Happy 4th Birthday Henry

Upon his request we had a baseball themed party for Henry this year. Thanks to Chris we were able to pull off this baseball bat cake and it was a hit, no pun intended.
I love this face, the whole time he was opening this present that is what his face looked like. He was so excited because he had called Grandma Chris probably 2 or 3 months ago and said that he wanted her to come to his house for his birthday and he wanted her to buy him a blue double sided light saber. All of his birthday wishes came true.

This is a great face too.

We invited a few of our friends over for presents, cake and ice cream. Eliza is the only one that got a picture taken because A) she loves Pete, B) Pete had the camera, and C) she loves to get her picture taken.

As you can see.

Going along with the baseball theme Henry got a baseball bat, tee and helmet. He is all set for tee-ball next year, all he wants to do is practice now, maybe I should have given this a second thought.

The party went great, the kids had fun and we all got to stuff our faces with cake and ice cream, who could have asked for a better day.

Not Henry, he was on cloud 9 all day long.

Happy Birthday to my Big Boy!!!

We LOVE Visitors

This last weekend Uncle Ben,
and Grandma Chris and Grandpa Mike came to visit. The kids were oh so excited to be with the nicest Grandma that lets them eat candy before dinner and stay up late eating candy. Those words came right out of P.J.'s mouth. Pete and I were pretty excited to see everyone too.

The weather was beautiful and we took full advantage of it. On Saturday we went into the city and strolled through the wharf and took a trolley ride, I didn't have my camera so more pictures of that to come when they get emailed to me.
We also got to go watch P.J. play in his baseball game on Saturday, it was a long but very fun day.

On Sunday we went to church and afterword the weather was just too nice to pass up. We walked over to the park to play and watch a cricket match (still don't understand that game), and sit in the sun. William had his first bike ride and couldn't get enough.

It was a great weekend and we miss you guys already.

I used to think that people who didn't know what their kids were doing at all times were idiots, and when they would complain about said kids getting into things or making a mess I wouldn't feel sorry for them one little bit......then I had William. I don't know if it is really Will who is the problem or the combo of a bigger house, him being the third child and me just being a little bit busier. He is the most toilet playing, glass spilling, anything on the floor eating, drawer opening, book pulling offer and almost anything else you can can think of. So what I am getting at is here is to you, all you parents that I wrongfully judged and looked down upon in the past, I am sorry and I guess I had it coming.

Oakland Zoo

We recently purchased season passes to the Oakland Zoo and decided to cash in on them this last week, with it being spring break and all. The boys were so excited and the weather was beautiful, so we started off. One of the first animals we saw were these giant turtles, I was real excited because they were actually moving and I have never really seen that before. Even more to my excitement when I looked over and they appeared to be wrestling. I told the boys look they are wrestling.
Took a cute picture of them in front of the wrestling turtles, and by this point they were making noises which I also thought was pretty cool. The longer we watched the more I realized that they were NOT wrestling but instead "doing the deed". I was mortified, I made my kids sit and watch this, of course they had no idea what was really going on but I just felt dirty afterward.

Luckily we moved on and I soon found this strange and endangered two headed turtle which soon got my mind off the two pervs doing it in public.

We got to the elephants right at feeding time so that was cool to watch. And yes, Henry had the map just like that the entire time we were there.

William is getting old enough that he would get excited here and there. He loved the elephants and the bats, I didn't get any pictures of the bats though.

Each boy wanted to take pictures of the elephants so here is P.J.'s. I think he did a pretty good job for being a little kid.

Here is Henry's, poor kid, I wonder if that is his view of everything.

We got 5 free tickets to ride the rides so we took full advantage of it. P.J. and Henry rode these planes then we all went on the merry-go-round. It was such a fun day!

As you can see Will enjoyed himself so much he could hardly stand it.

Happy Easter (a little late)

This was an interesting Easter for us, we aren't living around any family, all of our law school family lives around the country and we were all alone. Not that we were sad about it but it was just different.
It ended up being a lovely day and I loved listening to conference on Easter Sunday. We stayed in our sweats all day and just enjoyed each others company. It was raining all day but Henry could not be contained, he through on his rain gear and out he went.

We had a delicious dinner of ham, mmmmm, I like ham. Funeral potatoes and green beans, for desert I made a Strawberry cake that was to die for, did not take a picture of that though. After I got done making this meal Pete asked me if I thought we had teenage boys of something because I had cooked so much, oh well, it looks like ham leftovers all week. I hope you all had as wonderful of an Easter as we did!

Dying Easter Eggs

The boys were very excited to dye Easter Eggs this year, Pete and Will could have cared less, so it was the 3 of us.
Henry kept cracking the eggs so I had P.J. take over in the egg dropping, per say, and he did a great job. Notice the amount of concentration that it takes, his little tongue is so cute.

I love these last two pictures, just very candid moments of how life really is. Henry is always watching P.J. and for the most part P.J. is always a very good teacher and friend.

Happy Birthday to Will!

It's official, William is one. We celebrated with some yummy banana cake with a vanilla cream frosting. We were going to have a whole monkey themed party but the 4 or 5 days prior to his actual birthday all of the kids were sick, so we had a lame party but he doesn't care.
Will didn't know what to really think about the candle but he loved us singing Happy Birthday to him.

We had to blow the candle out for him, I should have been practicing blowing with him, oh well.

Not to sure what he is supposed to do with this.

Once he got a taste he was all in.

I couldn't pass this picture up, P.J. took it and I love Henry's face in it.

We eventually lost the plate and then he really started chowing down

"Do you want some?"

Look at that face, I am in for years of trouble.

He of course made a big mess but we just threw him in the tub which he LOVED and called it a night.

It's Baseball season again!

P.J. decided he would like to play baseball again this year, so I talked to some of the Moms at his school and we were able to get him on the same team as his friends from class.

P.J. #12
They have to say this little pledge before every game about how they will play fair and all that mumbo jumbo. Base ball here is a huge deal, it was opening day and there was a parade and opening ceremonies and a pancake breakfast. I had no idea what we were getting into.

Waiting for their turn to bat.

All this one wanted to do was get down and play in the mud.

Henry found a friend to sword fight with.

P.J. up to bat.

Run P.J. run!

Playing "pitcher", he thought he couldn't go outside of that circle.

After it was all over we were all ready to go home.