Happy Mothers' Day INSTALLED!

This is the OLD faucet. Probably a 1959 original! I have been wanting a swan neck faucet for... well a long time. See how our faucet is coming out of the wall? Well that presents challenges when you are short on money and can't order a custom faucet. I've looked at many home improvement stores and finally found ONE option for a replacement that would fit my vision of what I wanted. I quickly went home and told John that's what I wanted for mother's day. No fancy candy... no fancy gadget... I wanted THAT faucet. This is the NEW faucet! I can now fill big pots with water, pile my sink high with dishes and still fill a cup with water. Sometimes the simplest things can really make your life easier. I love my new faucet!

As you can plainly see, Lucas and Katie John are also thrilled with my new faucet! Truly a gift for the whole family!

Bikes and School

Jonah and Katie John are riding their bikes to school for the first time today! ACK! Of course they are tagging along with our neighbor and her kids, but I feel a little scared inside anyway. I'm sure they will be fine... They prepared and checked their bikes last night. Got up extra early this morning and were out the door and ready almost 10 minutes before they needed to leave.

Teaching independence can be scary for the parents!!

All Hail May!

Wild and wacky weather! This cold snap that came through this weekend was a real thriller for the kids. This big storm swept through with lots of drenching rain and hail. While we were at church it began hailing in earnest. By the time we got home over an hour later we found piles of hail. It must have been coming down in an easterly angle because the piles were all up against the east side of things; the fence, the green bin, the neighbors chimney, my squash...
Last night we'd had a game night at Tiff and Ed's house (and a gaggle of other friends), and we inadvertently left our bag o' games there. John said, "I had the game bag, but then I got the baby instead." Anyway we went there after church to get the games. We waited in the driveway for a bit. While we waited we noticed the large amount of accumulated hail in the crevices of their roof. That's what initially caught our interest and thus a quick hunt for our 0wn piles of hail when we got home. As it turns out, we could have just walked right in to get our games, literally. Their front door had been neglectfully left open the whole time they were at church!
If we had gathered carefully, we probably could have made a miniature snowman! Ah, the things you think of later! After church we got another drenching rain and hail session. Jonah thought it quite funny that the hail seemed to be popping up from the grass, like little bouncing white peas. With the rain mixed in, you couldn't see the hail coming down just dancing in the grass. I hope my new garden plants don't get too chilly!

Two Wheeler

Keira has been wanting a bike with training wheels for a long time now. Finally with the sun shinning, John spruced up a bike and put training wheels on it for her. She has a cute helmet with fairies on it and she is riding around and around! I hear the happy sound of training wheels on cement quite often.

Katie John's First Art Show!

An old student of Katie John's 3rd grade teacher did a senior project involving art and music with her class. He came into the classroom once a week for a whole month. Each lesson he talked about a different genre of music. While listening to songs of that genre of music they drew pictures of whatever the music made them feel like drawing.
Katie John's picture was in the ROCK section. Her picture was of elephants. I know it's hard to see, but above the picture is Katie John working in class and below the picture is her name tag. She was very proud to show us her work. The art show was in Natomas at a charter school's performing arts theater.
Katie John, Lucas, Sariah and I all attended her art show. It was really nice. There were snack treats to each while we looked at all the students' work. Down another hall were works of art by the high school students of the school. All of the work was amazing! Congratulations to Katie John for drawing a fun thing and participating in the art show!

Preparing Young

Katie John is an active Activity Day Girl. She regularly attends her meetings and always brings home fun things. Today they worked on 72-hr kits. They put a small sample one together with some quotes and a list of things to add. Katie John talked to all of us about what she'd learned and about the importance of being prepared (*sniff). We are so proud of her for working hard and learning so many important ideas.

Turning 7

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARIAH!! Today was a special day. Sariah turns 7 years old! She has been waiting for her birthday for many, many months. Sariah is our special girl that is always wanting her ears pierced, nails painted, matching clothes and pretty hair. She is super smart and is pretty bendy (her word) and also loves her baby brother. We are thankful we have such a wonderful family member who is kind and thoughtful to others and is often willing to help out when she is needed.
Happy Birthday Sariah! We love you!

First Swim Day

Can you believe an 86 degree May 2nd? The rule at our house is that it needs to be at least 80 degrees for Mommy (that's me) to even think about a swim day. A swim day could include setting up the small round pool, slip-n-slide or just running through the sprinklers. So today being the first really warm day (and Sariah's birthday) I decided to relent to the many pleas to go swimming.
Of course the slip-n-slide was the popular choice so it was quickly set up and the slipping and sliding began! Jonah and Lucas pause for a quick photo, our boys are so cute.
This photo here is amazing. Katie John often is reserved, but every so often she breaks loose and really shows us her outgoing personality.
Katie John is really great at turning towards the camera during a slide. She took many great pictures, but this one was the best with spraying water and a good smile.

The Sea People and the Princess

The girls (and Lucas) put on a play for us today. It was all about a princess and a baby who one day went down to the beach. She left the baby unattended for just a moment when some sea people found the baby and took her home to the lagoon. They made him special so that he could breathe under water. The princess came back but didn't find the baby. After a while the sea people met up with the princess and set upon a series of baby trades. Each one took turns taking care of the girl baby for a day. Eventually they decided that something better needed to be worked out. So the sea people came ashore and sprinkled special powder on the princess and she was transformed into a sea person!! After some happy dancing they all lived happily ever after.

The girls posed for a picture in the "sea". I thought the play was especially cute, especially seeing poor Lucas being passed back and forth all through the play. (Lucas was happy to oblige his sisters and dressed up as a happy girl baby) I can tell that the future will likely contain more Lucas "girl" pictures!

