Busy week!

We have been hitting the town this week, getting out and about and it's been great! Tuesday we went in search of a new splash park and ended up at Livermore Park in Folsom. Very fun and perfect for the hot weather we've been having. It has this big waterfall the kids can play under, then a creek that runs down. Cody joined in on a big water fight with some of the older kids, and became their target for a good portion of the time, but finally got himself shifted to the A team and it was all good. We will be going back this summer.

Today we ventured off to the Sac Zoo and Funderland with Jen, Selby and Russ.
Buddies, ready for the day.

Finally an awesome pic without a bunch of cheese!

Mischief in those eyes...

We saw all our favorite animals, including the red panda, hanging over the tree for his nap.

I can't get enough of the koi pond, hope to have my own some day.

How could we bypass this?

After lunch we headed over to ride the rides. This trip we bought the unlimited wrist band, thank to a coupon I found, and it was so worth the money.

Cody and Selby's 1st Roller Coaster ride. See the terror!

Didn't last long, they were both ear-to-ear smiles.

Tyler also got a turn on the coaster.

Loved it!

Ty and Russ in the cars, looks like they've been driving for years.

Good times for sure!

Inspiration needs to hit....

like yesterday.

At the end of the school year, I volunteered to embellish some new aprons for Cody's preschool class. The other two classes had new ones and the ones from his class were on their last leg. It seamed like a good idea at the time.
On Sun, his teacher dropped off 6 of the 8 new aprons, clean and ready to be beautified. Now I'm terrified. I had some little ideas running through my head, but now I'm coming up blank, crap. I've explored a few methods and need to give in and nail it down, today. So I'm channeling my inner Martha and hoping to come out smelling like roses on the other end.

In other household news, Tyler and I are playing eye for an eye today, what fun! I woke up to this all over the office.


This stuff is flour fine crafting stuff, and some of it is heat embossing powder. Oh joy of joys, I get to clean it up! Eye for an eye, he lost two cars to the trash can.

Breathing starts now...

Monster Golf

Loving our break from swim lessons, we made a solid effort to get out and about this week. Success was found! Tues we hit up the free movie and saw "Pirates That Don't Do Anything: A Veggies Tales Movie" then headed over to the splash park for lunch. Wed we went to the art program at the church, it was water play day, very fun. After that we headed to Jen's to swim the afternoon away, felt so nice being in the pool! Thurs was library and the park.
Fri we ventured indoors to Monster Mini Golf and were met there by Cody's friend Axl. We played a round, then played some video games and the boys had a blast.

Shhh, Cody in his stance...

Good grip!

Tyler's much less elegant stance.

Then, I discovered if you want to get rid of a whiny almost 3 year-old, pull out the camera and he goes laughing down the hallway. Dork!

Birthday party on Saturday and maybe a break on Sunday???? We'll have to see if I can sneak away.

4th of July fun...

We had quite the extended weekend of fun! Mom and Dad D. came down to visit on the 1st and stayed through Mon. They were able to go to Cody's last day of swim lessons on Thurs, as well as the library before that. Friday we headed down to Old Sac to the train museum, always a good time. Then we found one of the hot dog shops and had lunch, including an slushy for the boys!

Grandpa found a cool toy the boys just had to have and brought it down for them.

Cody has it completely figured out, and had a ball with it all weekend. By Sunday he was getting up enough speed to throw himself out at the end, laughing the whole time.
Tyler is too short and not brave enough yet to do the jump and fling, so we improvised. Dragging his slide over and putting it into their splash pool, equal amounts of fun for him.

Prepping the slide...

Ready, set, go!

Saturday was spent with family and friends, going to the Ahnberg's for bbq, swim and later to the fireworks at the mall. My contribution was desserts; Jell-o cups, cheesecake bars and sugar cookies decked out for the season.
We swam and swam, went on the slide and swam some more. Cody found his confidence in a ring floaty, life jacket and swim goggles. I say, Whatever! He's all around the pool and I'm glad he's comfortable enough to do so.

The running jump off the diving board.

Whee!

We ate very well, with burgers and dogs, chips and dip, baked beans, deviled eggs and fruit salad. MMmm

We found a nice and quite spot to watch the fireworks, giving the kids room to roam before hand. The super slide!

