Easter Weekend Fun

 Easter weekend!
We enjoyed friends, egg-dyeing and egg hunting at Juliana and Daryl's house on Saturday afternoon.

 The girls had a great time, and I enjoyed NOT dyeing eggs at my own home! Thanks, Juliana!

 Later that evening, we attended an Easter service at our church. Our church has grown so big, they offer a number of "pre-Easter" Easter options, and we like the idea of going when it isn't quite so crowded.

This year, they had a camel for the children to check out. That night, Violet in her bedtime prayers said, "Thank you that we could see the camel that Jesus rode on." Apparently she was confused with the prior week's Palm Sunday story with Jesus on the donkey.  Or she was joking. She does like to joke.

On Sunday, the girls enjoyed opening Easter gifts from Nan and Pop, and later from Grandma and Grandpa.

We hosted Easter dinner, and Violet and Cora helped Stacey make strawberry biscuits (like scones). They were delicious with whipped cream.












Melanie also did some cooking with the girls, and we all pitched in for dinner. We had ham, sprouts, carrots, roast potatoes and lemon meringue pie.

Then, Grandma and Uncle Nick hid Easter eggs, and the girls hunted for them. It was a very nice Easter for all of us.

Dodger Blue

 Here are our Dodger girls!

We went to Friday night's game, decked out in the finest of blue, with my family as our birthday present to Grandpa.
















Violet had gone to the stadium with me last month to buy the tickets, and she was excited to go back.

Cora, on the other hand, assumed it would be boring and didn't want to leave her after-school playdate at Sophia's house.







But, thankfully, she changed her mood around, and ended up making a very sweet sign to wave on our drive in.

Violet had a ball cheering for the Dodgers, loudly, with feeling...

 We all enjoyed ourselves - cheering, sharing hot dogs, malts, nachos, beer, a bit of wine, and a margarita. Hey, when you only go to a game once every three years, you should treat yourself!

Yes, sad to say, this was our first game since 2010, when Cora was 3 and Violet still counted as a newborn.

 

 When the low-scoring game failed to hold her interest, Cora occupied herself with her doodle book and a Magic Faraway Tree book. For my American readers, the Magic Faraway Tree books are a well-loved children's series in Britain, one that Stacey grew up on. Cora loves them, and we love seeing her read more grownup chapter books on her own.

 This was Nick's first Dodger game; unfortunately, it ended up as a loss for the home team. But we all enjoyed the night out, and the sparkly night skyline of downtown Los Angeles.

We all were also very impressed with the improvements made to iconic Dodger Stadium over the past year by the new ownership group. Everything was cleaner, security was obviously present, and there were neat interactive elements outside the gates.

I certainly hope we make it back to another game before another three years go by!

Spring Break tidbits

 Our Spring Break went by rather uneventfully the second week. Except for the Easter Egg hunt, our daily highlights included things like having lunch with friends, going to Target, playing with Legos, and cleaning out Cora's room.

As a last hurrah, we picked Stace up from work early Friday afternoon and headed to the beach.

The girls had fun exploring the tiny sea creatures in the rocks, including a hermit crab that Violet preferred to call a "Kermit" crab.

 Legos are the favorite toy of the moment for both girls. They are having a great time building, rebuilding, and pretending.

We actually had a couple of cloudy, cool days during our break, in addition to some pretty warm beach/pool days.
In this photo, Violet is showing Spencer the pea-sized hail bouncing off the patio.

And now, we are back to the school routine; two more months until summer for Cora. We are all enjoying her first-grade experience, and we're in no hurry to see it end.

A Family Day in Riverside

 We went out to Riverside after Violet's soccer class Saturday, to visit my cousin Elizabeth and her husband Jerry. We hadn't visited them in over two years, so it was definitely overdue.

After lunch and a board game, we relaxed in the back yard on the lovely hammock.

 Then we headed to the botanical gardens at the University of Riverside. Violet seized the camera and happily snapped away, including this photo.

Elizabeth took this pretty shot of Cora Rose in the roses. Cora loves Elizabeth, and was so excited about spending time with her. Maybe it has something to do with Cora being their flower girl when she was a toddler? Saying that, Violet was pretty excited to see them, too!

 Later, Cora led the way as we took Riley on a walk through a natural area just beyond their neighborhood. It was a nice little hike, with beautiful views.

 For dinner, we went to a Mexican restaurant with interesting artwork all over the patios. The bicycle here had bottle caps covering the frame, individually screwed in.

These huge figures were created from chicken wire forms filled with oyster shells.

We had a great time together, and we were really glad we made the trip.

Easter Egg Hunt

 After a fun weekend, Cora and I started our second Spring Break week off right - in the dentist's office for fillings!

It was Cora's first experience with a cavity; thankfully it was so small that Dr. Mindel didn't even need to numb her. She handled it like a champ, much better than I was expecting. In fact, I was so proud of her, we went ice-skating Monday evening as a reward.

