Baseball has begun

 The boys are pretty excited about their baseball season this year. It's been pretty rainy so far this season. Both boys have has a game and a few practices rained out already.

Wilson is so focused and into the practices and games this year. He hustles from the bench and looks focused during every play. He's had some really good hits so far as well. I think being on the same team and being a year older have both worked out this year.

I will get a better picture of Leo in his uniform, but here he is in the mud - a pretty typical look for him this season! Can't wait for better weather! He's doing really well on his team and has the same hustle as last year. I think he'll be happy to move to coach pitch next year!

Ivy's been a good fan!

Happy Birthday!

The kids were thrilled when I asked them if we should go get root beer floats to celebrate your birthday. Here they are toasting you! Archie says he's going to give you a big bear AND group hug when you get home.... get excited!

Their balloons lasted about an hour. Would you believe Leo managed to pop them all under separate, weird circumstances each time? That kid!

I hope you like your Tribute Video! Wish you could have watched it on your big day!

Here are some random things that I've taken pictures of that you might like to see...

Leo's award picture with his teacher.

Wilson's music performance. They all wore jammies and brought a stuffed animal. He chose PPD...

Leo found this in a magazine at the doctor's office and wanted me to get a picture for you.

Kids did slime for Wilson's birthday. This is what PNW kids look like when the sun comes out after six months of cloud cover...

And, a cute snack time.

Wilson's Birthday

Wilson had a blast on his birthday. Here is the cutest birthday pic ever of all the kids. 

This was taken right before you called!

Wilson requested green pancakes for his birthday breakfast. I delivered!

It was a great day out and we had no plans so I told Wilson we could do anything he wanted. Beach, park, hike... He chose hike, so we found a good one in Port Gamble. The Beaver Pond Hike took us by some ponds, but unfortunately we didn't see any beavers.

The hike was fun and of course there were a million things to explore.

After the hike, we went to the little playground in Port Gamble and had a picnic lunch. The kids had fun. Archie accidentally stepped deep in one of the ponds on the hike, so luckily I had his green suit in the car. 

When we got home, Tim came over and asked if we wanted to do a hunt in their backyard with them. It's the first time we've been invited over! The kids had a ball and we stayed a couple hours. Never ran out of things to talk about with Tim and Tonya. 

Then we came back and partied with Wilson. I messed up the icing on his cake and decided to go with it. When Wilson saw it, he said, look the dinosaur is getting stuck in the mud. It looks so real! Yep - just what I was going for!

 Here he is with all his loot. He was thrilled with everything and put on the Jughead shirt right away. I told him one present was sent just from you and he guessed it right :) Good gift, Babe. 

Can't believe our baby's 8! 

Easter

We started off Easter weekend on Friday night when Shannon and Marc came to visit. They got here at 7 pm and spent a couple hours crafting and hanging out with the kids. After I put the kids down, they stay another couple hours and we had a bottle of wine together. It was fun.

Want to hear something juicy? They're married! They got married in October and haven't really been telling anyone. I guess we're not supposed to spread the word, as Marc's parents don't know yet and that'd be weird. Also, they both definitively said no kids, which I wasn't sure I'd heard before.

After they took off, I put some Easter stuff together for the kids. They came down to this scene in the morning and were super pumped.

Ivy got a new baby doll.

Boys all got electric toothbrushes that rocked their world. 

Here's Wilson's

Archie's

And Leo's

We had to get up super early for our 9 am egg hunt in Seatac, the town. I brought them down to see their baskets around 6:30 am. We hit the road at about 7 and the kids didn't complain a bit. 

See how nice they looked!

Ivy didn't care for the Easter Bunny, but then waved to him for about five minutes from the sidelines.

The park we hunted at was really pretty. Angle Lake Park in Seatac. I just picked the hunt closest to the airport so I could drop Mara off. It turned out really great. The only problem was that the kids were all separated by age and the hunts all started at the same time. So, I dropped Wilson off, the Mara stayed with Leo and I took the littles to their three and under hunt. 

All the kids had a ball. Ivy and Archie are in love with Mara! Ivy never warms up that quickly when I'm around, but she chose Mara over me a few times.