Sunday we finished the weekend with a trip to the fish hatchery, a typical morning for us on the weekend. We had a very busy and wonderful holiday weekend!

Last days of swim lessons....

at least for this session.

Things went much better as we rounded out the second week of swim lessons. They switched instructors, and Cody loved his new one, making a huge difference in how he felt about things. Confidence was also brought on by a $0.75 pair of goggles.

Going out on the kick boards.

Practicing arms and kicks...

Back floating...

Going under water, that's his head poking out.

Leaping off the edge...

And on the last day, they had a turn going down the big slide.

It was a good experience, in the end. Cody learned to trust his instructors and started the basics of swimming. At the end of July we are signed up for round #2, moving up a couple of steps to start some strokes and actual swimming.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Saturday was awesome. One of the things that has been on our list of things to do is go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, you hear such cool things about it, just had to go! But as everything in our lives, money has always been the issue.
Luckily we have some good people in our family that think of us in these cases. My sister-in-law Virginia and her husband Eli planned a trip this past week, getting a room at a local spot and part of their package was tickets to the aquarium. They didn't realize until they arrived that the packages was for 2-day passes. Friday morning as I'm surfing the net, she calls with the fabulous news that if we can get ourselves there, we could go on Sat, all we needed to do was pay for the kids. Squeal!!!!
So we planned and things came together. Purchased Cody's ticket online, Ty is free until Aug, and hopped in the car early Sat am.

It's such a cool area that the aquarium is located, we were able to walk around a bit and see the shops, see the ocean, and enjoy the cooler weather.

Lots to see inside, here are the divers cleaning the tank where the kelp gardens are, lots of cool fish and some small sharks.

There are a ton of interactive exhibits as well, making it super kid friendly as an aquarium should be. Here you are able to change the current and watch the fish change the direction that they swim.

Wave tunnel....

crashed onto us!

The touch pools are neat as well. Cody loves starfish, so he was able to see some up close. He wasn't real keen on touching them at first, but eventually gave it a try.

They also had a few birds on exhibit, ones that would live in the coastal areas. These little guys in the back were bathing in the water, making big splashes, too cute.

A couple of shallow tanks that you can look down into and see things like rays and other flat swimming fish.

Shark, Yikes!

We moved upstairs to see the penguins as well.

More interactive toys, this is another about currents and waves.

From this point we were hungry, so we had our hands stamped and headed off to find some food. We parked about 6 blocks or so from the aquarium and walked passed a favorite Mexican restaurant. So after walking around a bit, we decided that was as good a place as any to have lunch. It turned out to be perfect, just enough off the path that it was packed with people. The views from our booth were awesome, looking out right over the ocean. This is apparently a good diving spot as there was lots of activity and also a lot of people out on kayaks. If you looked out into the distance, you could spot many sailboats as well.

After lunch we went back and headed over to where the Jelly fish were. Here's one of the tanks before that, showing different schooling fish.

Creepy...

Then headed over to the outer bay area where the larger sharks, hammerheads, huge tuna's and other big fish live. Very cool 3 story tanks.

Then came the seahorse exhibits. Amazing. They are very calming things to watch.

All around there are places where you can go outside and look around, they also have telescopes to view things way out. Here's the back of the aquarium.

Our last stop inside was to watch what we thought would be a video about sharks. It turned out to be more of a lecture with slides, but lots of questions and answers and the boys seamed to be okay with that. Once that was over, we were done! We saw most everything, only leaving out a small portion of the Otter exhibits, just too many people once we were back from lunch.


We walked back along Canary Row to see the shops some more, getting our souvenir smashed pennies, stopping at the Toll House store for a treat, then found a small beachy area to get our feet wet.
We hopped back into the car and headed for home. Such a great day, even as long as it turned out to be. We will go back, camping for a couple days next time so we can enjoy the area a bit more.

Splashy fun at Stone Creek Park

Friday we headed out to Rancho Cordova in search of some splashy fun. Our travels ended at Stone Creek Park and it was fabulous! I foresee a certain 3rd Birthday party coming up being hosted here.

A big climbing play structure...

Climbing being the key word, with this funky side thing...

rock walls...

and rope coarse.

