Mia time

Yesterday my mom came out on the train and we enjoyed the day together.  Gosh, we love when we get to be together!  As far as my kids are concerned, she is Disneyland incarnate...

No matter what we do, we have so much fun.

So we headed to Ikea to tackle some little projects and getting things that we have needed.

We had breakfast there:

 

And of course we had to end the trip with some ice cream: 

"Mom, let's take a picture with silly faces." How about I eat my ice cream and you make a silly face. That's a really good idea!"

This was as "silly as I could muster...

The best part of being with my mom is that we just get to BE together:

We are already planning our next visit next week...  We just can't get enough!
We love you Mia!

Before and After: our back patio

We were so excited when we saw that the house had a covered patio.  We have never had one before and we were excited to capitalize on the outdoor space.

Before:

(The previous owner said she never really used it and it had become a storage spot for her)

After:

the view from the kitchen:

And the view of the little miss saying hello:

Our yard in the front and the back has a long way to go and we have some big long term plans for it, but in the mean time, we are so excited to have a covered patio,with easy access to the kitchen, that allows us to have some fun meals and playtime outside!

a new photographer in our family

We had the camera out for some projects and Ryder decided he wanted to take a few shots during dinner:

 "Daddy, make a scary face!"

Oh the shenanigans with little people!

Our little man is hooked on using the camera.  We can't wait to see what he sees and wants to capture  with film...

productive pinning: feeding the family

For the last month or so, I had not been very good at cooking or meal planning.  Once we were settled, I was so excited to pull out some Pinterest recipes that I had wanted to try and get back into the groove of grocery shopping for the week and planning meals.

It feels really good to be getting into our routine again and having the kids help me.

It's also been fun to find some new favorites too!

Doctor's visits a.k.a. the circus has arrived...

On April 9, we had to do Ryder's 4 year old appointment and Eden had developed a rash that I wanted looked at, so off to the pediatrician's office we went.

Good God...

I'm going to spare you from the photo of the kiddos running around in their undies, spinning on the doctor's stool, pulling things out from the cupboards and wanting to play with the gloves and tongue depressors.  (I got a photo to show Kit a glimmer of the chaos.) 

Then they got to pick a toy from the treasure box...

Ryder chose these glasses:

And he didn't want to take them off...

 ...until they fell off when he fell asleep.

Our doctor's office is awesome, but I know that they sighed a big sigh of relief when we left...♥ 

All that to say, we are officially ready for preschool!

A little Easter recap...

Hi there! We are back.  It was really nice to unplug this last week and we had a very fun, very FULL easter weekend.  I think we are still catching up!

Here were some little highlights of our family time:

Holy week lent itself to some very fun family discussions at dinner time:

 Kit made some amazing dinners:

Ryder has been asking more and more questions about Jesus and it has led to some really precious conversations about God's love.  Easter is such an incredible redemption story!

We are also loving the Jesus Action Bible.  A current favorite:

Good friday The kids had runny noses so we weren't able to go to church, but Kit said there were such cool moments as a church family of small group time and connection:

Saturday we had a birthday party for my cousin's little girl, and my mom, dad, and niece came to hang for the day.  We got to practice our Easter egg hunting skills and we got to all have dinner together:

( I wish that I had gotten more photos.  The kids had so much fun!)

Easter morning was spent at the Verizon amphitheater:

 We had the PRIVILEGE to help baptize people at the end of service.  I was welled up the ENTIRE time...  what an honor it was!

Then we headed home to spend Easter with Kit's family!

The whole family was able to be together.

it was so fun!

We died eggs, had an easter egg hunt, ate lots of food, took lots of pictures, and celebrated Kit's mom's birthday:

It was such a fun day of being all together!

On Monday, after all the festivities, we headed with Kit's parents to a quiet beach in Laguna.  It's 20 minutes from our house and we and so much fun exploring tide pools and watching Ryder running in the waves and watching Eden eat a ton of snacks and sand.

 We saw lots of sea anemones, a small star fish, sea urchins, tiny fish and lots of sea snails and crabs.

Ryder was in heaven!

It was a weekend filled with family and lots of memories...

We are so thankful!