Tackle Tuesday

I am starting my tackle very early in the morning on this fine Tuesday! Derek is snoring and I can not sleep, so why not stay up and blog/play words with friends/respond to emails! Now that I have done two of the three I thought, "why not finish up looking at Hello Kitty products for Lilly's birthday party. So I googled images and found the typical stuff like this,




Then I found crazy HILARIOUS, HILARIOUS, I mean HILARIOUS pictures! I wonder if I should bust one of these out!




Yes, those were pictures of wedding dresses!

Or perhaps I should grab every Hello Kitty I find in order to make one of these,

Monday Meeting, Big Boy Swimmer

Drew came home from a fun afternoon at Grandmaland to tell me proudly, "mommy you do not need to pay anyone anymore to teach me how to swim! Grandma taught daddy when he was a little boy (but now in her tummy) and then she taught me. Next summer she will teach Emma."

Yep, the boy can now swim...well a little:) He is so proud of himself and when he kept swimming in Linda's "summer pool" that she takes down in September he wanted his grandma to video it and take pictures. Here is the video. Thank you Linda for the pictures and video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MY8s1OZAcg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5io8GjZ6o-c


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50TvzVMN-I8

When Derek got to his mom's to pick up Drew they swam together. These pictures are wonderful and I am hoping Linda will put a CD together of all the summer fun they had in 2011!




And of course, Em was there that day and she had to get a picture of her in a 'bi-ki-knee.' She also told responded to my saying, "your tummy is white Em," by saying, "that is because water is on my tummy, silly." She is a funny girl.

I told Em that this was the first time I had ever seen grandma get suits for her grand girls that were not two pieces until the girls were older. Emma did not really care about me sharing that story, but I thought it was interesting:)

Emma's First Haircut!

After years of people telling me to get Em's hair cut to have it "grow longer" I finally did have it done! Amanda did it at the house while my hair was processing and Emma was SOOOO EXCITED! Six weeks ago when I had my hair done Emma screamed when told she was going to get her hair cut, but given six weeks of talking about it she was good to go and so happy to have it done.

Mommy was a little sad, but like I always say...."mommy takes meds to not make things like this a huge emotional deal," hahahahaha. If you did not laugh, you really do not know me:)

Family Day, Sara's side!

I think I have hosted family day at our house for about 3years now? I could be wrong about the amount of time, but it is always here and I always plan it. Hint, hint my side of the family....

Since Em and the kids were here for 3weeks this summer we had family day to not only say "hello" but to say "happy birthday to you, JoJo, Hailee, Emma!" Jo the big 26, Hailee the big 10, and Emma the big 30! Wow, we are all growing up!

I made chicken drumstick which may sound boring but I baked them in the oven in a bag for an hour then BBQ'd them (thanks to Uncle Kev) because Derek was still at work. They turned out so yummy and I think Ken (Jo's hubby) ate half of them. He is always so hungry! I ran out of time to get a more proper dessert for the special day, so we just had cupcakes that Kels decorated for me when she stopped by to drop off a doll house (post to come).

I think everyone had a nice time and it was nice to see my grandparents since their move to an assisted living home (post to come). Thanks everyone in my family for helping and I am so sorry I did not take more pictures!








***Of course Em told us how fabulous she was even though she was turning thirty...which as her older (and more fab) sister I just rolled my eyes***

The Circus!

I loose track of the months and what I have been doing (a lot of fun is what we have been having/doing), so lets just say we went to the Circus when it was at the Honda Center (is it still there?). I got tickets from my mom's club for $12each. We went as a group and took up two rows! The kids loved it!

I have not been to the circus since Nathan (DeAnne's son) was 6months old (now he is 13yrs old!) and I think it was about the same then as now. One difference that I did notice was the tightened caging of the animals. Actually there was not many animals just tigers and elephants...oh and a dog or two. It made me think of that movie, "Water for Elephants," well at least that is what I think the silly movie is called. Oh and I guess I should name another difference, I had three of my kids to oo and aww with, even if I did not think it was that cool, but the kids loved it. Emma talked up a storm to a fellow MC friend that tagged whom I did not know, but she was just talking and talking to her (I kept apologizing) and Drew sat with his eyes HUGE! Oh, a funny thing....Lilly fell asleep on my lap for a bit during the second half, good thing she is free.

On a side note, if you get a plastic lemonade bottle thingy that says "hand wash" on it, then hand wash it because it will shrink to half it's size! Oh, and I did not do that, I think Derek did:)

Block Party!