There are also swings and a sand box.
Then there's the spray yard. It's not huge, but it packs a big punch.

Waiting for the water to hit his head.

Bulls eye!

Done and snacking.

There are a couple of nice covered areas with picnic tables, and lots of benches surrounding the splash area and toys. Along with some grassy places you could set up as well, another group brought a shade canopy and set up camp. Shade on the benches is not happening, the only true downside we saw. Also on-site is a nice basketball court and some skate ramps. You will get and airshow as well, as it's close to the Air Force base, we saw Jets, Coast Guard planes and smaller planes through out our time there.

We highly recommend this to anyone looking for a new place to play and stay cool. Take Hwy 50 and exit at Zinfandel, turn left if you are coming from Folsom way, or right if you're coming from Sacramento. (If you go past the Walmart, turn around and go the other way.) Follow Zinfandel to Spoto (stop sign) and turn right, the park is about a block on the left.

Is that one of my boys???

This had me laughing out loud, to cute.

Love this blog, one of my favorites!

Finished a project!

For some reason, projects are few and far between right now. I'm just not that into it, need to get over that little deal.

Anyway, Saturday I spent on and off priming and painting the inside of one of the linen closets. It just stunk. I think it has to do with the cheap wood it's made from, close to the bathroom and catching moisture. Don't really know for sure, but hopefully this will solved the issue.

Added neutral shelf paper as well, just to clean up the look.

Now that it's aired out for a couple of days I'm busily washing all the towels to go back into it. Realized as I was loading them back in that, they stank and would in turn make the cupboard stink again, duh!

1st day of Swim lessons and other unrelated stuff...

Swim lessons have begun! Two weeks, for four days each week for 30 minute sessions, we'll see what becomes of it.

Meeting his instructor and getting used to the water.

Practicing their kicks.

Lots of playing with the hoop, they are playing "London Bridges" right now. At one point it was on the water and they made a pizza by scooping the water on it. Then blew bubbles on their pizza. Fun.

Later he sang the song about five monkeys teasing the alligator.

Back floating, he did put his head back in the water for a nano-second.

More kicking and waiting for his turn.

Then they practiced jumping into the water, hopefully building trust at the same time.

The lesson went well, it looked like they were having a good time.
Cody was not impressed. He was disappointed to not be in the deeper end swimming after today. So we talked about it and hopefully he understood that it wouldn't happen over night.
"Your instructor seemed fun." I said to him.
"Yeah, not really." he told me.
Hmmm, okay. We'll see how the rest of the week goes.


Last week we went to what was advertised as an art program, but it's more of a random-play-for-an-hour program. Boys had fun, Ty played on this bouncer ball about 75% of the time. Too funny! Nope, not cutting that hair anytime soon.

Random sleeping position of the week.

Splashy fun at the park...

One of my favorite things about summer...

That can't actually feel good!

Happiness in small packages...

Oh, once again, it's the simple things that put a skip in my step. Sunday I received one last birthday gift I hadn't expected, a gift card to the sporting good store from my BIL Stu. HOORAY!!!! Finally able to purchase some much needed new running shoes, leaving no more excuses to get off the couch. YAY!! Hopefully I'll be able to give them a go on Wed.


Why Wed? Well you see, happiness comes in small batches and was shattered a little by the grape jelly.
How could grape jelly ever do anything bad, you may ask.
By tumbling itself out of the fridge and shattering all over the floor.
I guess I didn't get it all swept up as good as I thought and proceeded to step on a chunk. OUCH!
Leaving a nice puncture on the ball of my foot.
Damn it.
So after getting that cleaned up, sitting a spell on the couch so I wouldn't pass out, we were back to lunch time.
So frustrating!

But we did get out this morning for a nice 45 min walk/jog combo. Cody riding ahead on his bike, only slightly frustrated to have to keep stopping. Then I was good and went through my Mon weights plan and some stretching. Yay me.

Another good find at the sporting good store was a single speaker that I can plug my MP3 into. This really excited the boys. We'll figure out how to strap it to the stroller, then we can all hear the tunes as we are exercising.
Cody asked me how he was going to hear the music if he was riding ahead on his bike, very concerned about this. I told him he would have to hang back with us instead.
He told me in the store that he's going to walk and jog along with me from now on, so he can hear the music. Goober. At least he'll be in shape for soccer in the fall!

