Happy Birthday Whitney!

Our big girl is now 5!
Much to her delight it has been a week of celebrations. It started with a picnic and party with her friends Friday evening. It was quite windy at the park but the kids still enjoyed their hot dogs, playing at the playground, and attacking the pinata. It was a ladybug themed party so we made cupcakes for the celebration.

She got to open presents with Nana-san before she left and then was able to take ice cream cups to preschool to celebrate with her classmates. She chose ice cream cups over popsicles so she could have something to put the candle in. Later we had a small family celebration after her soccer game but much to her dismay Maren blew out most of the candles first so we had to relight them. She's been planning her multiple parties for over a month so hopefully it all lived up to the hype she'd put behind it.

Grandparents visit and blessing day...

We've enjoyed all the help we've had around here the last few weeks with Grammy and Pops here the first two weeks after Jonas was born and then Nana-san for another 2 weeks. While Grammy and Pops were here we had some fun going to the Ringling Bros. circus , a couple of children's festivals, fishing with Pops, and going to the base airshow (though we didn't really need to go as we could see and hear much of it from the house.) The grandparents were able to overlap a weekend so they could both be here when Jonas was blessed at church. Here's a few pictures of him in his blessing outfit:

Easter weekend...

We spent Saturday afternoon participating in an egg hunt put on by the base. Both areas for the girls age groups were "pick up as many eggs as fast as possible off the grass until they are gone" type hunts. They both ended up with close to two basket fulls. Afterwards, Whitney had fun at a birthday party for a friend from school that was held in a warehouse full of the big inflatable jump houses and structures. After dinner we headed out to go bowling as a family. We all had a good time as the place had a ramp and automatic bumpers that popped up for the girls turns. Whitney even beat Dad in the first game. Sunday, we enjoyed the loot from the Easter bunny, the day at church and then enjoyed dinner with some friends. Jim had to head to work but we then headed to another friends home for an egg hunt and dessert. The girls enjoyed all the treats from their two hunts. Maren initially freaked out at the start of each hunt I think from the excitement of the countdowns but once we showed her what to do she got into it. The Easter bunny was walking around the area during the base hunt with a bucket of candy and Maren quickly figured out that was an easy source of candy so kept going back to get more treats from the bucket during her hunt.

Spring Break Days 3-5: Disc golf and the zoo

Days 3 and 4 were spent hanging out with Dad which meant at least one round of walking through the woods (disc golf) with him. On day 5 we joined our friends the Napoleons for a trip to the zoo and a chance to be out enjoying the beautiful weather. Maren was so excited to see each of the animals but I think her favorite thing was feeding the goats. Whitney enjoyed being with her friends. After our hike around the zoo we headed to Doumar's Diner for some ice cream. This place has been around since 1904 and the original owner was the inventor of the ice cream cone on Coney Island. We got to watch one of the grandsons make ice cream cones on the original machine while we were there. The sign above the machine reads "This is the WORLD'S FIRST CONE MACHINE still in use today, it was used in 1905 at Coney Island N.Y. by Abe Doumar inventor of the ice cream cone & this machine."

Spring Break- Day 2: Childrens Museum

Things got a little busy right after spring break but I'm going to attempt to get caught up on our activities during spring break. Day 2 of spring break we decided to head over to Portsmouth to check out the children's museum there. They are getting ready to do a large renovation and expansion this fall so some exhibits weren't working properly but the girls had a great time. I think the favorite areas were the bubble room and the slide area. In the bubble room they had a couple tables with various instruments to blow bubbles with and then had two stands that you could make large bubble columns that you could stand inside. The was also a play town where you could visit and play pretend in various businesses. At the end of the day we saw a show in the planetarium. Whitney is now an expert at identifying Orion's belt when the stars are out at night.

Jonas Owen Dahle...

We're excited to announce the arrival of our little guy. Jonas was born on 14 April at 1:24 am. He was supposed to wait another day or two to come until my friend and doctor returned from vacation but decided to come on his own time table. In fact, he came so quickly that the doctor on call didn't make it there in time and the nurse got to deliver him. He weighed in at 7 lb. 14 oz. and is 20.5" long. The girls are ecstatic about baby brother's arrival and love to give him lots of attention. We're grateful to have this sweet little guy in our home!

Spring Break- Day 1: VA Aquarium

Since Whitney was on spring break this last week we tried to get out for an adventure each day to have some fun and help Mom keep her sanity. Monday, we joined our friends the Napoleons down at the Virginia Aquarium. The girls enjoyed seeing the seals, stingrays, sharks, and otters. Whitney said her favorite part was seeing the seals kissing. We had fun seeing the exhibits but the place was crowded that day and it didn't help that a third of it was under construction and the place was poorly designed to manage the traffic flow of people. This made it difficult to maneuver through with the strollers. It was also pouring rain so we were unable to check out the nature walk through the swamp areas. We had a fun time regardless and the kids were especially excited about the lunch stop at McD's with the play place (shh, don't tell Dad as he has boycotted McD's!)

After naps that afternoon we pulled out the hard boiled eggs to decorate for Easter. I think the girls fingers ended up as colorful as the eggs but they had fun coloring and dyeing the eggs.