Mother's Day

Rob asked what I wanted for Mother's Day & I said half-joking/half-serious : to be on my own for the day. While I totally want some alone time, it didn't feel right to have it on Mother's Day. So instead, I got "me" time on Saturday: (finally) got my hair highlighted/cut & got to do a little shopping. On Mother's Day we had a great sluggish/lazy pajama morning followed by an outing to a local indoor water park, followed by a short little hike in a new nature preserve & a quick, easy hamburger/fries/milkshake dinner at a local diner. Perfect day.

Couple of Mother's Day pics: Although I sometimes/often dream of enjoying a relaxing cup of coffee while leisurely making my way through the Sunday paper uninterrupted, deep down I know how much fun I'd be missing:

Trouble......

Marieke is keeping me busier than ever these days as she explores & tries to do everything that her big brother does. In just the past few weeks:

1) I found her eating catfood out of the catdish in the garage.

2) She swallowed a coin. Luckily just a small 1/2CHF coin which I found in her diaper a few days later.

3) She learned to climb out of her crib already (at 16 mos.) - UGH!

4) She found my secret stash of Swiss chocolate bars in my closet. She unwrapped one and was working her way through the whole thing.

but the clincher was when I found her up in a tree - seriously - in our backyard. (no photo of that one for obvious reasons!) Lukas is an expert tree-climber and had given her a hand to get up on a lower branch. Both her & Lukas had the biggest smiles on their faces! I had to explain to Lukas - after my heartrate was back to normal - that 16 mos. old babies should not be up in trees.

I feel like I'm watching & shadowing Marieke like a hawk every day & still she manages to get into trouble. (with Lukas' encouragement & training, of course!)

2 Gooberheads

I was worried that with 5 years between them, Lukas & Marieke wouldn't play that much together. Luckily I had nothing to worry about......

Kauai

Spent a wonderful 9 days in Kauai with the extended family. We rented a HUGE old plantation right on the beach with enough bedrooms for us all to stay together. Lukas had the best time playing with his cousins, Marieke loved the sand & water & we had an great, relaxing (as much as you can relax with little kids) time. Not too many photos, unfortunately. Just seemed like I was always too sandy, greasy, sticky or lazy to take many pics. I guess that's a sign of a good vacation.


Our house had huge verandas where we spent most of our time when we weren't at the beach.


The kids spent a good amount of time trying to catch fish & other sea creatures in the tidepools.


Our property had lots of coconut trees & the Dads took turns cracking them open for the kids.

One of our excursions was a tubing trip down some old plantation viaducts. About 75% of the time we were in tunnels. I thought that the kids would be a little freaked out, but they loved it.





While we were tubing, Grandpa & Grootmoe were babysitting the little ones.





Our yard in front of the beach.


Sunset on our last night.