easter and spring break

easter totally snuck up on me this year. i think last year it was a lot later and so this year i realized it was easter, oh, i don't know, a week before it actually came. nova had a lot of fun decorating easter cookies with a friend, going on 3 easter egg hunts, going to an easter party at a friends and an easter themed preschool. we tried to fill the week with a lot of fun. i think we accomplished it, but by the end of the week i was wiped.

easter cookies


easter egg hunt

our ward had an easter egg hunt at a golfland and we could mini golf for a discounted price. nova did pretty good--but when her ball went in the little river running through the course, she just jumped in. good thing she was wearing flip flops. swinging on her own

bunny ears that she made at the easter party with friends---they also decorated cupcakes, colored pictures and eggs--and i took zero pictures. nova had a blast


and although nova doesn't have spring break, some of her older friends do. which means, our friends plan fun things and we benefit from it! we went to the park this week a few times, went to happy hollow, and finished off the week with the beach and some sunburns. we had way to much fun at the beach for pictures, but needless to say, california is the right place for nova. she was in the water the entire time and has no fear of it. a lot of her friends like to just dig in the sand and run away from the waves. nova wants the "big waves", and then the "bigger waves." she was chasing after some friends when one of them stopped and bent over and she flipped over them and landed face first in the sand. i ran over and was trying to wipe her face off in the ocean and i told her to let me carry her to the towel and i would wipe off her face with some clean water. she just opened her eyes and said, "its ok! i can still see a little bit!" and off she ran to go get back in the water. when we got home she told me we needed to live closer to the beach---and this morning she slept til 8:30----which is UNHEARD of for this girl. maybe we should move closer to the beach! :) ha!

happy hollow: her buddy weston--he was her best friend on the roller coaster---they rode it several times---and screamed and screamed. she LOVED it!

if you blow this picture up bigger you can see her face---mix of fear and excitement

on the carousel

her other favorite ride which she also rode over and over again with weston. and here is just a video of nova and weston on the roller coaster---its not the greatest quality, but i love to see how she interacts with her friends--sometimes its not all good--, but its so fun as a parent to see her becoming her own little person. plus you can hear them screaming--and it cracks me up every time.

let me explain....

i wish i had the energy to be witty and funny and all that jazz. but i don't. i am behind on the updates and its been a busy few weeks. (insert something witty and hilarious that makes you laugh) "so let me explain....no, that would take to long, let me sum up".....(can anyone name that movie?) anyway, here are a few pics of what we've been up to.

dan's sister janalee came to visit. we hung out, went to san francisco, went to the exploritorium, drove around fishermans wharf, got lost several times, and stopped by the beach. it was so much fun having her and nova loved having time with her. thanks for coming jana!

at the beach

dan had a birthday shout hooray! we celebrated with pie....and smoking? he was just trying to show nova how cool he looked......but i think she was just alarmed. nova had fun decorating our living room like a space ship and making a pie with about a pound of sprinkles on the top. (also as a side note, dan ordered his birthday present and we got it in the mail. dan opened it early and when nova woke up the next morning and realized that a) he had opened his present BEFORE his birthday, and b) opened it WITHOUT her, she was more than appalled. she asked to call him at work and she gave him a tongue lashing. she was really put out that he would do something so horrible. we can really see how we parent because the conversation was made up of mostly these comments----"that was not a good choice. i really love you and that makes me sad when you make bad choices. there will be consequences. NO CANDY for 10 years. i still love you and i am really really frust-a-dated and i love you-that was a bad choice. i love you. lets talk about it." i wish i would have recorded it because it was hilarious.



nova set a lepracaun trap, and didn't quite catch one, but he left a trail of gold to the door and left some lucky charms, green nail polish, and turned our milk green. he is one 'tricky guy.' according to nova. she really wanted to set a trap to catch one because our neighbor made one. dan helped her to build one and he told her that you have to leave something that the lepracaun would want, so she drew a red hat for him to have if he left her some gold.

success!

and the lucky charms with green milk.


and last but not least, april fools day. this year we kept with tradition and dressed up like a crazy folks. i opted to not wear my bathing suit outside of my large preggo body this year. and we ate on garbage bags with strange utensils. nova was a bit concerned with the whole thing. she was alarmed when i just dumped noodles on the table. and when we ate dessert first nova was almost in tears because, "you can't eat dessert first! its not right!" sigh.....at least the things we are trying to teach her are sinking in right? but after the initial shock of it all, i think she had fun with it.

also, i hung the pictures upside down to see if nova would notice, and nova didn't like it at all, and she particularly did not like the mustache i gave her. alas.....

eating dinner

and the whole family, in all our sweet sweet glory......