In other things going on, I braved up last week and trimmed Ty's hair. It's still long, still cute and surfer shaggy, just not so much in the eyes.

Oh the underwear. Yes that would probably be pair #7 of 12 that day. Potty training not going so well. Please give me patience that I can see him through this!

Well, Hello summer!

I think that summer has finally arrived. We headed off this morning for the story time at the library, then back to the park for play and lunch. This will be our summer.

Library time.

Songs.

Our constant companions.

Peanut buttery goodness.

Flying high on the swings.

Staticy hair from the slides.

Figuring out the different ways up and down.

Do you think he needs a hair cut? Can't get myself to do it.

Crossing the monkey bars.

Flying off the monkey bars.

Glorious sand.

Busy 1st week of Summer...

I could only hope that all our summer weeks are so full and fun as the first one!

The weekend was a good one with a long, over 8 mile, bike ride down the bike trail. Then we had Sun dinner at V&E's house, our old house. The park around the corner has added in a nice big sand box and some water sprayers, so we went over early to check it out.

Mon was the clean-up day at Cody's school, so the boys spent the morning with Grandpa. That included a trip to the park and some quality time with CoCo the puppy. Tues we jumped on our bikes and rode to the park, Cody and I practiced some soccer skills, played on the equipment and had a good time. It was looking like rain so we headed for home, sure enough we had sprinkles the whole way. Wed we headed over to swim at Jen's, it was a bit cold, but the kids didn't seam to mind. This will definitely be a nice break in our regular weekly routine!

Thursday we headed to the ocean, Stinsen Beach off Hwy 1. We were not sure how the weather might be, but it turned out to be great. The water was very cold, but again the boys didn't seam to mind. By the end, Cody's shirt was wet to his under arms from letting the waves crash into him.

Video of playing in the waves.

After the beach, we walked around the little town for a bit, seeing some shops, playing at the park and getting some ice cream.

The poppies are out in full bloom, so pretty to see along the hills.

The town had a lot of mosaic work, very cool.

We stopped at a look-out on the way home to get some better views of the ocean line.

Climbing all around to get the last bit of energy out.

They still have these old lookouts from war times, very interesting to read about.

Click this picture for a short history.

Today we went to the train museum, as the weather is still not great in the valley. The boys had their usual great time, as to be expected!


We had almost 30 min left on our meter so we headed down to look along the river. It really is peaceful to sit and listen.


Keith is off through Wed, so I'm not sure what the rest of the weekend and next week will bring. Camping was on the calendar, but the card are not stacking right for that. If the weather will straighten out the guys might camp out in the backyard at night or two. We'll have to see!

Oh, and wish us luck. It's potty training time. Pull-ups are bought for when we head out of the house, new under ware in all our favorite characters are headed to the wash, and I'm desperately hoping patience comes easily!

Tyler's last day of preschool

Today was Tyler's last day of school, the kids enjoyed some water play while the parents cleaned the classroom in shifts. It was a fun day, the weather was great, not too hot, but just enough and the kids enjoyed playing outside for such a long time.

At the water table.

Riding the cars...

Running through the sprinklers...

Climbing around...

and having fun!

Then they had a picnic style snack, ending in Popsicles.

A good portion of the class will move along with him next year to the "big kid" preschool for 2 days a week. He's excited and so am I!

One more cleaning day and summer will officially begin!

Cody's Preschool Graduation

Wed night was Cody's preschool graduation celebration at school. All the families come together one last night to eat a picnic dinner (we stopped for In-n-Out), visit, the kids play, and cake!

Before the festivities began, there was a lot of time to play. Tyler, being the ladies man he is, gravitated towards the older girls. Ladybugs are always a big fascination.
Ty asked, "Does that tickly on your arm?"

Later moving into the play house with one of his school friends, Ms J.

Cody latched onto the older crowd, and played around with the soccer ball.

After that it was time for the ceremony to begin.

His self portrait.

In his hat he decorated.

Ty's view point of the evening, I think he was ready to sit and rest for a bit.

Walking across the bridge to Kindy.

Teacher Debbie had flowers for the kids to give their parents, it opened up over night, so beautiful!

