So trendy

My sister Julie took Frejya to the salon yesterday and got her a feather extension. She now thinks she's the coolest thing ever. And of course she is. (You better step up your game, Aunt Janet - Julie is probably way up there on the best Aunt list now)

We also went to 31 cent scoop night at Baskin Robbins yesterday. What a great excuse to get ice cream! And we went early so there was no crowd. I even got Gabriel his own scoop (it was frozen yogurt, though - I'm so weird when it comes to giving my babies junk food).

Things aren't always what they seem

The piano has seriously turned out to be the best free find ever. Frejya has worked her way through two beginner books with minimal help and plays almost daily. It makes me so proud to see her. I have always loved playing the piano as well.

Gabriel wants to be just like his big sister. She is pretty awesome, so I can't say I blame him. And it's definitely cute to watch.

Now if I just showed you those two pictures it would seem like we had a very peaceful, fun afternoon yesterday. But those two pictures are not at all a good example of how our afternoon was. This is a more realistic view of our day yesterday:

Frejya did not have the best time at the piano. She was only playing because she was bored and kept getting frustrated with the song she was trying to play.

She was sort of just frustrated with everything in general yesterday (mostly me since I kept snapping pictures of her freaking out about things). Here she is yelling at me about something:

And Gabriel took an amazing four hour nap yesterday afternoon, but then was in just as great a mood as his sister when he woke up. Here he is crying for a fishing pole (not one of his own, but one of daddy's because he has discovered that they are different):

My kids' strong personalities will take them far in life, right? No one is going to walk all over these two. At least that's what I tell myself after days like yesterday.

Cat in the Hat

Frejya is terrified of the Cat in the Hat. She watched the movie a few years ago and ever since then has not been able to even look at a picture of him without freaking out. We even had to put the book away so that she doesn't accidentally come across it on the bookshelf. Judging by this picture that Gabe sent me, Gabriel is not a big fan either.

And to add to the awesomely bad picture quality for today, I'll share a couple pictures of Gabriel spinning yesterday. He is super hard to get a smile out of, but that spinning chair makes him so happy. So here are a couple more horribly blurry pictures. I think his big smile more than makes up for the bad quality.

Happy Easter!!

Easter is by far my favorite holiday of the year. I love what it represents, I love that it happens during the Spring, I love that I get to spend the day with family and eat good food, etc, etc. I could go on and on. But instead I'll just share some pictures with you and a quick recap of the events of the day.

We woke up bright and early (5:45 to be exact - my kids are pretty awesome like that) and hunted for some eggs. Gabriel discovered very early on that if he throws the plastic eggs down hard enough, they break open and all sorts of goodies fall out. That kid ate so much candy yesterday. It kills me. Several hours after the egg hunt, we finally got to go to church. I love, love, love the Easter Sunday service. Gabriel didn't seem to enjoy it as much as me, though. He didn't even last for half of it and then Gabe had to take him out. After church we went out to my parents' house for the big egg hunt. Then we went to Gabe's parents' house for dinner and then back out to my parents' house for dessert. It sounds crazy, but it worked out really well and was super fun. The kids had fun too.

Pre-Easter weekend stuff

Today I'm showing you our preparations for Easter because all the Easter pictures were taken on Gabe's phone so I don't have them yet.

We dyed eggs on Saturday. I had dye tablets leftover from last year so I didn't buy more, but it turns out we only had green and yellow and orange. So our eggs were all citrus colors this year. They were still pretty, though, and Frejya didn't seem to mind. She still had fun dying them. We did this while Gabriel was napping to make it even easier.

We kept the dyed eggs away from Gabriel, but he really enjoyed the plastic ones. He thought climbing in a tub of them was super fun. I have no idea how I've accumulated so many plastic eggs over the years, but we seriously have hundreds of them. And I don't think I've ever bought any. I'm going to have to donate most of them this week.

The rest of the day on Saturday was pretty low key. I'd been out late with the girls Friday night so it was nice to have a fairly non-scheduled day before all the Easter excitement started. I tried really hard to get a picture of the kids together, but I was not very successful. They're both smiling, but it's totally blurry.

Frejya by herself is always much easier to get a picture of. She could pose for hours I think.

And as a little teaser, I'll share one picture from yesterday. Gabriel ate a ton of candy so I had no intention of giving him pie, but Esteban left his pie a little too close to us and Gabriel totally dug into it. Apparently it was super yummy.

So has anyone watched Water for Elephants yet? I saw it with the girls Friday night and I thought it was great. The reviews were totally mediocre, but I really enjoyed it. It had been awhile since I'd been to the movies, though. Did you know they cost more than $10 now? That's crazy!

Swim and bubbles

We survived our first week of swim team and Frejya is loving it so far. Gabriel has been running around the pool deck acting like he owns the place. I'm starting to think that all the times I dropped him off with Gabe during high school season might be coming back to haunt me now. He is way too comfortable at the pool. He gets into everything and thinks that he can just go in the office or the equipment closet whenever he wants. It's going to be an interesting swim season for sure. I could probably just quit my P90X now because I"m going to get plenty of exercise chasing him around the pool deck every night.

Notice how the window is open in this picture? She wasn't hot, but instead had her window down because she can use the wind to blow tons of bubbles. After Iris' party last weekend, we came home with many containers of bubbles and they of course all ended up in my car. It works to my advantage when Gabriel is freaking out (which is most of the time now when we strap him into his car seat). Frejya blows bubbles for him and they both think it's hilarious. But then she realized that if her window is down, she can just stick the wand near the window and the wind blows tons of bubbles for her. It's pretty funny to see the huge trail of bubbles behind our car. I'm a little afraid of getting pulled over though. Are you allowed to blow bubbles out of your car?

