Ben is now a gymnast too!

 Ben decided he wanted to sign up for gymnastics too. He can't be in the same class with the girls, he is in the class before them. Which means I get 2 whole hours of sitting and watching:) But it is pretty fun to watch him, he's loving it! 

 He loves trying to "balance" on things.

go ben!

Glad she clarified it for me

To Val Kok, From Your daughter Lauren Kok

I would have been totally confused who this was from had she not explained that she was my daughter! 

Lauren's been full of funny things lately. The other night at dinner she said, "Mom you are so lucky to have a mammal expert as a daughter." Indeed...I've always dreamed of having a mammal expert in the family. 

Also, the other night I asked her to clean her room and she said, "I actually prefer it messy, it's more like an obstacle course that way." Definitely give her points for creativity on that one but she still had to clean her room! 

Funny Kids

 Ben insisted on wiping the car down with a microfiber cloth before we could go into pilates today...wonder where he gets this from?!

She still loves to sit in boxes- if you remember back to this or this or this. The girl has a love for fitting in small spaces, she is constantly trying to steal Ben's preschool bucket so she can sit in it while she watched tv, which Ben hates of course. Too funny! 

So Long

Laurie, my childhood friend since 4th grade is moving this coming weekend to San Diego. While I couldn't be happier for her and her family, I'm a little sad too. When you've lived by someone for 24 years of your life it's just weird to not have them near. I'm sure going to miss her! Of course another excuse to visit Southern California is never a bad thing.

Maybe I'm a tad bit jealous too...I'm still considering hopping in their Uhaul this Friday;) 

Easter Egg Hunt

 On Sunday we went to the Woodinville Community Egg hunt. Despite the cold temps, blustery wind, and rain...we had a great time:)

 Ben was in an age group on his own and he was too cute. He went out there, got one egg and started to come back to us. Apparently he thought that's how it worked. We told him he could get more and he was thrilled!

 That's more like it!

 Lauren helped Mackenzie & Carson hunt for their eggs. 

 Cutie Carsie

 These two are such buds, I love it!

 The big girls preparing for their hunt!

And they are off! The big kid hunt was much different than the little kids ones. Lots of craziness which resulted in not so many eggs in the baskets. Luckily all the little kids had tons of eggs to share:) 

Last 2 posts

I blogged the last 2 posts from my phone and apparently there is a little glitch. The pictures aren't showing up all the way. If you click on the picture you will see the entire thing...I'll work on figuring it out later today. 

Teacher Lauren

"Ben owes me 1,000 minutes"

When Lauren is mad at Ben she puts his name on the board. Cracks us up!

Silhouette

We got the kids silhouettes done at Disneyland. Love them!

Lady & the Tramp

The kids got this straw at Disneyland and they think it's soooo cool. 

Jump Planet

 The king and queen of Jump Planet

New Do

 Lauren got her hair cut this weekend. We're loving her cute new look! 

A+

 This little lady got her first "real" report card last week and we're pretty thrilled with it. She is doing well academically but that wasn't really where we were concerned. We've been working on sitting still, staying in our seat, not talking out of turn, and focusing since October.We were so happy to see that Miss Lauren has made huge improvements and her teacher actually said, "I can always count on Lauren to be a good role model in class." MUSIC TO MY EARS! 

So she got to go out to TCBY for a little celebration! Way to go Lauren, now lets keep it up:) 

Hadley Jane's Birthday Lunch

 Lauren, Olivia & I got to join Hadley, Megan, & 4 of Hadley's babies for lunch at the American Girl Cafe a few weeks ago for Hadley's birthday. We had a lovely time. 

Hads was pretty excited for this yummy treat, even if they did forget to sing to her! 

Can't believe Miss Jane is 5 years old!

Picnic Point

 This morning both kids woke up with runny noses, coughs, and sore throats. I wasn't feeling fabulous either. So we called in sick to to school and cuddled up to watch Free Willy. But by 10:00 I was already feeling pretty cooped up and decided what we really needed was some fresh air. So we bundled up and headed to the beach. Random I know, but it was just what we all needed, it was fabulous. All 38 degrees of it! 

 Normal beach attire, right? 

 Rain boots at the beach are pretty awesome.

 The kids had so much fun hunting for shells. We stayed for over an hour and it was so nice to just breathe in the ocean air and be out in the sun, even though it was so cold that there was actually snow on some of the cars in the parking lot! 

 We saw some crabs and other sea creatures, which was fun. 

 The trip wouldn't be complete without a self portrait.

 Ben was so serious with his shell hunting. The funny thing is he brought home tons of broken shells, wood and a crab shell. He didn't really have a clue what he was looking for but it was sure cute to watch him look for treasures.

 so pretty, feeling lucky that this is just a 20 minute drive from our house

When we got home the kids washed and painted their shells for a good hour while I read. It was heaven. I really need to do this more often. 

Go Go

Lauren has been grooming Go Go and doing an excellent job of feeding her and taking her for walks. She takes it VERY seriously. Today she said to me, "Don't you think I'm ready for a real dog now, I mean you've seen how good I am at taking care of Go Go." 

Oh not even close Lauren, but nice try! 

Love Fest...most of the time

Though they do still fight, these two have been having quite the love fest lately. Lots of playing together and snuggling. Ben adores Lauren and wants to be with her at all times. She puts up with it for the most part...except for right now when she is claiming to need alone time and none of us are allowed to talk to her. 

St. Patrick's Day

 Lauren left this rainbow necklace and butterfly house out to trap the leprechaun the night before...it didn't work. The tricky guy ate some of the necklace but got out of the trap!

 He wrote on our mirrors

 and peed in our toilets (note- if you put green food coloring in the toilet at night it will be blue by morning...). But she thought it was SO cool that it turned green when she peed on the blue water, so it turned out to be yet another one of the leprechaun's sneaky tricks;) 

 Of course he left some gold as well as some stickers. 

 This little leprechaun was pretty excited to find he had his own bag of gold as well. Notice his green socks- he wore those to bed so he wouldn't get pinched in the morning. 

 Checking out all the things the leprechaun messed up. Ben was so worried that the leprechaun was going to be mad we already had Easter decorations up when he came, so naturally the leprechaun had to take them down. Cracks me up that Ben was worried about that, he takes after his mama for sure! 

 Thinking it is soooo tricky that the leprechaun made their apple juice green. I found it funny that no one noticed my fingers were all stained green... 

 green pancakes

 yum yum

After making shamrock shaped pancakes our fancy pancake maker decided to make a pancake in the shape of his name! 

The Lorax

Go see it, it's great. Our whole family loved it. We all need to love our trees. 

phone pics from the week

 These two had been driving me absolutely crazy and just when I thought I was going to lose it I found them like this. They sat and read together for about 30 minutes, it was heaven! 

 These 4 crazies wanted to bake. I thought that might be a bit much since dinner time was only about an hour away. So I gave them a cup of rice, a cup of raisins, and a cup of marshmallows and a bunch of utensils and told them to go to town. They mixed it all with water and had a blast "baking" until Carson reached up and pulled the bowl over...it was awesome while it lasted though! 

 Carson went and got some books and brought them to Kevin to read. It was really cute, he loves his Uncle Kev!

 Lauren lined up all the dolls in her room today. These are only the dolls in her room, not the ones that are down stairs or the ones in the play room. And guess what she wants for her birthday? A new doll of course. 

She asked me to curl her hair this morning so we curled it all up. Her hair is just like mine and doesn't really hold a curl but she did look pretty darn cute with her curls while they lasted.