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.

gentlemen, start your engines

Nathan was able to participate in his first pinewood derby last week.  This derby action is serious stuff!

I loved watching Nathan and Derek work together to create the car.  

I loved that they both got to spend time with Uncle Kevin learning all the "legal" tricks to making a car move faster.  It's a good thing to have an uncle that is an engineer - Nate was able to learn a lot from him.  

I loved having all my ideas for the design of the car shot down by my practical husband..would it really be that hard to make a pirate ship with a huge mast or a 4 wheeling casket with a lid that raises up and down with skeleton hands pushing it up while a voice yells "let me outta here"? 

The final design ended up being pretty nice.  Nate and Derek drew up a bunch of designs and Nathan settled on the one above - pretty cool looking car, huh?  I'm glad that this was a dad/son project.  I don't know that I would have been as good as Derek at letting Nate use the tools.  I went out at one point to take some pictures and immediately became nervous watching my son with the saw.  Note to self...find those pictures and post them.  Derek was great about letting this be Nathan's project - I know it made it a lot of fun for Nate.

We were a bit nervous about weighing in the car but luckily it came in right at 5 oz.  The block of wood must have been heavy because we added no weights and had to take some wood out of the bottom of the car.

Nate's car, "Crazy Eight" in the first lane.

The finish from another race - Nathan's car came in 1st. His total for the night was 1 win, 1 3rd place finish and about 5 2nd place finishes.  He was happy with what his car did.

Nathan's other award of the night was winning coolest car.   

yeah, yeah, we're alive (but just barely)

Life has been a bit hectic around here.  We have had baby blessings (no, not our own) family in town, multiple Disneyland trips, bathroom remodeling decisions, etc.  It has all been fun (with one exception, more on that in a minute) but it has kept us busy.

Now the exception...

Derek's cousin Renee was here visiting from Utah with her kids - Josh, Tanner & Michelle (nice kids, or so I thought)  We spent some time with them at Disneyland a couple days ago and we were having a great time until Tanner forced me, physically I might add, to ride California Screamin'  I can't even begin to tell you how much I did not want to go on this ride but there I was strapped in to the beast with my heart pumping.  Tell me how an 18 year old has the power to get a much older and wiser person to do something against her will?!?!?

Stepping off the ride I was a bit unstable and it took me some time to get my stomach feeling better but I survived.  The coaster did not jump the tracks and I did not plummet to my death - all positives in my book.  

Although I'm glad I survived it doesn't change the fact that I did not find any enjoyment on the ride. I am sure Tanner, Michelle, Garin (my little brother) and Megan all found immense enjoyment at my expense so I guess I'll chalk it up to taking one for the team.

I was wishing I had been at Disneyland with Renee's sister Deanne...if my memory serves me I believe she pays people to get them to ride California Screamin'. $20 would have made the ride a little bit better.

picnic party

I would love to have these for a picnic.  What a fun way to set a table.  These as well as lots of other fun products can be found at The Spoon Sisters.  I also want this - do you think it would work? ;)