The Ice Station is offering cheap Monday night skating sessions, with the music from Frozen playing in the rink. This week, Elsa and Anna came to greet the children. The line to see them was long, as you can imagine, so Cora and I bypassed it to get on the ice.

The camera was running out of battery, so we don't have a shot of Cora skating, but really, we should have brought the camcorder. She was amazing! This time around, she was skating as fast as me, and if the rink had been less crowded, we could have had some racing fun.

 On Tuesday, our Mom2Mom group held its annual Easter Egg Hunt. We had a great turnout, and the children of course enjoyed it.

Cora, being the big 7-year-old, wants us to have another hunt at home, and hide the eggs in hard places. Finding them lying on the grass was too easy for her, she said.

After the hunt, we stayed and played and chatted with our friends for another couple of hours. Love the lazy days of spring!

New treats

 When we went to Cora's school's variety show, the bake sale featured homemade marshmallows, in three flavors. We enjoyed them, and since then, Cora has been asking to make her own. She tried to herself - mixing flour, powdered sugar and water - but that didn't work very well.

So, I went online and found a variety of recipes to choose from. We bought and borrowed the necessary tools and ingredients, and on Saturday, the marshmallow-making began.

After boiling the syrup mixture for more than 10 minutes, we added it to the gelatin and beat it for another 15 minutes or so. Then, we added blue food coloring - Cora's choice - and poured it into pans to harden over several hours.

 Next, we cut the sweet treats with a well-oiled pizza cutter, and dipped them in powdered sugar to cease their stickiness.

I guess I should have tried harder to get a good "foodie blog" photo of the finished product in their marshmallowy goodness. But they were yummy!

 We made enough to bring a tub to Juliana and Daryl's house Saturday evening. It was a gorgeous night, and the girls had a ball playing in the back yard and in the house.

 They then watched a new movie, while the grownups ate like royalty.

On Sunday, we worked on some projects during the day, and in the evening took a walk around Bridgeport. No ducklings yet, but we did get chased by Canada geese. Later Violet found some coots to feed. She wasn't scared, which marks a change. For a long time, she would cry when the ducks came near her stroller.

Friday Fun

 Friday was a full, fun day for us. It started with us waking up with Sophia at our house, so the girls had a nice time playing in the morning.

For lunch, we went to our friend Patrice's house. Here, Cora is digging and Emily is building a mound of dirt, representing a volcano.

Patrice then combined baking soda and vinegar in a cup, to make the volcano "explode." Her son Charlie, Violet's friend, is a lover of all things scientific.

 We then headed over to My Gym, a fun-and-fitness center whose owner generously arranged a fundraiser for our Mom2Mom group. We had a 45-minute play session, run by two My Gym employees, and our group was able to keep all the profits.

Violet and Cora had a great time, and it was good to make a bit of money for our group, to help cover the cost of our childcare workers during our meetings.

Then, several of us went to dinner together, completing our Friday of Fun.

Tuesday, play day

On Tuesday, we had hopes of going to the zoo with friends, but they had an ill child.

Left with a free day, the girls worked together to hitch up carriages to their Zhu Zhu pets. Violet used a pumpkin carriage, with her Ikea stuffed animal rat inside.

Cora used a different carriage for Owletta, who is her "favorite animal of the week." She tied two pets together to get enough pull-power, since Owletta is heavier. She also has made a Lego wagon for Owletta, which she pulls around on a yarn string.

Later on Tuesday, after some housecleaning, we went to Scooter's Jungle with Toni, Chris and David. The kids had a great time, running around for two hours, until they were tired and sweaty. Violet was asleep within minutes after we got in the car.

Soccer and Spring Break

And, at the age of almost four, Violet has restarted her soccer career.

She's taking part in the 3 1/2-year-old to 5-year-old Kidz Love Soccer class on Saturday mornings. When she was 2, we had her in the parent-child class, and her attention span wasn't great.

But in recent weeks, she said she would like to play soccer, too. In her first class, she did just fine, dribbling the ball back and forth between the colored cones at the edges of the field.

Cora is on her two-week Spring Break from school. On Monday, after we took Violet to class, she and I ran a couple of errands.

She asked if we could get a nice snack as a treat together, and a pair of Del Taco tacos fulfilled her request. Not exactly what I would have picked at 9:45 a.m., but it was her choice.

Later on Monday, we played at the park with Cora's classmate Cami, and her sister Melanie, who is the same age as Violet. The girls got along very well, with their imaginations on full-force.

The pile of wood strips in the foreground, on the left side, was a bed, and the yellow leaves were the pillow. Each girl had a bed, and a large rock was their table, in this house-in-the-bushes.

Here is Violet's favorite part of Cora's mornings off of school. Most mornings, the girls will cuddle up (or snuggle, as Violet puts it) and Cora will read aloud. Cora's reading has taken off. She loves sneaking in a few pages in the mornings after she gets ready for school, or at night after lights-out.