Backyard Bliss!

It's official! We have a new and very improved backyard!!! After living in our house for almost 5 years, we figured it was a good time to make some much needed improvements to our landscaping. Our old yard was considered to be "low maintenance" when we first purchased our house. We quickly found out that "low maintenance" meant a lot of weed pulling, pruning and sweeping. Over the years, our desire to care for our ugly landscaping quickly dwindled and our maintenance became a once-every-six-months affair in which we would spend an entire day pulling weeds. As Kate has gotten older and more active, we realized that we were going to need something a lot more functional for kids so in January we started working with Andy Gagnon Landscaping to come up with a solution. Several months later we are happy to announce that our beautiful new backyard is complete. We are SO thrilled and VERY pleased with the final outcome. See pictures below:

BEFORE: Ugly weeds and stepping stones

CONSTRUCTION: One of the biggest parts of the project was removing a portion of our existing concrete patio to make room for grass. It took them almost and entire day to remove the concrete since it was 6-inches thick!

Mapping out our new lawn FINAL PRODUCT: Isn't it beautiful!

We still need to add some plants to our new red pots but that should come in the next week or so.

Kate LOVES playing in her new playhouse. She actually received this as a Christmas gift from Dedushka and Grammalene, but we couldn't build it until our yard was complete.

Kate learned all about the excitement of sidewalk chalk. Who new that playing in a backyard could be so much fun?

Easter

We had a wonderful Easter this year. We started our morning off with church and then a trip to Starbucks with Gramma and Papa. Kate had her very first Starbucks drink...chocolate milk with whipped cream. She greatly enjoyed her drink, but her favorite part was climbing up and down the bench.

Later in the day, we headed over to my sister's house for Easter dinner and an egg hunt. We had a wonderful time hanging out with our family. Everyone was there including Gramma, Papa, Uncle Daniel, Auntie Jessica (Daniel's fiance), Auntie Sarah, Uncle Ben, and cousins Josh, James, Andrew and Chloe.

When we first arrived, Gramma let Kate open up her first Easter basket full of goodies. Inside was a little chick that "peeps", a chocolate bunny and jelly beans. Yum!

All the kids waited in Chloe's room while the grown-ups hid all the Easter eggs. Andrew, Josh and Chloe were having fun wrestling on the bed.
Time for Kate's first Easter egg hunt! She had so much fun looking for her eggs. She was really good at finding them...I think next year we will have to hide twice as many.

The highlight of Kate's evening was jumping on her cousins' trampoline. She could have spent the entire day jumping if we would have let her. My mom is convinced we need to buy her one, but thankfully we don't have any place to put it. :-)

After dinner, Chloe brought Kate this blue costume to dress-up in. Kate happily agreed.

Such cute girls!

Fairyland

Yesterday, Kate and I traveled to Oakland with Auntie Sarah and Cousin Chloe for a girls' day out. We first stopped for a nice visit with Grandma Agee (a.k.a. Gigi). We had a wonderful time catching up with Grandma and the girls stayed busy by looking at old photo albums and playing with the Connect Four game pieces. After our visit, we walked over to Fairyland. Sarah and I have many fond memories of going to Fairyland as little girls. A lot of things brought back memories, but I was also very surprised at how small the whole park felt. I remember it being HUGE when I was little. Kate and Chloe had a lot of fun time exploring the park. I think Kate was still a little too young to get the whole experience, but she still had a wonderful day.

Three Little Pigs Brick House
The Crooked Man's House

A little Chapel

Pinocchio's House...Kate spent a lot of time inside yelling "tunnel!" It had a nice echo to it.

Kate loved crawling through this tunnel.

Chloe enjoyed pulling the little clothes line around and around.

Waiting in line for the train

Pony ride!

Our silly little Kate

Kate is just such a goofy and happy little girl. She loves to pretend and dress up. One of her recent fascinations is Daddy's work clothes. She loves to put on his work shirt and tie. Sometimes she even tries to walk around the house in his shoes.

For the past couple months Kate has been very interested in bikes. Every time we see one on the bike path she talks to me about how "Keet" wants a bike and "Mama and Dada." I have told her that we will get her one soon and yesterday was that day. I picked up this super cool tricycle at Target and she insisted that I put it together for her immediately. An hour later, and lots of tears from both Mommy and Kate, the tricycle was put together (the instructions were a little harder than I thought they would be). Kate was SO excited to go for a ride and to wear her new helmet. We already have taken her new bike all over the greenbelts and to several parks. It is so wonderful having a handle that I can easily push and turn with. What a great invention!

This morning Kate asked to listen to "cuckoo" (So Long, Farewell) while I was getting breakfast made. Somehow she convinced me to put her on the counter and let her dance. She is just so cute!

Kate is getting really good a communicating and using lots of words. The first video is of Kate talking about the baby and singing her ABC's. The second video is her talking on the pretend phone. She only seems to call Papa when she is on the phone. She actually has pretend conversations with him.

We are having another girl!!!

Yesterday we found out the amazing news that we are having another girl! We are so thrilled to be having another girl...we really wanted Kate to have a little sister. Both Will and I teared up when we heard the news. Looks like our lives will be filled with lots of pink and princesses. Our ultrasound appointment was about an hour long in which the technician looked at every little detail of our baby. It appears as if our baby is very healthy and has every working part. You can't deny the existence of God when you get to see your growing baby moving all around in your tummy! It is absolutely amazing!

San Francisco Zoo

Yesterday Kate and I had the pleasure of going to the San Francisco Zoo with my mom and my sister's family. We had a wonderful time at this beautiful zoo. The weather was perfect, the crowds were light and Kate was very well behaved. I wish I could say that Kate was amazed by all the animals but she didn't seem to care too much about them unless there were baby animals. She just loved spending the day keeping up with her big cousins.

Even though I brought the stroller, Kate walked the entire day since she wanted to be just like her cousins. In this picture, Kate is chasing after Josh and James as we head to the giraffes.

We had so many great views of all the animals. My favorite were the giraffes and zebras.

My sister, Sarah, and 2 of her kids, Chloe and Josh.

Kate liked looking at the gorillas since there was a little baby that was climbing up the tree.

Kate and Gramma

Probably one of Kate's favorite things at the zoo was this elephant. She played on it for quite awhile and was sad when we had to leave. She would tug on his trunk and say "honk." She would point out it's eyes and ears and give it big hugs.

Kate also enjoyed watching the penguins swim in the water. The fence was the perfect height for her to look over and see what was happening.

The tiger didn't come out and play for long. I barely got a picture before it disappeared from view.

Kate with her 4 cousins...Chloe, Andrew, James and Josh.

Kate loves her cousin Chloe!

For some reason this polar bear had his head stuck in this trash can. We watched it for a while and the bear never moved...it almost seemed like it had fallen asleep like this.

Beautiful Macaw

At the very end of the trip we stopped in at the petting zoo. Kate was a little interested in the goats and gave this one a little pat but soon her attention was drawn elsewhere (see below).

Once Kate found this tractor she didn't want to get off. She sat on this tractor and pushed it around until it was time to leave.

We also enjoyed a fun train ride around the zoo. Kate loved going on the train but all of my pictures were washed out. She was so sad to get off the train and say goodbye. All in all, we had a fantastic time! We will certainly have to go back when the baby is old enough to enjoy a zoo.