Funny faces

Luke's favorite idevice feature?  The camera.

The kid loves taking pictures of himself and then will scroll back through them and crack up.  He is completely entertained looking at past video and still photos ...

...oh, and he finds google earth amazing and loves to "double check" to be sure that the satellite photos of our street are not in real time (i.e. rushing out the front door to examine the street side by side with the online pictures).

End of the ski season

We enjoyed a last weekend in Tahoe, marking our last up there for this ski/snowboard season. 

The weekend started off with beautiful, spring-like weather conditions.  We spent the day sledding, playing outside, and enjoying lunch around the fire pit....

Ringing the lunch bell

Luke with Cosmo

Mia with Brooklyn

Playing with the dogs (notice how Brooklyn is just laying in the snow ... this is her absolute FAVORITE thing to do and she never gets cold, even after HOURS ... crazy!)

Throwing snow for the dogs

Lunching in the sun

Shoveling out the fire pit

Sledding with Uncle Todd on his crazy sled run with the big jump

...only to be met the following day with a huge snow storm!

Luke and Uncle Todd braving the storm for some serious snow play

Mia watches the boys from the safety of the back porch

Coming in to warm up

BFFs:  Cosmo and Brooklyn after a long day of playing in the snow


Our final day ended with perfect conditions, so Luke got up on the mountain to take his final lesson this year with Jay.

T-ball: Go A's!

Luke has been asking to play baseball for quite a while now, so I knew that we would be signing him up this season.  He is on the A's (bummer...they actually do have a Yankees team) with a really cute group of 4 and 5 year olds and a great coach (who happens to be the grandfather of several of the boys).

Luke wanted to wear his Yankees hat to the first day of practice.  When we arrived he immediately got this very concerned look on his face when he saw that all of the other boys were wearing A's hats.  Thankfully, they ran out and delivered his A's t-shirt and hat right away.  I asked if he wanted to change hats and he looked very confused at me and nodded his head.  Sweet boy.  I told him that he could be an A's t-ball player and still root for the Yankees with Daddy.

Honestly, I'm pretty sure number 9 couldn't look any cuter, especially with his matching green glasses.

Opening day was rained out last weekend, as were all of their practices last week.  So, with two practices under their belts, they hit the field tonight for their first game.  They played 3 innings with every player having a chance to bat each inning.  No score was kept, but if you ask Paw, he'll tell you that the A's won the game 36 to 35!

Number 9

Waiting for his turn to bat

The team

He's up

Some coaching

The swing and hit

On base, getting some advice from the 1st base coach

Running the bases

Fielding



Game over!

Post-game snacks

Rainy day lunch

A rare rainy weekend day left us looking for something, anything different to do.  So, after a cold morning out, we set up the aerobed in the family room with the kids sleeping bags so that they could watch a movie (the choice of the month:  The Lion King).

After really enjoying Uncle Todd's and my old lap trays at Day and Paw's house, I spotted these at Michael's and knew that the kids would love them.  We decorated them with stickers and their names and they make great portable art desks ... or, as in this case, trays for lunch in bed!

In Like a Lion

Spring arrived this weekend ... or was it ever really gone?  This winter has been ridiculously mild and beautiful.  I could count the number of rainy days on one hand.

We basically spent the entire weekend in the yard.  Mia insisted upon wearing her sunglasses, Luke showed off his mastery of pumping on a swing, and Mommy played more with her camera :)

Our soon-to-be Kindergartener

I waited to post about this until we were sure ....

Luke has been accepted to Kindergarten at St. Martin of Tours school!

We couldn't be happier or more excited to have found and become a part of such an amazing community of teachers, parents, and students.

The search for the "right" school felt like a full time job over the past 6 months.  I researched online, talked to anyone who was willing, and personally visited 18 campuses throughout the fall.  Yes, I'm crazy.

Apparently, Kindergarten, or elementary school for that matter, isn't what it used to be.  This is serious business!  I narrowed down our pool significantly and then Michael joined me at the open houses of 5 schools.  Of those, we applied to 3, Luke attended assessments at those 3, with very high hopes for St. Martin's.

So, Luke (and Mia for that matter) will be a Bengal for the next 9 years!  That sounds like such a long time right now, but I know that those years will pass more quickly than I would like to admit.

I just feel relieved to have a plan :)

...oh, and those green glasses are going to go so well with his new school uniform.  We've already found a cute, new pair of green sneakers!

Jump!

Northstar's Village is awesome!  We love their rec center, the restaurants, the shopping, the fire pits around the ice rink ... but a favorite highlight right now is the bungy trampoline.You might remember that Luke tried this for the first time last summer and loved it, meanwhile Mia sat by asking repeatedly for it to be her turn.

Well, get her turn she finally did!  Participants have to weigh 20 pounds, and since our girl is now weighing in somewhere around 23 pounds, her time had come!   She could not have been more ready or willing to jump right in (literally).

She did incredibly well given her size and the fact that she's still mastering that 2-year old skill of jumping using both feet.

Big brother Luke jumped alongside Mia.