BYOB, turn in $20 for food, bring a side to share, share some of your outside chairs, and be ready to party......Block Party Style!

We love our block and are very most weeknights playing outside after ballet or sports with all of them. Since we moved in almost a year ago, wow I can not believe that, we have had yet to enjoy a block party. Well, at the beginning of the month we did! It was a ton of fun with all of the kids running around after Avery (a neighbor boy), eating cakes, watching Alisha BBQ up some pollo asada (Derek had to let it go), and everyone having a great time. We just love this block!

Emma's 4th Birthday!

Yes, you read the title correctly....Emma turned 4! I can not believe we now have a 5,4 and almost 2 year old children! It is something Daddy and I are trying to get use to. I will post pictures of Emma's Fairy Garden birthday party later, but I want to at least acknowledge that she had her birthday last month.

What did we do? Well, the night before we headed over to Hero's for her annual dinner (saw a friend I use to work with and super excited he has a baby and is married....I did not realize we had not seen him since I was pregnant with Emma) and the next day was church (we all went!), lunch at Chili's, relaxing and then she left....yes, she left! My vision of the weekend was to hang out, just the five of us, but she REALLY wanted to go swimming at grandma's house. So, I gave in and just went with it. She left and did not come back until way after dinner time. At least I do know that she had a fantastic time with her grandma and auntie chow at Grandmaland. Hello, they swim in the pool and spa, go to dinner, and have as many juice boxes and donuts as they want....I want to be four years old again! Emma is a big girl and dare I say, I am sad!

Here are some pictures from her bday. I have not included her at grandma's, but have put her with her daddy giving her her birthday flowers and Kels/Kyle over to give her a gift.

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day weekend was very busy! We were invited to so many fun parties, but decided to just spend it at our/Linda's house. The first set of photos is from a BBQ we had at our place with the neighbors to celebrate one of their birthday's. It was a great time eating and singing the birthday song, but they shortly moved away....thank goodness! Not everyone is sane!

The second set of pictures are from Linda's house. Linda and Damon have birthday's a few weeks apart so we always celebrate them together. Everyone had a great time, but we were sad that the Weil's could not be with us! I think Connor had a casting thing or something....hello, this was months ago. It was not warm enough for a pool or any water toys, but they LOVED the root beer in glasses held in coozies! There was basketball playing, bike riding to the nearby park, lots of food and of course....family fun!

The third, and last, set of pictures is from our house for a kind-of block party BBQ. It was thrown together at the last minute, but came together beautifully and I think everyone had fun. We set up food and seating in my garage, but no one was really in there because everyone was playing in the street or in the tiny pools we had set up. Got to LOVE our neighborhood.

 

 

 

Our First Beach Day

First,



Do you think we shop at Costco?

Second, can you believe that our first beach day for the summer was last Tuesday! Seriously, last Tuesday! I can not believe it, but we have been super busy this summer and have not had time to fit it in.

Last Tuesday I woke up and thought, "we are going to the beach damnit!" So I got Merlot (our sitter down the street and yes that is her name) to go with us and headed to Corona Del Mar. I love it there and even though it does cost money to park (thank you lawmakers for jacking the price up to 15 dollars!) at most beaches in So Cal, it is worth the money there because you can park and bamm there is little sand to the water. With a tent, two chairs, sand toys, towels, lunch and drinks in a cooler, and three kiddies there is a lot of work, so the closer the better. Merlot played with the kids in the sand making mud balls and castles. Lilly usually hates the sand and water but on this first beach day that we had she slowly started to love the sand. As of today and 5 beach days since, she LOVES the sand!
While she and the others played in the sand I layed out and loved the nice weather and did not having to go into the water. On the way home we got some Bucks and the kids fell asleep. Perfect!

VBS!

I think I got a preview of Kinder! Drew was at VBS for 5 days from 9-12 each day! He absolutely loved it and each day he would tell me what he did and what the lesson of the day was. If you ever want a great VBS to go to, I highly suggest the one that Drew went to! Even though they had over 400 kids there (so many for a Lutheran church) it was very organized...they had 170 volunteers. They sent home a newsletter everyday (it had photos from the days activities, so cool) and a craft.

I am so happy that Drew loved hearing about God and Jesus with his friend Caden! they really are very good friends!


**of course, I had to take pics of their sisters too!**