I've been tagged

A couple of times I've been "tagged" for a "meme" (can anyone tell me what a "meme" is....what does it mean?! Is it cuz it's all about me, me?). So this one is just a list of several things about me that you may not have known....some are weird or surprising, I know. :-) And it's definitely not a complete list. Feel free to do it on your blog, too, I love learning those quirky or fun or new little facts about my friends!

I love the smell of fresh play dough (the store-bought play-doh brand)

I was the drum major (field conductor) of our high school marching band.

I always take my eggs out of the carton in some sort of symmetrical way.

I'd love to go to a U2 concert some day.

I like to jump rope.

I'm always playing some sort of tune on my fingers...sort of like constantly playing piano.

It feels really weird to put my left leg in my pants first or my left sock on first, etc.

I REALLY like the Gilmore Girls and wish sometimes I could be in their world. :-)






Bet you never knew I could make that face!

Or wear my hear so fashionably!

Carson's Amazing Adventure

Hey guys! Carson went on this amazing adventure where he got to try all kinds of cool things, check out some of our footage.

This is a fun time waster I found when I was wasting some time. :-) It's kind of addictive!

My favorite summer drink is definitely lemonade, but even better is lemonade with tea. Trader Joe's makes a really delicious tea and lemonade combo, I love it! Anyways, Carson decided he'd like to try to make some fresh-squeezed lemonade, so we got a bag of lemons and pulled down the old juicer my grandpa gave us, and squeezed away! It was fun and it turned out quite yummy...but boy it sure does take a lot of lemons to make very much lemonade!

A couple months ago, we ate an apple for a snack and then planted the seeds straight into some dirt and gave it some water...a week later it had sprouted and now look! It's really growing into quite a nice little plant! It's been so fun to watch it grow! Carson's very proud of it. So after we made our lemonade we decided to plant the seeds from the lemons we used. We'll see what happens with that one! I'd love to have a lemon tree of our own.

This is what can happen when cooking with youngn's! Especially 2 youngn's. It's so much harder to cook with 2 kids, I feel so much more scattered and distracted. But for some reason this didn't make me too flustered or mad or impatient! I think that I have blogging in the back of my mind a lot now, and so my first thought was aaahhhhhhrrrr, and then my second thought after that was, "Carson, quick, go get the camera, so we can show everybody what Livi did while we were making our spaghetti!" Fortunately we had taken out the noodles we needed already, so only about a pound and a half was dumped on the floor. :-) It would have made for a mad game of pick up sticks!

Livi and Her BumBum Jumping

I took this video about a month ago and I feel like she's changed so much since then. She has so many more words now and always loves telling us all about it.

Lessons from the Care Bears

A couple days ago, Carson was watching one of his videos and one of the previews was of a Care Bears movie. The theme song goes something like..."Wish all your troubles away, da da da da da..." and it went on about that and I got to thinking, hey, we don't have to wish all our troubles away, we can just give them to Jesus, in fact he wants us to give them to him because he cares for us. 1 Peter 5:7 says "cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." Isn't that great??? We don't have to wish our cares away, we can actually hand them over to the One who is completely able and desirous (is that a word?) of them. So I mentioned to Carson how silly it was that they were singing about just wishing our troubles away, when we can give them to Jesus and he'll take care of them, and so he naturally wondered why the Care Bears don't just do that? Yeah, I wonder too, they'd be much better off. :-) But honestly, sometimes I do find myself just wishing (maybe not wishing per se, but maybe daydreaming) them away or something like that. Why? Why do I forget that God cares for me and wants to hear all the thoughts on my heart. So the next morning, I woke up early (must have been the Spirit nudging me cuz usually I don't get any quiet time in the morning before there is a cute blonde boy pulling me out of bed) and I got some really good time to just give all the things to Jesus that have been on my worry/burden list. It felt so good to just give my Savior all my troubles, knowing he cares for me and will work them all out in his time. So...thank you Care Bears for the lesson, if only you could know Jesus, too, you'd have a lot more fun sliding down those rainbows and jumping in the clouds, not having to worry about just wishing your troubles away. :-)

Colorado

We took a short trip to Colorado a couple weekends ago to spend some time with my girlfriends from college and it also was the weekend of my 30th birthday, so Jason and my parents threw me a fun party! It was so great to be in Colorado, I had been feeling pretty homesick for it and I was anxious to see my family and my friends and their kids. It was a whirlwind fun-filled trip. I didn't get any pictures of my times with By, Mis and Paige, and we only got a couple of the party, but we had some fun times with the kids at a creek in my parent's neighborhood and we had our camera along then. :-)

Bumpa has a good collection of tractors, Livi found the one that makes noises, she had a great time playing with it.

