Oliver's first fish

This weekend Nick took the boys on their first male-only camping trip (plus Penny!). He has taken each boy individually for a night, but this is the first time the all went together. On Saturday afternoon they went fishing and Oliver finally caught his first fish! He had been waiting all summer for this moment. They cleaned it up and ate it for dinner that night. Here are Nick's photos from the trip:

Happy Easter 2015

The kids had a fun Easter weekend! They dyed eggs Friday night (a dozen each)! Saturday morning we went to the annual egg hunt at the community center which lasts about 10 seconds with all the kids. Elliott only got one egg and Oliver, three, but they still had fun regardless. Afterwards they went to Home Depot for the monthly kids' workshop only to find that they also had eggs hidden around the store. By the time they arrived all of the eggs had been found except for the big golden one. They happened to be near a lady who found it and gave it to the boys. They turned it in for a huge prize of tools and got their picture taken. On Easter they hopped out of bed early and raced downstairs to look in their baskets. Jim and Cynthia came over to visit and watch the boys hunt for eggs later in the morning. We finished off the day with a trip to the beach, which everyone enjoyed!

Egg dying:

Sweet cards from Binny & Grampy:

Note left by Oliver to the Easter Bunny, along with a carrot that he tried to turn into a bunny:

 Easter baskets!

 Community center egg hunt:

Our egg hunt this morning:

Beach!

Video clips from this morning:

boys on a slide

Spring is here! The boys are loving the sunshine and playing outside. For some reason they thought sliding in their underwear was a good idea :)

construction site

I'm back :) I have so many things to post, but not nearly enough time!

I don't know what it is about dirt and little boys, but the two are nearly inseparable in our household. We had a little spot in our grass that hadn't quite filled in yet, and now I know that it probably never will. As soon as it started to feel like spring (in February!), the boys were out with their diggers, shovels, and other tools. The little grass-less mound was soon flattened and every trace of grass growing on it was gone. These boys sat out here for two days straight, working on their site. I'm not exactly sure what they were doing for two days, but they enjoyed themselves! Nick even rigged up a spotlight for them at night so they could continue to work after dinner.

 It was also a great time to snap some photos of them since they were occupied in one spot with some decent lighting.

Elliott's first real violin

Elliott received a real violin for his birthday from Great Binny and Grampy. Here he is playing it for the first time (he has actually gotten much better since):

Soundbridge

Here are some clips of the boys playing violins at Elliott's 3rd birthday party at Soundbridge. I'm glad none of the other guests were that interested in the violins because my boys pretty much hogged them the whole time. I think they put them down just once to eat.

synchronized snorkeling

One of Oliver's favorite thing to do in swim lessons is snorkel, and he's gotten pretty good at convincing the instructors to let him try it quite often. The boys have moved on to semi-private lessons together, which have been going great since they love being in the water together. Here they are snorkeling together!

Elliott's first violin

On the morning of his birthday, Elliott received the first of three, yes three, violins that he received as presents. This kid seriously loves violins. This first one was just a stuffed violin and I wasn't sure how much he would be into it, but he loved it!

don't bump the gump

Playing catch up again. Here's a cute video from November of Elliott singing "don't bump the gump", taken from a poem by Shel Silverstein.

Christmas 2014

We had a lot of fun this Christmas! Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas day.

Nick took the boys to Costco after dropping Uncle Evan and Kelsey off at the airport. Oliver picked out these flowers as a Christmas present for me :)

We made and decorated gingerbread cookies. Elliott decorated two, one that he put his entire bowl of frosting on, and the other that he dumped his bowl of sprinkles on :)

We also made reindeer food of oats and glitter to sprinkle on the front lawn for the reindeer to eat when they arrive with Santa.

We walked up to Olympic Manor to look at all the Christmas lights. This was the candy cane house.

We ended the night watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (the original 60's version) and drinking hot chocolate in Santa mugs.

And leaving a snack of fruit and gingerbread cookies for Santa.

The kids were up early (6ish) on Christmas morning and we let them open their stockings as soon as we made it downstairs. Oliver was eager to try his candy cane.

 

And they both loved their stocking toppers, the Abominable Snow Monster for Elliott and Olaf from Frozen for Oliver. Penny also enjoyed a few presents!

 

 

Jim and Cynthia came over later for brunch and more presents. Oliver received a 1/8 size violin from Santa and he and Elliott gave a concert for everyone.

 

After (early) naps, we headed down to the beach at Golden Gardens to get some fresh air and enjoy the beautiful day.

And we took a few selfies :)

family photo including Penny!

For dinner we went over to our friend's house and took this picture by their tree. It was a wonderful day!