Morgan Territory Hike

This weekend we hiked Morgan Territory, which is only twenty-five minutes east from the house. It was breathtaking and really diverse. There were creek beds, pastures, desert-esque terrain and the most gorgeous view of the Sierra's. We could see the snow capped Sierra's miles away...amazing!

The pictures (especially re-sized for blogland)
do not do the beauty of this park justice.

Thomas is a great hiker, he usually pulls his own wait, but the occasional shoulder ride does happen. And yes, Tommy is wearing large green socks.

This was taken in one of the creek beds when we started.
Beautiful light + beautiful kid = great picture

Thomas hitching a ride up the pasture. At the top of this peak is where you could see the Sierra's. Mt. Diablo, the highest peak in the Bay Area, was straight north of us.

Our snack break, plop down on a rock.

I love him.

Top of the peak looking out across the flat lands towards the Sierra's.

Picture does not do it justice!

At the beginning of our hike.
Obviously these photos are in no particular order.

Cool nature stuff #1: Cool holes in rocks.

Up close of cool hole in rock.
Weird because there is nothing above them, tree limb, to drip down to erode into a perfect hole. Possibly human made?

This would be Mt. Diablo. Morgan Territory and Mt. Diablo State Park are connected via several hiking trails.

Teaching moment really the entire hike was a teaching moment but this one had a specific subject, a cricket. Thomas has been fascinated recently by the sounds of crickets. When we walk Mable in the afternoon he can hear them best. Once out in the pasture he could hear the crickets but he has never actually seen one. We happened to spot one hopping up the hill. He was pretty ticked when the (scared for his life) cricket refused to make a sound.
"DANCE PUPPET, DANCE!"

Another shot of the Sierra's.

Coolest tree ever!
Can someone please tell me what kind of tree this is?!

It had these amazing grooves and auburn red color.
The oneseler would have left the Lorax's trees alone if he had seen these.

Thomas checking out the cool tree Mommy kept talking about and taking 6000 pictures of.

A view of one of the valleys we had just traversed. We started at 2000 feet and went down to around 1400 feet and back up again to 2000, encompassing about 4.5 miles. Great Hike!

Easter Hike or just COWS

We decided the best way to celebrate Easter (after eggs and baskets and such) would be to go hiking. We hiked Pleasanton Ridge, which is only about 10 minutes from our house. The weather was not the greatest up on the ridge, rainy and muddy, but we still got a 4 mile hike in.

There were a lot of cows on the trail...literally ON the trail.


We did not get that many pictures because of the weather.
Most of the pictures we did take have cows in them!

I got my eye on you!

We had a good time but cut the hike short because of the weather.
Thomas, proved yet again, what a great little hiker he is!

EASTER

Hoppy Easter from the cutest bunny ever!

Tommy, aka the easter bunny, hiding eggs the night before. We had fun doing this, so much fun we forgot to count how many eggs we hid and ended up forgetting where one was hidden. Luckily, Thomas is clever and found it...late Sunday afternoon.

A couple of the cleverly hidden (for a 2.5 year old) eggs.

The Easter bunny even left a nibbled carrot.

Nibbling the carrot!

One of my favorite traditions from Tommy's childhood, hiding the Easter basket. Can you find it?

Finding the hidden eggs. He made the "O" face every time he found another egg. We video taped most of the hunting!

Our neighbor Miss. Wendy left us a little Easter present, she is very sweet.

A real slinky!


The overly stuffed Easter basket!
(spoiled much?)

The most adorable sucker ever!
I think that he would give up his "moose" for this in a second.

The puddles of drool from the above sucker.
GROSS
Lets just say we limited use of the sucker!

Reading one of his new books with Mom.

We hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.
We love and miss all of our family and friends!

Egg Dyeing

We dyed eggs on Saturday, this was Thomas' first time. He really enjoyed drawing on them with the "magic crayon".

Cheesy grin with the finished eggs!

This is him getting ready to dunk the egg on his own. He dunked several eggs all by himself...mainly because somehow the two adults at the table stopped paying attention! We were too busy drawing on our own eggs with the magic crayon.

Pointing to his egg in the yellow dye!
He liked dipping the eggs in different colors to see how they would come out.

Fun with boxes!

We have been busy organizing the house as much as possible. We have more than enough space to live in but a lot less space than we used to have. Clever storage solutions are a must here! Queen Ginger over at Craftin' Texan turned me on to an easy box makeover that I knew would help us out. After I found the perfect size boxes I covered them with the tutorial found here and threw on a little paint.

Of course before any of that happened Thomas played with them...
and had the BEST time!

We stacked them so high I had to get the ladder out to get the last one on top!

There was only about an inch of space between the boxes and the ceiling.

Then the inevitable happened...

they had to be pushed over!


This smile was the best part for me! The crash of a 10 foot high tower was the best for him! We did this several times, good thing those boxes are sturdy!

Then we built a bridge with them.

Finally I was able to confiscate them and get the actual project done.

They fit perfectly and house all of our crap stuff in a uniform manner!

We did not use the box lids for this project but have found about a hundred different uses for them! No waste!

Tents and Cuteness

The kid is officially two and a half. I like him more every day!
He really is a lot of fun these days and pretty cute too!

These are the pictures of Tent/Movie night, a great idea by Daddy! Thomas loved watching and helping build the tent. It sort of felt like Morroco inside it.

His hair is really long now!
We will be getting it cut sometime soon...not too short though!

Playing cowboys, Indians and army men in his rice sensory bucket.
I love how he lined up the teepees.

This is his new favorite photo pose. Cup up and in his face.
Really makes for an excellent picture, ha!

Thomas and Daddy playing. Daddy was "Cat in the Hat".

Boy is he cute!

Seeing how far he can push the ottoman out before he falls!

Cat in the Pirate hat Dad!

Gymnastics

Thomas' gymnastics class ended a couple of weeks ago. Here are some pictures I took on the last day of class. He really enjoyed the class! He learned how to jump during the class and now wants to jump off of everything, he does not seem to care if it is 6 feet or 3 inches off of the ground!

He learned how to do several rolls. A forward roll, that he is demonstrating above, a straddle roll, log roll and a backwards roll.

Here the teacher is pushing this thing fast across the floor and Thomas is basically doing a flip in the middle. Possibly the favorite activity the entire class!

Demonstrating his backward roll, he kicks his feet up and over all by himself.

Thomas showing Daddy how he "surfs", a great balancing activity.

When he started this class he was incredibly afraid of the parachute. Each time the teacher brought it out he was a bit less timid. By the end of the class he was finally enjoying it and asking for it! He is now in a Kindermusik class and really enjoying that one too, he loves music.