Easter and April

We spent Easter in Portland at Daddy's Grandma's house. The girls call her GiGi and they love seeing her. They actually spend a great deal of time asking to go see her. A few days before we left, we dyed eggs. The girls did a great job and barely broke any of them. I was impressed. They also didn't dye themselves too much.



The girls had a blast at GiGi's house. They played with their cousins, ate their body weight in veggies and happily celebrated Papa's birthday.




Daddy took 2 weeks off before he left for the academy so were able to spend the night in Portland and then go to the zoo the next day. The girls haven't been in a hotel since we went to California almost two years ago so they were a little confused. Adia was insanely excited. Leia kept begging to go home, but Mira soon snuggled down and fell asleep.




The next day, on Papa's birthday, we went to the zoo. We haven't been to the zoo since the twins were still drinking bottles. I couldn't wait to see how they would react to the animals and riding the train. They were all terrific and the weather was perfect. Leia absolutely loved the bobcat. She wanted to take him home. She talked about him for days after. Adia loved the zebras and I think Mira liked everything. They walked almost the entire time and were exhausted when it was time to leave.




The train ride was fun and so much better without a huge stroller involved. The girls thought it was awesome. I was worried Leia would get scared, but she did really really well.




We we're able to spend time at Gramma and Papa's house. The weather wasn't great so we couldn't go to the beach, but they have so many toys there that they didn't mind much. We did take Cheeto for a few walks though.




Once Daddy left, we had to come up with ways to keep busy. We've painted (and made huge messes. Oxyclean does NOT remove acrylic paint), played with hairstyles (Mira looks great with pigtails), made pizzas and went to the movies. Yes, I survived a movie in the theater with 3 children, by myself. They were actually wonderful.




Leia somehow learned to dunk cookies (specifically gluten free oreos) in milk. I had to take a picture to document it for Papa.




And then there were the kittens... On the way back from the coast one night, we discovered something in our garage. The mama cat who once had kittens under our house had now left us kittens in our garage. For the next 6 weeks, I fed mama and babies. Mama eventually became tame enough for me to pet her. She stopped hissing, batting and trying to hurt me. The girls had fun loving on some kittens and thanks to good friends, Mama and babies found a new, good home. Mama's already been fixed and lives nowhere nearby so we won't have to worry about doing it all over again.




On the weekend before Daddy left again, we went for a walk with Gramma DiDi near her old apartment (she moved last weekend!) and managed to get some awesome pictures. We now have a great family picture.




DiDi also took us out to dinner at Adia's favorite place, Chapala. Mira had her first accident in ages, but luckily we were sitting outside and it all puddled under her chair. She was soaked and very upset, but a trip back to the car fixed her right up. She said she never ever wants to pee her pants again. Works for me.



And now it's almost the end of May. We've survived 5 weeks of Daddy being gone all week and only home on weekends. It's rough, but we can do it. Luckily we have Gramma and Papa on Wednesdays and once school is out, we can visit DiDi in her new place too.