The hunt was crazy because inside most eggs were candy, but inside about 30 eggs there were pink tickets. If you got a ticket you had to take it to the prize ambulance and get a bigger prize. Wilson and Archie both ended up with pink tickets. You can imagine how happy Leo was for them...

Anyway, the prizes were nuts. Archie got a hot wheels themed basket with about 10 cars in it and a tack. So fun, he was entertained for the day.

I didn't get a picture of Wilson's loot, but he got a huge Erector set. It must have been $40. Anyway, great haul. We may go back to that hunt next year!

They seriously loved her. Mara was doing really well and it was so nice spending the morning with her. She just bought a house in Lexington and it looks super nice. Her and Sean are also thinking of having kid or kids sometime soon. So that's exciting.

That was pretty much it for the Easter festivities. Tomorrow we're going to focus on Wilson's birthday and probably hang around the house a bit.

We had a fun morning. Opening day baseball post coming soon!

Report Cards

The boys got their report cards right before Spring Break. Sorry I forgot to post them for so long. Nothing really noteworthy, as neither teacher does individualized comments - frustrating! Wilson was a little jealous of all Leo's +'s and 4's. 

I was not thrilled with some of Leo's 3's. Like 'Identifies and writes numbers 0-20.' He got a 4 first trimester and a 3 this time. Did he forget them? I don't think so. Also, 'recognizes letters' and some other ones didn't sit right with me. He did get the Academic Achievement award for this time and he seemed really happy with his grades. 

I was hoping for a few more 4's on Wilson's report, especially in math but even his writing is so good. He has never missed a spelling word all year and is very good with punctuation and capitalization. Anyway, mostly 3's. One area where I really complimented him was his music grade... look at it! He has the same teacher as last year who he always got negative comments from. I asked him if he was doing better in music and he said he was. So, that was great.

Beach weekend

Our beach weekend was pretty fun! After we dropped Wilson off at the airport, the three amigos and I headed for Long Beach, WA. I picked it because it was a beach we hadn't been to in Washington and it was only three hours away. 

First stop? Beach! Where do we park? Beach!

Beach selfie... I finally made it in a picture!

These two think they're pretty good buds now that Wilson is gone.

Long Beach itself seems very.... long. There wasn't much rock or tide pool action though. We saw a truck doing donuts on the beach and Leo thought that was the coolest thing ever. He asked if we could do it in the van, so I made a few sharp turns at a very slow speed. He wasn't too impressed with what the Kia could do!

The town was basically one street and had some pretty weird stuff. Here is the largest frying pan in the world and Leo pretending to be a fried egg in it, LOL.

There were some crappy carnival rides that the boys thought were amazing. We had to come back the next night as well.

This is my new favorite picture of Archie. Framer for sure!

Here is the curiosity shop that you would LOVE. It was weird.

We stayed at the Breakers, which was pretty old, but remodeled on the inside. I picked it because it had a kitchenette. Here is the view from our deck. Leo wanted me to get him jumping...

The best part of the trip was Cape Disappointment state park. I finally updated our $30 parks pass so we entered legally. There were a couple lighthouses and some long and short hikes to do. The kids and I headed to Waikiki (yes, that's the name!) Beach and it was sooo beautiful.

Hard to capture it all, but the kids dug and played for hours. Would you believe that the water out there is not the ocean but the mouth of the Columbia. Lewis and Clark are big here.

Can you see the lighthouse in the distance? So cool.

My favorite pictures are always on the coast!

There was a ton of driftwood on the beach, but not one of those structures that we've seen before. Leo was so excited when I asked if he wanted to build one. It kinda sucked, but it was really fun gathering the wood and putting it together. I honestly wasn't sure if it would collapse when the kids got in or not - but it ended up still standing when we left, score!

This was the night that Ivy puked and the trip was over. The boys were pretty bummed to not get their cousin time in. I was just happy we had a full weekend before things got cut short. The weather was so great (well, still cold but just not rainy) and that always makes things better. Only thing missing was my two big guys! Next time - I think you will love it there just as much as I did.