Easter weekend with the Fortneys

We started off Saturday morning with Leo's first baseball game of the season.  

He struggled batting a little but it turns out his glasses prescription is pretty off so maybe he'll have better success once the new glasses arrive.  

Serafina attended a Pajamas and Pancakes party.  I just dropped her off so I could get back to the game, but a friend took these pictures for me.  

 In the afternoon, my cousin Monica and her husband Dan came over.  They drove up Friday with their two kids.  Serafina immediately got to hold the baby.

 Anthony enjoyed an ice cream snack when he arrived.

 Then it was time to go outside and dye some eggs.  I gave Anthony this old tie dyed shirt of Leo's to wear to protect his own clothes and he loved it.  He wore it the rest of the day.

 Inside they got to color some oversized plastic eggs.

 Here's Leo's creepy creation.

 We encouraged Monica and Dan to take a evening to themselves while we babysat.  Of course as soon as they left, Tom went to the store to shop for Easter dinner.  My mom had already left so I was alone with four kids for a while.

Thankfully the big ones can be helpful when they feel like it.

We had a super fun evening with the kids.  Anthony was a fan of the dancing bunny that makes me crazy.  It made it's way into his backpack to go home with him.   

Here they are grooving out past bedtime.  

This morning my kids woke up a bit earlier than I would have liked, but they were excited about their Easter baskets.  We made them eat some healthy breakfast before busting into the candy.  

The Easter Bunny left some plastic eggs filled with candy but also left instructions to have the grown ups hide the eggs once the little kids arrived.  

Gotta take some Easter pictures on the lawn.  

Serafina's Easter dress was my first communion dress over thirty years ago.  I'm at least two years older than Serafina in that picture and the dress fits the same.  That pretty flower crown I'm wearing was so painful, which lead my family to nickname it the "crown of thorns".  And people wonder why I tend to make inappropriate comments.  

Nana came over for a while and took the kids to the park.  I stopped by on my way home from a run.

The Fortneys came over in the afternoon and we headed outside to hunt eggs.  

Anthony was in to it.

Everyone was having fun.

I forced them to take this picture before I would let them eat any of the candy out of the eggs.  

Everyone gathering for a big Easter dinner of pasta and meatballs, of course.

We had a great time with them this holiday weekend.

Skiing with friends

We had a fun weekend with our friends, the Matinpours.  We went up with them last year around this time and the conditions were dramatically different.  This year there was plenty of snow.  

Here's my gang ready to go back out after lunch.  

The dads and kids before heading to the lifts.

Serafina skied with Bobby and his two kids.  Leo went with his dad and unfortunately had a scary accident.  After falling on a run, he slid down the steep slope about 150 feet and crashed into a tree. Thankfully he was fine with just some scrapes on his face.  His goggles and helmet protected him.  Poor Tom watched the whole thing happened and was extremely shook up.  They ended their day after that, but it took some time for Tom to calm down afterward.  Leo was a trooper and didn't hesitate to head out the next day.  I'm making a very conscious choice not to think how bad it could have been.

That evening we had dinner in downtown Truckee.  I love Truckee.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day

The kids dressed in green but didn't make any goofy leprechaun hats.  

Second grade art museum field trip

Yesterday, two second grade classes went on a field trip to the San Jose Museum of Art.  I would have posted pictures last night but a headache that had been brewing for a few days turned in to a full-blown migraine last night.  I'm not saying it's because of the field trip, but I'm sure it didn't help. 

Anyway, I was in charge of just four kids.  But they were an interesting bunch.  Here's (left to right) Sadie, Leo, Erea and Trey.  

Sadie and Leo were in kindergarten together.  

 Leo was very excited to ride the bus with me.

 We arrived at the museum before it opened and had lunch across the street at a park.  It was 10:45, a bit early for lunch.
We've visited this museum before for Day of the Dead.

 We had to stay with a docent for the first half of the visit.  Here he is explaining part of an exhibit about the U.S./Mexico boarder.

 The kids did a good job listening and asking questions.

 They also didn't touch anything which I'm sure was tempting while they checked out sculptures made from found objects at the boarder.

 The second half of the trip they made their own art.

 They created three-dimensional work.  Leo made a robot in Hawaii with a volcano and a palm tree.  He was very proud of his work.

 Here's the whole class before we loaded the bus back to school.

Start of Baseball Season

Leo started the baseball season but hasn't had many practices due to rain.  In fact, the opening ceremonies had to be canceled this Saturday due to wet weather.  The league did manage to get all the team pictures taken on Saturday morning, but it was freezing out.  Here's Leo before lining up for pictures.  Yep, he's a Yankee this season.  He took the jacket off right before the picture.  

Ladies who lunch

The kids have today and tomorrow off from school because the district is holding some teacher training.  Leo spent time with Nana today and Serafina had a playdate with her friend Gianna.  After, we went to lunch with Gianna and her mom.   

 Serafina had on quite the outfit for her lunch date.