Spring!

The last coupled of weeks have been beautiful, warm in the upper 70's, unusually warm for this time of year.  Lucas and I have been taking walks after his nap.  We are seeing blossoms on trees, they are getting green!  I love the Spring we have been using our grill, like every day last week!  Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, it is pretty cold today, windy, but at least the sun is shinning!  I made this pretty cute Spring cake last week!  I was pretty proud of my accomplishment, it tasted pretty good too!

Lucas calming his friend, adorable!

Last week we watched Lucas's little friend, Aubree, whose mother just had a baby.  Aubree was having a tough time being left behind so I tried to calm her down.  I told her that her grandma would be back, and that after they finished watching Elmo, we would go blow bubbles.  A few minutes later I hear Lucas, talking to Aubree telling her her grandma will be back, and "do you like Elmo", "it is okay, Aubree", "do you want to blow bubbles, it will be fun."  It was super adorable.  Lucas is very aware when his friends or someone is upset or sad, and is eager to comfort them.

ARRRGH, Matie!

Lucas has been on this Birthday kick, he loves celebrating birthdays, wants to bake cake all the time.   Whenever I am cooking something he asks me if it's cake!  A couple of weeks ago he was able to go to a Pirate Themed Birthday, we dressed him up as a pirate, and I taught him how to say, "arrrrgh, matie!".  He loved it.  We heard about Parker's Birthday party for days after that!

Spring Break!

For spring break we made a day trip to Pittsburgh, to the Children's Museum.  It was lots of fun!!!  Lucas painted, made his own paper, climb through this maze type thing, played with balls, but his ultimate favorite was the water.  He loved the water, they had rain coats and cloggs the kids could wear to keep dry, though that didn't help and Lucas found a way to get soaking wet by standing over the water so it went right up the rain coat.  Craig seemed to enjoy it too, we spent more than an hour in the water area.  It was pretty awesome we will definitely be going again!  We also went to eat at the Golden Corral, we don't have lots of buffets out here so it was fun.  They had the best banana pudding I have ever eaten!!!  The old people and me were porking out on the banana pudding.  It was a pleasant day!  I always forget how close we live to Pittsburgh, we should do this more often!

Dr. Seuss Birthday!

Since we like any excuses to celebrate, Lucas and I celebrated Dr. Seuss's Birthday!  We love Dr. Seuss!  We read Dr. Seuss books, made candy "Cat in the Hat" hats and had green eggs and ham for dinner, and finished everything off finishing with cupcakes!  Lucas had lots of fun!  He loves celebrating birthdays.

T.V

(Guest blogger Craig filling in for this one.)

Katie and I like movies.  We also have a selection of TV shows that we enjoy watching.  We also like enjoying the full cinematic experience that can be had when watching movies and TV.  I long ago convinced Katie on the need for surround sound while watching movies, but seeing as we were now the last of the Swensons without a new TV, I decided it was time to convince Katie that our audio/visual experience was no longer up to par and that we needed to invest in a new TV.  Surprisingly, Katie was not opposed to the idea.  Actually we had been talking about it for several years and had just been waiting for the right time.  Well, that right time has come and we are now the proud owners of a new plasma screen television.  We don't actually have a picture of the TV installed on my custom built entertainment center (we've been too busy watching and enjoying the visual wonder of it all), but here you can see Katie documenting the setup process.

Check out those curly locks!

Valentine's

We try to keep it low key on holidays.   This Valentine's I decided I didn't want to spend the entire time in the kitchen, so I just made Red Velvet cake for us and neighbors.  Lucas decorated cookies on Friday for playgroup.  Craig cooked dinner, steak and potatoes, with strawberry fluff (because we love fluff).  We figured that since it is a day of Love why not make the things you love!  Lucas made some Valentine's for his friends and then delivered them, I am not ashamed to admit that we just dropped off the last of them today (as in Thursday).  I sent Craig to work with some special cookies made just for him!

I won't lie, though, our morning was kinda of rough, dishes to clean and things to do, but by the afternoon, after we had both taken a nap, it ended up being a pleasant day.  We made crayon hearts with out friends that afternoon.  Pretty low key.

Our really good friend took Lucas for a couple of hours after dinner, at first I thought, "oh that's nice, I don't know what were going to do, but sure why not". I just want to say, you know who you are, Thank You!!!  It was really really nice and made our Valentine's, so Thank you!  Lucas loved the outing with our friend was so excited to go!  When Craig was buckling him in the car, Lucas looked at Craig and then our friend and said, "go!" no hesitation about leaving Craig or me behind.  We just want you to know, good friend of ours, he would not do that for anyone else.

I of course can't end this posting without mentioning the icing of on the cake, how wonderful my husband is, we are not big into public displays of affection, chocolates and flowers, but can I just say, husband you know me so well!  Lately I have been a little obsessed with Adele.  If you have not heard of her, look her up and listen to her.  I wouldn't not be surprised if you become a little obsessed too.  Yes, she is that good!  Craig bought me her CD for Valentine's which just reiterated to me how well he knows me and loves me!  I love you, too!  Happy Valentine's!