Lulu. Loodle. Magoodle.

Lila turned 4 this week. Here's the thing about Lila: she's awesome. Sure, she has occasional moments of being a 3-year-old and being demanding or petulant or obnoxious. But they are few and far between. Really the majority of the time she is agreeable, pleasant, funny, charming, sweet and just all around nice to be around.

She's also a little bit spoiled, but that's OK, right? I think that all comes from being the youngest and being a girl. It's really hard to be the father of a little girl and not want to give her the moon and everything else she wants. Maybe it is because she is like a mini-version of Amy and I have never been very good at telling her no, either. Today is my day off and we went to the mall. Whenever we go to the mall, we have to park in a certain spot because we know Lila will want a cookie as soon as we walk in. And we buy her one. EVERY TIME. I am wrapped around her little finger.

And as she gets older she gets funnier and more self sufficient and more delightful to be around. Sometimes she'll talk my ear off. Or sit so close to me on the couch the she is basically on top of me. But I try and remember that someday she "would rather die!" than sit right next to me and won't want to talk to me at all. So I try and be patient.

Here she is with her pony. Because of course she got a pony.



And her new princess bike (with detachable baby carrier/carriage.) Because of course she got a princess bike (with detachable baby carrier/carriage.)

Sorry that Noel's hand is in his pants. It's hard to have him in a photo without that.

Her birthday also involved a princess cake:

PS. I made that. 

And a princess castle piñata. Did you know that you don't hit piñatas with sticks anymore? You just pull strings off the bottom and then one of them opens the piñata. Whatever will AFV show anymore?

And despite the pony and the bike and a doll and a Wii game, her favorite present was an inexpensive "makeup" kit her Aunt gave her. And every morning when she wakes up she says, "I need to do my makeover!" and then sits on the floor in our bedroom and applies her makeup. And looks like this:

 Heaven help us all.

Famous People I Met This Week

I had a work conference this week, and say what you want about Gap, Inc. but when they come out to party, they REALLY come out to Party. I already blogged about the Food Truck Celestial Kingdom I went to. The other amazing thing about this conference was our special awesome guests, that were all truly surprising and all fantastic.

Hillary Rodham Clinton On the first day they said there were going to be two special guests. The first was our Chief Technical Officer, so I wasn't holding out hope for the second. When they announced Hillary Clinton, I was shocked. But it really was her, not just a drag queen dressed up as her. And I know there are some people reading this who wouldn't go to the front door to meet Senator Clinton, but she was awesome. And she gave a great speech and she talked about Women in leadership, which was fantastic. And she talked about the raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound. And that's just crazy town. She totally has my vote in '16.

Brad Goreski "Who dat?" you say. Well, if you watched The Rachel Zoe Project, you would know that Brad was her assistant who now has his own show. And he's been doing the Old Navy commercials for a while and was funny and charming and delightful. He's the kinda person who uses the phrase "hashtag" in conversation. And one store manager won a personal style consult with Brad. That would be maje. Hashtag jealous!

Kelly Clarkson There was a big surprise concert the last night. Everyone was saying it was going to be The Rolling Stones (because everyone is stupid.) I thought it would be Hootie and the Blowfish, (because I am cynical.) But it was Kelly Clarkson, which was a happy medium. I have to think that if you are a rock star the worst gigs must be the corporate dinner gigs. Because half of the people there don't care. But she killed it. She is amazing and awesome and has a killer voice. She is also really personable and down to earth and funny.

Yes, I know all these pictures are either blurry, or a photo of a video monitor. And no, I didn't actually meet any of this people. Just spent time in the same room as them. But when your work conference, which is usually a lot of talk about action plans and bucketizing and circling back to things, becomes famous-person-palooza it's pretty great. Add in food trucks and I'm a pretty happy guy. Hashtag best conference ever. Hashtag I gained 30 pounds. Hashtage maje. 

