Mother's Day Tea at Preschool

My "Caleb flower" pot sits on my bathroom counter now. Don't you just love the darling crafts kids make as presents?

Jodi Helms is Caleb's amazing preschool teacher

My little man and I...thank you for my lovely paper corsage!

Katie's First Steps

Katelyn took her first steps at my parents while we were gone on our trip (nice timing huh?!). Oh well, at least Grandma captured them on her camera...

Katelyn at the Four Seasons Corona

While Jonas and I were at the Maui Four Seasons, Katie stayed at my parents home in Corona...what I refer to as the "Four Seasons " for babies. Mom had fun spoiling her with the warm washcloth clean-up after meals, perfectly prepared and heated meals, and oodles of love and attention.

Look at these sweet pictures Grandma Nancy took...isn't her smile too precious?

And who did she want when Grandma brought her home?...Daddy! She kept wanting him to hold her. Very cute. But I was getting a little impatient:).

Adventures in Encinitas

There is a great park just up from Moonlight Beach on Encinitas Blvd. where Jonas was able to join us after work, the same day as our field trip. A boy had brought his pet bird and let us hold it for a long time. The bird was such a crack up!

This was quite a day for us in Encinitas...when we were still on Moonlight Beach, a stranded sea lion was just down the shore a ways. Since my sister, Alaina, is an Animal Care Specialist at Sea World, and has assisted with many a beach rescue, I gave her a call. Unfortunately, it was her day off, but otherwise she may have been the one to come up and get the sea lion back to the rehab area of Sea World. I've been back there with the kids...it's a section of the park that the "general" population doesn't get to see so I always think I'm big stuff when we're back there. As Jane Austen would say, it's most agreeable having such "connections". But I digress...

Anyway, another pair from Sea World came and after seeing what they have to do to lasso up one of these creatures, I definitely would pay money to see my sister do it...Alaina said it was an adult female who was pregnant. The baby didn't make it, which is sad but typical, however, the mother is recovering.

The best part of the "field trip" turned out to be everything that happened after we left the butterfly place!!

Moonlight Beach

The K-2nd graders ate pizza here after the butterfly exhibit before heading home, but we stayed at Moonlight for the rest of the afternoon. Here is Emma with her dear friend, Lauren, who is a 1st grader at the Innovation Centre.

Mr. Muscles just minutes before colliding with another boy on the playground. Caleb had the largest goose egg on his forehead afterwards...poor guy, I felt so bad for him. He was running around the beach an hour later though :).

This was our "pre-summer" day Tracy...it was a perfectly warm, sunny day and it really was the summer kick-off for us. Joey Snow joined us with her boys, since Jakob is now at the Innovation Centre as well (yeah!), and my mom kindly watched Katelyn for the day so we could enjoy ourselves in Encinitas.

I love this place...We've camped at nearby San Elijo beach every summer since I was about 11 and it's just the classic Southern Calif. surf town. I'll definitely be bringing the kids back to Moonlight Beach this summer.

Butterfly Field Trip

Emma's wonderful teacher, Ms. Amy, and classmates at the Monarch Butterfly Program near Encinitas.

The kids used watermelon slices to attract the butterflies...

From here we headed down the street to Moonlight Beach...

Katelyn & Dani

This picture is just so sweet, I wanted to post it. Dani shares Emma's love for animals and is a natural with babies. I'm glad you liked the spaghetti Dani:)!