This is Livi's face when we ask her to smile!




The boys had fun exploring the waterfall and as you can see it progressed to Carson getting in the water up to his chest. It was a hot day and it felt so good to get wet.

Liv doesn't like the feel of the grass on her feet and legs, but she sure is cute.

We all got to splash our feet in the water, a good leg workout. :-)

Movie Night

We had our second movie night a couple weeks ago. It's so fun to pile up all our pillows and blankets and beanbags, etc. in the living room and sit and watch a movie with the kids. I think we are going to try to make it a monthly thing. The first time we got the Veggie Tales Jonah movie, it was great! We made pizza and had a picnic on the living room floor and made popcorn. Last time we got Toy Story. We had pizza again and we made popcorn (the old fashioned way with corn kernels and oil in the pot...it was much better than microwaved!) and then we had root beer floats. The kids love it and have managed so far to sit through the movies. Livi isn't usually too into the movie, but she sits pretty quietly with us. :-) She's such a snuggle bug and loves to relax.

The Boy's First Camping Trip!

Jason's been dreaming of the day he could go camping with his boy since long before we were even pregnant! (Good thing God gave us a boy!) So a couple weekends ago, he took Carson over to Henry Cowell Redwood state park (about 5 minutes from our house) to stay the night out in the wild! Carson was so excited and told everyone about it a couple days leading up to the trip. I took the kids to Gilroy Gardens Friday morning and they napped on the way home, so he was well rested when Jason got off work a little early to take Carson away for the night. I so wished I could have been a little fly on the wall of that tent to see his reaction to everything (we have to buy a bigger tent if we all want to go camping!). He had a great time. They played in the dirt, threw rocks and sticks, went for a walk, climbed on branches, etc. They roasted hot dogs and had s'mores. Carson snuggled up in my sleeping bag and slept all night long! Here are a few pics:

The Dress

Here is a picture of the dress I made for Livi. It's a little hard to see, but I love how it turned out, and the color looks so pretty with her eyes. I think it might even fit thru the winter and into next summer.

I just love this picture of Livi eating her breakfast in Carson's old sweatshirt, some of his things look so cute on her.

Dinner Antics

This is Livi doing one of her dinner time sillies, pulling her bib up as far as she can. At almost every meal, she'll come up with something funny to do and then she says, "loot, loot" (look, look). She keeps us laughing, which is why she probably keeps doing funny things. :-)

Remember this dress, Mom?

I was recently going through a bag of clothes my mom had kept from when I was a little girl. I came across this dress among other items that were too small, but this looked like it would still fit, so I tried it on Liv. It wouldn't work as a dress, but it sure made for a cute shirt! 28ish years later your little granddaughter is wearing it, Mom!...isn't that fun?! :-)

Posts to come...in case you were hanging on the edge of your chair waiting for a new post on our blog...here are 2 in process...I've been keeping a laundry tally for the last 7 weeks because I've been curious as to how many loads of laundry we actually do on a weekly basis. I've been reading lately on other people's blogs about the various types of laundry tacklers and I fit into the category of doing all of it at once, when it no longer fits into the hamper and things are dangling out and stuffed to maximum capacity and then some, so most of our laundry is done on Mondays after not wanting to do it on the weekends and on Fridays so I won't have to do it on the weekends and waste precious family time folding clothes, or maybe so it's so that I can do other more fun and selfish things while Jason is helping me with the kids. :-) But hey, it gets done and I am SO super grateful that we have machines that do all that hard work for us! So...I'll let you know what our grand average is in another week or so, I wanted to give it 2 months.

Also...I just finished knitting a dress for Livi. I've been working on it for a while, it was super easy, but it just took a long time to do. So when I get a good picture of her in it, I'll post it. It's so fun and satisfying to make things, whenever I complete something, no matter how hard or even mundane it was at points, seeing the final project always makes me want to start in on something else right away. She really needs a white sweater, so I was thinking of trying to make her one with a really simple pattern I have and some inexpensive soft white yarn I bought a while ago and my big needles so it will go fast. We'll see.

