Easter Egg Fun

My moms' group had an Easter party for the kids on Friday.

There was a puppet show where the Easter bunny made it clear that Easter is NOT all about him.


There was an Easter egg hunt.




Winnie the Pooh tattoos.


Thank you gift from Thailand. I don't think I have ever tried these before, but they were pretty good! The kids liked them too.

Aria

This past Sunday we checked out Aria, an international supermarket that just opened up near Costco. The store is HUGE and carries a wide variety of food. Its main focus is Middle Eastern, I think, but there is also Mexican and "American" food as well. I was excited to find that the bakery has sangak, fresh out of the oven.

As you can see, it is quite large, and is only $1.99. We ate what we could with some hummus and I ripped up the leftovers and put it in the freezer. Just microwave for about 30 seconds and then stick it in the toaster oven to crisp it up a bit for a few minutes.

Unrelated, here's n giving us a Sunday matinee performance.

Miniature Golf Par-Tee

On Saturday we went to a miniature golf birthday party for a boy turning 8. I hadn't realized this, but according to our blog, the last time we played miniature golf was in 2007 (at the same course, in Anaheim). So k was just a baby and n wasn't born yet.

The party split up into teams, but no score was kept.



The kids had fun. k had some pretty good shots, but the holes that were surrounded by "hills" frustrated her.


D pretending to fall into the water.


D playing Super Mario Kart


Birthday boy and dad


Golf ball cupcakes by birthday boy's mom. So cute! She was inspired by Pinterest. :) We also had pizza and salad for dinner.

Sports List v2

Since my first edition of the "College Sports" List, I made two big changes. First I added the San Francisco 49ers, since that is the one professional sports team I follow the most. So I had to change the name of the list to just "Sports" List! I also changed the categories from "first" and "second" most memorable, to "all-time" and recent history. So I could include the best accomplishments of that team historically.

Even though it has been less than three months since version 1, there have been many updates.
#1 Aaron Rodgers was named 2011 season MVP
#2 Jim Harbaugh was named 2011 Coach of the Year
#3 Indiana Hoosiers got to the Sweet Sixteen
#4 Cal Men's and Women's Swimming are NCAA champions in 2012
Note: They also both won in 2011 as well.

I am definitely looking forward to the 2012 London Olympics. Only 123 days to go!

Here is the list...
Sports List

Spring Cleaning

You could say I've lost my blogging mojo this month. In an effort to catch up, here we go...


We enjoyed Auntie Anne's free pretzel day. Hope they repeat this next year.


Celebrated National Poundcake Day on March 4 by baking these for a friend that recently had a baby.

Finally finished painting the kitchen/family room.
Before:


After:


Added some decor to k's bedroom wall:


Tried ebelskivers from Trader Joe's frozen section. Pretty good. D has never been to Solvang, so we'll have to go someday.


The kids slept in the tent the night of n's birthday party.


Curiosity got the best of us and we ordered some free fries from BK. Green ketchup is not so appetizing.


Friends that couldn't make it to n's birthday party brought over this yummy cake from Bon Epi--thank you!


Celebrated National Ravioli Day on March 20th (with some of n's birthday presents in the background).


This month we've also been dealing with some difficult losses in our church family. It really reminds us of the brevity of life and to live every day that God gives us for His glory.

Happy 3rd Birthday n!

Friday was n's third birthday. At his request, we had spaghetti for dinner...he is so easy to please.


For the past couple of weeks, n has also been very good about expressing his thankfulness. The first time occurred after dinner, when I was resting on the couch to digest my food. Out of the blue he came up to me and said "Thank you mommy, for making me dinner." That really melted my heart because he wasn't copying anyone, and just said it on his own, without any prompting. Since then, he has been saying "thank you" for everything, including his vitamins--haha. He also said thank you for his birthday party, which we had on Saturday.

It was a camping-themed party. We were planning to have at least part of the party in our small backyard. Unfortunately, it was raining (it rained before when we had k's party at our house too). However, we had contingent plans. D barbecued Trader Joe's Korean beef under our retractable awning and we set up our tent in the living room.

I also picked green for the theme color since it was also St. Patrick's day.

