MIsc April

Carnival of the Animals-Phoenix Symphony with the Baldwins

Each morning the kids race in to say good morning to Audrey

Audrey and Teacher Laila at Music Together. In January Audrey, Ellie and I started going to Music Together each week for a music class. The girls love it! We dance and sing, Ellie knows most of the songs and sings along. She has such an outgoing personality and loves music. We aren't allowed to take pictures during class so this is the only one I have. Laila often takes Audrey and dances with her so Ellie can have all my attention. Love this class!

Mojos date

 

 

 

Date with Ellie

Ellie loves shopping at Trader Joes and its especially fun when she gets to go with just Mom. So that's what we did for our date this month.

 

She loves picking out a few treats for her and Willem like the dried blueberries and is quite proud to unload everything herself. Afterwards we went to Nordstrom Rack to check out their clearance sale.

I learned Ellie is a natural shoe shopper and has quite the affinity toward heels.

We could have spent hours playing dress up.

This is 30

I turned 30 this year and got to spend the day with my wonderful kids. The Sunday before my mom made dinner and the kids baked a cake with lots of pink icing. Loved their cards and excitement for celebrating holidays. On my bday Jason got off work early and took me to Hillstone for dinner.

 

 

 

30 feels like the beginning of a decade full of possibilities. I've been thinking about how important it is to live life intentionally and to that end I've begun a bucket list for this year:

1. Take a trip with Jason sans kids

2. Participate in the color run with the kids

3. Read a dozen books

4. Learn how to make 2 delicious salads

5. Master an inversion pose in yoga

6. Find a way to give back to our community

7. Try 3 new hikes

8. Create my own playlists

9. Learn 5 new songs to sing with the kids

Here's to a fantastic year!!

Back to LA for more fun!

I needed to be in LA for work so the kids came along and hung out with Opa, Lita and Oom Rik while I was at work. We stayed an extra day and were able to meet the Renks at Mothers Beach. That is my favorite beach right now! Especially with the ages our kids are at.  

 

 

I had Linda with me on the drive to LA but drove solo on the way home. We are figuring out how to do things like travel now that we have three kiddos. I had my routines in flying solo with Willem and Ellie but had forgotten it took us awhile to get into those rhythms. We're getting there though and Audrey is an amazing baby, she makes it easy. Lesson learned this trip: Subway is an awful place to stop, drive thrus are the way to go:) 

Willem's Party!

Spiderman, the park, a scavenger hunt, enough said.

Lita and Opa found this awesome pinata. It was our first time having a pinata at his party and the bar was definitely set high.

The rocket launcher was a great present and the hit of the party.

Willem's main request for the party was to have a scavenger hunt so Jason designed clues leading the kids to different areas of the park. At each spot they'd do a different activity (sing a song, strike a super hero pose, get treasure from the pinata, and go down the slide). 

 

 

 

(I forgot the candles but a great friend ran up to Walgreens and saved the day. There's always something....)

Audrey had lots of welcoming arms at the party and enjoyed this nice cuddle time with Tia Julie.

Life's been a bit crazy lately but with a lot of help the party came together and we had a great time celebrating Willem's birthday with close family and friends. Its nice to have times like this to pause and take in all the love and support we've received over the past 5 years.

Willem Turns 5

Our baby is 5 years old. I have not yet accepted that fact. Willem is secure, confident, inquisitive, and determined. At this moment Willem is learning to read. He can read most Level 1 and some Level 2 books on his own and is becoming quite a book worm.

 

 

He is madly in love with his goochy Audrey and plans to marry Ellie one day. 

He is very into super heroes and pretend play. Now when we play trains he assigns each room to be a train car and assigns us different positions on the train. He's into playing Super Hero and fighting the bad guy and loves it when we'll wrestle around with him or pretend to fight him.

He loved his web shooting gloves. 

The morning of his birthday Jason stayed home until 7 so Willem could open his presents and be there for Willem's birthday breakfast. We set up balloons all over the house the night before and put up his birthday banner. He loves all the hoopla.

The kids loved looking at his birthday poster and talking about each picture. We covered the fridge with extra pictures and that was a hit too.

That morning Tia Julie flew in so he had Julie, Audrey, Grandma and myself at his school birthday celebration. His class loved looking at the pictures of Willem and he was excited to walk around the world and hand out his treats.

His birthday requests were so interesting as they were not regular things that we make. For dinner he wanted pasta with chicken and spinach and for dessert he wanted Snickerdoodle cookies. He helped me make the cookies that afternoon and they are one of our new family favorites.  

Zoo Field Trip

Willem's teacher this year is AMAZING!! She scheduled a field trip to the Zoo for twenty-four 3. 4 &5 year  olds and got them there by riding the city bus. My Mom had gone back to work by then and Ellie wasn't in school so I brought Ellie and Audrey along with us. It was a crazy day for me but the kids had a great time. The morning started out rough as we were running late because certain unnamed people were not listening and like a scene out of a movie arrived at school 5 minutes after the start time and his class had already left to walk to the bus stop. After trying to run through the campus to find his class with 2 walking children not walking very fast, we aborted and headed to the car. I had planned all along to drive Ellie and Audrey to the Zoo but Willem was crushed that he wasn't riding with his friends. The ride to the Zoo was not a peaceful one and we almost decided to just go home but I'm so glad we all stuck it out. Once we arrived and he saw his friends the world was right again. It ends up half the class didn't ride the bus anyways and instead rode with their parents.


Ellie was right with Willem the entire day. They saw amphibians and learned about the different classes of animals. The other parents really helped me a lot and I don't know if I'll attempt taking all three on a field trip again for awhile.

 
Ellie did the most walking of the 3.

 

Two of Willem's best friends: Valentina and Maddie

Ellie enjoying her picnic lunch