9

Jonah turned 9 last week. Which kind of blows my mind. I mean, in some ways I don't even remember life without kids (what did I spend all my time doing?) but mostly I can't believe I have been a dad for 9 years. I'm no math major, but that is like 25% of my life.

Jonah is super smart. It makes me so happy that he can do his homework by himself and usually doesn't need much help. He's very self sufficient that way. And I'm glad he figured out how to build crazy castles and obstacle courses on Minecraft without me having to help because that game is aaannnooooyiiiiinnnnng! I love that when we are at Disneyland he is obsessed with noticing all the details. He's my own little Disney Nerd. On this last trip, as we were leaving the park one night I said to him "Hey, thanks for listening to me talking about all the little details in the park." And he said, "I mean, the details are what makes it! Anyone else would just put a regular bench here!" I love that he is really funny and has a goofy laugh. I love that he gets along with other kids so easily and has boundless energy.

We let our kids pick whatever they want for breakfast on their birthday. Jonah chose strawberries, marshmallows, powdered donuts, hash browns and Sprite. Um, gross.

A little Adventure Time with breakfast. Ah, Saturday birthdays are the best...

 Yeah! Presents!

 Jonah wanted to go bowling with his friends for his birthday. The great thing about a group of 9 year-olds is that they are pretty self entertaining.

 Amy and Lila and I just sat on the table at the back and ate breadstick and drank Diet Coke. If there is any activity that I can do with my kids where I can just sit and drink Diet Cokes, I'm in.

 On Sunday we had a party with family. Here is his fancy Pokemon cake. Why yes, I AM an amazing cake decorator. Thanks for asking!

 Candles.

 And we even gave him clothes as presents, because we are just that annoying. He was slightly excited about this Domo shirt. The rest of the clothes he just dumped onto the ground.

Perhaps someday Jonah will read this blog. Thanks for being an amazing son, Jonah. I love you.

Shmeaster

Is there any activity more annoying than dyeing Easter Eggs? I say, No. There is a huge amount of set up, a huge amount of clean up, and so little pay off. It takes like 4 minutes from start to finish and then the kids are off to play video games and you are left with a bunch of overcooked eggs in funny colors and stains on the kitchen table.

But it was Easter, so we did it. I need to come up with a better tradition next year.

Here is what else we did for Easter:

 We tried to take a family picture before church, because everyone was dressed in cute clothes. And this was the best one. Which, coincidentally was the first one. Isn't that how it always happened? The more retakes you try to do, the more you get upset that the kids won't look at the camera, and the more sullen the kids get, causing you to get grumpier. It's a vicious cycle. Someday we will pay someone to take nice photos of us again.

We did an egg hunt in our back yard after church.

Most of the candy was melted (we had to hide it before church) so know we have a whole bunch of half melted Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs to snack on.

Jonah doesn't bother wearing shoes for an egg hunt. And somehow our grass looks like shag carpet from 1974.

But the kids all found plenty of treats. 

Then we went to my Mom's for a delicious dinner and another egg hunt. 

She went overboard on treats, as my Mom is known to do on holidays, and spoiled her grand kids so they were naturally thrilled. She went and bought all the Easter Candy a couple days before when I told her that we would come down for dinner that day. She's a keeper.

And the kids had a ball playing with my brother's dogs. Let me here reassert the fact that I will never have a pet dog. We used to be able to use the excuse that Noel was terrified of them. Noel, while still terrified of cats, has somehow overcome his fear of dogs. So technically, if we didn't hate them and think they were gross and annoying, we would be out of excuses. The kids all declared that they had dog buddies:

Here is Noel and Calila (my apologies to Joel - I have no idea how to spell that name.)

Jonah with Rufus. 

And Lila with Rosie. Who is literally her exact same size, and probably weighs twice as much. The two of them laid on the grass next to each other for hours. It was pretty cute. But not cute enough to convince me to get a dog.

Happy Easter!! Until next year...when I will have come up with a better tradition than dying eggs.