Happy Birthday Auntie Erika

Anthony made the card himself, both inside and out.

In case you can't tell, all the letters are there. Happy should be readable. He ran out of space for the final letters of "birthday" so they got wrapped around on top.

On his teachers' recommendation we decided to delay starting kindergarten for a year. One of their reasons was his fine motor skills, or lack thereof.

We're live to adopt #2

Took longer than we initially expected, both to start the home study and to get it all done.

Last week we finally went live with our agency. No idea how long it will take, but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Thank goodness we hired a graphic designer to do our outreach materials this time around. Jamie did an amazing job and was FAST.

Check us out at:
http://www.bobandkarin.us/
I heart adoption

Baking Bread

This was a project my mom did with us when we were kids. One summer my mother's rule was that we could bake whatever we wanted, as long as it had yeast.

We used my mom's recipe to bake bread from scratch, using my stand mixer to knead. Anthony seemed to understand the process a bit and certainly enjoyed punching down the risen bread dough. He fashioned his loaf into a crown of sorts.

Rainy Day Fun

 Anthony received a dinosaur themed science kit for his 3rd birthday.  The kit was labelled 4+, so I set it aside for a rainy day.  Well, Saturday was a rainy day so I pulled it out.

  The first toy was nearly a bust.  It was a glow in the dark dinosaur skeleton to assemble.  Anthony loved watching it glow, but it was hard for Daddy to assemble, no "help" required.

  Excavating for dinosaur bones, on the other hand, was a hit.  Basically we had a chunk of clay with "dinosaur fossils" buried inside.  We used tools to chip and brush away the clay.  Theoretically you can assemble them into a skeleton, but we're NOT going to torture poor Daddy that way.

St. Patrick's Day

Anthony came home from preschool yesterday very excited about the leprechaun that came to preschool. Despite setting a trap for it, they weren't able to prevent him from causing all sorts of mischief including peeing green in the toilet.

I was happy to leave the St. Patrick's Day fun to that. Then Anthony woke up this morning wanting to go out into the garden to find the chocolate coins the leprachaun left. (I wish preschool had given me a heads-up on that one.) I snuck out to the grocery where there weren't any chocolate coins but I they did have some VERY intensely colored sugar cookies.

The leprechauns didn't pee in our toilet, but we did have leprechaun poop a day or so later!

Daddy's New Airplane

   Yep, we own 1/3 of it!

Beauty and the Beast

Anthony is a big fan of musical theater. He has been since he saw his first show at the grand old age of 3 1/2. When we saw that this year's season of Broadway San Jose included both "Beauty and the Beast" and "Mary Poppins" we knew we'd need to buy season tickets. (Bob and I also saw West Side Story and have tickets for "In the Heights" next month.)

Anthony had a bit of a hard time sitting through the slower parts of the show, but he still enjoyed it immensely. After church we drove downtown and had lunch at a 50's themed diner. Anthony happily helped himself to the whipped cream off the top of Daddy's chocolate malt, yet rejected the milkshake part. We watched the orchestra warming up. Anthony came back to his seat and told Daddy about seeing "the mama cello and the baby cello". It was a good day.

Gymnastics Birthday Party

Today was a classmate's birthday party at a local gymnastics studio. Anthony is NOT at his best at "mommy and me" type events. He clings and doesn't participate. It is often a struggle to physically remove him from my leg at drop-off events (though he's fine once I'm out of sight), so I was a little worried how the event would go. I told him multiple times that he would go join the party and do gymnastics, while Mommy stayed with the other grown-ups.

Maybe it was the preparation, maybe I worry too much, probably both. He did GREAT! When it was time for the party to start he trotted out on the mat with his friends and had a great time! (I couldn't get too many pictures, though. If I approached he'd rapidly get clingy.)

I think the highlight of the party was jumping into the foam pit. Jumping on all the trampolines seemed like a lot of fun, too.

If you ask Anthony what his favorite part was, he'd say the ice cream cake.

The Carrot Farmer Rides Again

This afternoon we headed over to the nursery to get some seeds for summer planting. We got a few different varieties of carrots, sugar snap peas, tomatoes and some pumpkin seeds. I have no idea where all these plants are going to go.

We got the carrots started in the pots out back and the sugar snap peas started in little peat pots to transplant in a few weeks. We're a little late in the season for peas, so we're keeping our fingers crossed. This afternoon he ran out back to see if his carrots had sprouted yet. Germination time is 7-10 days, not 2 hours. It might be a long 7 days.

Yes, the child was gardening in his church clothes. Apple doesn't fall far from the proverbial tree.

Cinderella

If only we'd known there would be a character "meet and greet" we'd have lugged the big camera.

We are so fortunate to live in a vibrant community with an amazing variety of activities. Today we went to the Sunnyvale Community Theater to see the CTC production of Cinderella. As expected, Anthony loved it, though he was concerned by the poor behavior of the step-sisters. (Their behavior was pretty dreadful.)

I spent about half the production watching him soak in the show. He found everything fascinating from the scene changes to the curtain call.

We've spent a fortune on theater tickets this season. Next week(!) we're going to see the touring version of "Beauty and the Beast." Next month its back to the CTC for "Jack and the Beanstalk". Then in June its the Broadway tour of Mary Poppins.

More Beach Pictures

I snagged these pictures off Ciaran's blog. The last picture is the boys examining the remnants of a crab Bob saw on the beach. It was mostly seagull fodder, but there was some body and one claw left.

Did I mention the water temperature was 52 degrees?