mother's day

On Mother's Day weekend, we spent the night at the Resort on the Mountain at Mt. Hood with Russa and her family. The kids enjoyed the outdoor pool, even in the rain, and the mini-golf course, even in the rain. The mom's enjoyed Sunday morning at the spa. We re-convened for a wonderful brunch.

An even better present: Owen's kindergarten class had a Mother's day party at school, and he presented me with this picture of him and I. On the back he wrote nice sentences about me, and he stood up in front of his class and the moms and read them to me. I was so proud of him, and I love my picture. What a special treat.

spring

May has given us some sunny days and some optimism of spring. Here are the boys enjoying bubbles, parks, daddy and dandelions.

easter

The Easter Bunny visited this year, leaving baskets with a few toys and some chocolate bunnies. Grandma Sally Easter Bunny also visited this year- more toys and more candy. The boys were excited with all of it. After Mass, we had an egg hunt, luckily finding all the eggs the boys had dyed the night before.

In the afternoon we had a nice meal with Grandpa and my sister's family, and worked off all the sugar energy on the Monkey Jungle.

to the coast with grandpa

My dad visited for Easter week and along with the Muhly's we spent the night at Salishan Lodge on the Oregon Coast. They had lots of fun activities for the kids, including a mini-golf course, a game room, and indoor pool, and s'mores at night. The pool was colder than usual, but the kids seemed to not mind too much. After a fun evening, we made it to Yakina Head tidepools in time for low tide the next morning and saw a bunch of sea life: sea stars, anemones, crabs and muscles. After that, we had a picnic lunch at Nye Beach so the kids could play in the sand. It was unusually warm and not windy. Owen and Laurel enjoyed building castles just as much as Ben enjoyed knocking them down.

elvis has entered the building

Richard and Owen saw an Elvis impersonator- ok, not just any Elvis impersonator- the 2010 Elvis impersonator Of the Year in Albany. So Elvis has been re-born in our house and Owen has learned some new moved for his shows.

Thank you, thank you very much!

monkey jungle

Hey Dad- I have an idea- said Owen one day in April. Why don't we put up a playground in the backyard for Ben and I to play in. Just a few weeks earlier Richard and I had come up with the same idea. We decided to go the easy route and instead of losing multiple weekends and further educating the boys on swear words by building it ourselves, we had Costco deliver and build the whole thing.

One cold, rain-y, sleet-y, hail-y Wednesday in the middle of April, two men showed up and put up the Monkey Jungle.

The boys came home from school and were thrilled with their present. Owen, of course, took credit for the idea. Ben was able to get up the climbing wall on his first try. Both learned that the slide, when wet, is very fast. Next step: deer fencing so there will be less land mines in the back yard.

laurel's 5th birthday party!

Laurel's 5th birthday party was at the gymnastics place, and the boys had a great time. I love the colors there. Ben was shy at first, but then joined in on the fun. Valerie, Maggie and Sylvie were there along with a bunch of kids from Laurel's Pre-K class.

march

Ben in hats! Laurel's first time bowling! Plus, Spring Break with Grandma Sally!

The construction paper hat was made at Ben's day care, and he loved it so much. He didn't take it off for 3 or 4 days.

Grandma flew out during Owen's spring break. Richard took the week off and the four of them had lots of adventures- they explored all of the Corvallis parks and got to enjoy all of them in the rain, they drove up to the Evergreen air and space museum, and we all went to the Science Factory in Eugene. It was wonderful having Sally here with the boys. And they boys enjoyed having someone around to watch the shows they put on!

snow day!

It was almost the end of February, with not much snow this winter when- Jackpot! We got a snow day. It was perfect for playing in. We made a snowman in the yard then towed the boys to the dog park for some great sledding.

Both boys LOVED sledding- requesting multiple runs until the hill was more mud than snow.