The Lane Family

Star Wars Days

2010-05-29T15:55:00.000-07:00

Rancho was invaded by the Empire. Just kidding, the Gardens had Star Wars days last week.The boys had to be warmed up to taking pictures with all the characters, after trying to dunk Jar Jar in the Dunktank, Nate was ready, here he his with Boba FettMe and him with a Tie Fighter Pilot
We talked Zach into joining Nate with Jengo Fett and mini Jengo Fett
Once we got inside a wanted a picture with EVERY cardboard cut-out!
Uncle Joel is so funny!
Both the boys were weirded out by the inflatable Jabba guyThey also got to make a tie fighter out of an egg carton and a Stormtrooper mask.
The highlight for Nate was probably trying out all the Star Wars video games there :)

USS Midway

2010-05-23T16:34:00.000-07:00

Saturday while we were camping it was really windy which equals having to stay inside the trailer which equals brothers picking at each other and fighting which equals irritated parents. So we drove to San Diego to the USS Midway, a retired aircraft carrier converted into a tourist site. After touring the inside of the boat, the boys got to sit in some cockpits.And chucks of airplanes
This is Nate standing on a clear "window" that went down to the bottom of the ship
The whole top deck had retired aircraft you could go into and climb on like this helicopter
Inside the helicopterThese headphones were linked to information at all the different spots on the ship
A real fighter jet!
Same shot, different kid
A low profile truck that put out fires on the top deck
some other low profile vehicle
The boys liked the jets with the scary faces painted on em.
Nana and Papa got them cool Midway jets to play with!

Ahhh.... Camping!

2010-05-21T22:14:00.000-07:00

School was out and we left that afternoon for a weekend plus at Santee Lanke in San Diego. Heres our campin buddies: my folks, Ryan's folks, Ryan's grandparents and the Schmidts
Ryan's grandparents site had the most awesome climbing tree - all the kids in the surrounding sites thought so too!
There is so much wildlife at Santee, this time we saw baby ducks!
Some girls came over and caught the ducks so they boys could pet them :)
Of course the guys had to fish. No, no one caught anything!
Look there I am!
Our lovely site right on the lake:
This is a towel holder from our trailer, I'm not sure why but Zach put it on like this!

Nate the Great Graduates!

2010-05-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

Well, he made it! Nate is officially a Pre-school grad :)They had a ceremony at his school and I knew they were gonna sing songs so I kept telling Nate all week that I wanted him to sing really loud (cuz in the church plays he only lipsync - badly) and whadday know, he was super into it! Motions and everything!
Nate's teacher, Mrs. Neise gave him his "official documentation"
Some of our school pals Kathleen and Nicholas
This is the top of his hat:
Nate had alot of fans at graduation. We all went out for ice cream after to celebrate. Here's all the kids:and Nana, Papa Larry, Papa Roy & Grandma, and Grams

DLand with the cousins

2010-05-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

For Zach's B-day Nana and Papa got him his very first Disneyland Annual Passport.This is much nicer then the fake 1 I had to make him because when he didnt have one he always wanted to hold mine.It took 3 rockets to hold all our little guys!
The day we went was Auntie Jen's B-day so they both got Birthday buttons
Nana was scared she was gonna fall out of the rockets cuz Seth liked to keep it low!
Nate liked to be in control - a little too much.
It was a good day!

Zach's 3rd Birthday video

2010-05-15T22:48:00.000-07:00

Zach's Family Party

2010-05-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

Some of our pirate decor:
The cousins on the playset
Birthday boy:
Getting ready to play "Stick the treasure on the Pirate Map"
Nate was close, but not close enough!
Zach was happy during his birthday song today!
It was a little windy out!
Watching the super cool birthday video (hopefully I will post it soon!)
The pirate is now a viking!

Zachy's Friend Party

2010-05-14T15:54:00.000-07:00

Since Ryan built a pirate ship in the backyard we figured it would be good to have a pirate theme party. We started of with some mustaches:
And lots of playing on the playset
This is what Zach did while the kids sang to him
We opened his present on the playset
The kids kept playing on it :)
I love this shot of Kelly with her toilet paper roll-scope
We had a treasure hunt
With a cool map!The treasure was foam swords for everyone!

Dusty fun

2010-04-29T22:17:00.000-07:00

This week we joined our Momtourage group at the Sawdust Factory! (this picture is minus a few)My boys LOVE this place! Nate is really good at painting.I had to convince Zach to use a color other than green. For some reason he wanted everything green on green. (in the end he added a little blue and I"helped" paint some white & black)
All the components ready for speckles:
Drying station
Silly boy.
Joey and Nate's finished projects.
Ryan is building a "pirate ship" playset in the yard (he wont let me post photos of it till it's done) so we made our signs to go with the new set.

Panthers Rule!

2010-04-28T22:13:00.000-07:00

Nate is currently doing soccer with Fontana City, his team is the Panthers!Here is his team minus his buddies Wes and Jesus:
Here's Wes!
Nate has some... interesting moves. For some reason he really likes to walk sideways and backwards while playing. Check out the "kick with the side of your ankle" move he's doing here:
The field he plays at has all these super big soccer balls
We LOVE having Wes on our team!

Lots of fun at Flipside's Camp-Out!

2010-04-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

Here's the fam at this year's Camp-Out (minus about 200 church family members that were also there!)Odette had this rad hammock out in front of her cabin and freely let all the kids run amuck on it! They loved it!Nate playing his favorite new game with Ewan: Star Wars Guess WhoEwan and Nate using the force!Zachy on a make-shift tree swing (I think this was also Odette's)With 2 bike riders in the family now (well 4 total I guess) We did ALOT of bike riding.
Heading out with Papa to go crawdad hunting in the nasty "under the overpass" nastiness.
Little brothers using the force!Getting some Papa love and eating a smore, 1 component at a timeNate goes for the traditional smore sandwich
Going cruisin with Uncle Joel:Going cruisin with Auntie Becky and the dogs:
A little Star Wars Go Fish action:Ok so on the last morning all the kids were playing with long balloons and making animals and crazy hats and stuff. Nate was copying the big boys with the balloon headband and later we saw him wearing part of James' balloon headgear but he chose a different place to wear it...Hooray for Auntie Dawn taking our kids on those crazy bikes so we didn't have to do any of the pedaling!We stayed an extra night, what a difference! Sunday night was so calm and peaceful, our boys had the run of the place! We got in 1 last campfire and Smores with The Corbetts!Sunday day we took a sweet double bike ride to the nearby marina. There were lots of boats around and a little playground to take a break at. Papa got the boys ice creams and boy were they messy!
While daddy packed up the trailer, me and the boys checked out the foliage of the campground

E E E E Easter!

2010-04-04T22:12:00.000-07:00

Easter Morning we almost overslept! So we got the boys up/fed/dressed before they got their baskets. We decided to "hide" them and give them a map so I found an old flier from when we bought the house that had a layout on the back.Here's a still sleepy Nate with his basket.Ready to go to church (check out those awesome ties I made the boys - LOVE EM! They totally wore them all day!)
Nate was rockin his shades tooAfter church we went to Ryan's Grandma's house in Norco for lunch and egg hunt #1
Nate loved feeding the next door horses tiny carrots WITH HIS BARE HANDS! Zach preferred launching the carrots over the fence at them from a safe distance.
Then it was over to the Smarts for dinner and egg hunt #2. Check out all these crazy kids!
This picture is fuzzy but I love the look of determination on Nate's face.
At 1 point Zach paused to show me each egg for a photo until he realized how much it slowed him down

Vegas Baby!

2010-04-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

For our anniversary we decided to see a show in Vegas. Since we'd never left both boys overnight before we just went for 1 night. Here they are getting ready to spend the night at Nana & Papa's.We stopped on the way up for lunch at Albertos in Baker (totally recommend the carne asada chimichanga) and had to go next store to pick up a little Fresh Alien Jerky.
We stayed at MGM Grand since that's where the show was, it was nice!
These are KA mannequins in the hallway wearing some costumes from the show (lots of male booty in this one)
At MGM they bring in lions everyday - this is when they were sleeping on the glass walkway.Ryan likes to say that he doubled his money when he gambled in Vegas. ASk him how many dollars he made! (hint it's less than 2)
We had a great time, it was weird not to have the boys around. Next year... maybe 2 nights :)

Just an average trip to Home Depot

2010-03-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's how we roll.

Nate's Kindergarten check up appt.

2010-02-18T13:31:00.000-08:00

It sucked.
2 shots in the left leg, 1 in the right, 1 in the arm, pee in a cup and blood drawn. Poor kid.

