other april happenings

If you are REALLY interested in more of what we did in April, click HERE or HERE or HERE for Earth Day 2009 or K2's Field Trip to the LaHabra Children's Museum or K2's Field Trip to California Pizza Kitchen!

Onto April...

I love all things April! To start the month off every year, we celebrate this girl!

K2 turned 5 this year...which meant it was an off year for friend parties, but we weren't short on celebrations! K2 had preschool the morning of her birthday and I was teaching so Jameson surprised her during school by bringing a balloon and doughnuts for her preschool friends. After school we packed up and went to Disneyland to collect another Birthday Cash Card which K2 got to spend at the end of the day...we came home with Bolt (DVD), princess jewelry & a new stuffed kitty. Grandma Cathy, Grandpa Paul & Auntie Heather met us for dinner & presents at the Plaza Inn on Mainstreet in Disneyland and we called it a day after a few rides.

I always find reasons to prolong birthday celebrations...2 days later I took J1 & K2 to see the Sleeping Beauty Ballet (put on by the same company who does the Nutcracker we usually see at Christmastime for J1's birthday) and then met up with daddy and the boys for Golden Spoon! (notice the necklace...this was her favorite thing for MONTHS...I think because she got to pick it out and "buy" it herself).

No birthday is complete without the annual Well Check visit to the Doctor a few days later, which ended with a trip to Swirlz for more treats because I think every child deserves ice cream after getting shots (this was also her "get ready for kindergarten" check-up).

If you are lucky enough to have this girl in your life...well...then...good for you because she is FULL of life and smiles! I don't have a single memory that doesn't include TONS of fun, gut-busting laughter & dancing with my oldest friend Shelly Paulsen (now clark)...We met when we were 12...were best of friends up to high school...parted ways due to school activities, boyfriends, I moved, etc...kept in touch through the years and ended up reconnecting (thank you FaceBook) again about a year ago.

Thanks to her LOVE of traveling and Disneyland, I got to see her last april and meet her husband (FINALLY) and her kids! I feel like this picture should include at least one other mom for the number of kids there are. She has 3 and I have 4, but I feel overtaken in this photo.

April also took us out to dinner with friends we wish we saw more often...John & Beth Emmett...Jameson & John have been friends since 1st grade-ish and went all the way through BYU together, where they both met their wives (along with several other Irvine Guys.) We also got to see "Uncle Jack" (white jacket, red stripes)....one of Jameson's closest friends who my kids ADORE...we don't see him often enough either!

Easter is no longer complete without the annual Easter Egg Hunt visit to Aunt Marci's house in San Diego...we are always so grateful for Romney Gathering invites because they are SO MUCH FUN to hang out with!

Aunt Marci had special eggs for boys, for girls, fun treats she made sure were evenly divided among all and MONEY filled eggs!

After the hunt it was lunch, play and game time...I absolutely LOVE spending time with this crowd...have I said that already? I can't say it enough! Marci has no shortage of good times at her house and she spends a lot of time making sure everyone visiting enjoys themselves. I love her for that! Even better this particular day was that Jameson got to go with us! It's RARE he is off work on the days we go to San Diego, even more rare that he is there when my cousins Chris & Mike are there as well!

Chris + a game of Moods = HILARIOUS!

Easter Sunday...and one of my best self-timer family pictures! With a little cropping & photoshop this could be a GREAT picture! Pretty proud of it...can you tell?

Grandma Becky never fails to surprise my kids with awesome packages for most every holiday...Easter was no different! If you are a Grandparent, do this: Buy a fun book, record yourself reading this book, attach the recording to said book and give it to your grandkids. My mom and dad did this with 3 books for Easter (addressing one to the girls specifically read by grandma, one to the boys read by Grandpa, and one to all the kids read by grandma). Since then my mom has added 3 more stories, one of which includes a song at the end to go with the story, sung by my youngest sister Cassidi). We have all 6 stories on one CD (several copies) which get played in both bedrooms every night while the kids go to sleep and ALL THE TIME in the car. I vote this "BEST GIFT EVER". (but I do love the holiday outfits...new suits are the best as well!)

After church we colored out Easter Eggs (while still wearing our new Easter clothes...thank you Jameson for having such a great handle on the mess!)

Eggs dry? Yes...let's take them to Gma Cathy & Gpa Paul's house for another Easter Egg hunt & yummy dinner with Auntie Heather, Uncle Danny & Great Gpa Schoppe!

before the hunt Grandma Cathy put a special treat in each of the kids bags, but made them shut their eyes while she did it...This kid makes the best faces!

Easter is over, but spring weather is in full gear...which means Rattlesnakes.

The highlight of the week was finding this half-dead rattlesnake on our street, watching the teenage boys beat it TO DEATH and then examining it for HOURS, running through the neighborhood telling everyone "come see, come see, it's so awesome!"

The kids living in the closest houses sat here for over an hour waiting for animal control to come clean up the mess (thank you teenage boys for spreading blood and guts...it didn't occur to me to fill up a pitcher and wash it away...say down that drain you see 6 feet from the snake!)

