Easter Morning in Arizona

We went to Tucson for Easter. Here's the Nana (Nate's mom) with all of the little cousins in their Easter clothes she made for them. From the left are Nate's twin cousins Katy and Lena and then Delaney and Jackson. We went to church with Nate's grandparents and got lots of comments on how cute the kids were in their matching outfits. Nana Vicky did a great job!
After church the kids had a great time playing on the playground. I had a hard time getting pictures of Lena during this trip, but I thought this was cute of her.

Another tooth lost....growing up.....

Well, tooth number three came out on Friday. Jackson can now just breathe and make a whistling noise, much to his delight. Tooth number four (the other top, front tooth) is sure to follow soon - its pretty loose. You can see his two front bottom teeth coming in.

It's hard to believe that my baby boy is getting permanent teeth! His head looks strangely large in the picture - I'm not sure why. But check out all the freckles coming in also. He is such a little boy and not a baby now too. He loves to run outside and ride his scooter around the back patio, using any and everything as an obstacle to ride around in figure eights. He is delightful most days also, helping his little sister whether she wants it or not, and trying to remember to say ma'am and sir.

Lately, we've been devouring "The Magic Tree House" books. They are short 10 chapter books about 2 kids who time travel and complete different "missions". Right now, we're reading about ancient China, as the wall was being constructed and the Dragon King was persecuting the scholars. Mr. Active Imagination spent some time this afternoon constructing his own Wall of China out of magnetic blocks and balls. I so love this kid! (and not just 'cause I'm the momma.)

Funny kid things....

What happened to the "stare you awake?"
So I woke up this morning (I mean 3:30 AM) snuggling with Jackson. He had a bad dream and climbed right into our bed next to me. I remember standing at my parent's bed just staring at my mom until she somehow knew to wake up and invite me in for a cuddle after a bad dream. There was no staring - he just climbed in. He didn't want to talk about the dream and started his usual "trying to go to sleep fidgeting" which really drives me crazy and keeps me awake. Now there's not much room in the bed these days between Nate, me, my belly, and all of the pillows that my belly and aching back require, so I was snuggled up pretty close to JAC. Just as I started to drift off, the kid had the gall to turn to me and say, "Mom, that snoring really hurts my ear." Needless to say, I took him back to his bed and laid down on his floor until he went to sleep (I was also able to drift off). My sore body was very glad to get back in my own bed and to my colony of pillows at 5:40 this morning. Nate, of course, peacefully slept through the entire episode. He's always surprised that someone cried during the night, like the night last week when Delaney and I acheived together, maybe 3 hours of sleep total. We also had a bowl of cereal at 3:40 because we were both hungry by then. (She's cutting 4 molars at once.) It just infuriates me that he can sleep so sound -I'm JEALOUS!

"It's not a kiss!"
So tonight after dinner, Delaney and I were giving fish kisses (you know, make a fish face and then give a kiss.) She kept wanting to just press our lips together. I said, "Do you just want a regular kiss from Mommy?" Her reply...."It's NOT a kiss, Mommy! It's a mouth hug!" Have I mentioned that she has recently started referring to me as "girl" also, as in..."What are you doin', girl?" I must admit, I've called her girl, baby girl, etc. so I know exactly where it comes from. It's just funny to hear your own words back, well sometimes at least. Later tonight, she answered me with "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Boo-boos?

We took a family walk/bike ride today. Jackson wiped out on the bike a couple times and Delaney was "teaching" Kobi how to run and tripped. I don't think they're any worse for the wear. Delaney was actually pretty excited about wearing her kitty cat band-aids. I think she's been waiting for an injury that actually warrants a band aid. Jackson's lip boo-boo is from climbing on a slide and making it collapse at his sitter's house Friday. As my dad would say, we're all pretty rough on equipment.

Santa Monica Beach After Tym's Departure

This from Nate ("I", that is, is not Jen, rather "I" is Nate):

Jackson, Delaney, and I spent an hour at the Santa Monica Beach after dropping Aunt Tymmy at LAX, while Jen used the quiet time to work on a few scrapbook pages. More precisely, we were an hour on the beach, and an hour at the car afterwards drying off Jackson and shaking the sand out of Delaney's hair.

The sand you see on Delaney's hand and foot was a small fraction. Her favorite activity was literally rolling in the sand, traversing the beach. She also enjoyed finding little shells like the one she showed me for the picture.


While Jackson defied the ocean with hands on hips, it put him in his place a few times when he forgot to keep an eye out for the waves rolling in (smackdown!) or simply misjudged the size of the wave he was running towards (wha-bam!). Lesson learned: ALWAYS bring a bathing suit to the beach, even if you're "just going to get your feet wet." Oh, and include underwear in the set of dry clothes to change into.

The sun was setting as we rolled out of the parking lot, and I snapped this shot through the open car window as we paused to check it out.

Delaney was out before we hit the 405. Jackson, not so much.