Easter

Every year the Pegasus Club organizes a big Easter morning for all the kids.  We celebrated on Saturday since we work Sunday-Thursday. 

They organized a big bouncy castle, lots of sugary treats for the kids and, of course, Easter egg hunting.  Tylor loves to explore and is very content to entertain himself. 

This is great because I can sit him somewhere - get Jaydon settled into what hes doing and come back to Tylor who is still exactly where i left him. 

The sitting and not yet mobile stage is great.  Tylor had fun with some of the others babies, here he is sharing his toys with Hallie. 

Jaydon discovered donut holes and loved them.  I think he probably had about 5 that morning because every time he saw that I was distracted he'd grab another and could fit it in mouth before I could intervene. 

This year Jaydon was in the older group of egg finders which meant he was the youngest of the kids going out with his group. 

Fortunately he's quite content to just find a few eggs and get a couple pieces of candy - some of the older kids were very conniving and quickly figured out that the adults were helping the younger kids so they would follow behind us and snatch up an egg when we spotted it and tried to show it to Jaydon (and the other 3 year olds) to get. 

Tylor had a great time with the plastic eggs, stacking them, opening them, throwing them - we definitely got our money worth from them. 

This is the best  picture I could get of the boys - Jaydon just wouldn't sit still.  Oh yeah, now I remember - he was on full sugar hyper mode. 

After the donut holes they brought out the cupcakes (which was after finding all the candy in the eggs). 

The morning ended quickly when the sugar burned out the boys had fun while it lasted.  But that wasn' the end of Easter for Jaydon. 

At daycare on Sunday he got to hunt for more eggs with all his class mates and made cute little Easter baskets to put them in.  Happy Easter.

Water Fun

It's starting to get hot enough that activities outside are much better if they involve water. 

We filled up the water table and invited our neighbor Mattia over to play.  The boys had a great time. 

Tylor decided that sitting in the table was much easier - that way he doesn't have to keep track of standing, splashing, and playing all at the same time.  And we opted to leave his jammies on rather then break out the sunscreen.

He kept forgetting to hold on to the side of the table and falling over which made him really frustrated. 

Once we sat him inside he was happy as clam - and able to even splash the big boys back a little too. 

I'm pretty sure I'm telling Jaydon how mommy is not part of the splashing game - especially when she has a camera..

Decorating Easter Eggs

Jaydon is just at the right age that is perfect for an easter egg decorating project.  We invited over his good buddy Jacob, laid out the newspapers, got everyone in cruddy clothes and began the fun. 

Steve had picked up a few egg decorating kits in the US when he was there in Feb (you got to plan ahead for these things).  The first one we tried was essentially 5 colored crayons and a pencil sharpener. 

The idea was to shave the crayons with the sharpener then sprinkle it over freshly boiled eggs that were still hot. 

The wax then melted over the eggs.  It was a little tricky to start off and everyone had slightly burned finger tips (especially the parents) but I think the eggs turned out pretty cute. 

The next set Steve bought was a special marbling set.  It was essentially the same as what you're used too, color dye tablets that you add to vinegar but for this you also added oil. 

So what's the one thing easter eggs dyeing needs to make it even more messy - oil!  We weren't very good at the marbling but had a few turn out nicely. 

In the end we settled for simply just letting the eggs sit in the cups until they were a nice color. 

Tylor wasn't allowed to play along on this activity so Steve had the job of keeping him entertained while the big boys had all the fun. 

Fast Cars

Another weekend and the boys are ready for some fun.  We went to one of the play areas at the mall. 

Jaydon has finally figured out that these contraptions actually move if your cheapskate mom puts money in them.  For 3 years I had him convinced they were just to sit in a pretend. 

I guess that's one good thing about being number 2 - the parents can't pull those tricks on you.  The boys were too cute in this car and it had 2 steering wheels which made everyone happy.  Jaydon also has a way of latching on to certain songs he hears on our i-pods.  The latest is Fast Cars by Tracey Chapman which he listens too over and over again - here's the boys having some fun dancing to it. 

The boys were also due for a hair cut,

Tylor has decided that he HATES the haircut place.  I think it's mainly the hair dryers but he has now associated the whole place with them. 

These are the only shots I got because Tylor screamed the whole time...

Busy Birthday Weekend

It wasn't really planned this way but my birthday weekend ended up being very busy.  We started off that morning heading out to the beach with the Pegasus Club. 

They got a great deal on entrance fee for the Katara beach which has lots of fun activities for the kids. 

The timing was right during Tylors morning nap so I found myself a nice lounge chair, fed Tylor and settled in for a nap on the beach with him. 

Steve took Jaydon out to the floating kids place and had fun playing with all the other kids who came along too. 

When Tylor woke up he wasn't so sure about this being outside and not napping in his bed but soon decided it might be fun anyway. 

Jaydon and Steve discovered some tiny hermit crabs in the not very clear water and spent the rest of the morning catching and losing, I mean releasing them. 

We all headed home for an afternoon nap and got up to join another get together in the compound.  March is a pretty popular month for birthdays and our friends Paul and Patrick decided to have a shrimp boil to celebrate theirs.  It just so happened the date they picked was my birthday so I told them we'd come along and I'd bring cupcakes. 

It was a much better idea then getting all dressed up, dumping the kids with the nanny, and spending too much money on food at a fancy hotel. 

Instead we got messy, played with sparklers and had fun with friends. 

Birthday weekend wasn't over yet, the next day the boys had a birthday party to attend. 

Jaydon played on the bouncy castle and took his turn at the pinata. 

It was a princess rainbow party for Abby and Gabby and the moms are really into cake decorating (even took some classes for it) so the cakes were quite beautiful. 

Tylor had fun watching all the commotion and everyone slept well that night - even with all the extra sugar they had eaten.

A Mess

Tylor is quite a little character and has learned that being number 2 means you sometimes need to try new ways to get attention - or he's just a silly little baby.  Either way were sitting down one night at dinner and looked over to see Tylor with his bread on his head. 

We all cracked up and he LOVED the reaction and continued to do it for the rest of the meal. 

Well, you have to be careful what you start, from that night on every meal he would select something to put on his head to get a laugh until we all had to make the effort to completely ignore our little comedian. 

Jaydon has also tried to be very helpful with feeding Tylor, it's a great way to get Tylor to eat but can sometimes be just as messy as letting Tylor dig in himself. 

OK, maybe not quite THAT messy...