Fishing trip

Gabriel went on his first fishing trip the other day. It was just the boys so I didn't get to see it, but I'm told he had a very good time. And Gabe was very good about sending me pictures and a video. Gabriel's favorite part was the water. He never tried getting in the water (he had strict instructions from Daddy that it was off limits), but he loved splashing his hands in it every few minutes - I guess he had to keep making sure it was still there. He also realized very quickly that his little Barbie pole was not the same as daddy's so he stole one of Gabe's big fishing poles to play with. It sounds like they had a lot of fun. Gabe was definitely happy that their first trip went so well. I'm sure there will be many more in their future.

A little of everything

We had a busy weekend of birthday parties that started with an early morning trip to the store. And Frejya, being so very adamant about her clothing choices as always, would not get dressed before we went. It was so not worth fighting over at 7:00 in the morning. She insisted on wearing a robe, but would not let me take a picture for the blog. I told her that if she made me go to the store with her dressed like that, then I was going to put it on here. Maybe she'll think about her clothing choice a little harder next time we go to the store.

Iris' party was first on the agenda and it was a super fun bubbles party. The food was awesome and there were tons of kids running around everywhere. Gabriel was a party pooper and cried most of the time.

I was super excited about the gift I made for Iris. I've been wanting to post it for over a week now, but had to wait until after I gave it to her so I wouldn't ruin the surprise. I loved the way these felt magnets turned out.

After Iris' party we drove straight back to Dixon for Albert's first birthday. He was as smiley and cute as ever and Frejya had so much fun swimming. Unfortunately Gabriel's mood just kept declining and he was definitely a party pooper at that party too. I didn't even get any pictures because he really required a lot of attention. But somehow as soon as we got home, he perked right up (probably because Gabe was there - he's way more into daddy lately than me). He played in the hose for awhile and loved it.

After the kids went to bed, Gabe and I had a drink together out back and enjoyed the nice weather. Dolphins started yesterday so we won't be seeing much of each other for the next few months.

We tried...

It is really hard to take pictures of kids. We wanted to get a picture of all the cousins so my mom could have a picture of all 5 of her grandkids together, but it just didn't work out so well. They're all in the pictures, they just aren't all very happy. And of course it was my child who consistently ruined the pictures. And this might sound mean, but I actually think these will make for better memories anyways. Is it awful that I think pictures of my crying baby are funny?

My little model

We won a contest with Rose Photography recently and just got the file from Rose yesterday. Frejya looks so grown up.

Lots more to blog about (and I actually remembered to take a few pictures this weekend), but I have to get my Sunday school lesson ready and get to church. I'll post more soon.

Babies love suckers

I'm normally pretty anti-sugary treats for my kids, but Gabriel's hair was driving me crazy yesterday and I decided I was going to give him a trim. So I pulled a sucker out of the cupboard (Frejya somehow accumulates a tremendous amount of candy through school and birthday parties so there's always something on hand) and gave it to him. And guess what? He loved it. It didn't even matter that he had a fever anymore or that he had been crying for the last hour. So I set to work trimming the back of his hair and I learned something about myself in the process: I am horrible at cutting hair. I like to think it's because I was cutting the hair of a squirming 15 month old or that I just don't have any experience with short boy hair, but I probably am just not good at it at all. It's so uneven in the back - I didn't know whether to laugh or cry (I laughed). Gabe fixed it up a little when he got home last night, but he told me that I need to leave the haircuts up to him from now on. I didn't even take any after pictures because it's so embarrassing. I'm hoping it will even itself out in a few days.

Gabriel is still super sick. I really want to go to Iris' bubble party tomorrow so he better sleep it all off today. Who doesn't love bubbles and a taco truck? That sounds like my kind of party.

Crazy kids

Frejya was so proud of her outfit this morning. It made me cringe just looking at her, but we were in a huge hurry so I let it slide. I haven't let her wear shorts to school yet because it's still too cold in the mornings, so she came up with her own way to get around this rule. And those aren't tights or leggings. They're a pair of leg warmers that she pulled out of her dress-up box and stretched out across her entire legs. I don't even want to know what this outfit will look like at the end of the day - I can't imagine the leg warmers staying up all day.

Gabriel was looking rather dapper this morning also. Gabe put a swim cap on his head and he thought it was so funny. He even cried when I took it off of him (Gabriel, not Gabe).

And yes, his nose is disgusting in this picture. He finally decided to get the cold that I had last week and Gabe has now. He even had to stay home from daycare because he got a fever to go along with it. We have a couple birthday parties on Saturday that I really want to attend so he better get over this very quickly.

Gracie came over to play yesterday and she and Frejya had so much fun. I gave them my old spice rack and a bag of flour and they made all sorts of interesting creations. Church friends are the best friends.

It's going to be that kind of a day

We got a call from daycare at 6:00 this morning. That's never a good sign. She's sick so we frantically had to make new plans for our day. I'm excited though, because it means we get to have Gracie and Lila over this afternoon since Jana was in the same situation as us. So it will be a full house this afternoon. How fun for the kids! I'll try to take pictures - I've been really bad about it lately.

I started P90X again this week. I love these workouts. Super hard, but so fun. Being on the boat last week made me realize that it is almost bathing suit time again. It's hard to find an hour every day to work out, but I really want to stick with this for the full 13 weeks. We'll see how it goes.

Family walk

Yesterday I was finally feeling better so we spent the afternoon at the arboretum. We walked the whole length of the arboretum and grabbed lunch downtown. We had a picnic under the redwoods and then walked around some more. The kids loved it.

 This picture cracks me up. Too bad I couldn't get a picture of her face right after this.