boys vs. girls - night out

Last night Derek and the boys were off to Blue Jay for a Fathers and Sons camping trip with all the other dads from church.  Yesterday it happened to be rainy and rather chilly all day here so I can only imagine how much fun they must have had.

  

The great thing about this one night camping trip (with only dads and boys) is that there is very little preparation.  You can bet that if the moms were going way more effort would be put into it...I would probably at least bring pajamas & toothbrushes.  The boys play for hours in the clothes they left in, sleep in those clothes, eat breakfast in those clothes and come back a big dirty, smelly, happy mess with nasty breath from lack of brushing.  I'll have to get some pictures when they get home.   Oh the fun of camping with dads!  

The girls and I spent the evening having dinner at In N Out,

followed by the dollar theater where we saw Penelope. Cute movie, by the way - the costumes and sets were amazing.

To finish off the night we ventured to Golden Spoon for a late snack of frozen yogurt.

When we got home we were clean and able to brush our teeth (and sleep in warm beds) - I think we got the better end of the deal although I'm sure my boys will think they did.

san francisco ideas

Derek, Nathan and Luke are headed to Lake Powell in a couple of weeks for a house boat trip so the girls and I decided to plan a trip of our own so were off to San Francisco. Megan and Emily have never been and it has been quite a while since I have been there.

We need some great "don't miss" ideas for places to visit (not only in SF but also during the trip from here to there)  Anyone have ideas?  Let us know what we should see and do during our trip.

happy, happy birthday

Happy 9th birthday Nathan!  

To celebrate the big 9 we're going to share 9 things about Nathan that make him so great(there are of course more then 9 but we're sticking with his age.

1.  Nathan is very easy going and is almost always agreeable

2.  One of the few times that Nathan is not agreeable is when he is sick - I have never seen a worst sick person ever - he is a totally different person when he is sick.

3.  He is a great helper although he tends to be more willing to help when I ask instead of Derek.

4.  He loves video games of any kind - play station, nintendo ds, wii, arcades, whatever - he loves to play them

5.  He is just so darn cute!

6.  He does very well at school - he recently passed the AAA (gate) test with a 99%  A few days ago we were talking about how smart you have to be to work at NASA so he currently wants to work there when he grows up (in the same sentence he also said that he wanted to be a race car driver - I'm sure they have to be smart too)

7.  Nathan has lots of friends and is accepting of everyone

8.  He loves facts - once he learns a new fact he shares it with everyone

9.  He can eat beans like no ones business.  His favorite mexican restaurant meal is a bean burrito with a side of beans and beans...no beans and rice, beans and beans.  He often comes home from school and asks if he can have a can of black beans for snack.

We love him (side effects and all)  He has been a blessing in our home for the past 9 years. Happy Birthday buddy! 

hola

You gotta love a holiday that encourages eating mexican food!

We celebrated Cinco de Mayo by having a small little Fiesta at our neighborhood park.  It was a bit cold here in So. California yesterday so we built a big bonfire and loaded our tummys with warm food to keep warm. Carne asada, chicken, rice, beans, tortillas, salsa, guacamole and all the toppings - yum! 

I didn't get many pictures - in fact all I took was the ones here so excuse my lameness - I was to involved in eating :) but I still wanted to post the pictures to document our day.  I have been working on turning our blog into a book (more in another post) and I have become a bit disappointed with the pages that have no pictures so my goal is to try and include at least one picture with every post.  We'll see how well I do with that.

how cute is this?

An index file cutting board - love this design!  This is just too cute.

quite an exciting day

Here is a wrap up of Luke's exciting day.  It started with the loss of a tooth - gotta love the toothless grin.

The day only got better.  We looked out the window at one point and saw Luke playing in a mud pool (we had been working with the sprinklers so we had an excess of water (please no phone calls from water conservationists)

With all the tempting mud available I was impressed that Luke (who is totally Pig Pen from the Peanuts) was keeping the mud to his hands and feet until Dad (yes, Dad) yelled out the window "sit in it"  We got a look like "for real, I can do that?" and then...

he was in - he was getting his mud bath groove on.  You know people pay big money for this type of thing at a spa - we are thinking about going into business.