The throwing of the hats. (They didn't really get this part)

I'm so ready for the break, but now we have to get ready for Kindy in the fall. WOW!

Last Field Trip of the year...

Thanks goodness for a nice break to come! Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad that we have been able to find such a great preschool for the boys. I do like the fact that I can work in the classroom and participate, mainly because I have a need to know what's going on. But after a school year's worth of working once a week, babysitting once a week and parent/toddlering once a week, I need a break! Cody's last regular day is tomorrow, they get to bring their bikes which is uber cool, and Ty goes to class as normal. Monday is the holiday, Wed we have grad night at Cody's school, then Friday is a clean up day at Ty's (he get's to go and spend the whole time outside playing in the water while the mom's switch off going in to the class to clean) Then the last hooraw for the year is clean up at Cody's school on Mon. YAY!!!

Now come talk to me in about a month when I'll be begging for school to start again.

Okay, what was I posting about? Ah yes, the Fairytale Town fieldtrip. In all honesty, I really do enjoy this place and so do the boys. They can run around, climb on the structures and simply play. If you're lucky you can go at a time when they have puppet shows as well, as was the case on Wed.
Downside, it's the end of the year and this place was packed! A lot of that has to do with the big zoo across the street, so for the older kids it's a bit of a holding tank.
Besides all that, the boys seamed to have a good time, and it's always fun going with friends.

Shoe Slide

Getting ready for the puppet show, "Tale of the Dragon's Tail." I didn't realized until it stated but this is the same show we saw the only other time we've been there for a show. Weird.

The there's the fun of the crooked mile. A long and windy path, with ups and downs to simply run on. So cool.

I don't want to take a picture!

The treehouse slide.

Compelete with farm animals all around.

We'll definatly go back again this summer, and hopefully next time we can play at the amusement park as well.

For fun, the boys at 6 months and almost 3

here they are Wed at 2.5 and 5

Campout and Sunday at the Lake

As mentioned before, Cody had his camp out at preschool on Friday. He's been looking forward to it for a while, having had such a good time last year. He's been scoping out his camp site for the last month.

Hot dogs and all the typical BBQ sides.

The zip line

S'mores by the campfire

This year's treat: Piano Man Tim. He did use a guitar instead, because who's ever heard of a piano by the campfire.

Along with this fun, they made flags to hang on their tents, took a walk in the evening, hunted for glow rocks, pancakes and sausage for breakfast and another walk to the river in the morning.

Sunday we packed up and headed to Folsom Lake. The weather has turned to summer and cooling down is the name of the game. We got there around 10;30, pre-crowd, and found our spot. As soon as the sunscreen and life jackets were on, they boys hit the water and barely left it. It's not a clear lake by any means, but it was a good time.

This is how I spent most the time, standing in the water, reading my book and watching the boys. It's hot, damnit!

Snack break

Run, trip, dowsed in water.

Remember our trip in November, when we sank in the mud to our knees. See the background, no water.

I didn't get a great comparison shot, but you can see some of the ridge lines in the photo, where there is water now. Crazy to see the differences.

Parade

Keith and Cody were away this morning, last night was camp-out at preschool. Ty and I went out to breakfast and on our way home I realized it was Pow Wow days in Orangevale, and people were lining the streets. Putting two and two together, parade came to mind. Sure enough, when we were home I pulled out the flier and there it was in about 45 minutes. Sweet!
So we loaded up the bike trailer, filled our water bottles and headed off to find a good spot on the parade route, just around the corner from the house.
It was a long parade, like an hour long! But it was fun and there was candy, so no complaints.

Waiting for the fun to begin.

Finally the start of the parade, fire trucks of course.

Lots of cool cars like this...

and this...

Then came the candy...

We learned early that if he held his hand up and waved while I hooted and holard, the candy would come our way.

He made some friends with the kids next to us, successful parade fun!

Slowly rolling over to 28...

It was a good day. Bummed around Folsom, looking in shops, and had a nice gift card to spend at Bed, Bath and Beyond courtesy of my IL's. Jennifer was the sweetest thing and brought over a glorious cake for us to enjoy. Strawberry, with strawberry icing and decorated with Giant Chewy Nerds. OMG, heaven! Keith was kind and called home to see what to pick up for dinner, no cooking on my Birthday. So I went with Panda, easy and on the way, and oh so yummy.


