February 20th 2016 A ride in the park

Its the last day of mid winter break and it is sunny and 60 degrees.  perfect day to get out the bikes.  We decided to take them out to Tyee Lake in Monroe, since we also wanted to visit our friends Heath and Nancy and meet their two day old Esther.  The groundhog seems to know this year we'll have an early Spring...here's the first blossoms from our primroses.  These were planted 4 or 5 years ago.  A hardy plant and I'm so happy that they come back every year.  Have to watch out for the slugs though...they love to munch on them too.

Once again, my pictures are turned sideways....I don't know why!  The sun was shining and I was itching to get out in it.  I suggested we go for a bike ride.  Mike is always up for doing fun things, so he set to work getting the tahoe loaded up and the bikes ready to go with air in the tires and all the add ons for Kaylie's ride.  We put the tag along bike behind me for Cody to ride and brought the trailer for Kaylie to ride in.  The helmet I had for her was larger than I thought.  I was able to fix it with some extra connections I had in my sewing materials. 

We decided to go out to Monroe to a Lake Tyee Park.  Kaylie liked riding in the caboose for a bit, but soon was tired of it and we headed back. We stopped at a bench beside the lake and threw some rocks into it trying to do some skips.  It was a little chilly and breezy, but the sun sure felt wonderful!!!

We stopped at the playground and let the kids ride the merry go round and Kaylie rode on her first swing.  She liked it.  She just hung forward and laughed and smiled.  I helped her go down the slide a few times.  She got to sit in the cedar chips of the playground and started putting them in her mouth...no, no no..  hahaha!

We then started to head to the Mason's house where we were delivering a baby blanket to Baby Esther Ruth Mason.  But we noticed a skate park, so we turned back around and let the boys try their hand at the skate park.  We had their razor scooters in the back.  I was so impressed by both Decker and Cody.  They were very brave climbing to the top of the ramps and riding down them.  There was another kid who could do a few tricks...I think the kids were amazed at his agility.  We were there for probably another hour, then we ran to McDonalds and had some burgers and then went to the Mason's house.  When I saw Esther...it was so crazy to think that at one time Kaylie was that small.  I had forgotten what it was like to have a 2 day old newborn in my arms and then watch my baby sitting on the floor, playing with the toys and crawling around.  This time sure does go by so FAST!  We had dinner with the Masons-we tried out the deli sandwiches from the local sandwich shop.
It was a fun fun day!
Here's our set up.  Kaylie is in the Yellow caboose.  We rode around the lake.  Kaylie liked it for awhile, but soon began to express displeasure.

Here you can get a glimpse of her.

After riding back to the park, we played on the playground for a bit.  Kaylie's first time on the swing.  She liked it!  Then I put her on the wood chips of the playground.  Of course, she wanted to put them in her mouth.  The boys had fun on the merry go round.  I went for a ride with Kaylie too.
Then we got in the car to leave and noticed a skate park....so we got out scooters out and practiced riding down the ramps and up the ramps.  Cody was pretty fearless, Decker a little more cautious.  They got the hang of it pretty fast though.

And here's Esther...

Easter Weekend 2016

So we were looking for Egg hunts to participate in this year.  We read about one online that would happen at Redmond Town Center.  They were going to have a lot going on, so we decided to hit it.  BOY WAS IT CROWDED...trying to find a parking spot was our first clue... lol  We got there about an hour into the 4 hour activity,  They had already given out the Scavenger Hunt maps for the Easter eggs--to 2,000 children that got there before we did.  So instead of trying to stand in line to participate in the activities, we walked around the perimeter of the swarm of happy participants.  We ran into this bear, that had no line!  So we got our picture with her.

 The highlight for our boys of our excursion was riding the escalators up and down.  LOL

 

 We took some pictures of the princesses--long line, so our boys just stood by them...

 

 no, we don't know these adorable girls getting their pictures with the princesses.  ;)

 

 

 Then there was SPIDEY....again, long line for a pic...so we took our own...

 

 Then the petting zoo, where they had several cute and cuddly EASTER Bunnies, though we would never know, because the line was way too long to pet them...

 The boys really wanted to jump in the BOUNCY HOUSE, but again the line was way too long...hence some of the long faces in the pictures...

 Fun water fountains too...

 We finally left the Redmond Town Center activity and joined Auntie K at her wards Egg Hunt.

 On your mark, Get Set, GO!

 Auntie K was helping direct them to the hidden treasures...

 Then the boys shared some eggs with their sister.

 This is a common facial expression as she has been cutting teeth.  She is probably grinding them right now.

 Decker is such a loving big brother and Kaylie loves him.

 

 

 

 Then we went into the backyard and played on their BIG TOY for a bit.  It's a train!

 And to top off the day, we painted some eggs that night for the EASTER Bunny to hide.

 It's Easter morning.  Decker was surprised with Magic Treehouse books for his collection.  He is currently reading #45 of 54 in the series!  He loves these books!  Cody got an Audio Harry Potter book on CD which he is thrilled about and Kaylie got a few new onesies that she can grow into.

 

 

 Kaylie found a BLUE EASTER EGG....Got it all over her face and white sweater.  She likes Hard boiled eggs.  ;)

 Her teething this weekend was so painful that she couldn't nurse without crying...so she decided to go on a nursing strike...no pacifier, no nursing, no nothing.  I could hardly put her down as she wanted to be held all the time.  I got some teething tablets for her in hopes that it would take some of the pain away.  Poor baby.  Her Nursing strike went on for a week.  Finally on April 2nd, Mike got the idea to put some syrup on her pacifier in hopes that it would coax her to suck on it.  It worked.  She took a two hour nap happily sucking.  Then I decided to try the same on my nipple...it worked!  She contentedly nursed for 45 minutes with her eyes rolled back and almost back to normal.  I can still feel that she's a little hesitant and worried that it will be painful for her....but it's so good to have her back to nursing.  I was not ready to give that up yet.  I really want to get to a year.

 

 We've got a few blossoms on our Cherry Tree.  Yay!

 I'm loving this picture of Cody with his hands in his pocket and his new frisbee around his angelic head.  And then Decker who is so excited about his Magic Treehouse book that he got for Easter.  Ad missing Dad's head in the timer taken photo.  Never a dull moment!

Happy Easter!!