This was the sign at our front door. As you can see, one of our guests left a note on the way out.



I forgot to take a picture of the s'mores kits we handed out as favors to each family. They looked cute in this wooden CD holder.


For lunch, we bought chap chae, kim chee and beef sushi from Zion. Chicken meatballs, chicken potstickers and salad were courtesy of Costco. Very easy.

While playing in the tent, one girl was feeding mini marshmallows to a very willing and compliant n, one after the other. I'm not sure how many he ate, but another little girl estimated the number was around 20...eep! Of course, I put a stop to it, but I just had to take a picture first.


We kind of went overboard on the desserts.

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes (made by my mom)


Not sure what these are called, but they are made with pretzels-hugs-m&ms. Fun to make because you can use different colors for different occasions. The coconut m&ms are made in green, brown and white, so they went with our theme.


S'mores Tower


S'mores on a Stick

And last, but not least, a Camping cake, made by my mom:

We also had Girl Scout cookie ice cream in Thin Mint and Samoa flavors.

It was a fun time, and we are looking forward to the next year of development for n.

Glee

On Sunday our church had the privilege of hosting the U.S. Naval Academy Women's Glee Club. They performed both during our worship service and at a concert Sunday night. Although we typically do not go out on Sunday nights, we came fully prepared with toothbrushes and blankets for the kids. The concert was quite enjoyable and I'm glad the kids were able to go. One of the first songs was Enya's "Orinoco Flow" aka "Sail Away". I thought that was such a great song choice and the arrangement was so creative. (I think the next addition to their repertoire should be Christopher Cross' "Sail Away", a personal fave). I also liked their rendition of Sara Bareilles' "King of Anything". D even wants to see Wicked after hearing "For Good". (I see it is playing next year at the Segerstrom Center, so maybe we will!)

Crystal Cove & The Pizza Bakery

This morning we took an impromptu trip to Crystal Cove. We've been there a handful of times with our state park pass, but this was our first time on the wooden trail, which leads to a nice vista with benches. (Coming from the North, turn into the first entrance, and park near the bathrooms.)





The views in both directions are quite beautiful. To the South:


To the North:


This guy was waiting for us to drop some of our snacks:


For lunch we went to the The Pizza Bakery in Newport Beach, mainly because we had an Entertainment Book coupon.


We ordered Lunch Combo #1 (2 slices of cheese pizza and a drink) and Combo #2(1 slice + 1 topping, salad and a drink).

The salad was above average in that it contained kidney beans, garbonzo beans, cheese and a pepperoncini in addition to the regular lettuce and tomatoes.


Three slices of pizza was more than enough to feed all four of us, but maybe that was due to the "all-you-can-eat" garlic knots:


Towards the end, a trio of young boys came in and proceeded to help themselves to plates of the garlic knots. I assumed they would eventually order something, but they didn't! They even had the nerve to ask for a cup of water! I went up to the counter to pick up a last one "for the road" but the bucket had been taken away. Oh well, I think we had enough carbs for the day anyway.

1st Movie: The Lorax

Last week, k and n had a big "first": First movie in a movie theater. Mazda has a cross-promotion going on with The Lorax, so they reserved an entire theater at the Spectrum for Mazda employees the night before it was officially released.





The movie was in 3-D!




The kids stayed up for the whole movie, which was surprising since it started at 7 p.m. on a Thursday night (7 p.m. is usually their bedtime!) D was able to get tickets for my parents too, so that was nice. It was a cute movie, not sure exactly why it is rated PG (it's supposed to be due to language). There were definitely a couple of parts that were a bit frightening for k and n, but nothing too bad. (I did have to cover their eyes during the previews, though). k does a hilarious imitation of the Lorax flying. I calculated that paying to see this movie would have cost us $60! That is crazy-town. When we see our next movie in the theater, it will probably be here.

For some reason, I think my first movie in the theater was a double feature of a re-release of Snow White and Tron. Is that not random? I looked up the years they were released to see if this is possible, and they were a year apart, so I'm not sure if I'm just imagining this. D can't remember his. Out of curiosity, what was your first movie theater movie?