a day for the Mothers

We took a quick trip to Monterey for the weekend with Eddy's family, to celebrate life, and being a family, oh yea and Mother's Day.  It was a great little getaway, despite some clouds and chilly temps for the majority of our time there.  The sun peeked out at the end, which helped remind us really how beautiful it is down there.  

1st Stop: the Dennis the Menace Park

The rest of our first day down there was filled with swimming at the hotel pool, the excitement of running between rooms in our hotel, and free hotel happy hour snacks.  Then a dinner out, and the kids were exhausted.
The next day, Mother's Day, I was lucky enough to take a long run by myself along the coast -- with plenty of seal sightings.  A gorgeous morning!  That was followed by brunch with the whole family, and a few hours down in Carmel at one of the best beaches ever.  The sun did come out, and Ryan and Alexandra both managed to get soaked to the bone, so don't let our cold weather clothes fool you -- it wasn't miserable out there!

Nonni sure did a great job raising these 3 fine kids! 

After our time at the beach, we hit the road to head home.  This little lady, fell asleep eating lunch at a restaurant (which she has never done, even as a baby), slept on my lap for 20 mins, but then woke up the minute we hit the road.  And she happily played with her animals the entire 2 1/2 hour drive home.

We stopped at my parents house for a Mother's Day dinner with my mama, and although it was short and sweet (and we left them yet again with a pile of dishes to clean up) it was great to see them and celebrate my awesome mama as well.  We are so lucky to have such fantastic moms, who have shown us what unconditional love is and given us nothing but support for all these years.  We love you!

license to tie

I love sending my kid to school.  For obvious reasons, like it gets him out of the house, gives him lots of stimulation and various avenues to learn new things, he has friends there with whom he can act super silly without driving me nuts, etc.  But I also love sending him to school to learn things that I haven't even thought about trying to teach him yet.

Case in point….tying his shoes.  The thought hadn't crossed my mind!  Most of his shoes have velcro straps, because that's just easy.  But his teacher started to introduce the idea to the kids.  She started to encourage it.  She made a big deal of it (in a good way).  So Ryan became interested, and within a week of occasional practice he got it.  

I love school.  I hope he does too.

Ryan with his new "License to Tie" award

Last night was Open House at school -- a night where the families get to come see what the kids have been working on.  We saw their art projects, their bean plants they planted, the ladybug cage and butterfly cocoons they have growing in the science corner.  And we got to take home their self portraits they drew each month of the school year.  Now, Ryan is not an art lover, this we know.  But I was pretty impressed with how far he's come nonetheless. 

He still likes drawing big hands, but at least now he's got color and hair,  proportional face features, and a tornado on his shirt -- everyone needs that apparently. 

like a blur

It's already May?  Not quite sure where the rest of April went.  Seriously.  And seeing as how I'm just now getting around to looking at the few pics I took the last few weeks, I guess you could say we've been busy.  Not sure with what -- maybe it's the 50 shades of gray (literally) that I've been trying to choose from to decide which one will look best in our living room.  Don't you worry though, I think we have picked a shade.  Stay tuned for that update someday once it's all put together. 

But in the meantime, we have done some fun stuff here and there…

Ryan had his kindergarten orientation -- here he is with his buddy Eli afterwards, in front of the school sign.  Even though he's been at school all year this year, he'll be at a different school next year.  Closer to our house.  And thankfully about half the kids from his current class will be at the new school too, so it'll help ease the transition.  

We took a family hike up to the top of Mt Wanda in Martinez.  Seriously.  Eddy heard about it, thought hiking straight up a hill was a good idea with the kids.  They were troopers, we had some snacks and stories to help get us there, but we did it!  And the views were worth it.

K got her face painted at a birthday party -- something Ryan still has yet to do.  He won't let a brush near his face.

We got FANCY and went to a play.  Fancy Nancy the Musical.  It was cute.  Kaitlyn's first play, and we all got dressed for the occasion, but my mom gets the award for going all in!  She's such a good sport.  The kids thought she was perfect.

K was done by intermission -- she crawled into my lap for the 2nd act and kept telling me it was time to go home.  But she still talks about it 2 weeks later, and how fun it was.  So I think there's hope for her. 

 I've started doing some occasional trail running with a girlfriend in town -- it's a bit softer on the joints, and the views are WAY better!

looking down over the Carquinez straight, with Mt Tam off in the distance

friends on our run one evening

 I took the kiddos to the Benicia Classic Car Show.  Eddy was working, and it was something to do.

it's always a fun event when there are firetrucks you can climb on

kinda like we're in Havanna, right? 

we met up with Ry's buddy Eli downtown

coolest car we saw, a lamborghini 

 I've had some quality Kay Gray time -- she's all set to start preschool in the fall, 2 days per week.  So I'm trying to enjoy these mornings we have together.

speaking of fancy -- she's sporting Cristen's fancy shoes, and an awesome outfit that she picked out all by herself

 Us Bayers -- we like our bikes.

Family bike ride up in Davis this past weekend.  Super fun bike trails, flat, kids could go forever, except Kaitlyn was really slow when she got tired and therefore we forced her in the bike seat and she cried and cried but then got over it and everyone was a bit happier.  #runonsentence

And finally -- we still make a little time for art.  Especially when Nanny comes over, and actually has some skills with watercolors.  The kids were loving it!

So that's what we've been up to.  Now you're all caught up!