Happy Mother's Day!

Isn't being a mom the best? Although there are many hard days, I love being a mom to my beautiful Cala. The expression on her face as she looked at me when I took this picture remind me of what a privilege and joy it is.

I'm pregnant!

After recently posting a picture where part of my pregnant belly is showing and getting comments wondering if I was pregnant, I realized that I hadn't ever posted anything about being pregnant... ooops! So surprise... I'm pregnant! I'm due June 30 with a little boy (Mark is SO excited!) and unless Mark changes his mind we are naming him Cole (middle name still to be determined). Somehow it still seems surreal to me that we are soon going to have a new member of our family and that I will be the mom of two kids!

Makeup and Nails by Cala

So I don't know if any other mom has this problem, but if Cala is awake and not engrossed in a movie when I am putting on my makeup, it is a nearly impossible task to accomplish. She loves to look in my make up bag, open containers, etc and I end up spending all my time trying to prevent her from making a mess. One day I decided to just go with it. I gave her an old make up brush and some old eye shadow and let her go to town. It kept her busy the entire time I was doing my makeup and we were both happy. A miracle! Well, as long as we weren't going out anywhere...

One day my great plan backfired when she found a bottle of nail polish that I had accidentally left within her reach. Mark and I were busy in the kitchen and Cala was being so good and quiet.. how nice. Nice, until she came walking in the kitchen with an open bottle of nail polish and all her nails and some of her hands painted a very pretty purple color. My heart started racing as I wondered where else she had gotten the nail polish because surely she had gotten it EVERYWHERE! Much to my surprise and relief it wasn't on the carpet or any of the furniture! I was amazed and I do have to say that she didn't do a bad job of painting her nails considering it's her very first time... and hopefully the next time will be in about 10 years :)

Happy Easter!

No Ordinary Violinist

Last Tuesday, Mark remembered that we had concert tickets for Friday to see David Garrett perform. We had forgotten since we got the tickets months ago in December by donating to PBS. I know that's pretty random. My strange husband sometimes like to watch PBS and that night they were showing a David Garrett concert, and if you donated a certain amount of money they would send you two concert tickets. So we did!

The concert was AMAZING!!! If you have the chance to go to one of his concerts, go, you won't be sad! Here's a clip of him setting a world record for fastest rendition of Flight of the Bumblebee.

A not-so-flattering picture of us after the concert. We've decided to become David Garrett groupies!

Our Little Comedian

Cala is so silly! She'll do anything to make us laugh... as evidenced by this video. Excuse her only being in a diaper, I can't remember what happened to her clothes that night :)

Warm weather and Spring Break!

Get ready for picture overload! This past week was Mark's much-needed spring break and the weather cooperated beautifully with sunny days and temperatures in the mid-60's. It was gorgeous! I'm sad it's over, but we had a lot of fun. We found a great deal on this pull-behind child carrier (is that what they're called?) and had fun taking turns riding Mark's bike with it. Now to get me a bike... (Notice the horse toy sitting beside Cala, we got that for her this week and it now goes EVERYWHERE with her, she even sleeps with it beside her!)

Later in the week we took a trip to the Boston Zoo. Sadly, it was not nearly as impressive as the National Zoo in Washington, DC, the one that Mark and I grew up going to, but Cala enjoyed it and the gorillas were pretty cool. And who knew that zoos were so expensive to get into?! It cost us $36! The National Zoo is free!

Here's Cala checking out the zebras. She really didn't understand the concept of standing in front of something but looking at the camera instead of the something while I took a picture. I kept having to say things like, "Look, I have a cookie!" to get her to turn around for the picture.

Cala and Mark having lunch.

Cala looking at the flamingos, she was quite fascinated with them.

Cala and one of the gorillas. It was crazy to see them side-by-side just across the glass from each other.

Cala and Mark playing an early-morning game of Candyland. Cala's attention span isn't quite long enough to play a full game, so we have to play really fast and even then we don't get to finish the game. This game ended with her having all the pieces kiss each other :)

And of course spring break wouldn't be complete without some studying... ugh! Poor Mark!

We also took our first trips of the year to the playground. Cala loved it, and so did I. She could climb up on everything by herself, it's so much different than last year.

Coloring with sidewalk chalk, another first for the year.

The only bad thing about it is that Cala gets so chalky, we practically have to give her a bath before she comes in the house!

And that was spring break. What a lovely week!