Way Back When-sday

This one comes from the crazy college years. We were always doing weird stuff, and I'm pretty sure we are all pointing and have our eyes wide for some specific reason. It's one of those "I'm sure made perfect sense at the time" situations.... which is fun in the moment, but when you look back 15 years later you just kind of think "Hm. Uh.... OK."
However, I can't pass up the quick reminicing about BYU off-campus housing. I love the brick walls in the background, the kind you have to tape pictures to. No nailing things to the walls here! And the wood paneling.... the memories just come flooding back, don't they? I also love love LOVE the roommate photo hanging on te wall. Yes, we actually went down to a studio and had a picture taken to hang in our apartment. Which seemed totally normal at the time. But now... is that kind of strange? Anyway, we had fun. And we were fun. And we're still fun. At least, I like to think so.

ps... Who loves my mushroom hair? What was I thinking?!!

This is What Happens....

...when you step in a puddle before church and then don't take your shoes off for the next 4 hours.

Do these feet belong to a 4-year-old or a 94-year-old???

Track

Olivia tried out her hand (foot) at track this year. We'd heard great things about the city-run program from various church friends, and decided to give it a shot. She ended up really enjoying it, and doing pretty well to boot! Here she is in her uniform: She had a cute team of other 5-7 year old girls. She really enjoyed getting to know them.Getting ready for the next race:
She ran each of the events at least once, and we learned she does pretty well at the longer distances.
Here she is finishing the mile. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't run a mile in less than 8 minutes.

Here is her 4x100 relay team. It was pretty funny watching them learn to pass the baton. By the end of the season they were doing a decent job of it, though.

The track meets were pretty fun, if not loooooong. It was exciting to see the oldest kids run super fast, and adorable to watch the tiniest kids run their little legs ragged. Some were crying by the end of their races because they were so tired. All in all, pretty inspiring. I couldn't help but notice that everyone cheered the loudest for the kid who came in first and the kid who came in last in each race.
As with everything, this was a family affair. We all enjoyed cheering on our girl.
We're so proud of you, Liv! Looking forward to doing it again next year!

Way Back When-sday

I love this smile.

Lucky for me, I get to see it on a daily basis. Just with adult teeth instead of baby teeth. Isn't he cute?

Shoes

The other day, I realized Olivia was in dire need of some new shoes. The girl is so tough on her shoes, it's ridiculous. This is what her shoes looked like:

It's a little hard to see, but they are all ripped up, soles falling off, holes everywhere. The white ones were in pretty good shape, but a size and a half too small. So, it was off to Payless Shoe Source and their buy one, get one 1/2 off sale.

And this is what we came home with:

Cute, right? I was so excited to get her some fun summery shoes. She was pretty stoked too. I'm looking forward to more mother-daughter shopping trips as she gets older. As we found her shoes pretty quickly, I decided to "just take a peek" at the ones in my size. And I found these:
Black ballet flats: basic, have them in brown, will get a lot of wear out of them. And the giraffe ones: I'll be honest, I have absolutely no need for these shoes. But when I saw them, I fell completely and madly in love.
I had to have them.
There was nothing I could do. I was magnetically attracted to them in such a way that it was impossible to leave the store without them.
So I didn't.

Let's face it, these shoes were meant to live on my feet.

Spring Break Recap: Collage-a-mania, Baby

This past week was spring break. We did a few fun things, got some work done around the house, and basically just enjoyed the lack of scheduled days. I thought I could be like my dear friend Cathy and do big fun things each day, but my kids just aren't used to so much fun. They (and I) got tired. I think I just need to face the reality that I'll never be as fun a mom as Cathy. :) But I did try to break out of my homebody nature and have some fun with the kids.

One of the days I took the kids to the children's museum.

We love this place. Caleb's favorite part is the space shuttle, where you get to dress up in real NASA uniforms and pretend to fly the space shuttle. Olivia enjoyed the hospital area this time, testing the patient's heart rate and trying out the crutches. Ben and I relaxed in the wheelchair. Another favorite section is the restaurant, where the kids can take your order and "cook up" a fabulous meal.

Our big fun came Thursday and Friday when Erik took off work. Thursday morning we decided to finally paint Olivia's room. I am excited to make her room into a cute girly room and move Caleb in with Ben. The kids were pretty good little painters, and we got the whole thing done. That pink wall was a pain to cover.

Thursday night we went on a fun family overnight trip to... Camarillo. It's 25 minutes away, but as far as the kids were concerned, it was a big vacation. It worked out really well. We stayed at the Holiday Inn, went out to eat, went swimming in the pool a couple of times, ate the free breakfast, and watched a movie. The kids thought it was great. So, if you're in the market for a fun, cheap vacation, I highly recommend staying a night in a hotel close to home.

Swimming at the pool:

Olivia jumping on the hotel beds:

Now we're back to real life. It was a fun week off, but I'm ready to get back in the routine.

Easter: Cute Clothes, Jellybeans, and a Trip to Urgent Care. Oh, and Jesus.

Easter caught me a little off guard this year since I got back from my fun girls' weekend Saturday night. So at 9:30 pm on Saturday I rummaged through my closet to find a couple of trinkets and some candy for the kids' baskets. Luckily Erik had taken the kids to an Easter egg hunt at a friends' house while I was gone, so we had plenty of eggs and candy.