Go Speed Racer

2010-02-16T13:34:00.000-08:00

In Feb the boys competed in the Pinecar Derby at Flipside. Nate's special car building buddy was his Papa Roy.Zach was super excited to make a car with his daddy!This is my only "race picture" :( I pretty much missed the whole thing while making the certificates - but we dont dwell on that.
The boys actually both won 2nd place in their division's race!Nate's car also "won" the Hot Rod AwardWhile Zachy "won" the So Hot It's Cool Award
It was a great time!

Zoo-mania

2010-02-16T12:45:00.000-08:00

Since we got our passes to the LA Zoo we have gone a heck of alot (that's good) but after a few visits all my zoo photos have started looking the same. I didnt even bring my camera in the last few times cuz I feel like I have a zillion photos. So here's a small portion of that zillion. In Feb we went with my cuz Tim, his wife Jade and their son Zeke down from Colorado.With Joey & Ethan Caraway:
See that rock behind Zach, it's a chimp.
And with Meg (Meg's mom Traci is a professional photographer so I let her do ALL the picture taking that day!)They were pretending to be panda bears in these trees so Nate is pretending to eat the tree.

Happy Heart's Day

2010-02-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

Nate's school Valentines and 1 for both boys:
I made those faux ties myself! They are just stitch wichery-ed together - love it!

"Our Grams is so SWEET"

2010-02-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

We made this cute Valentine Decoration for Grams (my Grandma) with handprints of all of her 13 great-grandchildren!(you cant tell by the looks on their faces but) the boys were excited to take it to her.

and Zach was excited to catch a ride on Grams' walker!

What Nate made at school yesterday

2010-02-09T16:32:00.001-08:00

Snowventures

2010-02-09T15:58:00.000-08:00

After a particularly snowy week us, the Reynolds and my mom along with half the IE tried to go play in the snow. Sadly we were unable. First we tried Lytle Creek which has NO WHERE to stop and the main road closed. So then we decided to take the kids to climb the Mormon Rocks where we found a tiny bit of "snow" it was actually hail that hadn't melted. Seeing Wrightwood in the distance we decided to make a go for it only to find more road closures. So we went home.Determined to get my kids to the snow I decided to take them during the week by myself. Luckily my friend Becky let us crash her front yard which had ample amounts for sledding, snowball making and snowman building. Look! I was there too!Makin the "snowman" with Ryan (what's with the tongues?)Frozen noses:

Survivor Pool

2010-02-07T20:56:00.000-08:00

Starts this Thursday!

Happy New Year!

2010-02-04T14:10:00.000-08:00

Ok it's February already but I forgot I snapped a few pictures at the New Year's party at the Williams and they are funny so here they are. Cheers!

Warning LOTS of photos on this post!

2009-12-30T16:46:00.000-08:00

When I go to a new place I feel like I have to document every aspect of it so here we are camping at Santee Lakes.
There are ducks here, lots of them. It was fun feeding them and watching all the different types. One type liked to swim round and round in mass circles then pair off and make little mating dance-like circles :)This place is big so we rode bikes and scooted everywhere we went.Nate's new jammies camouflaged him on our trailer cushions!Day 2 was sunny and beautiful!This is not an angry face, this is a "tough guy w/police officer glasses" face.This is how we roll, 4 people - 2 bikesFound a cool tree with a tunnel... and a hole out the other sideThis place had 4 different playgrounds. Nate called this one the Wipeout playgroundSome fishing... not sure why Ryan is sitting in the tiny kid chair.Nate liked fishing for about 2 minutesZach was really into the bait. Kept gettin 1 out, tearing it up and tossing it in the lake.He tried fishing too, for about 2 minutesThe boys brought their new Christmas presents from Nana and PapaNate told me this is how he's gonna smile in pictures from now on... luckily he forgot about it.Just hangin out.Ryan climbed this cool tree near 1 of the playgroundsRyan tried fishing a second time with no luck again, but the boys got to watch him cut up a worm for bait.Fishing with PapaThis was our beautiful site:

Oh What a Beautiful Christmas Morning

2009-12-25T21:44:00.000-08:00

Side note I accidentally deleted really cute pictures of my boys standing in front of their giant stuffed stockings waiting to open them cuz I thought I already transferred them but I hadn't - doh! Here is a shot moments later with them trying out their new instruments and wearing new sunglasses and beanies. In front of the tree... actually waiting patiently for my to take a photo.Making Daddy wear the new sunglassesYes I wrapped those, they are fishing poles!Their favorite thing: the Batcave!Our tradition is to take a picture standing or sitting in our giant stockings, you cant tell but Nate is SUPER pissed off in this picture. This is about 2 minutes before a major meltdown!We headed over to Nana's house for breakfast and more fun. Here Zach is trying out a lip gloss my mom gave me:All the cousins sittin on the pool table ready for the action!Zach and Chase got this fun game from Aunitie Becky and Uncle Joel (Nate loves it)My mom got all the kids really cute name stamps, Nate tested it out on his tummy (it's still faintly there a week later now)We were super stoked to surprise my brother with a unicycle from us and the Reynolds, luckily he really liked it!Afterwards we headed to Ryan's folks to hang out, we have the same stocking photo tradition with his family. This time Zach wasnt into it:Cousin Mei Mei got a new kitty for Christmas and my boys just LOVED it (hint hint, Ryan - not that he reads my blog)
I have NEVER heard Nate laugh as hard as he does when he is playing with a dog or a kitten. I wish my crappy cat would play with him :(

5!

2009-12-13T23:22:00.000-08:00

Here's Nate's 5th Birthday video, the quality is kinda low but you get the main idea.

Nate turns 5!

2009-12-13T21:51:00.000-08:00

Our big boy is now a five year old! I took cupcakes to Nate's class to celebrate - he requested chocolate with blue icing, yummy!Here's Nate and his pal Ethan doing some silly dancingWe had 2 parties this year, his friend party had a Buzz Lightyear theme.and of course there were cupcakes.All the kids had to pass a Space Range Obstacle Course Training with special Space Range HeadbandsAll the kids ready to go:One of the obstacles was to shoot Zurg with silly string (Nate's idea)Best Buddy Seth:Getting ready to watch Nate's 5th Birthday video (my favorite part)Someone is excited for more cupcakes!Here's Nate's invite for his family partyWe got our first ever pinata ~ it was an impulse buy that afternoon when we were picking up last minute supplies from Winco.Crazy Smart girls!Pinata head!Nate was super excited to get these Mario Kart rc guys! (So was Zach)Of course there were even more cupcakes...

2009 Christmas Letter

2009-12-11T14:49:00.000-08:00

We started out 2009 in one of our favorite ways: Camping! As a family or in parts we went on 10 different trips this year. We camped in the new year with my folks, Joel & Becky and the dogs in
San Diego, under airplanes departing LAX with the Schlesingers, through the wind and rain in Pismo with the Corbetts, with all of Flipside back in San Diego, bikin it up in Ventura with my folks, hiking up the mountainous trail from the beach in San Clemente with Ryan’s extended family, next to the train tracks in Carpentaria with tons of friends and then back down to San Diego for Harvest Weekend. All GREAT trips! Ryan took just Nate to tent camp on the beach at Point Mugu and went on his annual trip to the Channel Islands for the 5th straight year but decided to wait one more year until he takes Nate on that trip.
Nate is almost 5 now. He is really into drawing and will spend hours with a dry erase board. Nate is in his second year of pre-school and is learning to read and write basic words. Nate got to do a summer session of Tae Kwon Do and loved it, Key-ya! He was really good at statue time! In July Nate had a surgery on his cheek to remove a funny bump - Nate was so brave during the surgery and laid perfectly still the whole time. Nate’s favorite color is dark blue, favorite animal is a bat and favorite food is mashed potatoes and chicken bread (breaded chicken.)
Zach is a wild and crazy 2 ½ year old. He is now wearing big boy undies everyday but still has an occasional oops. He got his big boy bed this year, a blue racecar to match brother’s. Zach loves big trucks and motorcycles, Cars, Toy Story, Wall-e and rockin out on his little toy guitar (He makes the best hard-core faces!). Zach’s favorite food is pasta shells. Zachy is our little helper. Whenever Ryan works on cars or builds something he grabs his plastic tools and "helps." He also likes to help mommy cook and clean!
Ryan is still working at Options For Youth and was promoted in July to a Senior Teacher position in Fontana. He also started an organization at his work called Jumpstart collecting and distributing necessary baby items for teen parents at the school. I (Jane) spend my days with the boys as well as volunteering for Flipside and RC Momtourage (a mommy group) My new tattoo I got this year around my wrist says my boys’ names and yes, it hurt. I also learned that I shouldn’t run away and join the circus when I went to trapeze school. I made the big transfer but really I was more into how cute my outfit was than the massive bruises afterward.

