out of control hair.  Benjamin's was so long he could sport a pony tail and Josie was long and out of control most of the time.
Below are the "before" photos.

At the salon the kids both were able to choose their "chair".  Josie chose a carousel horse.

while waiting for Josie,  Benjamin rocked out with the guitar in the play room.  

The finished product

Benjamin chose a tractor, of course

The kids with their cute hair cuts.  A success all around.

Bicycle Riding

The other day during a small break in the rain we all made a run for it and spent a bit of time outside in the relative sunshine.  Josie was very nice to let Benjamin have a turn on her "big girl bike" 

More Musicians?!

Josie and Benjamin had a very "musical" time over at one of Josie's new friends from preschool's house.  His name is Hank and he and Josie make quite the pair.  Both very articulate, bright and have a bit of a crush on each other.  It is very cute.   I had taken a few videos with my phone.  One of Josie and Hank rocking out.  And another video of Benjamin "banging" on the drums.  Marty edited it a bit to match to this song.  I have no idea where he came up with the "One, One, two, three!"  Here is the link to watch it on YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtfTjdPeOeg&feature=youtu.be

Musicians?!?

I keep thinking that I should get Josie started on some kind of music/piano/violin lessons. Until then, her and Benjamin will "practice" together on their own. I have couple of really cute videos of them playing the piano and singing but something is wrong with blogspot and won't allow me to upload videos. I'll work on it and hopefully it will be up soon.