Here comes Peter Cottontail.....

Yes, folks!  The Easter Bunny has made a visit to 512 Sombrero Rd!  The children eagerly decorated colorful Easter Eggs in anticipation of his arrival.  No job is too big, no job it too messy, no job is too colorful for Cairo and J Bear.  They also took this moment to celebrate Earth Day by creating nature themed messages and pictures on the eggs.

Jonah's egg-  He loved this egg.  He dipped it, double dipped it, triple dipped it, and did it all on his own.  In between dunks, he kept a tight grip on it. It was the only egg he decorated.  You see, if he wanted to decorate any others, he would have had to set it down.

That Easter Bunny gave the kids some nice loot!  I remember the Easter Bunny only giving candy... lots and lots of candy at that!

That silly Easter Bunny, he wasn't supposed to hide the hardboiled eggs, he was supposed to hide the plastic ones. Well, we made sure to collect all those eggs so that we could make our traditional Eggs a la Golden Rod.

After breakfast we finally set out to discover where the Easter Bunny had hidden all the money filled plastic Easter Eggs.  

Smiles

Smiles should be rewarded to those who do dishes (which is often me).  Meet my rocks.  They live on my window sill above the kitchen sink (which is currently M.I.A... but it will soon be replaced).

Erik saved them from the yard.  They always seem to make me smile, too.  You know how it is, if someone smiles at you, it makes you want to smile back.

There are other things that have made me smile lately.

• Erik conquering one project after another.  First, taming our wild backyard.  Then, humoring a wife who always as an idea... The best part of it all, and the one part of it that puts that grin right on my face- Erik's work gear.  His Grandpa Dedini's old plaid shirts, rubber garden boots, some safety device protecting his ears, eyes, face, hands, feet... or all of the above at the same time.  When we are old and gray, this is how I will remember him.

• Jonah's big goofy smile is contagious.

• Seeing Erik and Jonah bond while watching a surfing video.  Jonah was VERY involved with the video and was not happy when the storyline in the video ventured away from surfing itself.

• Cairo running around and playing with the little girls, little girls who are very special to me.

• Seeing J Bear try to stuff ALL his toys down his shirt, further accentuating the curve of his large belly.  Play food. Check. Baby bottles. Check.  Hand mitt. Check. Tea Kettle. Check...

• Cairo and Mei having wheelbarrow races on the front lawn with Uncle Nick and Grandpa Lee.

• My family, together at my house, for no reason other than to spend time together.

• My best friend, a cohesive member of my family.

• Cairo, unknowingly, getting black marker all over her face... and not understanding why her mom and dad are laughing at her.

• Rolly polly babies... and not just that, but rolly polly babies that smile so big at you with their big gummy smiles that it appears as if they are silently laughing at you. Miss Koko- you should have seen her smiles!

Overview of Spring Break

It's break time and what does that mean for the Dedini Family?  Yup, another trip north.  Well, the trip started like this-

Thankfully, we left early.  The kids slept through it and we enjoyed it.

When we got up there we did a little of this- (Ha! Like we, actually, did this, Ah-choo.... and I guess three times isn't a little of this).  As I was saying- Erik did a whole lot of this-

While the kids were doing a whole lot of this-

And this.  Twice.

I snuck out one morning to watch this-

While, they stayed in and did this-

I, then, initiated this-

 Which then led to this-

And then, thankfully, to this-

...for now.  This will become a whole lot more soon!

Best of all, I got to enjoy this-

Huge smiles and all!

... and this...

It was a good spring break.

Color

I just asked Jonah what his favorite color was.  He said "blue" and by blue he means green.

He also has a unique way of describing the type of food he wants to eat:

blueberries-                 translation: blueberries
black blueberries-       translation: blackberries
red black blueberries- translation: raspberries

Ride 'em, Cowboy!

Jonah has liked being a cowboy lately.  He's enjoyed putting on his a cowboy hat, throwing on his Woody costume (sometimes mixing elements of Buzz Lightyear with it... or he just wears both costumes at the same time- yes, two pairs of pants over his regular clothes, two shirts, etc), and he hops on his broomstick-horse and rides away into the sunset.... or down the hall, as it may be.

In fact, he takes this cowboy business so seriously, you don't often see him sleep without his faithful steed, "horsey," (yeah, that would be a stuffed giraffe).  Recently, he refused to be taken out of his cowboy jammies for TWO days.  We finally tempted him to take them off with a bath full of toys.  Sure, you may be thinking stinky kid, but it's good for him to win an argument every once in a while, especially when he has such STRONG opinions about it.  Besides, you should have heard him scream when I tried to change him.  It was so darn cute how adamant he was about it all, I couldn't resist letting him have his way... this once.


J's Cowboy Jammies-