Happy easter

Happy easter! It was kind of fun to have one whole week of easter, since we dressed up the sunday BEFORE easter this year :)

For actual easter we went over to my parents and had the big hunt...maybe 250 eggs? My family tends to overdo traditions (but I LOVE it ) Wrestling with grandpa...he might have been on a sugar high too...
The hunt
and the loot
by the end the eggs were overflowing the buckets. After the last session of conference we rode bikes and ended up at the park! Alex has finally gotten over his fear of two wheels and can actually keep up with Lydia now :)

Grandma

I found a few pictures, it's fun to look at old pictures...it makes me feel like I can see the future. Can't we all when looking at the past? She said she was a tomboy, but she looks like more of a lady than I ever have :)

I love the contrast between these pictures, candids almost, compared to her parents where no one smiled... I love that technology started capturing emotion
Here is grandma, newly wed, living with her husband (grandpa) in Hawaii during the war. She was about 10 years younger than me in this picture...
And here's the grandma that I know and love. Always with grandchildren (or great grandchildren here) all around her. The hardest part about her getting older was that she couldn't pick up little kids anymore. Although she'd still let them crawl around on her lap even though those little knees and elbows are like daggers!
I love my grandma, I'll miss her terribly. I try to picture her now, reunited with loved ones, and I think of the top pictures...even though she'll always be like this last picture to me.

Snapshots

I've been looking through my pictures lately and realized that I didn't capture some moments. I wish I was better at capturing real life, although zoo trips are good...

and the first time I spiral curl Lydia's hair (it stayed in for 30 minutes)...
But I don't have a single picture of my grandma with these two kids. My grandma just passed away on Monday. She was old and it was her time, I know that she's happier now. But, that doesn't mean we don't miss her terribly already. We would go visit grandma once a week at her home, hospital, twice at a nursing home. I've lived within 5 minutes of her my whole entire life (excepting college). How could I forget to capture that routine of our lives on film? Luckily memories will last, and we've captured plenty of those.

Deacons bench

This is turning into a project blog, I promise I'll get more exciting when summer comes :) In the meantime... another project. We grabbed this beauty from Dave's mom's garage, it was headed to goodwill.

I didn't know what to do with it because it was already very 'antiqued'. It honestly looked like someone (probably Dave and Steve) took a bag of bolts and hit it all over. So, I sanded, painted, and glazed. Into this...
It turns out that I don't know how to use glaze, because I painted on black glaze and it turned the whole thing black. So, I painted it in stripes and then wiped with a rag, and now it has a faux wood grain look to it. I love it.

p.s. if anyone wants any black glaze I accidentally made enough for 25 more of these projects ;)

-isms

These are for me to remember, and you to enjoy :)

After a bath Lydia likes to comb her hair. She doesn't do a great job, but she does look in the mirror and sing "the little mermaid" while she does it....so cute.

Alex made me a beaded necklace at preschool, he has NEVER made me something without a teacher's prompting, so I was excited. In the middle of the necklace are beads that spell out my name...or close, it spells KENDAR :)

Lydia greets Dave at the door after work everyday. She hugs and kisses him and then asks him if he wants to see "his lover". Then she shows him where I am :)

Alex is semi-aware of the news, mostly the bad news. He has saved a few newspapers and worries still about earthquakes and tornados.

Lydia has just gotten out of saying "efelant" (elephant) and "clockolat" for chocolate

We're reading a Tall Tales book with Alex and now he talks like it. For instance he says, "you're as fast as a cat on a tomato bar" They don't make sense, but he says it in a western accent just like we read the tall tales :)

ode to mom

This is probably more like a mother's day post, but when I feel something good, I have to say it :) I have the best family! Both sides are amazing. Dave and I have never felt alone but we always feel independent. How is everyone so good at that?

Anyway, my mom has always told me about her dream to know her grandkids well and have us live close so now that that dream is a reality she really makes the most of this time in her life. Constantly she offers to play with the kids and loves to take them to the zoo, museum, etc. She even took up quilting to make quilts for her grandkids :) This is her quilt for Lydia...

The other reason why she's amazing? She let me pick out these colors and didn't even like them :) but she still took her time to make the quilt anyway....Love you mom!

The desk

Meet Jon Allurud, he's a mystery writer best known for his novel "Lighting always strikes in the same place twice". Unfortunately most of his earlier work was plagerized. (sorry about the spelling).

We went to another murder mystery dinner, I was an actress that had lots of , a-hem, questionable material. It was a ton of fun. And Dave, as always, was in character the whole time :)

Now the desk.... before
after!
Thank you to all who gave suggestions. I painted it a darker brown (chocolate), and took off the laminate top. I then modge podged fabric on top and made a basket liner. I would have two baskets in there but I think I'm just inches too short on another liner. The top is a little bumpy, but it will only impede her writing (which won't happen for a while). Anyway, thanks again!

Dave's birthday!

