Reach for Sky

Cairo likes to tell us how she is getting big.  The other day Erik was outside with Jonah and my dad commented on how big Jonah was getting.  Erik looks to the side and sees Cairo reaching up to the sky.  When he asked her what she was doing she said, "I'm getting bigger but I can't quite reach the sky, yet."

The Balloon

Jonah loved his balloon.

The Biggle Family gets together.

I don't know when the last time my family got together.  It has probably not been since my aunt and grandpa died over five years ago that the clan has all (well, almost all) been in one place at one time.  My mom arranged a "Just Because" dinner so that we could all touch base again.  I had a lot of fun visiting with my family.  As you can tell, we are a very serious bunch.

The cousins:

Soccer

Cairo played her first soccer game this weekend... almost.  I need to keep the mind-set that Erik and I are trying to expose Cairo to things right now and give he a chance to try new things.  Not everything is going to fit.  After one game, the only thing I know for sure is that it is too soon to tell. 

The first part of soccer is doing drills, the second is playing a game against another team.  When the drills were going on, the team was in one place and Cairo was on the other side of the gym doing her own thing.  Then, when the game began, Cairo decided it would be more fun to run circles around me, lay on the floor, and stick her butt up in the air.  Finally, Cairo just sat in my lap on the sidelines, ate snacks, and stared at a friend from work, Jen, who also has a son on the team.

I was able to get her to take a few pictures with her uniform on.  She had her own ideas about how she should pose.  In the end, though, she gave me the one shot I was looking for.

Spring Break

We had a great time over spring break.  Once again we made the trek up north to Arcata.  Erik, the kids, and I enjoyed a great week of relaxation, sunshine, with a sprinkle of rain, and good company.  Erik and I had plans to work on a few projects while we were up there, but never quite got around to it.  Oh well!

In between the relaxation, we went out and gardened in our yard and visited with friends and family.  Here is a glimpse of our week:

Mei and Cairo playing at Farmers Market:

Auntie Katie and Lili hanging out on the blanket:

At Golden Harvest for lunch.  Silly Lili:

My very loud son... who, despite his yelling, was trying to win me over with his cute expressions.  He  did.

I love that sequence of pictures.

Naptime! Cairo all tuckered out from our long day.

At Katie and Will's house for dinner- we ate yummy chicken burgers, played with all the fun toys, and took a walk to the nearby school.

Jonah: Come on Lili!  Let's play in the tunnel together! Follow me!     Lili: Really, Jonah, it's not like I haven't done this a million times already!

J: Wow! What fun!

J: Just keep goin'. Just keep goin'...

L: Here I come!  Full speed ahead!

Lili did a great job sharing toys with Cairo and Jonah while we were there.

Katie and Will had a double stroller we put Lili and Jonah in.  We bundled the kids up to protect them from the wind and went on out way.  Jonah and Lili held hands along the way.

Look closely and you will be able to see the reflection of us, photographers, in the babies sunglasses:

Cairo had fun at the school playing on all the equipment.

Before we left, Auntie Katie read Cairo a few books:

As always, we had a great time visiting with them.  I am sure there will be a lot more fun to come as the kids grow up together.

During the week, Grandpa Lee came by with some toads he found lurking around his work.  The toads needed a new home, so he brought them over to our house.  Erik and Cairo made them a nice place to live behind the greenhouse and let them go.

While we were up north we also got the opportunity to see Nick and Kyoko's new house.  It is a really cute place and, if you ask Cairo, it is in prime real estate- next to a park.  Jill, Kyoko, and I took the kids there to play one sunny afternoon.  Jonah got his first real dose of a playground and LOVED it.  His expressions of pure joy as he swung on the swing and bounced on the toys were fun to watch.

We wrapped up our trip doing one of my favorite backyard activities- cooking 'smores around the fire.

Erik got a little carried away with the marshmallows....

Other than that fact that Jonah was a BIG grump the entire time, the trip was quite pleasant.  Only eight more weeks and we'll be back!

Happy Easter

For Easter this year the whole family, minus Erik who stayed behind to take care of the dogs, headed North to Nana and Papa's house.  This is the first year that Cairo really began to understand about the Easter Bunny, which made everything more exciting for me. I was a little concerned for a while that the Easter Bunny wouldn't show up because Cairo was having such a hard time being a good girl, but lucky for Cairo, I had the Easter Bunny's phone number.  We gave him a call and he told her (in a very high, falsetto voice) what she needed to do in order for him to still come.  Cairo must have done a good enough job at following his directions because when we woke up early- very early- the next morning there was a basket full of goodies not only for her, but also for Jonah Bear and Xander.

Everyone kept busy the Saturday before and by the end of the day everyone was pretty tired.

Prior to the Easter Bunny coming, Cairo and Xander colored hard-boiled eggs.  I was just going to have the dye regular eggs, but good thinking on Nana and Grammy's part to hard-boil them before they made their way into Xander "Bam-Bam, Zoom-Zoom" Hazen's little hands.  Prior to dipping the eggs into the dye he has a nice time banging them together.

After a yummy Easter Breakfast of the ususal Eggs-a-la-golden-rod, the kids (both big and small) went on an eggs hunt. 

Jonah is very lucky to have such a big and helpful sister.  She found all his eggs for him and brought them over to him so that she could shake and chew them.

We tried to get some pictures of the kids in the coordinating outfits.  Out of a couple dozen pictures, these were they best ones I came up with.  Let's just say being 0,1, and 2 years old during a holiday doesn't always make for the most focused and happy little ones.

...and one family shot....