Today is our 8th anniversary. I think it says a lot about where we are in our marriage that we got each other the same card.
continued yesterday with a combined Easter and birthday party. All the local 
family, and our friends who have 
become family, gathered after 
church to do what we usually do - let the kids entertain us, snack, and talk - especially about legal issues (with 
5 lawyers in the gathering, it's a bit hard to escape legal talk). Sophia loved wearing her fancy dress we bought for her baptism. She refused to take it off all day and even paired it with her rain boots for a while. 
After church, the Easter Bunny had visited our house leaving baskets and 
lots of eggs hidden all around. Sophia and the boys had a great deal of fun finding them and then trading some of the presents inside so there was a fair distribution of all the loot. We were quite proud of how well they did that without any complaining. 
Yesterday we had 4 birthdays to celebrate: Sophia's, Jessica and 
Gabe's are March 25 and Alex's 
which is in early April. We got all the names on the cake, and candles for Sophia, Gabe & Alex. They even managed to blow them out together without any spitting or lighting themselves on fire. 
Presents were enjoyed by many. It 
seemed Sophia's favorites 
were the tent that Grandma Darla made her and a crawl-through tunnel from our friend Therese and
Ellie. Even my 
father had some fun with the tunnel - that's him standing in it on the right. She got lots of beautiful clothes, which she was less excited about than I was. (I love it when
grandmas buy her clothes, they buy nicer things than I would.) There were 
also several Dr. Seuss books, who 
Sophia has just started to 
enjoy.
for pictures, hiding her face or giving us dirty looks. After 3 days of non-stop fun, it's no surprise that she was just done with it all. It was a very 
fun weekend.
Today Sophia is two. How is that possible? We tried to pack as much fun and excitement into one day as any two-year-old could handle. In the morning we went to 
an Easter Egg hunt, 
where Sophia thought her bucket would make a good hat. She did very well at the hunt, 
finding about 8 
eggs, several of them on her own. Then we went out for a snack, a donut. She liked it a great deal, but not the sticky hands.
There were a few presents to open today, a couple of books from us and a bubble blower from a neighbor. 
see The Wiggles. In the beginning of the concert she was pretty overwhelmed, quiet and refused to sing or do any of the hand motions that she knows so well. We were only 5 rows back so we were almost 
too close for her. But after the characters, Wags, Dorothy, Henry and Captain Feathersword (and if you don't know who they are, you aren't spending enough time with kids under 5) came out she warmed up.
Today is St. James Day! For the uninitiated, this is the day that Sophia's dad celebrates the first round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament (see the St. James Day website for a full history of this glorious holiday). This year, the festivities were in Roseburg, Oregon, at the home of St. James Day co-founder Derek Simmons. Sophia and dad drove down to Roseburg last night, and then spent all day in Roseburg watching basketball and eating Kielbalsa.