Arrow of Light

Jonah crossed over from cub scouts to 11-year old scouts today. His determination throughout the cubs program has earned him quite a few awards. One of his goals this last year was to earn all 20 Webelo activity badges. With a holidays and a baby coming right in the middle of our big push made things a little tricky. In the end Jonah was able to earn all 20 with time to spare! We are very proud of our hard working scout!
He is the first boy to earn all 20 in any of the leaders' memory. I think it all started on a whim, but when he heard no one had ever done it before: Challenge accepted! He also earned all his compass points, World Conservation Award, Leave No Trace patch and his Arrow of Light this last pack meeting. If you weren't impressed before, then know that he earned everything possible in his Webelo book. His energy for scouts is truly remarkable. I hope it continues into boy scouts. Our goal for this next year (besides beginning our scout adventure) is to earn our religious knot.

The crossing over ceremony has our cub scout literally crossing over a bridge to meet his new scout troop, the Dragons. We waved goodbye to our little boy and watched as his new troupe welcomed him. I'm sure I'll hear "Dragon Patrol! Feel the burn!" many, many more times in the next year.

Easter Sunday

Our annual Easter picture near the palm tree is getting better each year!

Katie John and Keira show off their baskets before church. They are obviously excited to dig through the bounty!
Happy first Easter Lucas! He doesn't quite know what to think about all this. Jonah and Sariah are also very excited, especially for the fun dip. The egg hunt this year was over very quickly. The kids are getting really good at finding all the hiding spots. The Easter bunny hides the eggs so well that you can't even see them from the back window.
This year I wanted to try a family picture. Gathering everyone after the egg hunt was harder than it looks in the picture. I'm still working on figuring out my new camera, so shots like this will improve for the future.

Easter Weekend: A Day on the Farm

This year we traveled out to the Myrick homestead to color our Easter eggs this year. Jonah has entered a phase where you can tell he's not having that much fun. When you snap photos, it shows. Katie John is having a great time though. She colored many patterned and colorful eggs.
Keira and Sariah did the most eggs. John helped out so that Keira didn't get colored herself. All during the day a big bonfire was burning the extra orchard sticks. We spent a while sitting around the fire, even roasting some marshmallows YUM! Julie grabbed my camera from me and took this nice photo of Katie John in the grass near the fire.

Lucas and I are having a fun time! At this point I think we'd watched the men (Jesse, John, Jonathan and Shaun) attempt a few catapult launches. There is always an element of excitement and danger when you see grown boys dangling from 30 feet up in the air trying to swing the arm of the catapult down for the next launch.
Julie (still with my camera) took the girls to the field next door where some baby goats lived. The baby goats were very cute and loved to nibble hair.


Look how cute, all looking the same direction. It's harder than you think to get a kid to cooperate. I had a fun time looking through about 150 photos and I have yet to watch the two videos. I guess I should do that.
Jonah and Mason have fallen into the starcraft hole.

Grandma Betty came out for a visit and we got this cute picture with her holding all the babies. Lucas is about 3 1/2 months old, Sofia and Caleb are about 8 months. A behind the scenes photo would have been hilarious as we all tried to get the babies to look and smile.

Sariah and Keira wrap up our day with a fun photo near the bonfire. We had a great time!

Laundry Day

Lucas was helping me with laundry today. I do a LOT of laundry. We took this picture document all the fun we were having!

The Zoo 2

Spring break is notoriously hard for me to organize fun things for the kids. This year it came quite naturally after we started the week off with a fun birthday party for Jonah with Mason and Max unexpectedly spending the night for added fun. Christina came Tuesday night to pick up her boys and Jonah for a few days of running and leaping at her house. Also on Tuesday Katie John had a playdate with her friend Lauren who had just gotten a baby guinea pig. Katie John also had a scheduled playdate on Wednesday with her friend Norena. That left me with two small girls and a baby in need of something to do. The zoo seemed like the perfect thing.
By going earlier in the day than our last zoo visit we were able to see a few more animals. The orangutans were out and playing. The otter was running around and we could actually see the bongos. Sariah is doing a school project on the Red Ruffed Lemur so we were hoping to see one. Sadly they only had Black and White Ruffed Lemurs. She wanted to so badly to draw a picture of one.
For a special treat we rode the merry-go-round. Both girls had a blast!
Now, this whole time Lucas was being toted from one enclosure to the next without really caring about the animals. He slept a lot. After the merry-go-round he was wide awake. Recently he's learned he has a tongue. It's quite cute seeing him constantly stick it out. So while we rested in the shade from our long walk we laughed and took pictures of this cute boy.

This was a fun opportunity to spend time with just my two smaller girls and Lucas. It's not often we have time for such activities during the busy school schedule. Spring break this year so far is full of fun, what will we do with the rest of our week?

Jonah turns 11

I can't believe our little boy is getting so big! It seems like life is really flying by! Jonah has been looking forward to this birthday party for a long time. We planned a big bowling and laserX birthday. He was able to invite 5 friends: Mason, Max, Jacob, Mitchell and Joey. Since his birthday landed during spring break we were able to have the party on his actual birthday. The boys arrived and then zipped off to the bowling alley. They played for about an hour, poor Jonah came in last with a score of just 63. It seemed that the boys preferred the laser tag game and talked about it non-stop when they came back. The off-site activities took longer than expected so I had to contact parents and let them know to come later to pick up their boy(s). We quickly lit the candles and then sang happy birthday.
Jonah was very happy with his bowling cake and did his best to blow out the strategically far apart candles on the first try. Happy Birthday Jonah! We are blessed to have you in our family!