The kids' preschool has two new classrooms and asked me if in lieu of my parent/classroom hours, I could do the murals instead.
So this is the mural for the kids music and dance room. The director of the school wanted alot in it, probably more than I even put in it. And since it's multi-cultural in nature, I'm probably offending a group unwittingly. (like, is it unlucky to have a Chinese dragon in the bottom left corner? probably?! )
Taj Majal, giant harp, tamborine, it's got it all. I'm crossing my fingers that there won't be be 100 changes to it. It's just a pencil sketch...
I was away from the kids for 4 days last week, but I still have plenty of pics and videos!
I've been trying to deter the kids from taking baths together lately, but 1/2 the time it still happens. It gets splashier and fightier when they're together. Kid C said "Mom! look at me!" and lo, it was funny. She climbed into the bath toy basket.
Their friend Kid D had his 5th birthday and here are Kid R and Kid D's little brother, Kid J playing quietly inside while the party happened outside. It was super hero themed, and the best I could do was put Kid R in a Star Wars shirt. Kid J, however, was really prepared-- Buzz Lightyear deluxe costume!
The birthday boy's grandpa and uncle are both police officers, so there was no shortage of toy guns around. I subconsciously don't buy them for Kid R, so he was excited to be at the "gun show."
My friend Mike, Kid D's dad shows Kid R how it's done. And how to tag the kid in the lawn saying "hit me! hit me!"
Mr. Post-Shots Fatigue. He was so lovable, although I was sad he didn't feel good. It only lasted a couple of hours.
Today is splendidly free of places to be and things to do and it's the perfect California weather day, so after Kevin mowed the lawn, I decided to reclaim the Little Tykes playhouses that have been dormant all winter. I evicted all the spiders with my webber and put a carpet down and some other accoutrements. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9osp13IwF4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQJ22CvAMRE
And while I was gone, Kevin took this video of the kids squeeling with the dogs.
My friend Matt was the camera/lighting/editing person. And his edition of the video was the real one that showed during Easter services, but he didn't upload his to YouTube, and I did, so I'm showing the one I edited (I only used one camera's footage, there were 3 cameras total).
Again, a big thanks to Jenn for taking these pics for me. She even had her own 3 kids to keep track of while we did this AND it was COLD out!
I mean seriously, that face.
If he only knew that if he made that face, he would totally get out of trouble.
Kevin makes that face at me alot. It's the you-didn't-think-this-through-face.
Kid C's hair kinda fell apart in the wind. I was trying to go for a sleek look.
yeah, no.
It's her crazy-laugh, but I like it.
I feel like this is a snapshot of him when he's older.
Bellisima, bambina.
So, you've seen this one, but hey.
The boy loves pipes.
After the park became problematic, we moved the photo shoot into the newly redesigned (ahem) lobby at WestGate. I mean, what good is working at a church if you can't just come in any time with your kids and take pics in the good lighting?
Auntie Dianne bought him that hat. I bought the jeans, shirt and tie at H&M and the shoes...well those are WalMart.
Her dress is H&M too. I love that store. Euro couture at Target prices.
Way behind them (not the motel looking building) is the in-progress new children's building, fyi.
Artful dodger.
A big thanks to Jon Talbert who made my kids do all the funny poses. I'm glad he was there, us moms weren't very motivational.
This photo represents how easily entertained she is. I love her.
sticky melty cuteness.
I don't know if Jenn took this on accident or on purpose, but I liked it.
You can still see his R2D2 tattoo that he wouldn't let me wash off(!)
I thought now that Easter is over, that I would have got Baby Tuesday up actually on Tuesday.
Not the case.
But luckily, I have these cute pics of Gilroy Gardens to show everyone!
Gil the Garlic epitomizes the charm of Gilroy Gardens. How funny is it that they make an entire theme park around the idea of produce?! Adorable.
And you should notice that Gil is short, like it's not a regular adult in that suit. It's either a kid or a person-of-short-stature -- either way, also adorable.
I was so glad that the kids went over and stood by him for a picture.