Luke covered his body and enjoyed every minute of it.  At one point I wondered what the neighbors might think if they peeked over the fence (and yes, they do peek over the fence) but I let the thought quickly leave my mind because I knew I would be able to get great pictures and knew that when Luke was older he might remember this and tell everyone about his cool parents that let him play in the mud.

After some alone time at "Luke's Oh-la-la Mud Spa" Luke decided he wanted a friend to come play.  I had to be selective in my play date phone calling assignment because how many moms would jump at the opportunity to let their child come over to roll in the mud?  I immediately called Rona, knowing that she wouldn't think the call was weird (or at least wouldn't tell me it was even if she thought it) and I also knew her daughter Hadli would be more then willing to get dirty.  So clean little Hadli came on over.

The cleanliness didn't last long and soon she was slinging mud like a pro

The two of them had so much fun and watching them made me glad that I let them do their thing and didn't worry about the aftermath and mess. 

When we finally pulled Luke away he was all smiles - at least until we started to spray him off with the hose - he was not happy about the cold water.  I got pictures of that whole screaming episode but Luke has informed me that he does not want those pictures on the blog.  Maybe I'll sneak one on in a later post.  I mean if your mom can't embarrass you a little then she really isn't doing her mom job.

sometimes it pays to pay for a party

I tend to avoid party places - Chuck E Cheese, Jump n' Jammin, etc.  My kids love going to parties at these type of places but I avoid them for my own selfish party planning reasons...planning the parties is most of the fun for me so to have that taken away would be somewhat devastating (& yes, it could cause emotional trauma for me)

Well Luke went to a party a month or so ago at Wowzville and I was finally convinced that I could probably do the party place thing.  There are three interactive rooms and after walking around checking them all out with Nathan when we picked Luke up from the party we knew that Nate was going to have a racing party.  Check out the site to see what Wowzville is all about.

I spent this morning getting the cupcakes decorated (Emily was an awesome helper last night and helped me do all the baking)  

    Right after school we were off to Wowzville to get the festivities going.  Derek took off work early to join us (& to help me - but it turns out that the employees at these party places do all the work.  I just took pictures and we enjoyed watching the kids have fun while someone else did everything else.  Can I hire these people for my parties?)

Check out the party/food room - how great is it?!

I loved the checkered floor, the bright colors, the racing stools, the paper goods that I didn't have to go out and find

   

and I loved how the cupcakes looked when we placed them on the table - it seriously makes me happy.  Did you check out the custom license plate we made?

Excuse the poor quality of this next shot but I wanted to include a photo of the actual race room.  Each boy gets a "car" and then all the kids race against each other.  It was so fun watching the boys concentrate on their driving and also hearing some trash talking going on.
After about an hour+ of racing we were off to the party room for pizza, drinks and cupcakes.  It was a nice break for the "pit crew".
The owner and staff were great with all the kids and made Nate feel like a VIP on his special day.
Judging by Nathan's face it would seem that the cupcakes along with the party were a big success.

For those in the area looking for party ideas I would highly recommend Wowzville.  I think we may try to go back for Emily's party and check out the spy theme.  I can't say enough about how good of an experience we had there.

looking good

He's loving them.  Only 2 kids made fun of him on Thursday (the first day that he wore his new glasses to school) They said he looked "weird".  He didn't dwell on it much and shared with us how everyone else thought he looked cool or that he looked like Harry Potter.  He loves that the glasses match his hair.  He loves that he can see.   We just love him - glasses and all!

thanks for the push tara

I was checking out (translation - stalking) Tara Whitney's blog and came across her post regarding her closet and the start of OPAM - one project a month.  I fell in love with her happy colored closet and decided to join in on her little bandwagon of tackling a monthly project.

