May Already

A few months ago, my cousin Neal and his wife Amy had a baby. I got to see them on Sunday at my cousin Jenny's birthday party. Here is my mom holding the sweetie-pie (I took several photos, both my mom and baby Josie took turns being blurry!).

Long but beautiful drive to Watsonville and back for the party. We enjoyed the new sunroof to see more of the trees all around us.

Gabriel pointed out that we were having Death Star waffles for dinner.

Tonight Ephraim wanted some Ranch on his salad. He instantly broke out in laughter when this happened!! 

My active climbers.

Tonight the cat was snuggling so closely to Ephraim. He loved every minute of it. The park (above) must have worn him out because instead of hearing "tell me a story," Ephraim said "I'm tired" and went right to sleep.

Busy Happenings

Happy Easter. Yes, it came and went and we celebrated. Here are the boys when they discovered the candy dish was empty (I hid the rest so they wouldn't get sick).

One evening, we went outside and used up some after-dinner energy.

 

Gabriel at the top of the rope pyramid

Gabriel at the top of the fig tree in grandma and grandpa's backyard

Gabriel at the top of his bunk bed, being a pirate with his Bunny first mate

Sunday church smiles. Easter break from school seemed to charge us all up. We had a super great week back.

 So handsome...

So handsome in his new shirt and tie (thank you, Grandma and Grandpa Gunn)

We got a new compact SUV! A Honda CRV. Dad asked what CRV stands for and I said, "Cool Rachel Vehicle" of course. :)

 Oops, it comes with a sunroof too! My long commute is so much more pleasant now.

I bought a Dance Dance Revolution pad and game. So fun to play (it's been over 10 years). Gabriel is even learning it too. My friend Chris is lending us his pad, so we can play together.

Gabriel's school had a fundraiser night at Chuck E Cheese. Gabriel saw a schoolmate there and went off and had fun hanging out with him. Ephraim and I explored the games together.

Hot spell came. We inflated the pool to cool off. Splashing is the best!

March Marched By

The boys play nicely together.

Batman has a new tool on his utility belt: a lightsaber! Gabriel is so good about responding to Ephraim's "force push" hand gestures. It's adorable.

Ephraim turned 5 on March 16. We had a party the Saturday before it with a cat theme. We invited his friends from school and some showed up. It was a new experience for me (having friends over for the party). It was wonderful to meet fellow parents. 

With help from my dad for the form, I made a cat pinata and filled it with candy and small toys.

I made paw print cupcakes.

My dad made the cute cake that looks just like our cats.

Ephraim and his friends pose as cats. 

Pinata time! (...wait... all that work...)

Make a wish!

Grandma Cook came to the party too. Yay! So cute with their ears together.

 Working on one of the new puzzles.

Gabriel often sleeps in my bed. The other morning, I told Ephraim to go wake up Gabriel. Instead, he crawled in and snuggled right up to his brother.

Ephraim spent about 10 minutes licking and sucking on this lemon. This was after he refused the super sweet orange I peeled fresh from our tree. 

The squinting is from the sun, not the sour.

Watching the birds.

Gabriel prefers to fall asleep in my bed... uh, there's no room for me, kid. And my pillow doesn't make the best blanket, ya know.

They fell asleep in the van holding hands. So sweet!

We picked green peas from our backyard and shelled them.

March Around the Corner

Ephraim is VERY excited that his birthday is coming up quickly. How did he get so big and handsome?

 

Ephraim is 43" and 36 lbs.
He loves cats and acting like them. He says his favorite color is black (he likes dressing all in black to be a black cat).
He lost his first tooth and the adult one came in quickly. He has a second loose tooth now.
He is in Montessori preschool, but doing kindergarten books. He happily reads easy books ("Ten Apples Up on Top" and "I Can Read with my Eyes Shut") and does easy math (5 + 5).
He wakes up happy almost every morning and actively seeks to find what is funny in the world ("get the PUNCHline?"). He likes to act out scenes with his stuffed animals (which all have names) and hear and tell stories at night. He can be an adorable chatterbox. He spent 10 minutes talking nonstop the other night about a complex story: something about portals and long tubes that took you to different worlds, one world was in a giant eyeball and bats lived there. If there is a creature near (tiny bug to stranger's big dog), he is interested in it and will be kind and concerned

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Bye Bye February

Wait, February is over already? Where did it go? Here's an update with pictures:

Snuggling with mom in the morning before work.

Snuggling with the cat at bedtime.

It was raining one Sunday and Gabriel had too much energy. I got some great shots of him (I'll try to get the movie here too).

On February 12, I drove Gabriel and some of his classmates to their field trip to the Guide Dogs for the Blind training facility. We didn't get to touch any of the puppies though.

Gabriel cut out tiny pieces of construction paper to make this Link from Zelda scene.

Ephraim worked on something similar,

I received a bouquet of flowers for Valentine's Day from my valentine (a wonderful man I'm dating).

 Swinging at the park.

 "OK, bye, Mom." (getting dropped off at Heather's house)

The cats decided to trust him again and Gabriel couldn't be happier.

Yes, our lemon tree is full! These two milk crates are less than HALF of the lemons from the tree. I'm squeezing them and freezing the juice.

The belt on my treadmill was slipping. After Grandpa fixed it for me, the boys had to try it out to make sure it worked.