He wasn't animal control, but Josh next door eventually came out and took care of the snake...The kids were SUPER bummed about this, but THANK YOU JOSH because now I could go back in my house (after 4 long hours) and not worry that my boys were playing with a dead rattlesnake and my girls weren't being taunted by the boys to kick it and throw it around with a stick!

Jameson spread the love of cars to his boys so we went to the UCIrvine Car Show...

Our favorites were all the Corvettes...ALL of them. The Corvette is my favorite car...old & new.

Because we were so excited about these Corvettes we stopped to see Gma Cathy's! She has a 1975 Corvette that our kids (and me) LOVE to ride in!

After the 'vette rides around the block we washed cars...I can't believe how big he is getting. I want him to stay this size FOREVER.

Movin' thru to March 2009

What is more exciting than new toys to a 6yr old? Losing the first tooth...especially when it happens at school and you become an instant SUPERSTAR! You would've thought this girl had just been given everything she ever wanted by how excited she was when she got home from school that day!

She also got to participate in her first kindergarten "marathon" as part of the Read, Write, Run Triatholon...26minutes of running around the field at school...which seemed like a LIFETIME to J1...she was glad when the whistle blew at the end to signal all the kids to head to the Juice It Up booth to get their juice popsicles!

The school did a great job with it. Families were invited to participate with their children (through the day the whole school ran...grade-by-grade). Music played through the whole thing, there were water stations set-up, they started off with stretches & ended with "healthy" treats!

J1 lasted almost ONE lap before deciding to walk all the rest. She had not grown to love running quite yet (but just wait....soccer season is fast approaching....posts to come)...

Birthdays are a HUGE deal to me and I wish I had unending funds to throw BIG parties! Jameson turned 30 in March...which he thought was the end of the world. Starting at 27 he decided his life was all downhill, 28 he said he could feel the end near, 29 he said life may as well be over and 30 he decided he was dead. Needless to say, Jameson doesn't love the idea of getting older! So in the morning he came downstairs to this...

To celebrate his so-called death we had an intimate lunch with good friends at Woodranch BBQ (top 5 restaurants in my book)...the original idea was to have a funeral luncheon, everyone in black, mock-coffin & gravesite decor set-up, eulogy given (more like a roast), funeral food (mormon casseroles & jello salads)...anyway, all didn't go according to plan (things seemed to have done that a lot this year) so I am saving this for his 40th...You're all invited!

After yummy Woodranch we packed up and headed to Disneyland to get the "birthday cash card" for it being the day of his birthday then strolled through Downtown Disney, ending up at the Lego Store (a favorite destination for the kids). Thank you Grandpa Paul for the AWESOME car-ride stories!

The 2nd annual Whale Watching Field Trip. 2008 I took a group of 35 (mostly children under 3). Dana Wharf Sportfishing took my group of 75 in 2009! Thank you for the terrific group rate and a FANTASTIC day of sea sight-seeing! We caught glimpses of 2 whales, sea otters and dolphin after dolphin after dolphin...after dolphin! It was a gorgeous sunny day..PERFECT weather (which was such a change from the previous year when it was overcast the whole time, semi-freezing for us CA folk, and no sights of anything but the water from the whale blowhole too far out in the water for any of the kids to see!) Can't wait to go again this year!

As parents of 4 children, it seems we should have seen our share of emergency hospital and doctor visits. This is not the case. We tend to let things come and go and let sicknesses run their course...nothing has been serious yet and no major injuries. This "record" changed in March when C3 spent a couple of days with more "sleep" in his eyes than normal. At the end of day 2 I was wiping gunk & goop from his eyes about every 30 minutes. He went to bed not feeling so hot, but with Motrin to kill the fever that had suddenly come on...it wasn't an hour later before he woke up SCREAMING and i went to his room to find him unable to open his eyes because the goopy stuff had gotten so thick and his eyes so swollen that he couldn't open them. This was 9:00pm or so. Cue the call to daddy who was at work. After 2 hours of deliberation Jameson came home from work early, I called a neighbor to come sleep on my couch and we took C3 to the ER (something I try to avoid but since the Dr's office was closed we decided it was better than having him crying at home waiting to go the next morning). Almost 4am comes around before we are back home with antibiotics and an exhausted little boy! All was well after a few days. Conjunctivitis and 2 weeks of missed school as a form of pink eye seemed to have spread to all 4 kids & mom.

Jameson and I celebrated our 7th anniversary at a restaurant I L-O-V-E, but discovered that that L-O-V-E is also connected to the fact that I have never P-A-I-D for my own meal there (thank you Uncle Rick and Grandpa Rick for having done this very thing so many times in the past) and Thank You Barefoot Contessa for teaching me how to make a KILLER Filet Mignon so I don't have to cry when paying the bill to get one almost as good at Ruth's Chris (though I am still in love with their Creme Brulee....thank you Uncle Rick for "making" me try something new...it's my Fav Dessert)... I keep trying to push Jameson into getting "couple friends" so we have people to go out with...So with us are Phil & Coleen...he is Jameson's beat partner at work...and they are good company! We don't go out with them as often as I would like, but I'm working on that!