Snow much fun

2009-12-08T14:37:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not Nate is almost 5 and has never been in the snow! It just never worked out to go cuz we were always waiting for Ryan to go and he never wanted to go on a weekend cuz he thought it would be too crazy. But Tuesday was beautiful so I decided to just go, without Ryan!

We just drove up to Wrightwood, pulled over to the side of the road and had a beautiful hillside of fresh snow to play in.

The boys freakin loved it! We sled, we had snowball fights, we made snow angels:

We tried to make a snowman but the snow didnt stick together at all. Nothing was more fun for the boys then throwing snowballs at mommy:

My what a beautiful family you have...

2009-11-27T22:20:00.000-08:00

Here is my side of that family ready to enjoy Thanksgiving #2!

This Thanksgiving was WILD!

2009-11-26T22:36:00.000-08:00

Ryan's Family was mostly away this Thanksgiving so we thought instead of me and his mom making a big meal for the 6 of us we'd just head off to the LA Zoo for the day!It was awesome, the crowds were light and the boys had a great time. Nate was super into maps, every time we passed one he wanted to find where we were and tell us where to go next.Santa's reindeers somehow got stuck at the LA Zoo Here's my kids standing in front of a bunch of real animals:And Nate sitting on the fake ones:Testing our wing spread:Family picture on the way out:A strange thing happened after we took our family picture - the boys WANTED to take another one... the both smiled and they both looked towards the camera! and they they wanted to do a silly one.

Cutie boy!

2009-11-20T11:18:00.000-08:00

Got Nate's Pre-school picture today. Of course this was his first bad hair day ever - you cant imagine how much product (pomade, gel and spray) I had to put in his hair to get it to look halfway decent.

Recycled Fashion

2009-11-12T15:23:00.000-08:00

So I heard Flipside was doing a fashion show where all the items were going to be made out of recycled stuff and household products and I knew I wanted to make a skirt out of ties - don't know why I've just wanted too for a long time. 1 thing I learned is that a whole bunch of mismatched ties are ugly! But thanks to my friend Becky and Travis at the Closet I had 92 ties donated to pick from! I sorted them into colors and blue was the biggest pile so I made my skirt from the big ends and the little ends of the ties and it was easier than I thought it would be! But then I decided I wanted it to be an outfit and since adding more ties would make the colors ugly again, all I could use was the leftover middles which wasnt alot of fabric so I made a hootchie backless top (but dont worry I'll wear a shirt under it for the show) Here's the top:

and here's the skirt:

and I decided after I made it that it needed shoes but the shoes needed 2 matching ties so I did purchase these Halloween mummy ties at the Dollar Tree:

(I know my toes look crazy in this photo - the shoes are old and dont really fit me well)

I also made a skirt for McKenna and we will be walking the show together :) Hers is way more cute cuz I bought a couple more Halloween ties for hers:

So cute!

If you love my outfit and must have it, it will be up for silent auction after the show on Saturday.

Halloweenie

2009-10-31T15:46:00.000-07:00

This year both boys wanted to be Wolverine for Halloween - I apologize now for sucky Halloween photos, dont know what my problem was this year.

Thursday before Halloween we had a fun Momtourage hangout that the boys loved! Paul took all the kids pictures and printed them on the spot - sweet!

The boys loved playing games, making crafts anf being with the cousins!

Here we are at Flipside's Trunk or Treat

With Grams & Gramps and a whole bunch o cousins!

KOA is the way to go!

2009-10-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

One year from our 1st trip in our tent trailer, we headed back to the same campground... San Deigo Metro KOA - our favorite place to camp!You would think after 10 trips here I would take less photos of the same things but I love to chronicle the growth of my kids on these toys: the purple dinothe holes in the former "stinky cement slide of death" now just "the stinky tunnels"the swirly slideThis was their Fall Festival weekend, we took the hay rideto the Pumpkin Patch!All the kids got a free pumpkin to carve

This is Nate showing me the scary face he wanted to carveMessy!

The best part is that the KOA cleaned up all the mess!

Finished products:Getting ready for the costume parade (N8 was at a car show w/the guys)Zach found another Darth Vader to fight (a girl with black go-go boots!)Official portraits: Heading out to Trick or Treat from camper to camperHavin fun with Nana's decorNate's teacher Mrs Neise was also camping there!Craft time (pirates, superheros and ninja turtles)Ahhh.. brothers! This was the first time the boys slept on the same bed camping - cute, until Zach stole Nate's blanket at 4:30am! The second night we put their suitcases between them

A Cloudy Day

2009-10-21T14:49:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday I got to help out in Nate's class at his school Clouds. It's so fun to see him interact with the other kids and act like a little man there. At recess he likes to ride bikesand play in the sandMmm snack timeAnd a sticker at the end of the day for being a good kid

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

2009-10-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

I love these muffins at Starbucks so I found some copy-cat recipes online and merged them into this recipe that I'm taking to the Flipside Recipe Exchange today. Enjoy!

She flies through the air with the greatest of ease...

2009-10-12T22:51:00.001-07:00

Saturday was an awesome day! I got to help celebrate Jessica's 30th Birthday at Trapeze High in Escondido. I wish I took more pictures of the place cuz it was... interesting. Here's 1 I did get of Erin showing off some of the cool ambiance:
Picture alot of broken down camper shells and couches outside. But whatever, the trapeze looked safe (really what do I know though) Here's 1 of the guys who taught us what to do - he later left angry because he was super crabby, good riddance Grouchy Man!Jessica workin on her form: Nice form Erin:

"Always look at your hands!"Oh yeah, that's me way up there!And on my way down :)After a few "swing and drops" (no that's not the technical term) We learned to get our knees over the bar and reach back to grab the guy on the other barHere's Alisha gettin ready for a giant wipeout - she was tough and took the hardest falls yet she still got up and tried again!

Me and the birthday girl "Welcome to your 30's Jes, now watch everything on your body go to crap!"
This is supposed to be a shot of me and Erin and Alisha in our sweet stripy tights but apparently Courtney didn't get that message when I handed her the camera and said "Take a picture of us in our tights!"

Posin' on the practice barCheck out those cool custom embroidered shirts they say "Gettin High on Jessica's 30th" Contact Erin's mom for all your custom embroidery needs!
Here's the videos. See you get 3 chances to make the catch to the guy on the other bar. I made it the 2nd time but alas, my camera's memory card decided to become full right before I did it :( so here I am missing the catch...

But that's no fun! Here's Jessica making it!

And here's Erin makin it!

So as I sit her 3 days later; my little toe and half my right foot is purple, I have bruises on the back of both my knees, I have scabs on my knuckles from "net burns," my shoulder/armpit area is super sore and hurts whenever I lift my arms, I have to ask myself would I do it again... I think I would :)

All About Nate

2009-08-24T15:04:00.000-07:00

I thought I posted this last week but I guess not.
We had fun making this poster for school.
I dont think Nate's favorite food is really celery or that he really wants to be a police man but I just went with his first answers.

Three posts for the price of one!

2009-08-24T14:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a few things I forgot to blog:
Last month Ryan took just Nate on an overnight campout. They camped right on the beach at Pt Mugu.Zach was crushed when they packed up and left with out him:( Luckily I had a few unopened toys from his birthday to bring out.
There were no hookups and the beach was rocky but they had a good time.
Played some "chess"
We got this "hitch-hiker" bike that attaches to the back of Ryan's for him to take Nate out on longer rides.
Gotta roast those mallows!

Another fun thing was the 25th Anniversary celebration of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie last month (what you didn't celebrate?)
Our Taekwondo class had a pizza party (of course) and all the kids got dressed up to watch the movie then work on some moves. Nate wore a full turtle costume and was constantly attacked by the little kids there.
Seth was very serious about his karate and his moves - he's a natural!
Not to be left out, here's little brother gettin some moves on, the boys learning head blocks & Nate dissing Miss Gordon on the high five.

Last weekend we went bowling with the Lassiters after church!
The big brothers:
The little brothers:
Bowling with the ball slide:Feel the excitement...
Wyatt was a little sleepy.

Back to school, back to school

2009-08-10T09:46:00.000-07:00

Today was Nate's first day of his second year of pre-school at Clouds. He was super excited to go today, not one bit of whining even though we had to get him up at 6:45am.

If the shoe fits

2009-08-02T15:03:00.000-07:00

I got Nate some new shoes for school and when I got home I noticed that my 4 1/2 year olds shoes are about as long as MY foot! Jeesh!

