Flower Girl

We are so grateful to Poppy and Grammy for one of Jack and Sadie's birthday presents - a membership to Huntington Gardens. The gardens are beautiful this time of year and the kids love roaming around the Huntington. When we had our backs turned Sadie broke the rules and picked a flower when we there this last Saturday. Sadie is really into flowers right now. She carried this little yellow flower around the entire afternoon.

Birthday Ice Cream

I figured that I should post a photo from Sadie and Jack's actual birthday. The party is not until Sunday, but J. and I took them out for ice cream on the day of their birthday. In retrospect I realize that I probably planned my ideal day - the zoo & ice cream - rather than Jack and Sadie's perfect day. A playground and M&Ms probably would have been their choice. They actually left ice cream in their bowls - a trait that they absolutely did not inherit from me. Having their birthday fall on a Wednesday is really turning this into a birth-week, rather than birthday. There is still a lot more celebrating to be done. Stay tuned...

2nd Birthday!

Two years old today - that's right Sadie and Jack are officially two. We spent the morning at the zoo and will be off to the ice cream parlor later this afternoon. The big party is on Sunday, but we're taking the day to have a little fun on the actual birthday itself. It's a big day for all of us. J. and I have survived and Jack and Sadie are thriving - it calls for a celebration!

The photo above is from Jack and Sadie's friend Malcolm's birthday last Sunday. Malcolm's party was at Travel Town and we rode the travel town train. When the train first started moving it was bit of shock (as you can see on Sadie's face), but by the end of the ride both of the kids were smiling and waving to the crowds along the tracks.

Gold Line

Following up on our great visit to the train museum a few weeks back, we decided to take the kids on an outing on Metro's gold line. LA subways don't go too many places, so we ended up taking the gold line to a shopping mall in Pasadena where we bought pajamas for the kids and party supplies for their upcoming birthday party. The train was a great adventure. It was too crowded on the way to Pasadena to let the kids out of their stroller, but they got to climb all over the train on the way back. As you can see from the photo above, they also got a kick out of trying on the dress-up hats at the party store.

Tall Grass

We took the kids on a hike called the Butterfly Loop at Debs Park yesterday. They discovered beetles and were completely enthralled. Here's some photos of them frolicking in the tall grass.

Happy Easter!

We had a great Easter with the kids. We did Easter baskets and brunch with friends in the morning. In the afternoon we had an egg hunt. We learned that Sadie and Jack do not like jelly beans. Fortunately that did not dampen their enthusiasm for finding eggs. Sadie is absolutely gaga over her Easter present from Pud, a learn-to-dress kitty cat doll. We unfortunately did not get any still photos of her rocking her new doll on the rocking horse or bouncing the doll in her jumper. We had long ceremonies of saying bye-bye to the doll when it was time for dinner and time for bed.

Out and About

It was a beautiful Easter weekend in LA and we took advantage of the nice weather to get out of the house quite a bit. On Friday we went with Olivia and Kari to Descanso Gardens. They have a great children's maze and lots of ducks and geese. On Saturday we spent the afternoon at the playground. Jack and Sadie are already bored with the toddler section of jungle gyms, and now spend most of their time on the big kid sections. Jack can't get enough of climbing, which causes quite a bit of anxiety for us. We spend a lot of time spotting him while he clamors up the sides of jungle gyms. Sadie loves the big twirly slides. She giggles the whole way down.