Happy Birthday Soren! Here is the little guy being put back into his high chair after he tried an alternate method for blowing out his candle--the touch method. It was quite successful at extinguishing the flame, but it surprised him and definitely brought on some tears. No burn resulted, thankfully.
Yum-ba! Banana cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting. He even got to use a fork to use and you can see how proud he is of this new implement.
Soren seems to be spell-bound by cameras much of the time so we get a lot of pictures of this stare.
Here it is, the banana cake with the chocolate cream cheese frosting shaped like a number one. It is very delicious and we enjoyed some more of it last night with our dinner. Einar picked the flowers from our yard to decorate the cake tray. If you like corner pieces with frosting, this is a good shape for a cake to be. It was also really easy to slice.
Dinner was a success too with beef tri-tip, broccoli, mashed potatoes and green salad.
On Sunday while I went to a baby shower in Encinitas with a friend of ours, Jared stayed home with the FOUR kids. After making pizza for lunch they spent much of their time outside in the garage and along the side of the house riding bikes, playing with sidewalk chalk and playing t-ball.
"I see you Mom." How many pictures do you need of me eating this dinner?"
Jared, Molly (age 3), Einar (age 4), Jacob (age 6). Hey, where is Soren?
Here we are all together with someone else available to take our picture.
Look, a little bit of a belly (although it might just be muscle) and those curls are too cute to cut quite yet. I think we'll have to wait until his hair starts to interfere with his sight until his first haircut. Besides, didn't Einar already get the honors in February?
He is on the move.
Soren likes to be tossed up in the air and I think Jared likes doing it for him.
Jacob and Einar enjoying balloons from the baby shower. Einar's balloon sailed off into the sunset about 30 seconds after this shot was taken and He fell apart.
Oops, I didn't turn this picture around, but this is of the kids eating yummy Jared pizza for lunch.
Soren makes a good outfielder for a t-ball game. Watch out Ichiro!
Playing in the sand at Point Mugu on Saturday morning. He also tried to eat a bunch of this sand.
This is Reeder and Einar in the back of the Mazda 5 for our road trip to Port Huenume. They had a video player strung up in front of them for a princess movie and continuous showings of CARS. The middle seats were where Soren and his buddy Hayes were planted and all the available space in the car was taken up with the rest of the stuff. It's a good thing that none of the kids have super long legs yet!
Marianne catching some rays after doing a masterful job repacking the car.
Please don't call CPS. The little boys enjoyed a raisin snack in the parking lot while we were packing up the car to leave on Saturday. This wasn't your average hotel parking lot with lots of cars moving around though. We stayed at the Navy lodge on base and on Saturday morning, most of the Navy guys were sound asleep.
Soren was drawn to the industrial toilet with the black seat in our room. I'm not sure why the alarm clock was in the bathroom.Finally sleep for both of the boys. Soren slept with me and Einar on the "nest" that we made for him in the corner of the room from two chair cushions.
Einar's nest. He pointed out that it is not round like Big Bird's nest, but rectangular.
Crabs in the Santa Barbara Harbor.
Getting off of Lil'Toot after our water taxi ride in Santa Barbara.
Check out his pony-tail. This was one happy kid while on Lil' Toot.
Pelicans in the harbor.
Toot Toot!
Reeder and Einar got to drive Lil' Toot while we were going around the pier and until we got into the harbor. I think Einar did it 3 times.
Our whole lively crew on Lil' Toot. 
Here comes Lil' Toot.
The Santa Barbara Aquarium is perfect for the age children that we had along with us. This is the puppet show corner that we spent some time putting on shows. Reeder was the announcer and Einar had the whales eating the octopus and the crab.
"Look Mom, cheese crackers!"
That is a shark that we all got to touch. It took Einar a while to warm up to the idea of touching a shark (or anything in the touch tanks), but he gave me a high five and did a dance after he touched this one.
Looking through cool sliding magnifying glasses into a tidal pool tank.
Ear protection is now needed at our breakfast table since Soren is screeching like an Eaglet. Check out Einar's oatmeal. He puts sprinkles on it and it turns his milk pink.
