The "airplane incident"

So, as a parent, you never want to see your kids get hurt. You especially don't want to see it witnessed by a busy crowd at Starbucks on a weekday morning.

Poor little Aaron this morning, went running into Starbucks, metal jet plane in hand, to grab his usual box of milk from the refrigerated section when he tripped and fell. Unprepared, he didn't even have time to protect himself and he face-planted into the ground, and into the airplane. There was blood everywhere.

We were able to put ice on it right away, but nothing could console him - even the free chocolate frappachino and cake pop they brought outside to him. He eventually calmed down and asked for a scone and some milk, so we sat outside and threw pennies in the fountain and had our scones and "coffee". I finally got a close up of the damage when he went to sleep for his afternoon nap.

I have to say, as parents, we have a tough job in that while you know you can't protect your kids from everything, you still feel like you should. I was reminded at how fragile our little ones are, even when they can be so tough on the outside, and also how resilient they can be. They heal fast too, right?

Casa de Mariposas

We have recently been invaded... by Butterflies!
(Beautiful Painted Lady Butterflies courtesy of Insect Lore (http://www.insectlore.com).)

Jonathan received a Butterfly house with a coupon for 5 caterpillars for his birthday. We, of course, immediately sent away for them and received aforementioned caterpillars about a week later. We spent the next week watching them grow and make a mess of their tiny container and then overnight, they all climbed up to the ceiling, hung upside down and made their chrysalids.

We pinned them into the Butterfly house and about a week after that, they all hatched leaving us with 5 amazing butterflies. (They guarantee at least 3, so we felt we did an extra special job taking care of them.) Instructions state you can keep them and feed them every day, or if the temperature is above 55˙F, you may release them into the wild. Jonathan wanted to keep them, but after about 4 days of me making a cup of sugar water and putting it in their house drops at a time, I encouraged him to let them go. The last picture is Jonathan's last butterfly making her way into the wild. He was happy and sad to see them fly away and determined to drag me to Home Depot where we could find a flowering bush that butterflies like so next time we can release them to a nice spot just for them. :)

I imagine we will be ordering more soon as it really was quite amazing to watch - even for the adults! Jonathan is convinced that butterflies are God's coolest creations.

Go Padres!

First of all - A big Thank You to the Bergstroms for giving us their Padres tickets for this game; it's always a treat sitting so close to the action on a beautiful sunny San Diego day.


It was Aaron's first baseball game (at least that I can remember). He did great, being 2 and having that short attention span, and he still made it through the last inning. Jonathan liked trying to find the players who were on the field or up to bat in the program and reading their names and positions.

We had a great time at Petco Park and loved watching the game from close up. Best part... Padres won!!

Birthdays and Cakes

Someone turned 7 last month!

Jonathan had two birthday parties - lucky little man. :) One at the house with family on his actual birthday (May 19th) and one on Saturday at Pump It Up with all of his friends and family too.

It amazes me how fast our kids are growing up. Being 7 was met with much excitement and having Grandma and Grandpa Small come visit for his birthday was the topping on the cake.

He is such a clever, intelligent, loving, and social boy and we are so lucky to be able to see him grow and learn and become more and more incredible each year. He is looked up to by his brother immensely and he is very sweet to him (most of the time). Happy Birthday Jonathan!



A sample of the Fishy themed cupcakes that I made for Jonathan's birthday party at Pump It Up. They were super easy to make and fun, too!