My project for May is my closet - original idea, huh?  Our downstairs closet has been empty since our kitchen remodel/flooring deal and I really need to get stuff put back in it.  The problem...the closet was always a disaster before we did the remodel and I have been reluctant to put anything back in it knowing that it would only be a matter of time before it turned into the same, unorganized chaos.

Here is my before picture.  Work has already begun and I am hoping that I might possibly be done with this project tomorrow - wishful thinking, perhaps but I'm going to try.

If you want some motivation and want to start your own OPAM join in and leave some comments over at Tara's blog.  I'd love to see what everyone is working on.

seriously one of the most fun things i've done

Other then the horrible traffic into LA today has been so much fun.  

I wanted to post a great American Idol write up but I am so tired it will have to wait until tomorrow.  We had so much fun.  I loved having the girls there, I think it made it much more fun. The girls got to have a truly unique experience and it was great to be a part of it.

More to come tomorrow!

don't want to jinx it, but...

We are going to American Idol tomorrow.  I am hoping for a much better experience compared to last time - we'll see what happens.

I am way disappointed that Carly is gone and Sayesha is still there - I would much rather see Carly tomorrow.  I know she isn't everyone's favorite but I really like her - her voice has a cool sound to it.

I am excited to see David Cook and the rest of the contestants.  

David A. kind of bores me but before I get hate mail let me say...his voice in incredible I just don't love his song choices or style.  I'm hoping he'll pick a great song but I won't hold my breath since it is Neil Diamond week (what are the producers thinking?!?!?!)

I happen to like Jason Castro (like Carly, I realize a lot of folks don't love him)  I really like his voice and the style of music he sings - I would buy one of his albums but I don't think I would buy David A.

I would also buy an album from Brooke - I love her voice (although the personality is a bit much at times.  I like the Carly Simon vibe that she has.

Sayesha bugs me.  Her past couple of performances have been ok but I just don't love what she does.  She seems way into herself.

I'm a David Cook fan but oh how I wish he had better hair (there has been some improvement during the season)  In my book David wins it but what do I know - I had Carly as the runner up. 

the latest photo booth installment

grown ups need field trips too

Last week I headed down to San Juan Capistrano (near the mission) with a couple a friends for a photography field trip.  I haven't taken many photos lately.  Of course I take pictures of family but ever since my photography class ended last year I haven't really done much else.

We didn't go into the mission because we were short on time and didn't want to fork over the cash for such a quick trip.  We did manage to get some good shots outside the mission walls though.
It was fun to be shooting just to be shooting.  One of the things I love about going on a field trip is seeing the outcome of the photographs - we all see the same things and tend to take pictures of the same subject(s) but everyone has such a different take on the subject and the pictures come out so differently.  
I wasn't particularly moved emotionally with anything that I shot but it was still nice to shoot and work on the mechanics of photography.  It is amazing how much I have forgotten because I have gotten lazy with settings, lighting, etc.
I'm looking forward to many more monthly field trips this year.

do you see what i see?

Apparently Luke does not see what the rest of us see. We have noticed a lot of squinting going on with him for the past couple of months but we weren't extremely concerned.  When his teacher also mentioned that she has seen him squinting we decided to get him to the doctor to see what was going on.  The diagnoses...he is near sighted.  

This picture makes me laugh.  Having never visited the eye doctor before Luke was a bit apprehensive with everything.  Once the eye doctor assured him that there would be no needles he began to feel comfortable being himself (see picture below)

The exploration began.  He loved checking out all the equipment.


We ended the visit by trying on a bunch of different glasses and it became very obvious that Luke knew what he wanted and that I would not have much say in what the glasses looked like. We are waiting for his glasses to arrive so you will have to wait to see his choice - and they were very much his choice, although the pair he chose was in my top 3 (just not my favorite of the 3)

found them

Here are some pictures to go along with the previous post.