The boys had a treat in the afternoon as well. I finally set up there dragon sprinkler they've been begging for since the end of last summer when it arrived. It was fun and just warm enough to play with!



28. Umm, wow?!?! I dont' know how I got here, really. In some ways I'm glad to not be so young anymore, but in other ways I'm so sad that my 20's are just about over. To the point of a mini panic attack Mon night when I looked at the dates on my calendar. It's all good. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself every 5 minutes.

Spring Tea

Cody's class held there annual spring tea and it was quite delightful! I realized as well that his was his first official school performance, with songs that they have been practicing for the last couple of months. Super cute.

Tyler took Keith to school today, so that was fun.

Anyway, here's our pictures and videos from the day.

Cody's School Pics

Cody's class pictures came in today and I was so excited to see them, especially after last years.
But, alas, picture gods were not showing themselves this year. It's okay, he's looking at the camera and his eyes are open. But what is that smile? It's so cheesy fake. And the chin, that's not his chin, that's my chin! Ugh, if it wasn't for the picture guy being so slow I might try to see if he had any other shots, but I'm way to lazy for that right now. So here it is.


Anyway, wanted to share. Now I must get back to school projects. May is way to busy!

Jelly Belly's!

Sunday we headed down to trade cars with my BIL and decided it would be a good chance to go to the Jelly Belly Factory. Ty's never been, but Cody has, although he was convinced that it was a different factory that we had visited before?!? Anyway, there was candy involved so everyone was happy.

Many Jelly Belly cars to see and play on.

Waiting for the tour to begin, candy is coming soon!

Didn't want to wear the hat, but had to in order to get his candy. Grumpy!

Yay! Free Candy!

Out front, they were convinced it would fall down, then disappointed they couldn't jump in him. Goof balls!

Ty's 1st School Pictures

Ty's first ever school pictures came in last week when we were away, so I was excited to see them at school on Friday. Ramona sent me a note saying Ty and I "made" the group shot, so I didn't know what to think. Come to find out, this is how we are in a majority of the group shots that were passed out:

He hates organized pictures! But other than us, everyone else is smiling and looking forward.
Luckily we had another to choose from, so this is the one I'll hang on their wall, he's not smiling, but at least you can see his face! Other than that, there is just the little one trying to escape the front row.
I was pleasantly surprised to see his individual shots. He would barely come out from behind the tree, so I was a bit nervous about dropping the cash for nothing. But the photographer said he was sure he had a couple of good shots, and he did.


So he through in a few of each, probably not sure of what "mood" I thought would be best. It's Tyler, in all his 2 year old essence.

Now we wait for Cody's to arrive. Same photographer, and in being there that day, I saw some great shots.

Maybe we should take Ty more than once a year for pictures, poor second kid!

Oh Mr Sun...

It's late Spring in Cali...

More Boise and Wedding fun.

Thursday afternoon we were able to meet up with some of our friends at the park. Such a cool park, the pictures do not do it justice! It had a huge playground with all kinds of things to climb on, neat teeter-totters, swings, water park for the summer, 2 covered picnic shelters, a path all around and huge fields behind it. So cool.

That same afternoon we headed up to Donnelly for the weekend. This is the house/cabin we were staying at and where the wedding was. It's 3 levels, has 5 big bedrooms, lots of TVs and media areas, large kitchen, nice dining, huge garage and lots of space around to play.

A couple of wedding photos, more to come at a later date.

We headed down the mountain Sunday and met up with friends again for a great visit, then went to back to the big park for a short stay. Monday we headed for home. They have part of our normal route down 80 closed off, so we ventured around towards Tahoe instead. Such a beautiful drive! We had to stop and stretch our legs and look at scenes like these...


We had a really good trip and will hopefully be back up in June, Payette Festival!

I can say that am not ready for the 90 degree day we are having at home today, going to be a rough summer.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!

The boys napping, such a beautiful scene.

An early Birthday present! YAY!!

I'm just now figuring out ways to get pictures off my phone and onto the computer. UGH!

More Boise Fun...

