Tuesday, May 26, 2009

A Long Weekend, A Long Post

I love long weekends. This past weekend the weather was beautiful, Sean was home, the kids were able to swim, we did some serious landscaping, we ate good food...it was a great. I'm ready for summer!

The first splashes of the year... brrrrr








SOoooooooo... we did a little landscaping. Tree-huggers, I suggest you stop here. :)


The picture above kind of gives you a glimpse of the before - bushes, trees... I didn't think about getting a before picture until it was too late. Trees were falling left and right before I had a chance.


Here's a sequence of events. My dad would take the big bucket on the loader and push on the tree until you would hear a cracking sound and then, TIMBER, the tree would fall.



This kept Sean pretty busy. He was running all over. Once the tree fell, he'd have to saw off the roots, which were then carried away by the loader.




Then he would limb the tree so the log could be pushed in a pile. I have to say, Sean's looking pretty good. He's a man of many trades. Let's just gaze at this picture for a minute....OK, moving on...


The audience of 3. Ava wasn't really fond of the noise. She'd say, in her own way, "whoa!" Then she'd come hug my legs and want up. She took a 3 + hour nap though. I guess the sound wasn't so bad. It lulled her right to sleep.


This tree scared me a little. It was so close to the house and it wasn't budging and it was on a slight slope which made the loader almost tip. Yeah, it was scary and I went inside until it came down. I let Jonah man the fort.


I love him. Stella does too. :)


Once we got all the trees we wanted down, Stella and Jonah were able to check out the big monster of a machine and get a ride with their grandpa.


Shoving dirt to try and level things out.


The "finished" product.






The house from the road. The rope is to show where the driveway will be.




The wood that will keep us warm for winters to come.


Poor dandelion land. It has now turned into stump land. Stella cried. I told her not to worry because that's the funny thing about dandelions - they grow back whether you want them to or not ;)


And this is me, the happy wife, daughter and mom because now I can wear flip flops outside and not get bitten by a million red-head ants (there were tons of nests in the brush and among the trees). When winter comes I'll say, "bring on the wind." OK, maybe I won't say that, but I will be thankful when those windy nights do come and I don't have to stress about trees falling on top of us. Lastly, but not least-ly ;), the sun shines on our house now. I love it. Thanks dad and Sean for all your hard work. I'm a happy lady. Now...if we could just get rid of all the rocks....

Friday, May 22, 2009

"Mom, come with us to Dandelion Land, where you can be Queen Dandelion..."

I love these long days. I think it is one of my most favorite things about summer, how it stays light out until almost 10pm. We're not to 10pm yet, but it's getting closer. The other night I played outside with Stella and Jonah and we spent some good, quality time in the land of dandelions (aka, the hillside on our property that is completely overgrown with weeds... just being honest). I love their little minds and imaginations and I love how excited they get when I come outside to be with them. Even if I'm just sitting and taking photos, the fact that I'm out there makes their faces light up and their mouths start going a mile a minute. It's cute and reminds me I need to do it more often.











It's too bad they have to be weeds. I'd much prefer them to be wishes coming true.

Monday, May 18, 2009

A Weekend Away!!

Sean and I were able to go away this weekend by ourselves. Yep, you heard me, no kids!! My sister graciously offered to watch them for us while we went and stayed in the Seattle-ish area. It was SO fun!! Saturday night we met up with our friends in Alki Beach and had a yummy dinner at Cactus. It was such a great weekend. Here are some of the highlights....
dinner at the Cheesecake Factory at 8:30pm!!
Sleeping in
leisure mornings
Jamba Juice
Starbucks
no interruptions
actually trying on clothes
Panera Bread
Gene Juarez
not worried about the time
FRIENDS
Cactus
Church
seeing Coach and Nancy Sugarman
Chipolte....


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It was awesome.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Mother's Day

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"Her children arise and call her blessed." Proverbs 31:28

We are blessed to call them mother

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Solvang, CA, 1998

I am blessed to be a mom
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Friday, May 8, 2009

New layout...Will it ever end?...B.R.A.T....Stella's first field trip...

I've been working on a new layout because I wanted to make my pictures bigger on the blog. Has anyone noticed?? Editing HTML, who knew?! I didn't. I sought out help and found someone generous enough to do just that! It makes posting a little trickier, and I'm not sure if my pictures are worthy of being bigger, but it's a fun change. How does it look on your end??

Will the bug leave this house already?!


Here's our barf update...errr...I mean, life update. I took my turn with the blessed bug on Wednesday. Bless my parents hearts, they came and got the kids so Sean could go to work and I could spend some quality time with the toilet and my bed. Fun. Unfortunately my dad got sick yesterday :( and I'm praying like crazy that my mom doesn't get it. They should have stayed far, far, far away from us. Sean is now recovering as I type. Phew, it's been a bug. Ava is still recovering. Things are coming out of the other end now, wait, did I just type that?? My poor baby, she really doesn't feel good. Which brings us to...

B.R.A.T.

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No, Ava isn't a brat, but we are trying our best to choke down some bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. And can you believe my daughter prefers none of those foods??! Nope, not one - zip, zelch, nada. She'll swallow a little applesauce and last night she ate some rice. Occasionaly, she'll eat a banana, but never two days in a row, no, that would be too easy.
On a happier note, did you notice Ava's sweet hair in the pictures above? If you're wondering how to get the, I-threw-up-and-my-mom-didn't-give-me-a-bath-because-it-was-way-too-early-so-she-used-a-wash-cloth-and-soap, hair let me know. It's really just for the lazy folk. ;)

A trip to the farm

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"Mom, will you sit next to me on the bus?"
"Mom, have you ever driven this far before?"
"Mom, I'm excited for a field trip!"

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We tried to pet the baby lambs, but they ran from us instead.


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Stella was able to hold a mini-rooster though. That's a first.


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Stella and her little friend, Ayla.


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One of many local farms.

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Getting ready to plant some potatoes.

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It was a fun morning.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Ava's turn...

I kept Ava home from church yesterday. She was feeling fine, but seeing that the crazy bug can live in your body for a few days before it rears it's ugly head, I thought it'd be best to just keep her home so she wouldn't share it with all her friends. It's a good thing I did. At 5 am this morning I heard her. The crazy bug's ugly head was rearing. Poor baby. I'm putting money on me being the next one to get it. Considering the odds, I'd say at 5 am tomorrow I'm going to feel sick. I can't wait.

In sticking with tradition from this past week and in honoring the sick, I guess I'll share some pictures of Ava. Here she is trying to sneak away to Grandma's house (we have a trail that leads to my parents house from ours).


if that lip sticks out any further a little bird will come sit on it - that's what my dad used to say to me :)

off she goes...

the blonde water spout helps to spot her.

time to reign her in. i called to her to come back...

this is the look she gave me. we're not quite to the point of obedience without complaint, but we're working on it


3 down...I'm next.

I'll leave you with this, a little quote from Stella yesterday when her Grandpa came to pick up her and Jonah for Sunday School....

Stella: "Grandpa, do you know what?"
Grandpa: "What?"
Stella: "Yesterday was the worst day of my life!"
Grandpa: "What is today then?"
Stella: "The best day of my life."


ps - don't worry, if I get sick I promise not to have a whole post with pictures of me. :)