Aquarium

We went down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium this past Sunday, over Memorial Day weekend. It was pretty crowded, but we had such a great time. The parking lot was full (just like that time we went over President's Day weekend, Mom!), but this time we didn't drive around for an hour to find a place to park. We just parked several blocks down and enjoyed a nice walk down Cannery Row. I always feel like I'm on vacation when I go down there, it's such fun. My absolute favorite thing to see is the Ocean Sun Fish. This creature is incredible, I could watch it for hours. It has very shiny, silver, crumply skin and is just so strange looking, it's fascinating. I'm always just amazed at God's creation when I see all these things from this other world down in the water. There are so many different creatures on this planet!

Barbasol Boy

Carson loves to play with shaving cream. And what cheap entertainment! You can get a big can of it for about $1. And it's easy to clean up and he smells great afterward! What fun! And his imagination runs wild when he's playing with it, I think this time he was turning himself into a robot.

Gilroy Gardens

Last weekend we decided to check out Gilroy Gardens. We had heard about it from lots of different people over the past year, about what a great place it is for young kids, it's so clean, the rides are all geared for youngn's, it's beautiful, etc. So we went and had a great time! We're excited to go back again. The kids rode on all sorts of rides, all garden themed, like the strawberry twirl, and the garlic spinny thing, and hot air balloons, and swan paddle boats, and worms and fish, etc. It was a great time.

$0.31 scoop night!

We went out for ice cream at Baskin Robbins a couple weeks ago with some friends. I love watching kids eat ice cream, it's so fun and messy. Livi picked the pink one, she loves anything pink. :-)

While we were there we saw a sign on the wall for a sale the next day for $0.31 scoops! Hmmmm ice cream out 2 days in a row? Better not (at least for the kids), but I went to my yoga class the next night and afterward I headed back to B&R to get Jason and myself a scoop to take home, who can pass up a deal like that?!!! It's all about balance and moderation, right? Go exercise and then go out to ice cream! The best is that my yoga teacher came into the ice cream shop right after me! :-) I didn't feel so bad then, not that I really did in the first place.

Our little escape artist

This picture is from about a month ago, but one morning Livi was downstairs playing and I went to check on her because I heard some commotion by the front door. I went over to see that she had gotten the stool from the bathroom and carried it all the way to the front door so she could be tall enough to reach the locks. I guess she really wanted to go out to play!

Happy Mother's Day!

Because you're my mom, I grew up knowing Jesus.
Because you're my mom, I've always felt loved.
Because you're my mom, I have someone whose qualities I want to emulate, especially the grace and thoughtfulness and practicality and generosity and all-around-good-attitude we can all see in you.
Because you're my mom, I like chocolate and I like to chew my candy.
Because you're my mom, I am a morning person.
Because you're my mom, I have learned the power and necessity of prayer.
Because you're my mom, I like to sit in the sun and read.
Because you're my mom, I like to make birthdays and other holidays special.
Because you're my mom, I can care for Carson and Livi the way you care for me and Matt.
Because you're my mom, I get the good pleasure of looking like you.
Because you're my mom, and you've been a good example about this, I'm trying not to let my insecurities get in the way of friendships.
Because you're my mom, I love coming home.
Because you're my mom, I've been blessed beyond measure.
I love you, Mom!

Strawberries!!!

We went down to Gizdich Ranch in Watsonville, CA with our friends to pick some strawberries on Friday and it was such fun! (next time you purchase a package of strawberries you might notice on the label that this is where they are grown) I love going out in the fields and picking out the best and most beautiful berries you can find. It's like a treasure hunt and the rows of shiny red beauties are endless, it's hard to leave cuz you know that there is so much left that could be discovered (and eaten!) And boy are they juicy and sweet! The sign said it's okay to sample, but not graze, and all the kids were just on the verge of grazing, it was hard to control them!...what temptation lies out in those fields. Yum! The cute old man, Norm, at the table where we paid was sweet about it, and was certain we hadn't crossed over into the grazing category, although each of our kids had a red juicy circle around their lips. :-) We'll definitely be going back there this summer, July is raspberry picking season, and I'd love to try that.

Ohhhhh, this tastes SO good!!!

His name is Bubba

Well, we ended up back at the pet store yesterday and Carson picked out a fish! It was so cute watching him hold it in the bag and carry it to the counter, he looked so proud and nervous and responsible! He decided to name him Bubba. Later that night he wanted to change it to WeeWee, but we encouraged him to stick with Bubba. :) So here's our new $0.19 pet.

Bubba in the bag

Bubba in the bag in the bowl

Meet Bubba