Oh what a night

Tonight we had a fantastic evening. We biked downtown to a new (to us) restaurant. It was about 4-5 miles each way, but it was a beautiful 80+ degree day so we rode it. Plus, it turned out to have great margaritas so even better reason to be on bikes. On the way back Kyle, Bear and I rocked out to the Beach Boys and Kyle proclaimed it to be one of the best nights ever. Em has a bit of a tummy ache so she took the ride back slowly with Jeff. I'm sure going to miss where we live. 

Fairy note

Emily sweetly made treats for the fairies and left them a note still hoping that they will stay for her to take care of them. 

Bear Bear word tricks

Aaron is getting more and more verbal. It's amazing to see the evolution of his language development.

Aaron rides his momo

Today was the day Aaron was waiting for! He got to ride his motorcycle!!! He was so incredibly excited!! And he learned very quickly!! Now it's impossible to go in the garage without Aaron wanting to ride. 

Happy 2nd Birthday Aaron!

Happy 2nd birthday Aaron!! Today was a fun day celebrating Aaron's 2nd birthday.

We started the day with a birthday surprise. He was super excited to see what was that giant thing under the blue sheet. 

Unfortunately, we didn't assemble it ahead of time and realize that the battery needs to charge for 16 hours prior to its first use. He was a bit sad to have to wait, but he likely didn't realize that it moves (until he got to ride it the following day). He was so happy to just have a "momo" in his garage, like our neighbor a few doors down.

After getting to see his momo assembled and sitting on it, his best friend Alice came over with her mom and brother, AJ, to spend a fun morning together. Aaron got to blow out some candles and eat cupcakes with Alice and AJ at 9:30 in the morning! Nothing like a cupcake to start your day!

Cupcakes with Alice & AJ

Blowing out his candles, round 1

Alice gave him a cute California hat with a koala on it.

After cupcakes, we went to the Children's Museum for a fun morning. Aaron is at the perfect age and with the right interests to love that place. He went right for the painting on the tractor. 

Painting the tractor
He also loved the bubbles, drawing area and the food play area.

Chillin' in the orange with Alice

We went to Walker Brother's for some pancakes for lunch and headed home for nap to get ready for a fun afternoon / evening of continued celebration. Jeff made lamb lollipops for Aaron's birthday dinner since last time we had them, Aaron seemed to love them. 

Emily wrote Aaron this sweet little note at school for his birthday. Dear Aaron, Happy Birthday cute! I hope you had fun when I was at school. You are going to love your cake. It has a marble maze in it. I love you. You are so cute. Love, Emily

For his cake, we made a marble maze. As you know, Aaron LOVES his marbles so we made him a marble run cake. Emily helped to conceptualize how we'd get the maze integrated with the cake. Here is the cake in action. 

Our friends and neighbors, Jeff, Janet & Simon, came over to celebrate with Aaron. Aaron LOVES them. A few months ago, he had his first sleep over at their house. And just the other day, upon waking up from his nap, I told Aaron someone was here to see him (Emily's friend was over) and the first person he thought of was "Anet" (Janet). And Simon is so brotherly to Aaron. Aaron just loves them and was pleased to have them celebrate with him. 

Simon loves superheroes and was doing his brotherly duties in teaching Aaron about superheroes so he started him off with some Batman pajamas (they have a cape!) and some awesome superhero cars.

Simon's mom, Janet took this awesome video of Aaron eating his cake. Aaron clearly loved the cake. And watching himself on video.

Happy birthday Bear Bear! We love you!

Aaron eating cake

Because this video deserves its own post... too cute!

Ninja Emily

Emily sparring at karate. She looks 10 in this picture. 

Smarty pants

Each week, I volunteer at the kids' school library with Aaron in tow. The librarian is great and welcomes the younger siblings while we work there. When we were in this week, I had a conversation with one of the students as she was checking out her books. I had remembered seeing her in the hall the day prior talking with Kyle, Emily and a few kids from their classes after school. I asked her if her sister was in the same class as Kyle. She said, "Yes, oh Kyle, he is super smart!" Apparently Kyle has a reputation in his class as being super smart and that has extended beyond his own class. I found it very cute and heart warming. 

Aaron serenade

Aaron serenading me with the Mommy song

When the Bear doesn't nap

Aaron fell asleep on our bike ride home for about 10 minutes and felt that was good enough for a nap. Not quite... here we are sitting in the parking lot of Target while he catches some much needed zzz's. Looks like he serenaded himself to sleep. 

Buonjourno

Kyle & Emily were off school today for President's Day. So after dropping Jeff off at the airport, we got on our bikes and biked down to Little Italy. It's about 4 miles there with some great coastal views making it easy on the kids and less stressful for me. 

We started off with some good Italian pizza. Scratch that, we started off with a cannoli to really get the Italian flavor. The kids thoroughly enjoyed it. Then we hit up the pizza. 

And then we went to another cannoli joint for some post-pizza cannoli. These weren't as good as the first one, but they were still quite enjoyable.

And now we are ready to roll home. 

Ethan time

Ethan is staying with us this week while Karen & Pete go to Mexico. We had a busy time with some quick Target shopping, playing at the park, going to music class, seeing animals at the zoo and playing with friends. 

Sunset Cliffs

It was a beautiful day for a walk at Sunset Cliffs. 

Wild Animal Park

Monday was zoo day with Papa & Kari. Actually, Wild Animal Park day. They hadn't been there before and we hadn't been in a long time. So off we went for the morning. 

Everyone (except me, I chickened out) did the hot air balloon ride. It is tethered to the ground, but it looked windy enough that I thought I might make the kids scared with my being scared.

And then we did the tram around the park for a great tour of all the animals there. 

Golf

Sunday was golf day with Papa & Kari. Aaron even got to join in on the fun when they were on hole 7 (of 9).