Monday we headed back to the library for Music and Movement. The boys had a lot of fun, they really miss the classes we were taking in the late winter.

I love the way Ty looks at Cody, so cool.

Tuesday we headed over to Wings Planet Kid to get out some bottled up energy. This place is awesome! It's a gigantic play structure, with tunnels, things to climb, slides, ball pits and all kinds of fun. They boys had a blast. Especially when I braved up and down a couple of times.

It never did rain Tuesday, but it sure was windy and cold. Dad decided it was time to mow the grass and let the boys help. They had smiles plastered to their faces the whole time.

Making sure they make it around the corner.

We have a couple more days in town, then Thurs evening we head up to Donnelly for my brother's wedding. After a weekend in the mountains we are set to drive home Monday.

Hopefully next trip I'll brave up and get together with some friends. I just couldn't pop out of my shell this time. And I wonder why my kids are soooo shy in new places.

Testing mobile blogging

Easter!

We had a jam packed Easter day, with egg hunts, food, family and fun.

Before the boys came out, the loot waiting for them.

Look!
New boats for the tub and pool.

Another Lego set, Cody is really taking to these.

Then they set off to hunt for the eggs the bunny had left around the house.

Surveying his take.

Enjoying the new Easter toys.

Tim and Danna came over for pancakes and eggs after the morning festivities. Then mid afternoon we headed to Danna's families house for potluck and more fun. The property was awesome, with lots of land to roam and lots of things for the boys to do. They had fun with some new friends. Then it was time for the egg hunt.
Lined up by age. Ty was the first to go, but insisted on standing next to Cody until it was time.

Look what I found!

Serious egg hunting, combing through all the bushes and trees.

More surveying of the loot.

Cody getting a lift to find some treasures in the tree.

The boys swinging with Cousin Ashlee, they love her so much!

We had a great day!

We hunted some eggs...

I love egg hunts! The craziness of them, the goodies in the end, the enjoyment of getting eggs. Total fun.

Being the egg hunting hore that I am, we hit up two today. We slid into the first one about 1 minute before they blew the whistle. This one turned out not to be hunting for eggs, but jelly candies. The catch being if you had a candy with a sticker, you could go to the prize table and get a bigger treat. Luckily both the boys had one of these special candies out of their respective age groups.

Enjoy said jelly candies and our new bucket score. Ty picked a dump truck.

On our way to the first hunt we passed by a church that was having a big celebration today, complete with 4 blow up things (bounce houses, slides, and obstacle courses), a religious based show, then an egg hunt/scramble. The boys talked about the bouncers to and from the first one, so we had to stop. They had a lot of fun playing, then we caught the last 5 min of the show, Cody thought it was cool and had a chance to dance. Then it was off for more eggs. This time it really was eggs we were getting and it was done in sections.

The bunny coming out to waive the go flag for Ty's group.



Go!

We then headed over to the next section to watch Cody. You can see his red hood behind the boys in the blue hoodie.

It was fun. We are going to a family bbq tomorrow, complete with kids and adult egg hunts. Should be fun!

Another quite time in Boise

I would like to report that we are have a wild and crazy time, really painting the town red, but we're not. It's been a quite week up here so far. We have been to two different library times and one story time at Barnes and Noble. Add in a trip to the grocery and Walmart, lunches out with Grandma and Grandpa, and a short trip to the mall. Yep that's about it!

Thursday morning we went to the new JoAnn's with Aunt Danna and helped her pick out a couple of things for the wedding. In turn she sent us home with a Bunny Hutch to decorate.

It was a ton of fun and best of all, the house came pre-assembled! That's the hardest part of these kits, so all we had to do was mix up some blue and yellow frosting, add water and mix, and decorate. It lasted until this morning when Ty ate most the candies off of it before we realized he was doing it and tonight the boys are eating part of the roof for a snack.

We have a fairly busy Easter weekend, so hopefully more interesting things to come.

Goin' Sky High

Monday we celebrated a friends birthday at Sky High Sports. This place is awesome! They have 4-5 different courts that are wall to wall trampolines. The boys had a really good time.



I think a new camera is getting closer to the top of my list, nothing fancy, just something that takes good pictures inside!

Off to Boise!