Catch of the day

2009-07-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

Caught this thing in my backyard today. It's about a inch and a half all spead out. Yikes!

He-yah!

2009-07-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

This week Nate started a summer session of Tae Kwon Do. Here he is at his first class checkin it out (black shirt - before we got his uniform)

He still has to "earn" his belt but he was super stoked to put on the uniform and show us some moves.

Ahh... such a gentle boy :)

He here is not paying attention in class (happens alot)

He's lucky to already have 3 freinds in his class: Travis, Nathan & Noelle

Carp (Thats what all the cool people call it)

2009-07-10T22:58:00.000-07:00

We were lucky enough to have completely beautiful weather for this year's Carp trip.
First thing the kids want to do when we get unloaded: ride bikes. This is a MAJOR pastime, I joke that we must go around the loop at least 100 times a visit.Even the little guys are totally into it.Our site, we flipped the trailer backwards so we could face my folks and have a larger common area between us.Peeking thru Nana's trailer windowWe brought the kayaks again. Here's Nate ready to go out w/daddy, does this thing look too tight? :)out:Little boys + sand + bucket of water = hours of fun.Even the little guys went out this year with their daddiesand caught some wave action on the way inNate sticks real close to shore and loves to jump over the waves

Peeps found some crazy bugs that lived on the seaweed and looked like leaves

Emma chasing ZachDiggin a hole with EthanOne thing about Carpinteria... the train runs RIGHT by the edge of the campground. We were on the back row this year so this was the view out my trailer window!Another thing about Carpinteria... coons! They come into your campsite at night looking for food, they don't even wait until you're inside. We had 3 in this same tree later that night!Gotta have smore timeThis is how Zach likes to roll... with Momo and Emma :)Nate picked me some flowers on our bike ride to the Bucks.Chillin, watchin the bikes go by

This guy wanted a closer look at our beautiful tablescape and got stuck! Sadly he did not make it out, but the kids had a good time getting close up looks at him.Lovin the beach:

Our trailer has a shower/toilet but no tub so we wash the boy every night in this bucket. Someday we'll look back at this and laugh (well I laugh now too, it's funny)We had a super big group this year, here's some of us the morning we left (yes I look horrid, glad this is a low res copy I stole from Gina)I really like side-by-sides so here's a few with 2008 on the left and 2009 on the right:

Scarred for life

2009-07-01T22:07:00.000-07:00

Once I had Nate I knew I wanted a tattoo with my kids' names, I just had to wait until I had the other one to find out the other name. This is actually my 2008 Mother's Day gift I was supposed to get last year but never got my design finalized until just now. I actually printed it out and wore it around for a week to make sure I liked it and had to tweak it a bit - I found out the skin on your wrist moves really weird. I'm really happy with how it came out, now if I can just stop bumping it everywhere!

Bump be gone!

2009-06-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was Nate's plastic surgery to remove his "bump" as we called it. Here he is what his bumped looked like at his consultation on 6/19 3 weeks after the bump appeared.We decided for the removal because the Dr. said it could never go away, it had been growing like crazy, and if he scratched it it would bleed for 20 minutes. We scheduled a surgery for 7/16 but I called them 3 days later to try and get in sooner cuz it had grown to the size of a pencil eraser tip. Then it went from bright red to black and kinda shriveled flat - yuck! Here it is just before Nate scratched the whole thing off in his sleep the night before surgery:They gave me a special gel to put on 2 hours before the surgery. Nate and I left camping in San Clemente early to get him there. We picked up some McDonald toys on the way which helped entertain him in the waiting room.Nate is so loved not only did my mom and dad show up to wait with us, but Jen, Ethan, Kenna, Seth and Chase showed up too! And they all had presents for Nate so he was pretty happy at that time.
Here we are wearing our doctor "costumes"Nate was such a trooper. He slightly pulled away when they injected him but other than that he just laid there wrapped up in his burrito blanket :)

The surgery lasted about 10 minutes, they covered his eyes, I held his hands the whole time and sung Weezer songs to him and only had to remind him a few times not to move his mouth (cuz his cheek was all numb he kept trying to move it). He got 3 stitches that will dissolve:The worst part for him was after they were all done they had a sticky monitor pad on his leg that they had to pull off and that really hurt him. I had told him when the surgery started that I had a special Transformer for him if he could stay still like a statue the whole time so we whipped that out while they took off the pad.All better!

It is super strange watching someone cut a hole in your child's face but I was glad that I got to be with Nate the whole time.On our way to the Schnitz for some corndogs!Nate hasn't complained about his face hurting once, got no swelling and no bruising. Now I just have to keep him out of water for a week and protect it from infections (we are going to spend 5 days camping at the beach next week!)

Campin with the Oregonians

2009-06-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

Ryan has a bunch of family living in Oregon and they all came down to celebrate Grandma & Grandpa's 60th wedding Anniversary. His family has a tradition of camping at San Clemente State Beach so we spent 3 days there. The views were BEAUTIFUL, the campground... meh.
Here is the giant hill you have to walk down to get to the beach.Walking back up the hill after you've been at the beach for a few hours sucks!
The train goes right along the shore.Nate and Tristan liked being buried in the sand.Zach is just a good lookin kid!This is Nate's sand goatee.Back at the campground, the kids loved to climb the tree in our site.And hang out in the back of our car watching videos and playing with toys.4 years ago Nate and Tristan were both 6 moths old (they are 1 week apart) and we drove out to see the family for the day and took this picture of them:Here they are together again:Here's some more beach fun (it was cloudy on/off the second day)Zachy really like to play with cousin LindseyHere is everyone who came to the beach, some just for the day. Tricia got sick so her and Dan stayed home but everyone else made it!Some super cute boys in front of the sunset for your enjoyment:

It's gettin kinda wacky!

2009-06-26T15:44:00.000-07:00

It was a medieval theme this year at wacky week, Nate was totally into all the knights!Of course he had to test out the princesses too!Each day the kids made pieces of the armour of God, Nate liked to play drums on his breastplate of righteousness with SophiaWorship time was Nate's favorite, he loved jumping up and down to the Happy Song.Of course he loved all the extra time with his best bud Seth...bouncing in the jumper...and more Seth!We were super excited that some friends from his preschool class came too!And the cherry on top, the waterside on the last day! Thanks Paul and Angie and everyone who helped out, it was super wacky and super awesome!

Callin all Angels

2009-06-23T15:28:00.000-07:00

For Father's Day this year us kids took my folks to an Angel game. We all had a blast! It was free kid's jersey night but they were all XL so Nate swims in his and Zach could use his as a sleeping bagWho needs 1 seat per person? Not Zach and Chase!Nate was having so much fun with everyone he was sad when I tried to get him to sit by me and RyanRerynolds fam + Nate - Seth who is hiding behind Ethan

Who'da thunk it?

2009-06-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

Both my boys like black licorice.

Root. rooot, root for the Angels!

2009-06-12T14:22:00.000-07:00

We arnt really Angel's fans but thanks to Walmart, we looked the part at last Friday's game :) We joined Ryan's sister's church for the game and some tailgating.
Check out how Nate ate his hotdog:The boys did a little goofin around and got some energy out before we went in.Here's the family to 1 side: Papa Roy, Grandma Gaye, Grandma Donna, Grandpa Corky and Rosemarie (Dan's mom)
And the other side Tricia and Dan (taking the picture)Zach was a little overwhelmed at first with the height of the stadium and the fireworks that went off for every homerunBut sittin with a Papa always makes him happyThe boys got new hats and Nate was having a blast pokin Uncle Danny with his bill.Zach was ready to go long before the 7th inning stretch.We had a blast, cant wait to go and be poser fans again... maybe soon!

Gettin Wild!

2009-06-11T14:00:00.000-07:00

We were super lucky that Deanne offered us her free passes to the Wild Animal Park last week. It was fun, we had 4 kids and 4 adults (me, Deanne, Dawn and Auntie Lydia)
Whatchu lookin' at? Nate was too freaked out to feed the deer but Zach was all over it! This dear only had 1 eye, the other side had a big crater that fascinated the kids Behind the boys 2 lions are eating bunny rabbits - nasty!This cat-thing (I missed it's name) came out and the trainer flung toys on a rope above it's head and it would flip backwards and catch it. My boys LOVED it!We did the tour "safari" thing, here we are waiting in line for itHere we are on itAnd here's what my boys spent a good portion of the tour doing: not looking at the animals, looking thru the holes in the seat!Flamingos!We came across this water play area and my boys couldnt resist getting wet.The kids kept waiting for this bucket to fill up and dump, they loved it.Nate was SO happy to play in the water, he could have spent all day there.Luckily I brought changes of clothes and shoes.Learning about compost (not really)
There was a cute playground we spent some time letting the kids run at.

