Before and After

(okay, the after was actually taken on Sunday morning... but I have lots of other pictures for Sunday!)

Friday, May 11

(Happy Birthday to my big bro today!!)















I love this pillow!! My friend Michele ordered a pillow from me for her mom for Mother's Day. She wanted it to be girlie and to have a butterfly. I'm very pleased with how it turned out if I may say so myself ;)

A typical morning at the bus stop

A day with lots of activities...

Our friend stayed with us for a couple nights while he recovered from knee surgery. E and I brought him back to work at the UW, such a pretty day (again)!















After a bike riding/park playdate we had some lemonaid and head-sized cookies with our buddies.















A decided she wanted her ears pierced again! About two years ago she had them done but they never healed so we let them close. We are trying it with a different metal this time, hopefully it'll work! It was nice that the ladies could double up and get it done in one shot...















The little team of distractions for A... My friend Tara has two boys so it was nice for her to get to experience a girlie rite of passage like getting ears pierced :)















Okay, so you can barely see the earrings in this picture, but trust me--they look so pretty! She's thrilled.

Tuesday, May 8

E and his sweet little friend from school, they are quite the little pair!

Monday, May 7

Our adorable 1.5 year old neighbor, Agum. A beautiful, warm spring day means the yellow "SLOW, Children playing" signs go up...

13 Miles!!

Our 3 Day team has done three 10 mile walks so we decided that today we needed to kick it up a notch... 13 miles, baby. Yowza! In fact, the pedometer in this photo says 13.02, might as well give us all the credit we are due :)

Saturday, May 5

We went to a church retreat today, the grounds were so lovely. A had fun climbing this tree (although a few minutes later she climbed over to another branch and got stuck...)

Roundup and ANOTHER night out

Today was kindergarten roundup--when incoming kindergarteners and their parents get to meet the teachers and see the school. We already did this two years ago with A but it was fun to go again and this time I gave the "join the PTA" presentation to all the parents. E was very excited. At the end we all got to go on a practice bus ride. Don't you love daddy and son's matching hair-dos??














ANOTHER night out! Some of us neighborhood girlfriends went out for an evening at the symphony.

Thursday, May 3

This is how I spend my Thursday evenings once or twice a month--in board meetings. Either for my own neighborhood or else (as in this photo) for the Master Association which is the board for our entire development of 800+ homes. Good times.

You can't really tell very well in this picture, but I'm wearing a real lei! Another board member brought it back for me from Hawaii, what a cool gift. It smells so amazing. I've never had a real lei before :)

Hail and Sushi

We had a few minutes of some serious hail this afternoon. E said "Look! It's raining dogs and cats!!"















AT and I had date night this evening, we went to a new Kai-Ten Sushi (revolving sushi) place near us. This is the first time we've gone to a revolving sushi place in the US, we used to go often when we lived in Japan. It brought back lots of good memories!

Tuesday, May 1

A's Brownie troop put on a spring tea for their families. We first went to E's t-ball game then headed over to enjoy the little sandwiches, scones, fruit, punch and, of course, tea that the troop had prepared.

Monday, April 30

I've posted several pics of E looking all precious while sound asleep, here's one of A. I do so love a sleeping child!

The Wild Things

A close Nigerian friend of mine who lives in Denmark was telling a friend of hers about E's cool room so she asked me to send pics. Aha, that made today's blog pictures an easy project! Two of the walls in his room are covered with this mural from Where the Wild Things Are. I helped our old neighbor with this project a few months after we moved here.

Saturday, April 28th

Two of my 3 Day Walk teammates came over to make handmade thank you cards to send to people who donate to our 3 Day team. Lots-o-pink!!

Mama's night out on the town...

I went out for a fun evening with some friends from the neighborhood...















One of my friends' brother is the #1 fan for this band B Side Players in San Diego (home base for the band). Since they were coming to Seattle we had to go check them out and we were not disappointed. They have a really awesome mix of Latin and Reggae, really excellent music. Our only complaint was that they didn't start playing til 11pm! We're too old for such late nights like that... But it was worth the wait for sure.















Seattle groupies...

Thursday, April 26

With E in t-ball, AT has been going out more often with the kids to play catch. A is actually getting really quite good at throwing and catching!! I guess now we'll need to sign her up for t-ball/baseball...

Da Boys

E hanging out with his buddies, E-Dawg and K-Dawg (as their mom affectionately calls them :). E has been digging the mohawk, or "fauxhawk", look lately.

More t-ball

E had a bit of a fan club at his t-ball game! Thankfully it quit sprinkling about one minute after this picture.














I love this picture of Coach Judy giving E a little reminder push to run to 2nd.















E was so excited, he got to spend an inning as the first baseman which meant he got to handle the ball every single time! The kids are taught to throw the ball to first base every time and then the first base kid throws to the catcher.

Monday, April 23

I facilitated the order for some new playground equipment for our development and the shipment finally arrived! My girlfriend was "man" enough to help the delivery guy, they didn't need my help so I documented the occasion and cheered them on.




















2 1/2 years old + a warm(ish) spring day = time to potty train!! (no, this isn't my kid! He's one of my "nephews" in the neighborhood... I finished this whole potty training business with my kids 2 1/2 years ago :)