Or just buy less cheap furniture? These are the questions I pondered at 1:30 in the morning when my dining room chair collapsed as I start to get out of it. Seeing as how this is the second of our chairs to catastrophically fail (that's an engineering term) and the eighth to be decommissioned altogether, I'm leaning towards buying less cheap chairs. Viv, on the other hand, is taking this as a sign of other things.
In the evenings, we run races in our kitchen. Basically we say one of two things. Either, "Ready, Set, Gooooo" or, "One, Two, Threeeee" and the kids just take off. Alex is fastest with his big leaping bounds (as evidenced by my inability to keep him in focus), but Marielle gives him a good run for his money with her quick, little legs. Sometimes Sophie gets involved. Although for her, we say, "Sophie, do you want to eat?"
First for the Euro Invasion: Yes, that is a man, in Washington Park (nowhere near a beach), in a speedo! We were on our way out of the park, talking about how much fun the kids had, when this image gets seared into our brains forever. Viv thought the guy even flexed his butt for us when we saw him. I only had time to snap one covert picture and didn't realize I had it set for B&W. Without the color, you just don't get the full effect of the speedo in all its neon orange glory. You'll just have to imagine it ... no, wait, don't!
Outside of snapping paparazzi-esque photos of sun bathers, our reason for being in Washington Park was to meet up with Colette, Geoff, and Alex for some fun at the playground. Geoff and Colette had been wise in not telling Alex where they were going. We mentioned the playground as we were buckling Marielle into the car, and then got to here her chant, "slide, slide" all the way downtown. Honestly though, we love how much she likes the park and being outdoors. The two little ones he a blast zipping down each of the three slides, playing on the swings, and just running around. They still only do a lot of parallel play and less cruising around together, but they are always thrilled to see each other. 
For starters, we went to the aquarium here in town a few weeks ago (same week as the car show) and got to see, first hand, how much Marielle loves it. We went with Colette, Geoff, and Alex who I believe blogged about it in a much more timely fashion. This was actually the first time we've taken Marielle to the aquarium. She has been a number of times with Rachel, her nanny, who says she always has a blast there. This certainly showed. She cruised through the place as if she was a tour guide. She knew where all her favorite exhibits were, and would point forward and call out what was coming up next for the rest of us. It was hilarious. I think we'll have to get her a yearly pass. 
In the more near term, we celebrated a series of birthdays last weekend. Both my Mom and my brother's girlfriend, Jossie, have the same birthday, so last weekend we celebrated with them and even managed to throw my Mom a surprise party. For my Mom, this year marked a big birthday, but I'm sure she appreciates that I'm not going to say which one. In all the chaos of setting up and the excitement of the party, none of us took any pictures save the one my brother snapped with his cellphone as my Mom came in the door. I'll have to see about getting it posted. In addition to these birthdays, we celebrated Rachel's son Ethan's 1st Birthday as well. He, and his mom and dad, invited Marielle and us over to celebrate. We 
Afterwards, we all went out to breakfast/brunch at this little restaurant tucked away in old town Louisville. It's a neat little place. It is obvious that the place spans what were originally separate buildings. There's a small hallway that used to be an alley and now has a ceiling and we sat at a table against some "windows" that used to look out into the narrow alley. Now the windows have no glass and merely open into this makeshift hallway. Every kid that walked through the restaurant via this hall, thought it was hilarious that he or she could peek through the "window" and surprise us at our table. 
A few weeks ago, the Denver Auto Show came to town, and let me tell you, "I love the auto show." It's got all of the cars at hand to crawl in an out of and ooh and aah over without any of those high-pressure sales types floating around. In previous years, Viv has toughed it out, come along, and suffered through the minimum 6+ hours I like to spend covering the main hall of the Colorado Convention Center. Last year, Marielle also toughed it out. 
like looking at all the different cars, this year, our perusing focused squarely on ... wait for it ... MINI-VANS! That's right, we are starting to embrace the overwhelming practicality of the 7 and 8-seat wonder that is the mini-van. To retain some semblance of coolness, we've been leaning towards the import offerings from Honda, Toyota, and the like (sorry Mom and Dad).
Marielle had a lot of fun climbing inside the cars, but her activity of choice was strutting on as many of the show car platforms as she could find. For the most part, she would simply sit along the edge of the platforms like it was the coolest thing ever. Over at the Nissan display, she found a nice big stage where she even danced a little bit.
First, for the title of the blog. When we woke up Easter morning, Marc and I said “Happy Easter” to Marielle. She attempted to reciprocate by saying “Happy Birthday Easter Momma.” We thought this was funny and cute and didn’t want to correct her, so we didn’t and let her say that all day. Maybe from now on we’ll say that to everyone. “Happy Birthday Easter!”
Marc and I split their steak and eggs benedict and their pancake flight, which consisted of three different pancakes (pineapple upside down pancake, Ghirardelli chocolate pancake with bananas, and a Cadbury egg pancake). I don’t know if there is anything I love more than a good breakfast, and this was good breakfast. Everyone had a good time and really enjoyed the food, particularly my mom, who ordered two breakfasts (with the help of her pregnant daughter she had no problem finishing both meals).
around the house calling out the color of the egg when she found it and then would run back and put it in her basket. All we heard during the time of her Easter egg hunt was “green one,” “pink one” etc. 
recipe, Marc and I think it turned out pretty good. Anyway, all in all we had a GREAT Easter. Lots of food, lots of family, and lots of fun. Who could ask for more!
A few weeks ago, we had one of our first showers of the year. It was nice to have precipitation that was above the freezing point. Since that rain, things have really begun to green up around here. Each spring, I'm still amazed at how quickly Spring appears around us. It seems like everything is bare, and then you look off to the side of the road one afternoon on the way home from work and everything's got leaves!