Dont worry this is a pretend rhino.Calm down, this lion is also pretend.The kids all got to pick something special on the way out, Nate chose this mask. The whole way out we kept saying things like "What a cute panda" and he'd rip off the mask and say "It's just a mask!" "Uh oh, a panda is escaping the zoo" "It's just a mask!" Nate thought it was hilarious :)

School's Out For Summer!

2009-06-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

Today was Nate's last day of his first year of Preschool.I got to stay in his class and "help out" - I didn't do that much but I had fun and I love seeing Nate at school!We brought Dirt & Worms for the snack (another mom beat me to the cupcake signup)Even though it was chilly we got to go outside for fun centers! Hello? Where is the warm weather? I guess it's really fun to throw bean bags at your mom, don't worry, I pelted him back!Friends from school: Gabriel, Chris & TylerJakob was not that down with getting his picture taken.I forgot to get a nice picture with Nate's teacher Mrs. Neise - doh! Sorry Melissa! Guess we always have next year!

Adventures in Ventura

2009-06-04T23:45:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we went camping with my folks at Ventura State Beach RV Park. It was not beach weather. We did alot of bike riding and playing at the playground. The boys played some air hockey.
This is what Nate does when he makes a shot:We went off the paved trail on to a dirt path on our bikes. The path got smaller and smaller!Candy time:Havin fun in Nana's pop up tent:

On one of our rides to the beach we watched a guy kite-surf.Before we left Nana caught a little froggy!

Not pictured is the HORRID Karaoke night the campground blasted until 10pm! Just imagine trying to get your kids to sleep while some drunk guy is screaming "Enter Sandman" into a microphone - not good.

Kidspace

2009-05-25T22:09:00.000-07:00

For Memorial Day we took the boys to the Kidspace museum in Pasadena. It was a cute little place! Warning: this post had ALOT of photos, I guess I felt like I had to document everything cuz we'd never been there and there was alot of different things to do there. This is how cool the entrance is: The first thing the boys did was build with giant shapes I thought this place was gonna be lame cuz these shapes were just on a carpet under a canopy in the middle of a dirt field but it got better.Inside there were lots of climbing areas to pretend you're a bugHere Nate is learning about erosionRyan and Nate doing more climbing:Nate in front of a bee hive:There were lots of bugs and bug/garden-themed things insideOutside there were fun bikes to ride:And water play areasOutdoor climbing things:Playing drums with water guns:Anytime water pops up out of the ground my boys love it!There was tons of "nature stuff" outsideAhh a rare treat: a semi-decent picture of mommy and the boys!It was a fun place, I'd totally go back. It only cost $8 each to get in (I found a coupon online) and they had a nice place to eat lunch (mmm... chili fries) and it wasn't too crowded!

My nephew rocks!

2009-05-23T21:57:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we all went to see my nephew Blake's band perform at a church in Upland. (the photos look weird cuz they were super dark and I lightened them)

Blake's band is called Silhouette Symphony and they are all high school age kids that rock hard. It's weird feeling so out of touch with what "the young kids" are into now. Like people "moshed" when we went to shows but the kids now do this crazy "weedwacker" style of dance where they fling their arms all around and kick backwards and flip into each other. It's WAY dangerous! Man it feels weird to be "old." Anyways if you're bored check out his band http://www.myspace.com/silhouettesymphony the singing style is... interesting.

Check out Blake's awesome neon skinny short shorts:

Nate was into the show, I couldn't get him to dance with me but he was excited to be there. Zach on the other hand HATED the loudness of the music and was dying to leave.

Zach's Y2 Portraits

2009-05-15T22:21:00.000-07:00

Normally Zach is so bad at getting portraits done that I have to LAY DOWN on the floor and have him sit on my stomach so he will stay in front of the cameras. So our last few have only been headshots. This time I had some tricks that totally worked, we had tons of good photos to pick from. First was brand new light up shoes that he'd never worn so he kept jumping up and down and thought it was so funny. The second was bringing the new motorcycle that Auntie Darlene and Auntie Debbie got him - worked perfectly!

We're going buggy...

2009-05-15T18:24:00.000-07:00

Buggy Party #2 We did 2 parties in 1 day cuz I'm crazy like that. Here's the family party: More fun in the bounce house:More presents:More viewings of the birthday video: A personal cake: (we had frozen banana's for dessert and those are hard to put a candle in)

The 2 Musketeers: The 2 Mini Musketeers:

A very buggy birthday!

2009-05-15T15:54:00.000-07:00

Zach is into bugs (like all little boys I guess) so we did a major buggy theme for his parties.
We had yummy buggie cupcakes:
And a buggy hunt. Each kid decorated a bug box with stickers and we hunted for real ladybugs!
I bought 3,000 ladybugs but some died before we hunted and some just flew away but most kids got 4-5 so that was fun!
Here's Nate and Zach getting some private bounce time in before the party started:
We opened some presents...
watched the birthday video...
cupcake time!
Some of my photos look so good because Danielle came and took some pictures with my camera - yipee!
Here's some of our buggie friends:

Woo Hoo Zach is Two!

2009-05-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

Here is Zach's Two Year Birthday video Ryan put together for his party last friday.

Countdown to 2

2009-05-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

I'm a punk and I forgot to put up Zach's birthday countdown 2 nights ago before I went to bed (Hey, I been staying up late) so we had to start his countdown a little late. Better late than never.

A Mops Fun Day

2009-04-30T23:44:00.000-07:00

Today I took just Nate to our Mops fun day at the Sawdust Factory in Upland. (this photo was taken after a few families had left)

The before shot. We made "Mother's Day Projects" so I picked out the giant flower for Nate to paint. BTW you will see lots of goofy faces on Nate in this post cuz he was so darn excited to be there!

I wanted Nate to do all the painting himself but he wanted us to paint together so I helped a little bit.

Of course he picked blue paint and then dark blue paint - luckily they just put some green paint on our table so he used that too to give it some nice variety.

This was as messy as he got!

On to the next station: speckles!

Here the speckle girl is making a bumble bee on the flower out of Nate's fingerprint - cute!

Nate and Wyatt:The finished project and Nate's new doggy: FluffyThe reason we got Fluffy is because last time we came to the Sawdust Factory Nate made a dog house and got to pick out a doggy (Spotties) last year. Well he stinkin loves that doggy (it has been on every camping trip with us and at Family Camp Spotties mastered the doggy obstacle course) and when he found out we were going back he was super excited to get another dog so I totally gave in.

I had a great time with my Nate!

Family Camp Rules!

2009-04-26T23:26:00.000-07:00

Another great Family Camp in San Diego. This year there were over 200 Flipside folks at the camp - it was awesome! Here is a shot of Jasen at our site (this is the only one I took of our cute tablescape - it made me so happy!)

We did lots of "family campy" things like sit on porch swings:Scoot:Electric Scoot: (Zach could do this ALL day!)Bocce ball:Play doh:Bounce house:Nate at the playground with Luke Corbett:Just how many people can you fit on a 4 seater bike? Those bikes were loaded all weekend!James and Grace being silly with Nate:The men in the fam minus Kevin (btw that's Becky's cousin Phil if you didnt know)The ladies in the fam minus Becky:Me and my boys:

Hoppy Easter

2009-04-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

This year we had a nice mello Easter. The boys had to hunt for their baskets in the morning which were hidden in plain site in the kitchen. Zach found them first.

We got the boys Mr Potato Heads and since I wanted them to have some different parts (and since it was 2.50 cheaper), I got 1 Mr Potato Bunny. Well Nate just loved wearing the bunny mouth and ears, he walked around like that for a while - the funniest part was when he decided the bunny tail I tucked in the back of his pants needed to be more realistic and dropped his pants in front of everyone to try and tuck it in his booty. Don't worry I didn't let him!

After church we had part of Ryan's family and my folks over for a small lunch. The boys had their own private egg hunt, just the 2 of them.

We made these bird houses the day before at Lowes and I thought it was so cute to put eggs on them.

Some cuteness:

Our family:

(all 3 of my boys had matching shirts on in different colors - I love that!)

After Zach's nap we went over to the Smarts for my "big" family Easter dinner. We did 2 separate hunt for little kids and bigger kids. My what a lot of kids, so much fun!

I'm going, going, back, back, to Cali, Cali

2009-03-31T23:00:00.000-07:00

Even thou it's spring break and I knew it would be crowded, I took the boys to California Adventure on Tuesday. Once we made it thru the parking garage, it wasn't bad at all. It was a perfect day, warm enough to wanna get wet but not hot enough to kill you in line.

