Easter video

Here is one of my favorites of many great videos from Ella's Easter program.

Excuse me, I have sand on my feet.

Liam does not enjoy the sensation of sand between his toes. He stands there, with lifted foot and a look of great consternation, waiting for someone to clean it off. We're hoping to rid him of this behavior before the end of the summer...

A trip to Nantucket

For spring long weekend, we headed off to the vacation house of some good friends on Nantucket. It was quite an adventure, with four adults, four children and three dogs, and a wonderful experience. Ella and her best friend, Casey, had lots of good playtime, especially on the beach. Though it was about 50 degrees out and windy, these two girls spent two days playing on the beach and, of course, in the chilly water. As the adults wore jeans and fleece, the three-year-olds preferred different attire - i.e. none. It was quite a show!

A little man and his dad

Liam can be extremely serious and reserved in public, but at home, he is a little jokester and a total rascal. He'll head towards the dog's water dish and turn halfway around with a coy little smile, just daring us to come and grab him. What a character!!

New activities

Ella has recently start both gymnastics and soccer and not only is she enjoying them, I am absolutely reveling in the sight of her participating in an activity, following instructions, being part of a group - all within my view. As I told my parents the other day, this is perfect therapy for a mother of a clingy child.

Sweet Ellabelle

She has really been changing and growing lately. It is such a pleasure to hear her making connections and feeling confident with her understanding of the world. It's not that we don't have our dark moments still, but there is so much sunshine coming through.

Swinging together

How sweet is this?

Outside, finally!

It felt like a VERY long winter, so we have really enjoyed every nice day we've had this spring. Liam often just stands by the door waiting for us to open it and then almost hyperventilates when we do. The funny thing is, as much as he loves being outside, he hates having dirt on his feet. And the same holds true for sand... More on that soon.

Cottage cheese

This boy loves it. I think that Ella went through this phase as well at one point and it faded away, sadly. He just can't get enough of it sometimes and it always ends up all over his face!!

Easter!

Ella loves Easter. It's official. She really enjoyed her Easter show at preschool and sang/mimicked EVERY song this time - and loved showing off her belly to the crowd. I wish that videos would upload to this site, because we have some gems. I will try again at some point and see if I can get it to work. She also really enjoyed our second annual Easter Treasure Hunt. You can see the excitement in her face as her Gop reads the next clue.

Alfalfa and Lloyd Christmas

In the bath these days, Ella loves to pour water on Liam's head and gets really excited when we wash his hair, because then she gets to sculpt it. He doesn't seem to mind. Nor did he seem phased by his first barber-shop haircut, which gave him a wonderful Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carey's role from Dumb and Dumber) look. He pulled it off well.

Half-marathon in NYC

My good friend, colleague and running partner, Katie, and I decided in January to sign up for a half-marathon race in Central Park on April 3rd. We trained all winter, which most often involved the indoor track, because of the incredible snow, and then had a great race on a beautiful day. The whole family was there to support and give great high-fives and "Go, Momma"s.

Tasting art

When Liam decides to participate in the art process, he inevitably ends up using all senses. We think he's just very advanced.

Arts and crafts

We've been doing lots of arts projects lately during Liam's naps - and from time to time, even the little guy will join in... I always have to have the camera ready to capture Ella's drawings just in case she decides to cover them in scribbles. Here are two drawings that she has done of Liam, her favorite subject by far. He is almost always most easily recognized by the line of drool running down his chin.

Pros and cons

In coming back to CT, we were all thrilled to see Bianca again, but soooo sad to take our winter coats back out... It was nice to get home after some pretty long travel and now that spring has come to the Northeast, we're enjoying a lot more outdoor play time.

Happy, mad, happy, mad

After getting her super-cheesy smiley face (to show off her blue mouth from the cake icing she had just eaten), we asked Ella if she could give us a mad face. And she sure could.

Holy Sandy!

When at the beach, Ella has no fear of covering her entire body with sand. She just loves rolling around in it and then running through the waves. She looks pretty happy at this black sand beach.

Family

Here is a shot of our entire group, as well as some shots of Grandma with Liam and Ella with her aunt Cynthia. So much good play time at the beach!!

The beach

It was such a treat to spend some time on a warm beach again. Ella in particular enjoyed it. This was an incredible beach down a 2+ mile "unimproved" road. I don't think that our rental car was supposed to go down that road, but it was worth it...

Poppa's biggest fan

Liam loved hanging out with Poppa and checking out birds, bugs, trees, wind, etc. in his arms. Here are the two buds together.

Pool time!

There was almost always someone in the pool at our rental house. Though it wasn't always warm, the kids took full advantage and impressed us all! Ella and her cousin Hero were probably the most enthusiastic about the pool, but Liam had his moments as well - especially in his Poppa's arms. Those two had some real bonding time over the two weeks we were together.