Ben had fun getting into everything while the kids weren't looking.

One thing I usually think ahead on is Easter and Christmas outfits. Basically when I see a cute dress in Olivia's size that has sleeves, I buy it. Thus, I luckily had outfits for the kids already hanging in the closet. Sunday morning before church I had them pose so I could document how adorable they were.

Sorry about all the blurry spots. There's something wrong with my camera.

In the midst of the picture-taking frenzy, we had a casualty. Erik and Olivia, both flailing around in an attempt to get Ben to smile for the camera, bonked heads and Erik got a large gash above his right eye.Since I had a musical number to do, he stuck it out through sacrament meeting and then drove himself to urgent care to get it taken care of. They glued it together and put some fancy-looking tape on to help keep it closed. He's kind of excited about the mean-looking scar he'll get.

Despite the craziness and unplanned nature of this year's Easter, I was lucky enough to experience a wonderful Enrichment night a few weeks ago that depicted the last week of Christ's life. Four people dressed as John the Beloved, Peter, Pontius Pilate, and Mary Magdelene, spoke to us as these close friends of Christ and bore their testimonies of Him. It was so powerful, I was absolutely blown away. When I came home, I told Erik how amazing it was. As I told him, I had expected it to be nice, but it was incredible. I explained "I'm not used to feeling the Spirit when I'm at church." He laughed, but given that we are wrestling kids through sacrament meeting and then in nursery for two hours, Sunday is generally the day I am least likely to feel the Spirit. Not a complaint, just the reality of my life at this moment in time. So, I was grateful for the hard work of so many women to make that Enrichment night a meaninful experience. It really helped me remember the reason we celebrate Easter.

Girls' Weekend!!!

I had the fantastic opportunity to go on a girls' weekend with my three lovely, talented, and super-fun sisters. The four of us have never gone on a trip all together, and it was really fun to be with three women with whom I have a life-long bond. With two of us living in southern CA and two in northern CA, we ditched our husbands and kids for three days and met up in the middle. We enjoyed shopping, eating out every meal, and getting facials and massages at our resort hotel in central CA. What can I say, it was fabulous. I mean seriously, how could it not be?

One of the main benefits of traveling, in my opinion, is eating out every meal. Maybe it was just because we didn't have to prepare, clean up, or attempt to get any of our children to eat the meals, but the food was delicious. We ate often and we ate well. We took lots of pictures of us eating:

The BBQ beef sandwiches at Brad's were so great, we got them for lunch two days in a row.
We also did quite a bit of shopping. We spent a day at the outlet mall, and also enjoyed spending some cash in the cute beachy town of Pismo Beach.

Here are a few of the fruits of our labors. Yes, we filled up the entire trunk.

One fun and unique thing we did was see a hilarious play at this random little theater. It was so funny and the actors did an amazing job. We are still laughing over the funny lines in the play. I would repeat them for you, but you wouldn't get it so it just wouldn't be funny. But here is a picture to give you a little taste of what we saw. We were seriously laughing so hard we cried. I'm amazed I was able to hold the camera still enough to get this shot.

One fun thing we decided to do was to each bring a gift for the others. Three of us brought CD's, one brought a book, and one sister made a beautiful handmade book of quotes about motherhood and family in addition to her CD. It was really fun to learn a little bit about each sister and share something she liked.

Most of all, it was fun to be together with my sisters and have a chance to talk and laugh with them. It seems like whenever we get together we are distracted by Mommy duties, so it was nice to have uninterrupted conversations. I can't wait to do this again!

Way Back When-sday

This was way back in the fall of 2003, when we lived in Washington. We visited a beautiful area called Deception Pass, where we played on the beach and enjoyed the breathtakingly beautiful views. It was really fun. Olivia was 1 1/2 years old, the age where a bucket and a bit of sand can entertain them for hours on end. Come to think of it, that stage can last for quite a few years! Kids just universally love the beach, it seems.

So she was having fun, getting wet and sandy, and eventually ended up in just a swim diaper, which didn't bother her one bit. I love this picture because the adults in the background are in jeans and coats, and she is in just a swim diaper. The cold didn't bother her at all, though. She was having a blast!

Here is a "before" picture where you can see her cute face.

It's hard to believe Ben will be this age in just a few months.

The Great Outdoors

Now that Ben can crawl, he is discovering the joys of the great outdoors. Any time the sliding glass door is open, he makes a break for the outside. Despite the wooden deck that gives him splinters in his knees, the tops of his feet, and even his palms, he absolutely loves to be out there.

He plays peek-a-boo,

feasts on delicious rocks,

does a few leg lifts,

and seeks out his favorite hiding spot: behind the grill.

Yes, that contraption he's holding is the one you snake down the toilet to unclog whatever is stuck there. And yes, it is one of his favorite toys. You have a problem with that?

Then he goes off to explore the weeds and rocks,

at which point Mommy intervenes and puts him someplace a little bit safer.

And then we start all over again....

Notice how I didn't really try all that hard to get him to a "safe" zone? This kid is such a third child.

But he doesn't seem much worse for the wear.