38/52

"A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2014."

Lucca: being fifteen, sitting on the table, licking every last drop of peanut butter off her plate.

Jackson: laying on my lap at lucca's soccer practice, waiting for his turn to play next.

37/52

WEEK 37. See what I did there? Skipped the whole summer! But jumping back into my weekly photos of my children, even though I still haven't replaced the lens on my "real camera" yet. It's on my wish list and Christmas can't come soon enough!

lucca: giving us daily glimpses of her older self, she is such a breathtaking beauty 

jackson: 100% irresistible! getting longer and leaner by the minute, completely losing his baby look. And jumping off the top of slides if you look away for just one second.

Daddy Day 2014

For Father's Day, we set out to hike Mt Tam again to hit up the West Point Inn for pancakes & coffee. We got a late start and couldn't find parking in any of the three lots along the Panoramic Highway. We circled a couple times, but no such luck. We decided to wind our way another 4 miles to Stinson Beach and have pancakes at Breakers Cafe, our new favorite spot.  Best decision as breakfast was amazing!! We sat in the sun, sipping our coffee, the kids happily devouring loads of maple syrup with a little bit of everything else. 

We headed toward the beach with a mission of finding sand dollars and boy did we ever! Our treasure walked turned up tons of shells, sand dollars, cool rocks, and loads of dead crabs torn apart by gulls. The kids stopped to examine each one!  

The morning was beautiful.  We walked and walked and talked a bit, but really, nothing needed to be said.  The smiles coming from four faces was enough.

Rustin is some kinda dad, and our kids are some kinda lucky to be his.    

20/52

"A portrait of my children once a week, when I can remember, in 2014."

Lucca: Taking a break from doing cartwheels at the park tonight. And being beautiful as always.

Jackson: Watching the birds in the tree above us and wondering if they are going to come eat the crumbs we left from dinner.

Life Lately

A glimpse of our lives lately from my iPhone photo feed.  Every night before bed, I look at my pictures taken throughout the day and remember the best moments we shared.  

I love doing this, and I think it's sweet the kids love it too.

 

April was awesome + quick + packed full of fun.  It was also the first month of 2014 that we actually stayed home!   No trips to NYC, Hawaii, Tahoe or Disneyland this month...we were home and enjoyed it!  We planted a garden, had a sick day, had a rainy day (!!!), celebrated Easter in Folsom, turned THREE, visited Daddy at his San Francisco office, danced ballet, cheered on the Giants, and have basically enjoyed every moment of this beautiful season called spring.  The older I get, the more I think spring might be my season. 

Clockwise: Our sick day, when my two sickies piled into my bed and watched Frozen on the iPad vs watching on the couch on the big TV downstairs, just to be close to mommy.   The first time the ballerinas got to practice their dance in costume, which was the most magical thing that's happened in Lucca's life to date.  Jackson's homemade birthday crown, which he insisted on wearing all day so everyone would sing him Happy Birthday.  The start of our tiny backyard garden.  And my first time starting a garden from seeds, which is why there are SO MANY seedlings clumped together, because who knew you only were supposed to drop a couple in each pot rather than the whole packet?  :)

Lucca is learning how to read and it blows my mind.  She can read all her princess reading level 1 books out loud to us, and it takes everything in me to not give a standing ovation after each book.  I love watching my kids learn, and love seeing their look of pride and accomplishment on their beautiful faces.  I also love that Jackson is starting to not be afraid of worms and snails...but spiders and flies?  FREAK HIM OUT.

12/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014."

lucca: Wearing my baby blanket as her queen cape, while rambling on and on about her butler and the parade she is about to be in.

jackson: Pulled out the Super Why costume yet again.  And being the sweetest son in the whole world.

We love Instagram

I love my clunky Canon EOS, but when it comes to snapping quick pics of the kiddos, my iPhone is always within arms reach. Some of my iphone favorites this week..

Painting

Smoochin brother

Being a diva, sunglasses indoors

Helping Mommy pick flowers

Coloring with chalk on our doorstep

"Parkkkkkk"

If you have talked to Lucca in the past month, somewhere in the conversation she probably told you she wants to go to the PARKKKKKKKKKKKK. She wakes up and says "park(kkkkk)", she gets dressed and says "parkk", lunch and then parkkk...you get the idea. I really need to get a video of the way she emphasizes the "K" sound in this word. She would make our German and Russian ancestors very proud. I've started to drive out of the neighborhood a different way than usual, so we avoid seeing the park when we aren't headed there. She knows her park. And loves her park.

We spend many moments here. It's nothing fancy, but it's a sweet old neighborhood park with wooden climbing structures and metal slides. It's Lucca's park and she knows the entire thing, inside and out. She knows where she can play, where she can't play, how to climb the baby slide, how to ask for help to climb the big slide. We count the fish, she points to all the different colored fish, she points to the pelican that sits above the swings and says "tweet-tweet". We play basketball and soccer, dig in the sand and count rocks. We roll down the hills, stopping to pick flowers and toss blades of grass. These days are SWEET.

The best ball ever

Future athlete

Where's Lucca?

Collecting leaves

A little one-on-one basketball

The fish

Lucca's new favorite spot