Their friends wanted nothing to do with the giant garlic man, and I can see their point.
This is Kid C and her BFF Kid A. Thanks to my friend, Jenn, Kid A's mom, we got into the park FOR FREE! Her mom and dad live in Gilroy and it was free-locals day, so we got in with them, and then they hit the road, ha. Huge thanks to them. The admission price to the agro-wonderland is steep, so I can't say thanks enough for that.
They have here, the biggest soft serve ice cream cones that I have ever seen, especially for a couple of Pre-K's.
Jenn took this pic of her one the flower boats. We had a nice view of the Artichoke Dip ride, which we rode afterward.
We had some snacky snacks and then the kids examined the map on the [probably filthy] floor to plan our route.
Train ride! I really wanted them to have seatbelts on this one.
Because I could see a hospital visit in my future: mixing a 3 yr old's excitement for trains and an actual train ride.
The little sir with his gigantic ice cream. Yeah, he didn't finish it. And he needed a entire wardrobe change afterwards. (does anyone else's 3 yr old try eating the cone part before he eats the ice cream on top? omg.)
He looks kinda older here doesn't he?
Balloon ride! Me and Kid R were in our own balloon and Jenn and girl-Kid-R were in their own. We let the big girls fly solo. That's the advantage to girls, they can be trusted not to leap out(!)
The goldfish [cracker] ride. Little kid rides that I don't have to get on with them, my favorites.
I have some really cute easter pics, but I'll save those for next B.T. They are excellent!...
**UPDATE** I'm saved! Jenn posted for me! Check it out
I still have 20 minutes of Thursday left, and I'm running on fumes, but if I don't do this now, it aint' happenin' this week.
Um and this will be the only pic this week. I'm simply just not going to get up and get the camera cord.
The kids have today and tomorrow off, which I didn't quite figure out until yesterday evening. Not the school's fault, totally my brain's fault.
Anyway, they went to their favorite hourly kid care this morning and I scrambled at work to cram as much "doing" at work as I could before I had to go get them. I know I shouldn't leave Kid R there when it's naptime, bad things happen.
In fact, I was late because of aforementioned scrambling and cramming, and when I arrived, Kid R had a fresh rugburn on his temple from some incident. Fatigue related, no doubt!
There was a need for driving to the shore this afternoon. Very real need. So we went, and they happily watched Oswald episodes on my iPhone in the backseat, and I drank in the mountains on the way over.
We stopped at the wharf. I got a mocha (which is how I am still awake right now) and the kids got ice cream from Marini's and hung around. Seagulls, check. Pigeons, check. Sealions, check.
(this was the one bench that wasn't windy or covered in seagull poop, score!)
Anecdote about sealions: Kid C and R really don't make stuff up. I think they do all the time, and then it ends up, they were telling the truth, I just didn't believe/understand them.
(Like the time that I lost the lid to the apple cider jug at the farmers market and Kid R said it was in his sippy cup. I said "no it's not" and then when I opened it up an hour later in the car, there it was, the lid to the cider inside the cup.)
That kind of thing happens all the time, and I kinda feel bad about it.
This afternoon as we drove on the wharf, I rolled down the windows and told the kids to hush and listen for sealions barking. They barely could stop talking for 2 seconds and then Kid C said "I heard one!" and I said "no you didn't that was just some lady laughing as we drove by her" and she insisted she had heard one. I didn't hear anything so I told them not to get their hopes up, and then parked the car down-a-ways.
And then, it turned out-- she was right. We came across 4 sealions that weren't in the usual perch. Barking. Then, I had to apologize.
-I gotta hit "publish" now before it's tomorrow in one minute!...
Yeah I totally skipped last week. I was planning on doing it, and then things fell apart, so there's a blip in the baby matrix. I had thought that I would dedicate this week's BT to my dad, but it's still kinda hard seeing photos of him right now, so I'll wait on that.
I foolishly took the kids out to dinner a couple of weeks ago with some of our friends, but without Kevin. Kid C was fine, as usual, but Kid R was a FREAK! I had completely forgotten that he didn't take a nap that day.
