35. WHaaaa! (First Day of School)

August 30th

My big girl started kindergarten today and of course I was a nervous mess. She loved every minute of it though. Her teacher is Mrs. Berry and there are 22 kids in her class. She shares a table with 2 boys and a girl and is learning letters, sounds, and some words.

34. Candyland

August 26th

Today they initiated their first ever kids-only game of Candyland. I was so proud that my kiddos were being so independent.

33. Oh Sammy

August 20th

I was lucky enough to go visit my brand new baby cousin in Chicago this week. He's such a tiny little bundle.

32. Big Boy Bed

August 13th

My little man looks so tiny in his new big boy bed. I can barely tell he's in there when I check on him at night. He picked blue Star Wars bedding out at Target. We had to put up a railing because he fell out a few times (I think it's the same railing that was on my bed when I was a little little).

31. Go-Carts

August 2nd

Fun at the Mini Grand Prix. It was hot hot hot, as you can see by Madeline pink cheekies, but the kids didn't notice. Madeline and Ian had a REALLY fast car and Maison and I were in a put-put. They lapped us at least once. Max got to ride by himself and was in a fast car too.

Oh the pack-rattiness

Madeline can almost always remember who gave her what when it comes to gifts. Even things from years ago. Today as I was sorting her too small clothes from her closet she intervened, informing me that if we can remember who gave her something it has memories and that means we have to keep it FOREVER. She certainly didn't learn that from me, but that idea does run in my family. I see a very cluttered house in her future. That is one thing that my horrible memory is good for. I don't become attached to things and even if I have a hard time getting rid of something I forget about it soon after it's gone.

30. The Teenager

July 30th

Ian turned 13 today. 13! At least he's not too grown up to make silly faces with his cousins (even if he was staring at his cell phone while he did it).

29. Little fish

July 18th

Give the girl goggles and she swims.

28. Bubbles in the backyard

July 11th

27. Independence Day

July 4th

We started out the holiday weekend with some serious yard work. Lucky for us we had A LOT of help spreading the rock in our front and back yards. My grandpa, dad, mom, and the boys all helped us and we were able to get it all down and raked out in a few hours. We (not including me, or my mom, or the boys) started before 5am and we were done before 10.

On the 4th of July, my parents had a BBQ and we lit our nice, safe, legal fireworks in the front yard while the sky all around us was lit up with other people's giant, illegal ones.

26. Toes

July 1st

We all had our toes painted. Maison was happy we had blue polish since it's a boy color.

25. Splits

June 24th

Madeline's last day of Jazz/Hip Hop/Tumble class for the season. Her class was on Fridays at 4, which is apparently not a popular time since there were only 2 other girls in her class. On this day the other 2 didn't show up so she had herself a private lesson.

24. This is (not) candy

June 19th

We disguised Thor's Father's Day present by putting it in a pasta box before we wrapped it, but Madeline wanted to throw him off even more by writing "This is candy" on it too. (It was a video game, of course.)

23. Slurpees and shopping

June 10th

22. San Diego

June 1st- 4th

21. Baseball

May 27th

Madeline and I went with Grandma and Grandpa to eat ball game food and watch the fireworks at the Las Vegas 51's game. Maison and Thor stayed home since we were going to be out so late. Madeline fell and bonked her head. After security and the medics looked her over they gave her a game (or maybe practice?) ball to help her feel better.

20. Cowgirl

May 20th

Madeline's dance recital costume this year is a cute cowgirl outfit and they're dancing to the song "Wild Wild West". We took this picture on our way to class on picture day.

19. Wow, I'm so far behind.

May 10th

Madeline had her last soccer game this week. Grandma and Grandpa were there with Mia, just like they were for nearly every one of her games.

And as of this posting I am 11 weeks behind on my blog posting. What a LOSER!

18. Food chain

May 3rd

What the kids learn from watching dinosaur documentaries. I prefer when they feed them the fruit and fried chicken from the play kitchen set.

17. Bed head bunny

April 24th

Maison with his Easter stash. The kid's baskets are tiny from when they were babies, it'll be time for new ones next year. Madeline was an awesome egg hunter this year. The kids each got a movie, a couple toys and, of course, CANDY. After we did our thing, we were off to the GG's for a yummy brunch.

16. Getting ready for E.B.

April 22nd

We did good. Only the orange was spilt. We tried something new this year and colored a few eggs with crayons while they were hot out of the pot. Very pretty, but took too much time and patience for the little ones.

15. Baker's helpers

April 15th

I've been trying to make most of our bread at home these days, so I'm lucky to have a bread machine and so many helpers. Of course, I have to make the whole process harder than it needs to be. I decided that I don't like the size and shape of the bread machine loaves so I bought a pan to make regular sandwich bread sized loaves and I bake my dough in the oven. But the pan, of course, doesn't hold the standard amount of dough, so every recipe has to be tweaked. I finally have a usable recipe, but it took quite a few very heavy, very floury, very uneatable loaves to get here.

14. 11 years

April 9th

Today is our 11th anniversary. We started the day at a soccer game. And ended it with a nice dinner out and a movie at home. No kids. Thanks mom!

