hide and eat

We have been having a good week so far.  Jake is getting harder and harder to take pictures of.  It is more fun for him to run and hide while i am taking pictures and it turns into a game for him.  Grace is still cooperating...but in other areas, not so much.  She has entered the stage of independent eating.  She wants to feed herself everything (which is nice, unless we are in a hurry) and is doing pretty good at it.  Jake is glad to have the long weekend over with so he can go back to school.

Eating beans...a favorite

Hiding

Hiding some more

smiling

smiling some more

playing

sit down please

Grace likes to climb.  She likes to play the piano, then stand up on the bench and climb onto the keyboard (i don't have a picture yet...but i will get one).  She likes to try and climb up the shelves in the pantry to get a snack.  She likes to climb.  Today she was climbing up and down one of our chairs.  I sat back and snapped some shots of her in action.

It's about time!

So another month has gone by without a single new post.  Awful, just awful.  So much has been happening, so i'll go thru a quick rundown of events.

-Brooke finished his training in California...he did a really great job and we were so glad that we were able to go there and be with him.  We had lots of fun together.
-We drove back home to New Mexico
-Jake started Pre-school...and LOVES it.
-We continued unpacking and organizing our new house (we were only in in for one week before we left for CA)
-Lots and lots of yard work

So now that we are back, I am going to try to get into the groove of blogging again.  (I'm sure the 4 people who read this will be jumping for joy)  Our internet access in CA was very limited, so it is nice to have it conveniently available to us again.

And finally here are a few pictures of the kiddos.  Grace has really grown up alot over the last few months.  Tonight after they had a bath, I attempted pigtails on her.  There are a few parts that aren't quite long enough, and they are a little crooked, but she is getting closer!

The other night, we were outside moving rock to the side of our house and the kids were playing in the rock pile.  They love playing outside.

And lastly, I have to say thanks to Marcey...the updated editor is so slick! Thanks for telling me about it.

road trip

With a 4 day weekend upon us, we decided to take a little road trip up to San Francisco. We are staying in Oakland and when we got here Thursday night, we found out that the bay bridge was closed for the weekend, so that meant we got to take a trip on the ferry.

Our first stop was Pier 39 to see the Sea Lions. They sure do stink, but they were fun to see.

Jake thought that guy's hat was cool, so he wanted to take a closer look

If you haven't noticed, he is getting into having his picture taken with things he sees that he likes.

He LOVED this shark jaw. For a while he wanted to be a shark for Halloween.

Our last stop was the Aquarium. It wasn't that great of an aquarium, but there were a few cool things.

We are getting ready to go explore the city some more. It looks to be a nice day!

disney delight!

Monday, Brooke had the day off, so we decided to head over to Downtown Disney. It is free to get in and we figured it would be fun to walk around. To start things off, we decided to take the kids to Rainforest Cafe for lunch. Walking thru the gift shop and to our table, they were in awe of all the animals and different stuff there was to look at. We got seated right by a gorilla and i thought "great! Jake loves gorillas" but then we leaned that every 10 minutes the gorilla comes to life, making noises and moving. not so great. Neither of the kids liked it and we asked to move to a different table.

Here is Jake when we were first seated.

And here is Jake after the gorilla show.

Lunch was fun and yummy. Next we wandered thru the stores, let the kids play and look at different stuff. We decided to bring our hopper passes from Disneyworld (we were there in January) and see if we could get into Disneyland with the 1 day left on the pass. We weren't holding out too much hope, but why not try, right? Well, it turns out that they did work at Disneyland, so we got to spend the rest of the day hanging out there. I was totally excited (more so than either of the kids).

Our first stop was to ride the train that went around the park.

Next a photo-op with Pluto. (Grace did NOT want to wait in line, she was excited to see him and when she wants something, she wants it and will let you know if she isn't happy about waiting for it.)

Jake loves the movie Sword In The Stone and was excited to try and pull out the sword in the stone. He couldn't understand why it wouldn't come out.

A fun ride on the Teacups.......

and on Astro Orbiter. Grace didn't like this one.

We only spent 5 hours in the park, but it was a nice surprise that we were able to use our leftover passes. We will be going back again next week when Grandma and Grandpa Hanson and Brandi come for a visit. We can't wait!

the beach...again!

We hit the beach again on Thursday. We had just as much fun as last time. Only a few more weeks left here, so we are going to keep finding fun stuff to do.

Jake dumped buckets full of sand on himself. He was COVERED in sand by the time we were done.

Brooke rented a boogie board...it was fun watching him have fun in the ocean. I tried it once, but the waves were kindof strong and I lost my nerve, so i ended up just jumping in the waves.

Grace loves to take charge of our shoes. When we are getting ready to go somewhere, she will go get everyones shoes and give them to them. Last night, she was playing around with Brookes shoes and walking around (as best as she could) in them.

the beach

Yesterday we went to the beach. The weather was perfect and we all had a great time. The kids were content to play in the sand and water. We will definitely go again before we are done here in CA.