Bike, Trike and 2 new teeth!

We have had the most beautiful spring weather this year and so we have been spending every minute possible outside. The most exciting developments have been Lucas learning to ride his bike without training wheels and Matias learning how to pedal his tricycle. Lucas was finally motivated when his friend Anthony (who is about a year and half younger than him) learned to ride without training wheels. We had tried before to take the training wheels off, but he never was convinced. So one Friday when Tony (Anthony's dad) was outside with Anthony, he convinced Lucas to try. Lucas got on a smaller bike that he borrowed from another friend, Tony gave him a push to start and he was off. That afternoon he still struggled a bit with starting up, but by the next day he was doing great and loving it! Now it's his absolute favorite thing to do and we are trying to be better about remembering to get him his helmet to wear.

April 10th

learning to start from standing still on the bike

he was having so much fun!

Lucas riding a two wheeler! from Kendra Hernandez on Vimeo.

password: lucas
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Around the same time that Lucas was learning to ride a two-wheeler, I pulled out Lucas' tricycle for Matias to ride. It took a few days to convince him to try and use the pedals, but now he's off and riding all over the place too!

so happy to be riding his tricycle

Matias riding a tricycle from Kendra Hernandez on Vimeo.

password: matias
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Nicolas' latest great achievement has been getting his first two teeth! He had been really fussy for quite a few days prior, but Zeke and I weren't fully convinced that it was because his teeth were coming in, but sure enough, one day the first popped through and the other came through a few days later. I love his facial expression in the picture below (taken April 22nd)!

My Birthday & Visita de Abuela

My birthday this year was on a Sunday- it was also Easter and General Conference! Some friends made a yummy breakfast for me (the flowers in the picture below are from them), we hung out outside between sessions because the weather was absolutely beautiful, and we had a delicious Easter/Birthday dinner with lamb, potatoes, salad and french bread. Overall a great birthday...and Easter...and of course General Conference was wonderful.

I love Lucas' expression in the picture - haha

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Zeke's mom came to visit for a few days (Apr 5-8). It was so fun to have her here! We hung out at home and went on a few trips around Minneapolis. We also had an asado one night per Lucas' request. The boys had a lot of fun playing with Abuela and it was also her first time with Nicolas. Here are some picture that we took while she was here.

She brought Brazilian soccer outfits for the boys

April 5th

We went to the Sculpture Garden

April 7th

we love the Spoon and Cherry

walking through the Arboretum

across the street by the Walker Art Center rolling down the hill!

After the Sculpture Garden, we went to Lake Calhoun and had a picnic. Matias and Lucas had fun at the playground.

Abuela y los tres nietos

We went to Panera for lunch before taking Nelly to the airport

April 8th

Photo Shoot

My friend Colleen is starting up a photography business "Timeless Photo Designs" and so she asked to take pictures of Nicolas to use in her portfolio. Lucas, Matias and I were also in many of the pictures. Here are some of my favorites as well as the links to the entire albums.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kendrawh/ColorImages_Small_CopyrightWatermark?authkey=Gv1sRgCKOz5uWsmt7vwQE#

http://picasaweb.google.com/kendrawh/SpecialEdits_Small_CopyrightWatermark?authkey=Gv1sRgCO3hlZuAqIOvIg#

**FAMILY (meaning mainly grandparents!) - if you want to be able to print the pictures, let me know and I can send you a larger file without the watermark on the picture**

Egg Hunt & T-Wolves Game

Yesterday (April 3rd), our community hosted their yearly Easter Egg Hunt. It started at 10:00am and by 10:05 it was over -- at least all the eggs were picked up, they did have some food afterwards for everyone to eat! I think they hid around 800 eggs and it was still over that fast. One family that must be new to the community showed up just a few minutes late and the eggs were already gone. I think they still got some prizes, but they couldn't believe how fast it was over. I followed Matias around on his hunt - the older kids were in a different location so Zeke went with Lucas.

Matias on the hunt!

Matias, Lucas and Anthony with their baskets full of eggs - notice that Matias was already digging into his candy!

In the evening I took Lucas to a Timberwolves game! I was really excited because I love basketball but Lucas didn't seem too excited leading up to the game and sure enough, he was quite the grump the whole time. We didn't even make it until halftime...grrr. We got the tickets through a reading program that the T-Wolves has for the public schools, so Lucas' ticket was free and I just had to pay for mine. I ordered the tickets through the mail and had written a note for them to hold the tickets at Will Call and I even got phone confirmation that the tickets would be waiting for me the night of the game. When Lucas and I showed up though, the person helping me couldn't find the tickets. She went somewhere to check on a computer or something and what happened was that they had mailed the tickets but they must have been delivered to the wrong apartment, and whomever received the tickets, opened MY mail and had used the tickets and were already in the arena!!!! Can you believe it? I tried to get her to tell me where those seats were so I could hunt down whomever stole our seats, but she wouldn't tell me. Luckily she was nice and found us different seats so we could still go to the game. She even gave us some vouchers that would have been mailed to us which I didn't even know about. There was a voucher for a free book, a foam finger and a T-Wolves poster and then there was a voucher to go down onto the court after the game to take a free throw shot. Lucas of course didn't want to stay till the end, so we didn't get to shoot, but he was very excited about the book, foam finger and poster. Anyway, even though Lucas didn't have that great of a time while we were there, I'm glad we got to go spend time together, just him and me -- and then today he was talking it up to Zeke about how much fun he had -- silly boy. At least I got to come home and enjoy the Final Four! :)

I'm so bad at taking pictures holding the camera out in front of me...

Cute boys in blue

Nicolas loves to be in his Exersaucer

March 26th

I guess Matias isn't in blue in this picture, but I still thought it was really cute with the sunshine coming in through the window

One morning, they all happened to be wearing blue pajamas!
March 28th

Lucas loves to read and is getting so good at it!

Lucas' Kindergarten Concert

On March 24th, we went to Lucas' school to see his Kindergarten Concert. It was so fun to watch and Lucas was very excited that both Zeke and I got to come. It's nice that Zeke's schedule is so flexible and also his building is super close to Lucas' school. Lucas said he didn't know all of the songs (since he has only been there since the end of January) and sure enough, most of the time he was just standing there! I did get a few videos. Below are two of my favorites. The first one I don't know the name of, but it had some actions and Lucas was doing most of them which was cute to watch. The second video is "Down by the Bay." They must have been practicing this one most recently because he would come home singing it a lot and thought the verses were really funny.

**Password is "lucas" for both videos**

Lucas' Kindergarten Concert from Kendra Hernandez on Vimeo.

Lucas Kindergarten Concert - Down by the Bay from Kendra Hernandez on Vimeo.

Can you see Lucas? He's on the front row wearing a red and blue striped shirt and khaki pants

back in his classroom after the concert

Walking around Como Lake

One Sunday afternoon (March 21st), we went on a walk around Como Lake. It was such a beautiful day! Lucas rode his bike and the boys had fun seeing ducks and what we think were muskrats. It seems like Spring really is coming!

I tried uploading this picture 5 different times and Blogger keeps flipping it for some reason! How frustrating...