Pajamas!

Getting the kids into their pajamas usually goes fairly smoothly...as long as we do it early enough so that they still have a few minutes to play before heading upstairs. The other night I couldn't help but laugh at Brayden's anti-pajama antics. He was running around the house in his underwear, throwing his pajamas and Sienna's stuffed animals into the air...
Next he participated in a little underwear kung-fu fighting/dancing.

Brayden's final excuse for not getting his pajamas on: his clothes were hanging up to "dry". Apparently he's helped me do the laundry a few too many times!

Loving the Warm, Sunny Weather!

It is truly amazing how much the sun can lift my spirits! After being stuck inside with sick kids for more than a couple of weeks, the warm, sunny weather was truly a blessing! Even sick kids can go outside and play in the sun! If only the sun was here to stay.

Chris' Remote Controlled ATV
Chris has to be one of the hardest people to shop for. I NEVER know what to buy him for his birthday, Christmas, etc. He either doesn't want anything, or what he wants costs thousands of dollars (computers, big screen tv's, etc), which means he can't have it! Well, when Brayden was 5 months old, I bought Chris this remote controlled ATV for his birthday. I am pretty sure that we haven't played with it once since the day I gave it to him. I had even forgotten about it until Chris suggested we take it for a spin in the sun last week! The best part about this particular ATV is that it flips over, spins, etc. There really isn't much that the kids can do to get it stuck! Wohoo!
Even Sienna had fun driving it!

Chalk

We broke out the chalk for the 2nd year in a row. I never thought I'd let the kids draw on the driveway with chalk, but they enjoy it so much, I can't resist! I was curious to see what the kids looked like last summer, so I found one of the first summer blog posts from 2008 (click to see blog post). It is hard to believe how much they change in just one year!

The Tricycle

This year Sienna's even big enough to go for a spin on Brayden's tricycle! Crazy!

The Wagon

We also took our first family wagon ride of the year...the kids love to ride to the bridge behind our house and back. Of course, just like last year, I couldn't get a picture of them both looking at the camera at the same time!

Bring on the Pumpkins and Peas!

Grandma Boley gave the kids some yard tools for Easter. Brayden had so much fun pretending to plant seeds with Aunt Kari that she offered to help Brayden plant real seeds! Friday afternoon Kari and the boys headed over to plant pumpkins & peas! Hopefully the kids will actually put a vegetable in their mouth if they grow it themselves!

Brayden, Aunt Kari & Jack worked together to fill the planter with the soil while Sienna was off exploring the yard with her cousin Brian.
A little while later, Sienna followed Jack all around the yard, copying everything he did!

I ended up having to rescue her from the rock wall when she was about to fall off...she's a little too small to keep up with her 7 year old cousin!

Next Aunt Kari taught Brayden how to make holes in the soil with his fingers so he could plant the seeds!

Sienna eventually wandered over to see what Brayden & Aunt Kari were up to.

As it turned out, she wanted to join in the fun, too!

After all of the seeds were planted, Brayden watered them with the squirt bottle.

After the seeds had been planted and watered, Sienna found Brayden's shovel and started adding even more dirt to the planter (I guess she felt a little left out that she hadn't gotten to play in the dirt!).

Of course, that meant that Brayden wanted another turn, too!

The Fort

Last week the kids asked me to make them a fort with their favorite brown blankets. They spent most of the morning reading books inside of their little hiding spot (they both love to hide!). They also had fun crawling in and out of the small tunnel leading into the fort.
Hanging out in the fort reading books together! Talk about static electricity...Sienna's hair stood straight up every time she crawled inside the fort!

Sitting on the fort reading books!The Fort!

Happy Easter!

Easter weekend was packed with fun activities. Maybe we planned too many activities, because we were completely exhausted when Sunday night rolled around. Friday night I boiled all of the Easter eggs. Saturday morning we the dyed Easter eggs. Saturday afternoon we went to an Easter Egg Hunt. Saturday night Chris and I went to a friend's house and played Rock Band! Sunday morning the kids found all of the Easter eggs that the Easter Bunny hid. Then we loaded up the car and headed to Eugene for brunch with my family. After brunch, we piled back into the car and headed to Chris' parents house (back in Canby) for another Easter celebration...as well as a late birthday dinner for Chris.

Dyeing Easter Eggs
Since I hate messes, I'm probably not the best person to help the kids dye Easter eggs. If only we lived somewhere sunny & warm, we could dye eggs outside. Then I wouldn't have to worry about a big bowl of dye getting spilled all over my dining room table and rug! This was really our first time dyeing Easter eggs (Brayden did dye a few eggs at a park during playgroup 2 years ago), and there are definitely some things that I'll do differently next year. Hopefully next year our decorated eggs will actually be worth showing off!

Sienna was frustrated that she couldn't get the egg out of the dye using the egg dipper. Thank goodness she didn't use her hand to scoop it out. Sometimes I'm really thankful that my kids hate to get messy...they must get that from me!

Bauman Farms
This was our first year going to Bauman Farms. Last year we went to an Easter Egg Hunt in Wilsonville and we were pretty disappointed with the goodies inside of the eggs. Although, what should we expect when the egg hunt was FREE! This year we decided it would be nice to pay the $3 a child in order to get more exciting prizes. Well, as it turns out, we didn't win any big prizes and the little trinkets the kids did get weren't any more exciting than the ones they got last year...for free! Plus, they didn't put out enough eggs for all of the little kids.

Before the egg hunt began, Brayden and Grandma Boley found a fun (& fast) slide to go down!

