Zoo Pics

Our babysitter just emailed me these photos from when she took the kids to the zoo last weekend.

Catch up

I've been delinquent in posting. 2011 has proven to be a very busy year. That smidgen of free time I used to have seems to have evaporated. So this post is a catch up. J. is in Austin this weekend at a film festival, so I've been flying solo with the kids. It has not been the easiest weekend, but the kids are asleep and J. comes home tomorrow so I think that I can safely say that we have fared okay. We had a lovely dinner this evening with our friends Troy and Siri at our favorite Salvadoran restaurant. The kids LOVE pupusas. This was the their second dinner of pupusas this week, but what the heck, enjoy it while they can.

I had to work yesterday, so the kids were with a babysitter who took them to the zoo. They saw lots of animals, but oddly they only wanted to talk about flamingos and how there was no turtle. Go figure.

We stood in line for an hour this morning at a fruit tree give away (I'm a sucker for anything free). Another little girl in line showed the kids roly-poly bugs and they were completely entranced. They insisted on picking up the largest roly-poly bug I've ever seen. Despite the gross-out factor I was grateful for their new insect friends. Sadly most of the trees were gone by the time we made it through the line, but we did get a cutting from a fig tree and some tomato seedlings.

So that's what's been happening around here, nothing too exciting, but we do seem to be emerging from the cold winter days into a lovely spring with the potential for lots of new adventures.

Grandmas are Great

Happy days are here again - Pud arrived yesterday afternoon and the kids could not be happier. Sadie and Jack have had lots of adventures - from trolley rides to a tricycle marathon, and it's barely been 24 hours!

Mushroom Hunting

Nothing makes LA beautiful like the rain, and we've had lots of it this year. J. and the kids met up with our friend Nick and his son Collin yesterday for a hike and little mushroom hunting. Nick is an amateur mycologist who has had quite a run this winter having found a bounty of chanterells recently. We've enjoyed a couple of very wonderful dinners thanks to his mushrooming prowess. This trip did not yield many mushrooms, but it was a beautiful morning in the woods.

Montrose

We took the kids to the super fantastic Montrose farmer's market on Sunday. You really can't ask for more than a farmer's market where there are free balloons, jumpers, and a giant inflated slide. The kids can know climb to the top of the giant inflated slide alone, which is very exciting because J. and I somehow often ended up injuring ourselves when we had to go down with the kids.

We have not been taking too many photos because we've all been bundled up when we go outside due to a cold snap here in LA where it's been in the 50s for a week (east coasters don't laugh). Hopefully it will warm up and we'll be able to shed our coats and capture more photo-worthy moments again.

Some new firsts

Sadie and Jack had lots of "firsts" over the President's Day weekend. First dance party: The kids got down at a dance party hosted by the Echo Center. The Echo Center provided the music, lights, hula hops, scarves and face painting, and Jack and Sadie provided the moves (mostly a lot of standing and starring at others on the dance floor). Sadie did dress for the occasion in her ballet outfit (her ballet at this point is primarily running in circles).

First movie: The kids went to their first movie in a movie theater - Gnomio and Juliet. The doomed romance plot line was a bit over their heads, but they loved the popcorn. They sat through the whole movie and reported that it was "funny," although they gave me blank stares when I asked if they liked the garden gnomes in the movie.

Goofballs

I couldn't resist posting these goofing pictures of the kids with their buddy Tatum. We met up with Tatum, Meghan, and Tatum's brand new baby sister, Hazel, last weekend at Descanso Gardens. The kids now understand posing for photos, but when you ask them to smile for the camera you tend to get these incredibly goofing expressions. I guess that's what parents who routinely stick a camera in their children's faces deserve.