This is what happens when you are holding chocolate milk and your little brother ventures too close to the fountain and you try to warn him by erratically jumping up and down and hollering at him.

Look there's me! Nate is really into taking pictures with the camera so now I actually appear in photos because it's not like my husband ever grabs the camera!

We did a few Bug's Land rides but mainly we went to the 3 water play areas and the boys played and I got to just sit - it was awesome!

How come the biggest smiles come when they are trying to get mommy wet?It was tough trying to get a good shot of Zach

so I tried the underneath approach - didn't work!

Take a hike!

2009-03-28T22:53:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Ryan and Nate had some guy time "hiking" in Lytle Creek. They both wore hiking boots, zip off pants, hats and water.

I made Ryan take the camera :)

According to Ryan, Nate got tired of hiking on the trail so they went straight to the creek and spent the afternoon throwing sticks in the water, eating snacks, and looking at the "bears" thru the "noculars"

Chugga chugga woo woo

2009-03-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

For Christmas my parents gave the boys these awesome coupon books for fun outings with them. We cashed in our first coupon "Take the train to LA." My poor dad actually had to drive to LA that morning for business then drove back like crazy to catch the train with us to go back again.
Nate was super excited for his first "real" train ride (Disneyland's train doesn't count) The night before we we found his conductor hat and played train with the kitchen chairs.

Shhh... don't tell anyone we stood on the track to take pictures!

On the train:

Nate spent some time chillin with some tunes.

Some of us ate a yummy lunch at Olvera Street - no photos because mommy was not in a good mood after fighting with 2 boys who refused to eat anything. Then we walked the shops and hung out in the main center snacking. listening to flutes and watching the boys play with some toys my folks got them.

Before we caught the train home, we grabbed ice cream for the trip!

It was messy!

A camping we will go

2009-03-24T14:50:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went camping with our mirror image fam: The Corbetts!

Nate and Jake are 2 months apart and Zach and Luke are 2 months apart! Nate was super excited to be with Jake everyday!We didnt do many "beachy" things cuz it was chilly but the boys loved playing on this big hill of beach sand:Bubble time:Smores - mmm!

We spent alot of time at all the different playgrounds at the campground:The big boys rode bikes:The little boys rode in the wagon:Flashback: the big boys 2 years ago before either had a little brother:

We had a fun time hanging out and being with the Corbetts. Not pictured: The horrendous rain storm that happened Saturday night! Luckily our trailer had no major leaks! The suckiest part was the wind that came and shook the walls of the trailer like crazy and caused us to get out of bed to put our canopy down at 4 in the morning! Boo for wind!

8 years ago today...

2009-03-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

we said "I do" and we still mean it!

Field of flowers

2009-03-09T14:39:00.000-07:00

On Monday we had an impromptu "exploring" trip when we drove by this beautiful field. The boys were looking for bunnies and buggies and I was bugging them by looking for a good picture.

This is why

2009-03-07T23:34:00.000-08:00

This is why I called Code Enforcement on my next door neighboors.

Clean teeth - no cavities!

2009-03-06T14:23:00.000-08:00

Friday was Nate's 2nd dentist trip. He was awesome again!

Everyone that checked him kept telling me that he was one of the best patients they'd had.

Here he is doing his favorite thing: the suction straw.

He was so good they gave him a lifetime supply of toothpaste.

Just kidding, it's an inflatable!

Dockweiler RV Park

2009-03-03T14:04:00.000-08:00

This last weekend we went camping with the Schelesingers at an RV park located literally at the end of the LAX runway. So why camp there? THE BEACH! Check out how close we were to it: It was so cool to be right on the sand. The forecast was to be cloudy all weekend but it was beautiful! I wasnt even planning for us to spend time on the beach at all but we totally did. Lucky thing I accidentally left sunblock in the trailer or my boys would have been burned!We didnt even have sand toys so my trailer bowls and spoons had to be sacrificed!The boys had alot of fun playing in the sand and Nate loved playing in the water and "jumping" over wavesHere's a reference of how close the airport was: Every once in a while a BIG plane would go by and you'd have to stop talking and wait till it passed but it wasnt bad at all. I kept forgetting about them in between the big ones. I assumed they stopped going eventually at night because they never woke us up but one night Zach woke up at 3 and I heard them still going. They didnt even wake us up in the mornings, we slept till at least 7:30 everyday (I cant ask for more with my guys) It was cool having the Schlesingers there, Gina makes me want to "nice" up my trailer - she has matching dishtowels where I have my old crappy stained ones. But check out my cool window coverings and slipcovers. We inspired each other I think!Zach and Nate were both really into seeing Momo everyday. They missed her on our last day.
Just hangin in the trailer:Ryan has always hated these socks of Nate because they are slightly skinny and N8 had wide feet so Ryan decided to take out his frustrations and burn this pair (too bad we have a whole pack of them still)After the Schlesingers left we took a drive to Santa Monica pier for shaved ice and just to hang out.

All in all we liked this campground, I think we'll be back before the summer is over!

Snoop dog

2009-02-22T21:46:00.000-08:00

Since our camping trip got canceled due to rain, we wanted to do a fun family thing during the weekend and since Nate loved going to Knott's in the summer w/Grandma and Papa Roy, that's where we went. It was nice, they had cute kiddie rides in Camp Snoopy and the waits were nothin!

We rode the train and listened to a very un-Disney commentary of the things around us.We rode in little balloon things:Nate had so much joy in his face on this ride, it was so cute!

The boys had to manually pump these little carts around (Zach got some help)

And after we crossed this bridge my camera battery died. Darn.

We had a nice time, Nate really like the cowboy stunt show, I like the potato cheese soup in a bread bowl and we were all happy that it didnt rain on us :)

Everybody bowl!

2009-02-22T21:24:00.000-08:00

After Lowes we headed over to the alley for 99 cent bowling (plus shoes) with bumpers! The kids had alot of fun and even us "adults" (I still feel weird calling myself an adult - how sad) bowled too.

Nate had some great celebration moves after knocking down pins

The boys loved waiting for the balls to return:

and got so excited each time one came up the ramp.

They had this cool "slide" to help the little ones bowl.

I got 2 spares while holding Zach on my hip, a stranger (weird guy) came up to shake my hand cuz he'd never seen anyone bowl that way.

It was super fun!

Where your treasure is...

2009-02-20T20:56:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day started out at Lowes this year. We met up with the Reynolds to make heart "treasure" boxes (not jewelry boxes - my boys don't have jewelry)

Zach and Chase had a fun time testing out their hammers on different surfaces of Lowes.

Nate with his completes box:

All the kids in a row:

Jesus is alive in 2005

2009-02-20T20:51:00.000-08:00

I saw this bumper sticker the other day - thought it was funny.

Happy V-Day

2009-02-14T14:02:00.000-08:00

This was Nate's Valentine for school:

I got Tagged

2009-02-11T20:40:00.000-08:00

My friend Stef tagged me
Here are the rules:
1. Go to where you store your pics.
2. Go to your 4th folder.
3. Go to your 4th pic.
4. Post it and tag three more people.
I tag Jen Reynolds, Becky Johnson & Mindi Houghton (at first I tagged you, Nicole, but then I saw that you did it on your own - you're silly)This is Nate and Kaylee at a puppet show at the Lewis Playhouse. Remember that show Min? Some of those puppets were free-kee!

The pool:

2009-02-06T21:26:00.000-08:00

Here is this season's Survivor Pool. Go Stephen!

What do you do with a scurvy pirate?

2009-02-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

On Friday we went out for Joel's Birthday to the Pirate Adventure Dinner in Buena Park. It was pretty cool. There was a big "ship" in the room and the pirates swung on ropes over the audience. There was a bit more singin and dancin then I expected but it was a good show. It's alot like Medieval Times, you root for your color pirate to become the captain's first mate, but it's a much smaller venue so you are super close to the action.

Nate LOVED it! He was so into the swords, the fighting, the acrobatics, everything.

They picked alot of people out of the audience to be in the show. Out of our group of 15, 5 got picked. Ethan and Kenna got to "shoot" guns. Here's Ryan, Joel and Becky's cousin Phil hoisting the sails:

and flexing their muscles :)

Everyone was into sword fighting:

Nate likes to wear his patches in the middle so he can still see.

Jedi Nate

2009-01-29T22:15:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday we went to Disneyland and met up with a bunch of other mommies. 5 mommies + 10 kids = fun! Seriously I'd like to see 5 daddies accomplish this! (I stole this picture from Gina - I look crooked)

Before we met up with the big gang, Mindi and I took our kids to the Jedi Training Academy and for the first time ever, Nate got picked! It was AWESOME! He was so little compared to some of the kids up there but he wasnt the smallest!

