Siblings

Alice tried helping feed Simon his breakfast yogurt, but her aim was a little off.

Here are the kids walking down the sidewalk to school.

Simon's headband

Alice put a headband on to keep her hair out of her face as she ate breakfast. Simon wanted one too.

Simon and Thomas

Although Simon is not quite so obsessed with trains as he once was, he still enjoys pushing Thomas around the track.

Simon's bubbly ears

Simon and the Space Shuttle

He often does the head-on-the-carpet thing as he pushes toys around on the floor and wants to see their wheels move at eye-level.

Simon's Supper

We had stir fry for supper. The kids have altered our consumption of this meal in a couple of ways. For example, we can't eat with chopsticks anymore because then the kids want to use chopsticks, but they can't actually eat with them, so they just play and sword fight and stab and drop them on the floor, all the while refusing to eat with a fork or spoon. So now we all have to eat with forks.

Secondly, we don't put peanuts or spicy red pepper flakes in it anymore. Alice doesn't like the peanuts (and we can't send it in their school lunches if there are peanuts) and neither kid can handle spicy food yet. But the problem is that Simon doesn't understand this concept, so when Zac sprinkled hot pepper flakes on his stir fry, Simon demanded that he should have some too. When denied his seemingly reasonable request, he started to tantrum and refused to eat. So Zac solved the problem by giving him a 1/4 teaspoon of paprika to sprinkle on his stir fry instead. Then Simon insisted on eating his stir fry with the 1/4 teaspoon. He was taking forever, so we all abandoned him at the table. He didn't seem to mind too much.

Alice: A Portrait

Zac was playing around with the SLR camera and took a bunch of pictures of Alice. Here are my favorites; the last three I obviously edited/altered.

Playing with Lego Aircraft

Alice's first soft taco

I'm trying to make different foods for supper, even if I know the kids will probably not like it and it will make suppertime even more miserable than normal. So tonight we had tacos. In an attempt to increase the likelihood that she would eat it, I told Alice she could assemble her own taco. I showed her how I made mine, and the whole time she kept confirming the terms: "So, mom, I can just put what I want on it?" A dozen times I answered, "Yes." Then when it was her turn to make hers, it became clear why she wanted to negotiate the terms of the contract in advance.

Here is her taco, in its entirety.  To her credit, she ate the whole thing and talked the whole time about how much she loved tacos.

Easter Evening

After the kids woke up from their naps in the van, they had a bit more time to spend with the grandparents before dropping them off at the airport.

For her after dinner treat, Alice chose the giant chocolate bunny, probably thinking we would let her eat it all. But we just let her have a few bites, before I took her with me to drop my parents off at the airport.

After dropping them off, I took Alice to the airport park to play for an hour or so. She had great fun playing in a giant puddle adjacent to the sand, carving out rivers and making islands.

Easter Afternoon Adventures at Izzy's

After doing our own egg hunt, we all got in the van and headed out to Izzy's for their annual egg hunt and Easter party. It was raining on the way there, but thankfully did no more than drizzle the whole time we were at Izzy's. The kids had a blast collecting eggs and playing with their friends on all the fun things at Izzy's house.

 

 

Both kids were completely tuckered out afterwards, and took their second consecutive nap in the van.

Easter Morning at Home

We sort of neglected to tell our kids the Easter Bunny was coming. So it was a fun surprise for them in the morning. We first hung out in Alice's room until everyone was ready.

We'd planted two eggs right in the hall outside the door, but because we didn't explain the process fully, Simon opened his egg up and immediately wanted to eat the candy.

So, being the good parents we are, we immediately caved and gave him the candy. He was much happier and had some energy to hunt for all the other eggs after getting some morning chocolate. Next year we'll explain the process in advance a little better so the kids know what to expect.

Duke Gardens

On Saturday, we decided to make our annual spring pilgrimage to Duke Gardens. It was an overcast and slightly chillier-than-expected day, but it was still beautiful with all the trees in bloom.

These are stepping stones through a pond that is so covered in algae you can't even tell it is water.

After the snack, Simon walked right into the pond. Luckily Stana caught him. I think because it was so covered with pond scum, Simon didn't even realize it wasn't a solid surface. He got his pants and shoes and socks all wet, but otherwise seemed unfazed.