13. Ditch diggers

March 27th

DOWN WITH DIRT! We have started to landscape our backyard. The kids love the dirt, but it is way too dirty for me. For the record, it is now 6 weeks later and so far we've planted a tree, killed said tree, planted a new tree, and dug the trench for the sprinkler line. We move kinda slow...

12. Camera hog

March 24th

Madeline had a nightime soccer game this week. 7:00 at night- that's like bedtime, seriously. And it was FREEZING outside. Maison was being such a ham. For the first time ever he was commanding the attention of my camera. Even striking silly little poses and asking to have his picture taken. Maybe I'll finally start getting more un-blurry pictures of the kid. Please don't mind his hacked up hairdo. I get what I pay for and it was free. By me. Hehe. At one point Thor said it looked like I cut around a bowl on his head that had slid off to one side. Haha.

11. Legos!

March 16th

One of our most fun accomplishments this week was a Lego tower that reached from the coffee table to the ceiling. It took MANY tries and we laughed every time it fell.

10. Childhood toys

March 12th

Madeline had her very first soccer game this week! She's number 6. It's so funny to watch these little girls play. And it's hard not to get really into it. All of the parents do. I tell myself NOT to yell to the girls in the field, but it's completely uncontrollable. "Get that ball! Take it from them! Kick it Kick it!" And once they do get it they kick it toward the wrong goal. Freakin' hilarious.

9. Express yourself

February 27th

I can't help but love this picture of Max just home from dirtbiking, flying down the street on his little cousins blue and pink bike with handlebar tassels flying. Showing Madeline how it's done.

8. The view from here

February 25th

My baby girl turned 5 this week!

She was set on having her birthday party at Chuck E Cheese until she learned she could have a pinata if we had the party at home. My girl loves her some CANDY, so she chose the pinata. That morning we picked Thor up at work for a quick breakfast, then headed over to Walmart to pick out her new big bike- she picked a blue one and is practicing to ride without training wheels.

7. Open your heart

February 17th

We've opened our hearts (and our home) to DINOSAURS!

6. Words

February 8th

Maison's clearest and most used words.

*Also, he's been completely daytime potty trained for about 2 weeks now. It took bribing rewarding him with cars and trains each time he went you-know-what for it to finally stick.

5. Muse

February 6th

My muse, musing.

4. Soothing Repetition

January 29th

It takes a lot of blankets to put dad to sleep.

Brainwashed

I finally got brave enough to try the peanut test on Maison. The peanut test sounds irresponsible, but I'll justify it by the fact that I did tell the doctor (twice) that I was going to do it, and he didn't call social services on me or anything. Just told me to have Claritin on hand. So, I decided to give Maison some peanut butter to see if he's still allergic. He has never had a breathing reaction to it, more of a hive reaction, which is maybe why the doctor didn't seem too worried?

Anyways, I thought I'd make it fun and make PB-chocolate chip cookies with the kids. As soon as the peanut butter went into the dough Maison refused to touch it. Of course he LOVES cookie dough. Would. Not. Touch. It. Tried to get him to eat a cookie. Nope. He started crying when I gave him a chocolate chip with a little cookie on it, so I gave up.

Really, I didn't think I had brainwashed him so well. I would only remind him when I'd put a plate of PBJ sandwiches out when other kids were over. I'll have to think of a new plan now. A sneakier plan. Hmmmm...

3. Shades of Grey

My photo only fits this weeks theme because I changed it to black and white. The sky was actually bright blue and the dirt was, of course, brown. It's been so nice outside that we met my parents for a walk along the railroad trail out along Lake Mead. Then met Susie and Rob for Mexican breakfast on Boulder Highway.

This week Maison had his first dentist appointment. He wouldn't let them look in his mouth. His "cleaning" consisted of him brushing his own teeth with the hygenist's polish stuff. The doctor did get him to open up for a few seconds so she could peek in quickly and say it all looks good.

Madeline is a great dental patient. They said her four top front teeth will all fall out at the same time. They're already loose. For now, I'm not allowing her to eat whole apples. With all these loose teeth I was getting paranoid that all her teeth were going to fall out and no new ones would ever grow back in! I'm a worry wart (eww what an ugly word)...

2. Song title

Smile by Uncle Cracker

Maison, you make me smile...

Today, after Iphone-ing, DS-ing, playing in the backyard and playing with the train sets, and before going to dinner at GG's to see Aunt Susie, Thor got the kid's bikes out of the garage, pumped up the tires and they headed over to the park to ride. Maison was extra excited to ride in dad's truck.

I've been really noticing his scar on his lip lately. Almost like it's getting more noticable as he grows. He tipped over a folding lawn chair when he was barely walking and busted his lip. I can see the scar in this picture.

1. Around the house

In an effort to get this poor neglected blog back on track I'm going to commit (I use commit loosely. More like try-to-commit. Or commit-until-I-stop-committing) to a 52 week project. A picture and post a week. At least. For some extra inspiration that I'm hoping will help me document more than my children and their beautiful faces, I'll be following a weekly theme that gets posted on a website I sometimes read.

This weeks theme is around the house. This is one of my favorite pots (I sort of have a thing for kitchenware). Since it's too big to fit in any cupboards in our itty bitty kitchen, it sits on our counter to hold some of our fruits and veges. The oranges are from my Aunt & Uncles orange tree in their back yard in Phoenix. I didn't know, until last year, that some of the best oranges come from Arizona.