Mother's Day

These two are mine forever. 

She's 6!

This girl turned 6 on April 4. I asked her what kind of birthday cake she wanted and she requested my Lemon Rosemary Olive Oil cake. It's the only recipe I've ever tweaked enough to call my own and it turns out it is her most "preferred" (I keep hearing her use the word "prefer") cake and well, that just made my day.

A couple of weeks after her birthday, and the hospital stay, and all the craziness that ensued in the month of April for our family, we finally had a little get together of her friends for a play date party at Fuller Park.

 I loved that she and her friends devised some version of a game they must have learned at school. It didn't really make sense--the person who was "it" would shout out "Midnight!" and the rest of the group would march 12 steps and tag the "it" person--and that was it, over and over again. But they were having a great time and it involved all the kids, which is a great feat at a birthday party in a park.

Alan was the only boy at the party. I love Alan. He didn't care that he was the only boy. And he's polite. And kind.

 The final event of the day was a climb on the climbing tree at the edge of the park.

It also marked the turning point of the day. Upon leaving Isabella had a very difficult meltdown. She was having so much fun and I pulled her out of it because the party was over and we had to pack it in and head home. I'm not sure I handled it the way I should have. Our family had had a few very difficult weeks and I think she felt more stress than I realized. At the same time I had to teach her that it wasn't ok to act how she did.  I think parenting is the hardest thing a person can ever do. It feels like a constant balancing act of setting boundaries and having compassion and more often than not I feel like I am failing at my job--but not in a low self-esteem way--more like a refiner's fire way.  Rearing young children exposes every weakness you have with the express purpose of making you look at that weakness so you can overcome it ( or try to).  I think that makes parenting very hard-- and completely worth the experience. And this concludes my op/ed piece on parenting. Thankyouverymuch.

Easter

Easter was very low-key this year. In other words, I did absolutely nothing. I think I am still trying to recover from Matthew's hospital stay.

Correction: I did an Easter Egg hunt. It was on Saturday, and it was called, "Go-Find-Your-Lunch Easter Egg Hunt"

I made Isabella lunch. Then I chopped it up and divided the pieces among 12 plastic eggs. FYI- It takes 6 eggs to hold 1/2 of a ham and cheese sandwich.

 She loved it. She especially loved the eggs filled with jelly beans (part of all nutritious lunches).

Our neighbors' dog wandered into our yard during lunch. Apparently someone at their house got carried away with the Easter egg dye...ahhh snap! (do the kids say that anymore?)

Mom and Aunt Donna came to the Easter rescue and gave Isabella a real Easter egg hunt with clues and everything.

I provided the baked goods. (Coconut cake with meringue frosting). That's a note to myself to remind me what I made this year, cuz it was goooooood.

We had our annual Easter dish of lamb chops with chimichurri sauce. Matthew dove in.

Literally. Boy did he love those chops. And his face loved the chimichurri sauce.

Sick Baby

I took this picture on a perfectly perfect day. The weather was so nice, we pulled out the quilt and sat out on the lawn. Isabella did her homework and I tried to take pictures of the sun streaming through the beautiful oak trees. Matthew fell asleep on the quilt--his second nap of the day, which should have my first clue that he was really, really sick. That night I brought him to the emergency room. He had almost a 103 degree fever and was having difficulty breathing. We stayed for several hours in the ER, then he and I took a half hour ambulance ride to the pediatrics unit in Walnut Creek so he could be treated for pnuemonia. We ended up being there for a week. He received such excellent care there and we are so grateful for the nurses and doctors who helped him and our whole family.

LA Vacay in 7 pictures

I will not bore you dear friends and family with a travel log--only highlights of our first vacation in...ever.

 1. Forget Disneyland. This was the highlight of the trip for me and Mark. We used this year's Costco reward money check toward renting a minivan. A truth about having no money: nothing, and I mean NOTHING spells luxury (for the Holstens) more than driving a minivan.

 2. This is a doughnut. This is a doughnut stuffed with goat cheese, strawberry jam, and basil--with some fruity glaze thing happening on top. This was delicious. Dave and Janett took us on a tour of some of their favorite eateries during our 2 day stay with them, which was pretty awesome. We love that we got to enjoy Eagle Rock with them in what turned out to be their last few weeks of living there. After we left, they picked up and moved to Portland, which has everything to do with us. You see, Dave and Janett had to push a visit to Portland back a week to accommodate our vacation plans. In doing so, they ended up going on a weekend when a house of their dreams opened up to rent. And since they found such a great deal, they couldn't pass it up, and signed the papers. And because they found a place to live so quickly, and they were uprooting their lives anyway, Dave also decided it would be a great time to propose to Janett. So there you have it. The Holsten Four descend and an out-of-state move and marriage proposal follows. That is just how awesome we are. We are so happy for Uncle Dave and Tia Janett--for their new life and new adventures!

3. The first memorable Disney event was going to the Build-a-Bear Workshop (or as Dad likes to call it: The fleecing of little girls' parents' money) in Downtown Disney. It was an unexpected stop, but she had so much fun with it and somehow managed to bypass the costumes, accessories, sound chips, and many other pricey additions that could have been added to her "bear"--which was really an orange cat named 'Treasure'. (She did manage to slip in a strawberry-scented card to make Treasure smell oh-so sweet). She groomed her cat (above) and Nana and Papa helped her fill out a birth certificate (or as Dad likes to call it: a tracking device for parent information to push more advertising.) 

*Sidebar about Dad:  Isn't he fun? Clearly his parents never took him to Disneyland otherwise he might have a more magical spirit about him. Secretly he was having a great time, though. And secretly he is super fun to hang out with at Disneyland--or anywhere--, despite his occasional doses of "truth").

4. This picture sums up Matthew's Disneyland experience. A stroller ride and a pear to eat are just as good as any Disney ride. I think it was pretty overwhelming for him. He didn't really go for the parades or fireworks or crowds. We were lucky enough to get a wheelchair access pass for his stroller which made waiting in line much easier for him (and us) because the park was unbelievably busy.

 

5.  Isabella challenged Tinker Bell to a footrace, climbed Tarzan's treehouse about a dozen times, explored Tom Sawyer's island end to end, took two boat rides through the pirate territory, and raced in a race car. And she loved ALL of it. There were a few meltdowns (some her, some me--don't get me started on the Pineapple Dole Whips near the tiki room) but we survived it and had a wonderful time--as evidenced (by most) in the final photograph below:

Angie and Mark were obviously having a great time. Me? You'd think I'd never been on one of them new fangdangled roller coaster thing-ys.

I had so much fun. Really, I did.