It's a good thing that Grandma Boley is so small...Chris and I probably would have gotten stuck in the middle of the slide!

Sienna was sick and pretty much worn out before the Easter Egg Hunt even started!

Let the craziness begin!

After the egg hunt, we headed inside for doughnuts and ice cream! Grandma Boley bought Brayden this huge marionberry ice cream cone...he would have eaten the whole thing if we hadn't stopped him! He definitely takes after his daddy! Sienna doesn't have a sweet tooth (she takes after me) and was happy with just one bite of doughnut.

Easter Morning
On Easter morning, Sienna decided to sleep in for the first time in over 2 weeks (and she hasn't slept in since)! Poor Brayden wasn't allowed to see what the Easter Bunny had brought until after Sienna woke up. So, he was banished to the office to watch tv (I know...it's a rough life!). Around 8am, Sienna finally woke up and the kids got to check out their Easter baskets. And yes, I realized after it was too late that Sienna is wearing her Santa Claus pajamas...whoops!!! ;)

Then they got to hunt down all of the Easter eggs that the Easter Bunny hid around the house! To my surprise, they had more fun hunting Easter eggs than they did playing with their Christmas presents on Christmas morning!!!

Ok, I'm not sure what is going on with this picture...no matter what I do to it, blogger keeps posting it sideways, so I give up! After the kids found all of the eggs, they opened them up to find tons of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Eggs. YUM! For the first time ever, they were each allowed 2 pieces of chocolate for breakfast!!!!

Easter Brunch in Eugene
Here is the one and only picture taken with our camera at Easter brunch with my family. Both kids were all about sitting on Grandma Macnab's lap and reading Easter cards. Luckily they were well behaved and sat in their own chairs until after Grandma had eaten!

Our First Family Vacation: Indio, CA

We spent last week soaking up the sun in Indio, CA. Overall, the vacation was fun, but it definitely didn't go as planned. The trip started off on a bad note when, 2 hours before our plane was supposed to board, we logged in to complete our web check-in and found that our flight was actually scheduled for the following day. Ummm...that can't be good! Chris called Alaska Airlines to see what our options were. Amazingly enough, there were 3 seats still available on the flight we thought we were scheduled for. Unfortunately, it was going to cost us and ADDITIONAL $720 to move our flight up by 24 hours. WHAT?!?! I thought they only charged a $75 change fee to change tickets. Well, in addition to the change fee, you also have to pay the difference in ticket price, which just so happened to be $165/ticket (luckily Sienna still flies free!!!). UGH. Not a good start to our vacation!

After debating for what seemed like forever, we decided to pay the extra $$$ because we were all packed and ready to leave. Not only did we have a rental car scheduled for that day, but my parents were paying for a presidential suite that would be going to waste if we weren't there to enjoy it. Plus, I really wanted as many days in the sun as I could get. After 1 hour and 45 minutes of cruising at 35,000 ft, we arrived in Palm Springs! The kids did really well on the flight down...I was exhausted from keeping the kids happy, but the flight attendants specifically said how amazing they did. WHEW! However, I'll spare you the gory details of our 4 1/2 hour return flight home (we stopped in San Francisco but were not allowed off the plane). I'm pretty sure that everyone sitting on the plane thought Sienna was pretty much the craziest child they had ever seen (and heard). After that flight, we have decided that we will DRIVE to our next vacation...even if it takes us several days!!! The kids were in heaven playing on the 2 playgrounds at the resort. The equipment was perfect for them even though the sign said it was for kids up to age 12 (the whole time I was wondering what 12 year old would want to play on the little playgrounds)! The morning after we arrived we took the kids to the playground (again) and then my mom and I went grocery shopping while Chris and my dad took the kids to play in the toddler pool. Brayden was a little slow to warm up to the water, but I think he eventually had some fun. After naps, we took them swimming again! I was so LOVING being on vacation in the nice warm sun! Unfortunately, that is were the vacation took another detour. Shortly after our afternoon swim, Brayden came down with the stomach flu and kept us up pretty much all night. UGH. Those of you who know me well, know that since having kids, I have a huge phobia of the stomach flu. It was my worst nightmare!!! Even though Brayden started feeling better the next day, he still wasn't eating much or acting like himself, and the rest of us were just waiting for the flu to take out it's next target. If only we had known that no one else was going to catch it, we might have been able to enjoy ourselves a little bit more. After Brayden started feeling better, Chris and I were able to get out to play tennis, go swimming, and lay in the sun while my parents watched the kids. Ahhhhh....so much fun and so relaxing! Most of these pictures were taken before Brayden got sick (I have so many pictures, I made little videos...unfortunately my video program ruined the picture quality):

2 of the 7 days that we were in Indio, there were horrible wind storms! The second storm was by far the worst, with winds up to 69 mph! The wind moved the chairs and the huge table on our balcony...it even broke the strap that held the hot tub cover on, sending it sailing 3 stories down to the parking lot. Luckily no one was down there, and from what we could tell, it didn't hit any cars, either. Crazy! Even though it was crazy windy, Chris, my brother, and I all laid out in the sun while the kids napped...there was no way I was heading back to Portland still blinding everyone with my ghostly white skin! After naps, we took the kids out on the balcony and they loved playing and dancing in the wind:

Here are some pictures of our amazing presidential suite. It had 4 bedrooms and 4 full bathrooms!!! We all had our own rooms until my brother drove up from San Diego and then Brayden slept on our floor.


Here are some random pictures from the week:


Here are some pictures from one of the playgrounds that I mentioned earlier:

The kids had so much fun playing together all week...they really are best friends and do absolutely everything together!