Cody's B-day at school and egg hunt

Here's Cody's Birthday Day at school. First they start of by all drawing pictures for the birthday kid for a book.

Then he is present with his crown and wand during circle time.

After singing they blow out the candles.

They they put their wand to work, excusing the kids one by one for work time. He knows that in order to be excused you have to be sitting cross legged. He skipped over a number of people that were not following the rules, then finally came back to them later. They were all down, but on their knees. I asked me why he skipped his friends and he said, "They weren't criss-cross, apple-sauce!"

That was pretty much all the added excitement, we handed out goody bags at the end of class and were off!


A new thing we have in the classroom is a writing center. They can write and draw, cut, stamp and paste things together as they please. Cody had really taken to it and his backpack has been full of scraps and envelopes. This is the only picture I have from his egg hunt day. They took a few of the kids hunting, but only about half the class had pictures. ???

Ty's Egg Hunt

Both the boys had Spring Egg Hunts at school on Friday. I'm hoping to get pictures from Cody from the class picture mom soon.

Ty's class was super full on Friday, we had a new person and a couple visiting from the Wed class.

Snack time.

It was finally time to hunt for eggs.

Look mom!

We were finished gathering our 11 eggs so we stopped for a picture.
I didn't realize his hair had gotten so shaggy! That's my homely little guy!

New Puppy

No, not at our house, but at the IL's house!

Meet Coco...

She's so cute and snuggly! The boys have been getting to know her over the last couple of weeks. She's only a couple of months old, not sure of what all she is, lab & ??? So much fun!


Been a little slack on the posting, so busy this month and it just started! Now that we have Cody's Birthday fun over with we are getting ready for a trip to Boise. We get to fly up this time, YAY!! Only a couple of hours travel instead of the regular 9.
In between all this, plus a regular school week, we've been getting ready for the Niello Ranch Run. A charity car show to benefit Ride to Walk, a wonderful organization. Keith has his hands a little bit on the planning side, then really deep into the execution of the event. My job is baking and the bake sale table, so that's what I've been up to today. Knee deep in cupcakes, muffins, brownies and cookies. Tomorrow will be Rice Crispie Treats, frosting cupcakes and packaging everything that can go easily into a package.

Our Tuesday flight time is nipping at my heals, I just hope it doesn't run me over.

Happy Birthday Cody!

Wow! I say this every year, I can't believe your (insert birthday)!

We are having a 4 day Birthday celebration this year, and it's been fun! Friday, my parent's flew into town from Boise to help us celebrate, making the weekend extra special. Then on Saturday we hosted a backyard party for some of his friends. The new house has opened a great door for us, the ability to rent a bounce house. Upon it's arrival and setting up, Cody yells at me, "Mom! It's Ginormous!"

Tyler's response being, "Holey-ga-moly!"
It was beyond cool! A ton bigger than I thought it would be and it had a basketball hoop inside.

A do-as-you-please sort of party, that included the painting sun catchers, making necklace/bracelets, and playing with the racetrack Grandpa built. We also had hot dogs, chips, Jell-o squares and sizzly lemonade. Everything loosely based on a Cars theme.

Another must this year was the pinata. It was hard to find a larger pinata, but when we did, it was a pull string. I was told it would break, but after two round of kids, it wasn't budging. We had Cody pull the strings and it loosened it up, after one of our old brothers gave it a good whack, it finally let loose! I filled it with bags stuffed with goodies, kinda scrooges, but I hate it when one kids hoards all the good stuff!

I think Ty has a lot of pent up aggression, because he was slamming that thing!

After the pinata we sang and had cupcakes.

It was a blast! Once all our friends were gone, we had a quite time opening gifts. I thought we might fit this into the party this year, but everyone was having a good time, no use in stopping. This was the year of the Lego, he got 6 different sets! Needless to say, I'm gonna be busy for a while.

Here's a video of our day.

Monday at school we celebrated with the rest of his class. The celebration included him getting his crown and wand, blowing out the candles on the cake, and getting a book filled with pictures from his friends. It was also his second turn at taking Clifford home, a big Clifford with new books.

Tuesday, his actual birthday, we are heading over to Grandma & Grandpa S.'s for a small celebration, complete with presents, pizza and cake.


Happy Birthday Big Kid!