Both my kids really like Kid K. Really really like her. They insisted on flanking her while she ate, and totally bumped out the other little girl.
Kid E, to the right of Kid C was a sweetheart about the whole thing. Her mom insists that she has a rotten side, but I've never seen it. She's a little angel in my book.
I dug up some of my phone pics from the fairy party. This was on the treasure hunt. Kid C was super motivated and made off like a bandit.
Fairy picnic.
Kid R pulls this coming-out-after-bedtime deal every few days. And he knows if it's just me in the living room, and he makes a really cute face and quietly plays with his toys, he can stay up.
He gets greedy eventually and begs to watch cartoons and that gets him sent back to bed, fer' sure. I took this pic when I was too tired to do anything about him, and he sat and watched TV with me.
I persuaded my "dink" friends to come with me to the farmers market with me and my loose cannons-- well just one loose cannon, the boy. They were good sports, and I'm sure the entire experience was yet another reason they will reference whenever the subject of "should we have kids?" comes up.
The farmers market also sells seafood, who knew?
If I hadn't had them with me, I would have considered buying a crab, but since it was hard enough just to buy and carry around the strawberries with them with me, I let remain a sideshow attraction.
I bet Matt said something scary to them about the crabs and probably gave 'em bad dreams (jk).
Then we tagged along on an errand Kristen had in Los Gatos and we hit Powells Sweet Shop.
Lindsey gave Kid R this dinosaur painting kit for his birthday and he was so excited about it. He kept waking up at night asking if he could paint dinosaurs (before we let him open it) so I was glad when he finally got it out of his system.
We have a serious dandelion invasion in our yard. If I didn't consider anyone else's opinion, I actually like dandelions, they're cute flowers and they make those fun fuzzy parachutes.
Kid C, pictured here with them obviously agrees.
But I feel pressure as a suburban home owner that we shouldn't have dandelions, because it implies that we're sloppy. Which we totally are.
So we reward the kids for picking them.
And Franklin isn't really our kid, but he kinda is. And he does funny stuff like this:
Kid R got his mega tool set from GiGi for his birthday and he goes around "fixing" everything. Especially the table and chairs. I'm cool with wooden things being "fixed," just as long as he doesn't want to repair my laptop (!)
Oh no, gross, I zoomed in on this pic, and his face is all crusty from whatever he ate before I took the photo. Eewww!
I finally loaded the Valentines Day party that the kids had with their friends onto YouTube:
This installment brought to you by Ponyo (the kids are entranced in the other room). It also allowed me to get some last tax documents in order.
Kid R's birthday was actually on Monday, but we had the party on Tuesday in the middle of the day and I let the kids skip school that day and I took off of work.
My favorite pic of him.
I took it right after I put his birthday shirt on him.
Look at that face. So loveable. --Even though he tried to take his cake apart, his pinata apart, and opened up TWO of his gifts when I had my back turned! (he snuck them back into Kid C's room and they conspired against me!)
Post gift opening chaos. All the little boys were busy with his new trucks and showing him how they work.
Overwhelmed? That's a crazy expression.
Evaluating...
Of course his sister wanted to be all up in his business and "helping" with the gifts.
I needed a fly swatter to keep her back.
Me.
Here are some videos of him opening gifts. Kinda funny.
This is him meddling in the gifts. Much meddling.
Here's Kid R's BFF from school Kid T. And Kid C was his cake-lunch date at the counter.
Here is his fancy Umi Zoomi cake and corresponding cupcakes made by Rachael.
At the end of the party all the kids lined themselves up on the couch to watch Nick Jr. So cute.
And Mojito was there to catch every crumb.
Grandma made a big chocolate cherry cake for him the night before. needless to say, he's had his cake quota for the month.
Thanks Nonnie and Gramps (his great grandmother and grandfather) for the trucks!
Presents!
On Monday night we gave him all his family's gifts, Kevin's parents, my family's and the ones from Kevin and me.
![goldfish [cracker] ride](http://www.julienna.com/pictures/Moving%20goldfish.jpg){kind=link}