Monday, April 23, 2012

Easter Weekend 2012

       After two busy weeks at work, I finally have some time to play catch up here. For Easter weekend this year Nolan and I headed down to the Bay Area while Jon stayed behind to work an overnight shift. I'm still a bit scarred by the 3 hour trip down and back by myself with Nolan in the backseat. It may be quite a while before I try to make the trip alone with him again.
       The day before Easter my sister and I headed off to the Oakland Zoo with two wee ones in tow. Nolan is currently loving animals so I thought it would be a fun day for him. 
Our first stop at the zoo was the train.
And our first challenge was trying to get these two to look at the camera at the same time.
We never had any success with that last one. 
Living where we do, we never frequent places like zoos, play centers, 
amusement park, or malls, so this was quite 
the adventurous day for me and Nolan.
There's my boy.
His mouth on the wire fence, 
that was no doubt covered in dust, dirt, germs, and gosh knows what from the animals.
He insisted on taste testing several of the fences around the park.
I'll spare you too many pictures of the animals. 
In reality all of the animals seemed quite sad to me. 
(In this shot I had to try to avoid a truck that was parked just behind Mr. Zebras fence). 

There was a petting zoo too. 
While all of the other kids were in the small barn petting the animals, 
my wild one was out running on their lawn. 
I don't really blame him. 
Grass is exciting for us mountain folk.
The day was definitely a successful one. 
It was followed by a playdate in Roxy's backyard, 
checking out all of her toys. 

The next morning, before all of the cousins arrived, 
Nolan had to hunt for his Easter "basket".
Nolan's bunny was feeling quite nautical this year.
My boy doesn't do much without his baby and bottle in tow.
He dug into the gold fish treat immediately.
His basket started out looking like this
(which may be quite sac-religious).
I have a few of these left over from an event I did years ago, 
and I figured I would put them to good use at some point.
In the name of watching our pennies this Easter,
 I cut up an old burlap bag that I had (also inherited this from something at work),
and got to work with my hot glue gun and a stencil.
I was happy with how my thrifty creation turned out.
After the whole gang arrived,
we had our annual Easter egg hunt.
Here's the line up before the start of the race.
I was a little bit busy helping curly find his eggs, 
so I wasn't able to take any photos myself. 
I think next year he's going to be a force to reckoned with during the hunt.
Nolan was a busy bee all day, 
and spent a lot of his time checking out the backyard fountain.
Grandma and Grandpa's house hosts the perfect little garden for 
small kiddos to trek through.
This weekend, Jon and I were spoiled to both have a few days 
off together. What a novelty. 
We were doubly spoiled by 70+ degree temperatures. 
Weather like that in April in these parts really gets people excited.
As Nolan creeps toward two years,
we're able to do more things and go out for longer
which has already been a lot of fun for us. 
I think this Summer may hold in store lots of time
on our bikes and at the beach (when we can find it). 


Sunday, April 1, 2012

Little bit of this, little bit of that

       In the spirit of keeping this blog updated, here's a bit more!
I have started to try to incorporate Nolan into cooking and baking with me. 
This isn't the easiest task, as he's a little bit wobbly in our dining chairs, 
and perching him on our island makes me very nervous (and Jon even more so). 
But, I think its a good way for him to learn his food words, and possibly appreciate
different foods a bit more. 
Last week, we made him some healthy mini-toddler muffins, 
for quick breakfasts and snacking.
He was the perfect bakers assistant. 
(Tonight he helped me to make homemade Mac' n Cheese 
and that went downhill fast when he put a bunch of 
mustard powder in his mouth!)
I think I failed to mention back at Christmas time that we received a 
beautiful addition to our kitchen for the holidays. 
It came in the form of a Kitchen Aid.
I asked for a basic old hand mixer to replace a broken second hand mixer that 
I had been using, but my upgrade came in the form of a Kitchen Aid. 
It is luxurious. 
I bake every week or two so that Jon has something to take on shift 
or to his paramedic class. 
It's giving me the chance to try out lots of recipes.
Tonight I'm giving a Twix Brownie recipe a try.

The most exciting business in our neck of the woods
is that we got to meet a very important little girl today. 
We'd been waiting to meet her for 40 weeks and 1 day. 
Our good friends gave birth this weekend, 
and today we got to stop by the hospital for a quick visit. 
When we arrived both parents were looking SO tired. 
It brought back lots of memories!
Lyla Scout was gorgeous!
And oh-so-tiny compared to our rascal.
The parents were in amazing spirits after a long 24+ hours.
They were in the same room as us in the hospital 
so it felt like a bit of a roles-reversed-flashback. 
We're so excited for them to now be parents. 
Nolie wasn't allowed in the maternity ward (apparently kids carry germs),
so he did lots of walking around the hospital while we 
took turns visiting. 
He also finagled a couple of cookies from the nurses
so he was pretty H-A-P-P-Y about visiting the hospital.


Thats all this week!
XOXO from Lake Tahoe