Practice:

We have "played" Jedi a billion times at home so he knew the routine (right leg, left leg, right shoulder, left shoulder, duck, to the head!) It was so cool, he got to fight Darth Maul:

He didn't try to him him as hard as he does in practice but I think that face is a little intimidating:

Here is a short video of the end of his "attack"

Nate in the crowd of Padawans:

Graduating on the stage with the Jedi Knights:Here's my riding buddies for the Winnie the Pooh ride:(yes Zach has his snack bowl AGAIN, just 1 this time)
Have you seen a picture of these kid on a bench before?
Here's the same kids about a year ago on a bench at Disneyland:

2 crazy boys:Zach's first time willing to go on the merry-go-round by himself: (I had to climb on once it started) Here's Nate, Caden, and the lady who stole Jacob's sea lion:

I'm "Booked"

2009-01-29T22:12:00.000-08:00

So after a morning at Mops where I went thru all the details to my entire table of why I was refusing to join Facebook and how I was gonna hold out despite all the pressure from my good friends and family, I came home to find out that an account had been created for me by my good friend Stef (I still love you babe) and I already had 10 friends. Weird.

So I guess I'm on now, it's weird thou cuz I tend to get obsessed and I already check email and read blogs like 5 times a day and feel like I spend too much time on the computer as it is and I really dont want to get sucked into reading a billion messages about who's who's friend and who accepted who's keys (what?).

My feelings about Facebook - sucks! It took 45 minutes and a call to my sister to add a stupid profile picture and I feel like I should be smarter than that. So I added friends but I dont think I'll be making friend "requests" or whatever soon. That is the high school outcast in me coming out, I fear the rejection.

In my silent revolt I chose this as my current profile picture:

That's just weird

2009-01-29T21:24:00.000-08:00

Wanna know a little more about who's reading your blog? Look at my clustrmap:

It's been up for 2 days and I've aleady had four hits from India? Crazy. Hello India! Hello Eupore! I didnt know you were reading my blog.

Get your clustrmap here http://www.clustrmaps.com/index.htm it's CRAZY yo!

Some pictures from Disneyland

2009-01-25T14:03:00.000-08:00

Last week we spent some time at the big park w/Erin, Caden & Jacob.

The boys had alot of fun running around the redwood forest.

Look in the back of this picture, Zach had to carry those 2 snacks with him everywhere, even while trying to walk the net bridges!

We got Nate's new pass, here he is lookin good!

Where my girls at?

2009-01-22T15:15:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday I went with my sis, my mom and a bunch of cool girls from church to see Bride Wars. It was cute. I laughed out loud and it ended on a happy note which I like. If you dont know the basic plot is 2 best friends who end up scheduling their weddings at the same place, same time. Anyways, in the after-movie-chat the question was raised to the group: "So, where's your maid of honor?"

It got me thinkin about how super blessed I am to still have all these women in my life. All my "maids" live w/in 45 minutes of me and most live w/in 15. Of course they are ALL related to me so that really helps keep them in my life!

I never did wedding program "shout outs" before so here they are now: (L to R)

Deanne: You are one of the most giving people I know. In fact I often say that your spiritual gift is "gift-giving." You are always thinking of others and you open up your home so often without even stressing about it (like I totally do) Besides my house, I think I spend more time at your home than anywhere else.

Dawn: I dont even like to let myself think of some of the things you must see at your job. It takes an extra special person to work with sick babies. You have a big heart and have no idea how you get thru a shift with out crying your eyes out, like you did when we saw Young Guns 2.

Jen: (Matron of Honor) You make mothering a family of four kids look easy. I appreciate all the advice you give and the wonderful example of motherhood that you are too me. You always encourage me in all my crazy endeavours and are there by my side supporting me.

Darlene: (Maid of Honor) I think out of the whole fam, your brain is most similarly wired like my brain. We connect on that level. You are wonderfully creative and your creative output shames the rest of us. Basically - you're cool.

Debbie: Talk to Debbie for a few minutes and it's totally apparent that she has a huge heart for others. From mission trips to working to better communities for those in them, she goes the extra mile for others everyday. Deb is gonna change the world.

Tricia: Remember when you were in high school and there was always that 1 kid with the really cool parents? My sister-in-law volunteers with the youth group, opens up her home weekly to the kids, takes her kids to rock shows and she's hot! I really hope when I have teenagers that I'm as hip as she is.

Damn, I'm lucky to be related to these girls.

So, where's your maid of honor?

My future's so bright...

2009-01-22T14:53:00.000-08:00

The first time I stuck a pair of sunglasses on Nate he was 6 months old. We were at the beach and he wore them almost the whole time. Since then, he's been an excellent sunglasses and hat wearer. He looks so stinkin cute in em that I have a billion shots of him in various glasses. Here are a few cuties from October to now that I never posted.

These are actually MY sunglasses!These came in an FBI playset from the Dollar Store

Not to be left out:

Dumps like a truck

2009-01-19T13:09:00.001-08:00

In January of 2007 I took a picture of Nate on his last morning waking up in his crib. We were so lucky to get to use the Reynolds' Race Car bed for the last 2 years, it is such a cool bed.

Today I took a picture of Nate's last morning waking up in the car bed.

We are super lucky once again to get a new super cool bed! Uncle Paul brought over Merrick's Dump Truck bed for Nate today!
Talk about a cool bed! It's got a steering wheel:
and a hiding place underneath!Thanks Merrick! (and Dawn and Paul)

2009-01-17T22:13:00.000-08:00

Today I got my first royalty check from Mom's Rock The Shirt! 29.09 and it's all mine baby!

Stop by and see what's new http://zazzle.com/momsrocktheshirt*

Lookin good!

2009-01-14T14:38:00.000-08:00

Zach: 1 1/2 years, Nate: 4 years So I was looking at the portraits we did yesterday and dreading the next haircut for Zach. He HATES the big clippers so I hold him while he's screaming and cowering into my neck while Ryan does his best to give him a good hair cut - we always miss big chunks and I get covered with hair... it's sucky. He doesn't mind Ryan's moustache trimmer that I use to clean up the edges of his hair but it cuts super short. I've been thinking of cutting the sides SUPER DUPER short then I'd have a longer break in-between haircuts for him and Tara's son's hair turned out so cute, so this morning I just decided to do: mohawk.
And here's the gelled up version:

We're gonna bo-o-o-wl tonight

2009-01-13T21:54:00.000-08:00

Hey friends

I'm signing Nate up for Bowling and I thought I'd let everyone know in case they wanted to do it with us cuz that would be super fun. But now I feel weird about posting exact information about when and where we're gonna be on my blog. So sad.

Anyways if you think your kids (ages 2-8) want to bumper bowl with us, lemme know and I'll give you the details.

Camping the year away...

2009-01-01T17:13:00.000-08:00

The week after Christmas we took the trailer out on our second voyage! Once again we went to our favorite place - good ol' San Diego KOA!Zach was on meds but he was still a little (a lot) cranky the first day.But he got better.Uncle Joel and Auntie Becky brought their 2 dogs + my moms dog = 3 dogs in 1 trailer! Good thing we have our own trailer now! Nate LOVED having the dogs there and playing with them, especially with a laser pointer!The boys spent alot of time playing in the area between my folks trailer and ours.Here's the inside of our trailer:And an outside shot - the sticker is still stickin! We were planning to all spend 1 final day at Sea World since our passes were only good thru the end of the year but that morning Zach just seemed extra tired so Ryan took Nate and I stayed home and ripped off the pink ruffles inside our trailer while Zach slept ALL DAY!

(that is a shark)

That night was New Years Eve, this is how we spent it, sitting around the campfire roasting marshmallows, blowing blowers and popping poppers. The next Day we drove to La Jolla for lunch at the beach.
Nate has been really into taking photos with my camera lately, he took this one of me and Zach.

This is his "Quit making me pose for pictures when I want to play" face.

Nate was having a great time leading Pepsi around on her leash.

After lunch we walked down to the tide pools quick.

Whenever we go camping the boys always want to play in the back of Papa's truck. It's a nice place to keep them contained while we are cleaning up!

Christmas is best with family

2009-01-01T16:56:00.000-08:00

Between Christmas chaos and SuperGrumpySickKid, I certainly did not take a good array of photos this Christmas. Usually I initiate the "let's all get together for a photo" photos but I guess my brain wasn't on the right mode this year.

Anyways. Our first stop was Christmas breakfast at my mom's house.

