We recently started doing 10 minutes a day of "school work" as we say to Tate, but it's really 10 minutes a day of fine motor practice - tracing, writing etc.  He wasn't a super fan but then Todd had the idea of having him come into the office and sit at Todd's desk next to him while Todd worked.  Well, that made it really cool and fun and the past few mornings Tate has walked in there all on his own and said, "I'm going to do my work in dad and my office now" and opens his work book and gets to business.  Very cute!

Tate carried his grilled cheese in the family room yesterday when I wasn't looking and set it down unattended.  Didn't take long for someone to find it!

Jumping Fool

My attempt to implement "no jumping on the sofa" is going really well.  Not.

Sunny Wednesday

These two...

Cole started crawling months after Tate but he is catching up fast, he is cruising like a mad man, charging stairs and using his walker.  I caught Tate helping him today with the walker and being so sweet, melted my heart....and ten minutes later he had gotten into my ribbons for wrapping gifts and was wrapping them around Cole's neck.

Thanks for the booty in my face big brother!  Boys!

Tate has never wanted to share a bath with his brother because "he doesn't want the baby to play with his scuba divers", but Todd always says, "well then we'll go buy your brother his own brand new divers and he wont share them with you" - nice dad.  Then Tate would give in and share the bath.  But the last few nights Tate has actually wanted to take a "brother bath" as he calls it and willing shares his bath toys...something is up...just look how suspicious they look in the below picture...

Sunshine!!!

This year for spring break we decided to get out of town...we have been craving sun...heat...family time...but with two kids we wanted to find somewhere with as short of flight as possible.  After talking to some friends we decided on Palm Springs/Palm Desert (or Indio where our actual condo was)!
We have never been and were excited to try something new!


Winter and Spring breaks in Snoqualmie can be rough...it's a give-in it will rain all week and all activities are cancelled...and half your usual play-mates are out of town too.  So, getting out of town this year was amazing and I hope we are fortunate enough to do it in future years!

We had one windy/chilly day so decided went on a little off-resort excursion to Joshua Tree National Park, the entrance was a 30 minute drive.  I don't know what we were thinking, getting out of the condo with two kids and we were not quite prepared when we got there - we forgot snacks, lunch, water, milk for the baby etc. - what were we thinking?  We only had time to scratch the surface of this amazing place (a quick 40 minute "hike"), so we didn't even get into the really amazing rocks/cliffs this place is famous for but it was fun.   Turns out those areas are another hour drive into the park.  Todd already has plans to go back with a full days meals and supplies and spend the day.

The rest of the trip we did not leave the resort!  We had plans to visit the Living Desert Zoo and some other cool places friends told us about but Tate didn't want to - he was happy as a clam spending the entire day rotating between the lazy river, pool, hot tub with quick trips inside for popsicles.

.

Happy Easter!!

Fantastic weather, great friends and family made for the best Easter Sunday we've ever had!  Our good friends The Vann family invited us along with the Pass and Silverman families (we all met through our four year old boys) over for a delicious Easter brunch, then we headed across the street to the Pass home for a Easter egg hunt and dessert.  Grandma and Grandpa and Grandma Pete joined us for a nice Easter Sunday dinner and spoiled the boys with Easter beach bags filled with adorable beach towels and candy.  

Me, Andrea, Julie and Allison

Super cute kids plates Andrea made for each kiddo

Kids Table!  Pretty sure the boys sat there for under 2 minutes.

Addeline and Cole...future couple? :) 

Anxiously awaiting the hunt!

Game face on!