San Diego for Easter

We had a wonderful Easter in San Diego at Mike and Jennifer's house.  We attended a beautiful church for Easter mass, had an egg hunt and enjoyed a delicious breakfast.

My three sons ready for church.  I think I will continue to dress them alike until they are old enough to object!

Grandad helped the boys find some of the eggs that were hidden.

Jennifer made a quiche with a hashbrown crust, delicious and beautiful!

We enjoyed many other activities while in San Diego, such as.......

Decorating eggs

The San Diego Maritime Museum

The boys had been talking about cannons and were so excited to get to see one.

We met a pirate while aboard......argh!

The boys were given questionnaires about the museum. Drew was determined to get all of his answers correct, which he did and received a toy from the treasure box.

They got Spider-man and Venom capes to end our fun time!

Our little Venom was wiped out!

Beach Time

Even though he still doesn't like to walk in the thick sand, Luke is warming up to the beach.  He and Grandad had a ball running away from waves!

Blake was tired and wanted to be held by Daddy.

Backyard fun!

They boys enjoyed playing games in the backyard.  Here they are playing croquet, or as Mike called is "Calvin ball."  

Mom's club Easter Party

We had an Easter party for the children of the Henderson mom's club.  The kids got to enjoy an egg hunt, have lunch, and as a surprise the Easter bunny showed up!  

The guy who came with the Easter bunny was so entertaining to the kids, they were laughing so hard at his silly antics!  Luke was asked to come up as a volunteer to help.  When asked if his name was Luke or Luca, he replied with confidence, "Luca."

Drew was determined to get exactly 12 eggs, which is the amount the guy had told them to get, he is a stickler for the rules!

Luke would find an egg, open it, eat the candy and so on.... It's not surprising that he didn't collect too many eggs.

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Even though he didn't do much hunting, Blake enjoyed some of the candy and had this look of excitement each time he opened an egg.

Blake was none too happy to be sitting on the Easter bunny's lap.  I can't exactly blame him, that bunny was kinda creepy!  

All in all it was a beautiful day and we all had a great time celebrating!

Cascarones at the park

Cascarones are real eggshells that are painted and filled with confetti.  My friend Sabina is from Guatemala and told us how on Fat Tuesday children dress in costume and break cascarones over each others heads during carna'val, so we had to try it!

  I have come to find out that cascarones are also used in Mexico on Easter Sunday.  My mom told me how when I was little,  my aunt Bobbi came home from Mexico with them and my sister and I had a blast one Easter..... many, many years ago! ;)

Here are the kids getting ready to get their bags of eggs.

Sneak attack......Drew's about to get it!

Luke was laughing the entire time!

Even the moms were attacked.

Blake hung back and ate some of the yummy food.

What a mess!!  Thank goodness the moms were ready to go with brooms once the eggs were all broken, there was some serious teamwork!

St. Patty's with Grandma Dottie

The week of St. Patrick's day Grandma Dottie came to visit and watch the kids, while Mikel and I had a nice staycation here is Vegas.  

She took these pics of the boys...

Blake loves being read to and Drew loves reading...it's perfect!

When Dottie picked Drew up at school he was wearing this hat.  He had a fun day filled with lots of green activities and looking for Leprechaun gold!

Luke always falls asleep in the stroller in the afternoons when we walk over to get Drew, it's a good little cat nap.

Sort of awake

Meanwhile here we are in Paris.....I mean AT Paris, the hotel where we stayed two nights. Panera bread had a conference in town and we got to enjoy wonderful dinners and delicious cocktails. My awesome hubby gave me a gift card to the Bellagio spa and I spent my days there relaxing!  As much as I missed my babies, having 'nothing to do' and 'peace and quiet' are unusual concepts to me and I loved being out of my element, I think I could get use to it!

The Garden at Bellagio

While she was here, we got to celebrate Dottie's birthday with a cake made by the boys!  They sure do love their Grandma Dot and had such a wonderful time with her!

Miller Family Golf

One of the wonderful things about living in the desert is the amazing golf!  On this gorgeous day in March we decided to take advantage of the weather and take the family over to the driving range to practice our shots.

Here are the boys each with their set of clubs.  It has been Mikel's dream to play golf with his sons, and they are finally getting to an age where they can practice hitting the ball.  We have a putting green in our backyard but there is something special about going to the range.  I think this is going to be the first of many days that our family will be playing or practicing golf.

Luke wants to do EVERYTHING that Drew does..... that includes dressing just like him!

Baby Blake also got into the golfing action.  We had people comment that he could be the next Tiger Woods since we are starting him out so young!  

I realize as the only girl in the family I need to be sporty, at least if I want to spend a lot time with my boys!

This is Daddy showing us how it's done!

Blake throwing his ball at mine.

Blake throwing a fit because I won't let him throw balls!

Even at one year-old he gets a lesson from Dad.

We had a great time.  Luke did not want to leave, of course.  He could have stayed all day, but I assured him we would be doing this A LOT in the future!

Handmade shirts baby!

 I have had a sewing machine for a long time but never really knew how to use it.  Mikel refers to it as one of "Jen's crazy purchases" since it was in the closet gathering dust with my guitar! Recently some of my girlfriends and I have been getting together to have some wine, look at old pictures and (when we get to it) learning to sew!  My friend Sabina made these adorable tie shirts for Luke & Blake for their birthdays and taught me how to make one for Drew.

The boys wore these to church and got many compliments.  Don't be surprised if you see them in only tie shirts from now on!

Grandpa came to town for a conference and the boys had so much fun hanging out with him.  They were practicing their baseball batting outside and then inside on the wii.

Around 16 months Blake started walking.  Even though he was the latest walker of my boys, I have come to realize that kids can not be pushed and they will all do things in their own time. We are so proud of him. When Blake takes steps we all yell and cheer for him.  He claps for himself and always has that look of pride on his face for accomplishing something.

  Since Blake has been walking he seems to step on his pants a lot and eventually pulls them off completely.  I think he just really likes to show off his chubby knees!




Superbowl Forty-Five

Superbowl Sunday we had some friends over to the house. Here is Blake watching the game with the guys, while the kids played, and the ladies hung out and talked.  We all had a great time!

  

                                                                                  
  It is so nice to have friends that also have small children.  They all came over on New Year's Eve, as well, and we rang in the new year (east coast time) with our kiddos.                                            

          The kids (loaded up on sugar) went a little CA-RAY-ZEE!!!!!!!!