Mom mom actually got an fairly good family shot of us (mine was horrible) Check out Zach's drool, it's increased 10 fold in the last couple of weeks! Hopefully this means teeth are on the move and it's temporary.Look! A rare smile from Zach on Christmas! It's a Christmas miracle!Afterwards we went to Ryan's moms house to hang out with his family.Grandma Donna made me and Tricia matchy scarves and hats!Remember our stocking tradition, Zach was super into it at Grandma's house. He was having a great time in his stocking, probably the happiest he was all day!

The day after Christmas we spend with my extended family. The kids all did the advent tree together before presents.Nate was super stocked to get this Cars Race Track from Merrick - it is awesome, he loves it!

Christmas... finally!

2009-01-01T16:44:00.000-08:00

Christmas morning at our house. The boys came out to their new remote control car track. It's cool cuz it senses obstacles in it's path so the boys dont crash as much and have much more fun.

We had to tear them away to open their stockings.Zach has been really into "scoots" (as we call them) at everyone else's house so we got him this one which he loves. We have a big stocking tradition that Ryan's mom started where we put the kids in their stocking and take their picture in front of the tree. Zach was not into the tradition this morning.

Does Mrs. Claus stay home alone on Christmas Eve?

2008-12-24T13:21:00.000-08:00

Life during the holidays totally blows with sick kids. Nate has been sick for a week now and as hard as we tried to prevent it... now little brother is sick too. I think I've gotten slightly depressed at the fact that they (we) are missing out on all the cool Christmas-ness of the holiday. I could make a list all the fun things I wanted us all to do that we've missed out on but the thought of typing everything out makes me sad.

This picture is our cat Pickles wearing a Mrs. Clause hat and collar that Ryan came home with from our Bible Study's White Elephant Xmas party (which I missed) The boys think it's pretty funny to see the cat dressed up. The cat doesnt think it's so funny.

We've watched too many movies this week and worn our PJs all day too many times and we were all getting major cabin fever so last night we bundled everyone up (2 jackets, thermals, gloves and hats) and took the boys to the Thoroughbred lights.

We always go early in the evening for fear of big crowds so it wasnt so bad, just alot of houses waited A LONG time to turn their lights on, and some only had a few on instead of all - weird.

The boys had fun, I think their favorite part was when we pulled them out to take pictures and there happened to be a big pile of leaves in the gutter so they started throwing them all around.

So who knows what we're gonna miss next. Nate seems to be getting much better but Zach seem to be a miserable sickie (cutting teeth at the same time dosent help.) I cant imagine Christmas Day w/o seeing our family but I really dont want to spread it around. Hopefully everyone is well enough to not miss our after Christmas vacation.

Our 2008 Christmas Letter

2008-12-19T16:16:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our 2008 family Christmas letter. I know that if you are a regular reader of our family blog then this letter will be totally redundant to you… but that’s ok cuz I really write these letters for myself.
So this year as a family, we did a lot of fun stuff. Of course we went to Disneyland a lot, a couple zoos, got annual passes to Sea World and did lots of fun camping trips with family. After Family Camp in San Diego, Pismo Beach with Jane’s folks, Carpentaria (where our guys got to kayak with dolphins!) with Jane’s family and Big Bear with Ryan’s family we decided to take the leap into the RV world. And since storage was an issue, a tent trailer seemed to be the perfect answer! We got our little trailer in the summer but it took till October to finally venture out in it. It was super cool! We are looking forward to many more trips to come.
Ryan is still teaching at Options For Youth and in January completed his Masters (with an A+) in Education. He took his 4th trip this summer to kayak/camp on the Channel Islands and says that next year Nate will be old enough to go with him. Hmm. Ryan was sad this year when we sold his Tacoma that he has had since 1997! But we needed something to tow our trailer and a 3-seater Tacoma is a little small for family of 4.
Jane said goodbye for now to invitation making this year because it was consuming too much of her time with the boys. She is still running 4 events a year at Flipside and this year became involved in Mothers of Preschoolers (Mops) as a table leader. We had Kiddie Pool parties every week during the summer which was very “cool” and a lot of fun. This year Jane made a lot of tasty cupcakes and started designing t-shirts for moms at www.zazzle.com/MomsRockTheShirt* (yes, type the asterisk in the web address) you should go buy a t-shirt right now for a cool mom you know.
Nate, age 4
Nate is such a super fun kid. He officially potty trained in January (well that’s when he stopped wearing diapers but some days I still wonder) and started attending speech development classes once a week in February. He had a lot of new firsts; 1st dentist trip (no cavities), 1st “sleepover” (with cousin Mei-Mei), 1st amusement park w/o mom and dad (Grandma & Papa Roy took him to Knotts), 1st big boy bike, and 1st team sport (his T-ball team was the Mariners). He’s growing so big, learning so much it’s crazy. He started going to Pre-school 3 days a week in August and he really enjoys it (he tells me he doesn’t want to go EVERY day we go but it’s really that he doesn’t want to get dressed or brush his teeth or whatever it is at that moment). He is totally boy, still into Star Wars, cars, superheroes, and his new favorite… wresting. Ai-yi-yi, mommy does not encourage that one.
Zach, age 1 ½
Zach is our smarty pants. We are constantly amazed at the things he does and seems to know. The kid walked at 9 months! Zach made his pictorial debut in the May08 issue of Inland Empire Magazine when a photographer snapped his photo at our Mops meeting. Right now Zach is super obsessed with Toy Story (last month it was the Wiggles) and asks to watch it all day long (“Buz pees!”) He is a super jibba-jabber and talks and talks, saying lots of different words and word combos. He always wants to be in a tunnel and loves the song “What I like About You” by the Kinks. Whatever big brother is doing, Zachy wants to do too, even if it’s jumping off the couch or playing Star Wars guys.

Big ups to Tara Sos for making us look awesome in our pictures! (see her link on my sidebar)

Ryan decided that this year he wanted to do his own special Christmas Card to the people he works with so this is what he gave out

Muffin update

2008-12-19T16:13:00.000-08:00

I put the leftover muffins in the fridge last night and the awesome crispy topping lost off of it's crispy-ness. I think next time I'll just cover them and leave them out. It was still very tasty, but it was better crispy.

Oh my heavens!

2008-12-18T12:09:00.000-08:00

Today I made the best muffin I have ever made! So yummy! I signed up to bring muffins for Nate's Christmas breakfast at school (which he probably wont make it to cuz he has a cold and immediatly pukes up any form of medicine I give him - yuck) I wanted to make a no-nut banana with a crumb top so I went to my favorite recipe site http://allrecipes.com which has never let me down (I love how everyone leaves comments and ideas for variations) and found this recipe. Instead of a crumbly dry topping that can fall all over, this one melts into a crispy sugary goodness on top! They turned out so good, it would be wrong if I didnt share it with all of you.

Hope you enjoy it!

Banana Crumb Muffins (makes 16 muffins)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp cinnamon

Topping:
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tbls flour
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbls butter, cold

Preheat oven to 375º, Line muffin pans with liners (or grease em)

In a large bowl, mix together first 4 ingredients. In another bowl, beat remaining ingredients together. Stir wet mixture into dry mixture until moistened. Fill muffin cups HALF full.

In a small bowl, mix brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle a good layer over each muffin.

Bake in oven for 18 minutes. Let muffins cool in pan for a few minutes before cooling on a wire rack.

Aint no party like a birthday party

2008-12-13T09:39:00.000-08:00

And here's another party. Saturday was Nate's Family party and iif was definatly weird missing so many Reynolds but Chase and Kenna were both able to make it! What's with all the tongue pictures? I don't know, all I care about is if he's looking at the camera.

More presents.

More cupcakes.

Here's a funny story I never blogged about. When we went to take photos for Nate's invites, I wanted to go to this skate park so they would be all cement-y looking and just different from "out in the backyard" photos like I did last year. So when we got there it was super sunny and harsh shadows so the only shade was in the pipe.

Looking in I wasn't totally sure if we'd be able to get back out but the only way to find out was to try it. So I slid the boys down and slid down myself. Then we did our pictures. Now here's the funny part: I couldn't get us out!

There were 2 levels we had to get up, I got us all up the first level but the second one was about 5 foot high (see the red lines) which I can lift my kids that high but the wall sloped. So try standing 3 feet away from a ledge that's 5 foot high and lifting an almost 4 year old up, then over. Was not possible. So lucky for us, some loser-y skater guy on his way home from the liquor store (totally had the bottle in the brown bag) had stopped to watch us, probably assuming we couldn't get out on our own. So I basically had to hand him both of my children and then he pulled me out. Crazy eh?