Dave's birthday was last saturday but he got sick. We couldn't go out to eat, he barely walked through the chocolate festival (not eating ANY samples) and the fancy cake I got him he only ate two bites....poor guy. So it's been kind of a birthday week, I wish I could've made it more exciting for him! 29 never looked so good :)

For Dad's birthday the kids got presents from grandparents :) Lydia ballerina has now learned important words like tutu and leotard.
Alex has always wanted to be a scientist, and his safety glasses made it real. He's currently a paleontologist digging out a triceratops. Sidenote: this is the coolest present, but it's messy. I highly recommend it :)
And last, I need your help! This was Dave's desk when he was little, it's in good shape, but Al already has a desk. I was thinking of how I could make this for Lydia...it's not girl style yet. I don't need big frills, but I want it a little...prettier. The base is wood and the top is like a laminate. If you have any idea at all...please comment!!

Crackers

Meet our first pet (besides bubbles, the fish). This one is a little bit more work than bubbles, but we can pet him (or her). Some friends in out ward had two rabbits that were supposed to be two boys, but they weren't. So they were giving away the bunnies. Yea for us!

Our friend's little girl named it. Alex's choices were straight ear, scratch, and fur head. So we stuck with Crackers :)
It's very calm and hasn't ever scratched or bit us (yet). We let him run around for a while during the day and then he goes, quite willingly, back to the cage. I love it, I admit we got him probably more for me than the kids :)
And of course Lydia, she' growing up and this outfit really showed it off ;)

do I have to name this?

I did a recipe exchange a while ago and my sister gave me this recipe from her in-laws who live in Samoa. It's called no-fuss sushi. It was super easy, and it tasted as good as any california roll I've had. You use tuna fish so it's not scary, we always eat tuna fish raw. They looked good and tasted good...but they smell bad. That seaweed stinks!

We also went to the stock show here in Denver. Dave is the only one that has been before, and I think he was 8. We saw horse jumping, the dog pull (which was hilarious), and lots of HUGE cows! When we left we asked the kids what their favorite part was and Alex said, "the popcorn". At least he was honest :)

the game of LIFE

We decided to play LIFE with our kids for the first time, hoping they would be old enough. It was so much fun!

Lydia won, big time. She chose not to go to college and became a professional athlete earning 90,000. Lucky. She liked spinning the wheel and getting kids, but didn't actually care about the money :)
Alex went to college and became a rock star... his choice :) He earned 20,000 a year and LOVED the money. He had no idea he was almost broke the entire time.
It's been nice and slow around here for the holidays. We've stayed inside a ton because I'm attempting to potty train Lydia (which I'll never devote a blog post to... hate it that much) but because we're inside the kids are literally jumping off the walls.

I love their face in mid-air :)

7 years

Before I get lovey about Dave in this post, I wanted to post some funny pictures we took. Our "new to us" computer has a photo booth on it. And Lydia, Alex, and I played on it for about 45 minutes the other day. These are some of the best :)

And now, about the love of my life...

Yes, it's been 7 years of marriage for us :) Do you like the picture? This is colored pencil :)

What can I say about this guy? Nothing that you want to read, I'm sure. But I will tell about our anniversary, if you bear with me :) He kept it a secret, because I LOVE surprises. We drove up to Estes Park and spent the night in the EXACT same place we spent our honeymoon! We even ate at the same neat little restaurant. It was so much fun to remember way back when. He's an amazing man, and I'm glad I still got him :)

Ho Ho Ho

Christmas was a quiet success at our home this year. Alex woke up at 7am but didn't want to look at the tree until Lydia was up. So I went downstairs to turn on the pretty lights while Alex woke up Lydia. They were very excited to see the tree, which I got on video. Good thing too, because I forgot to wait till Dave came down...oops!

A few of his haul, transformers and spiderman slippers :)
Lydia's big gift was a pink bike. We got it as a hand-me-down and it's just perfect. Summer will be outside for these guys. She just kept saying "thank you guys, thank you thank you!" It was wonderful :)

In the afternoon we had an annual christmas party at my parents house. This is the one time I see almost all of my family on that side, so I love it. There's a lot of loud laughing and ignoring the kids, and even more good good food. Merry Christmas everyone!

5

I didn't think I was that busy, but it's been a long time since my last post...oops. Anyway, Alex turned 5 on the 19th! We didn't have his party until the 21st so we couldn't say happy birthday to him until the party. I guess the cake and candles make it official, never mind what mom says :)

It turns out Al is picky about friends, I like most the kids his age but he's pretty nit-picky. While we're working on that flaw with him, he does have some amazing friends that are just joys to be around. His cousins, Elijah, Madeline, Jaxen, and some new friends Adriana and Jack. It was a very pleasant party (as 5 year old birthdays go :)
They were all scientist, so I made lab coats for them out of t-shirts. We did experiments and made things blow up, fizzle and change colors. We also let them make whatever "mixed" drink they wanted. Out of juices and pops, of course

I love this picture of Jaxen, no wonder Alex loves that guy :)
And Lydia always feels cool sitting next to Madeline. I'm so glad we have some nice older cousins here to show my kids the ropes.

And now on to Christmas! I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday!

Gingerbread houses

Our annual tradition continues. Each year the houses get better and the kids eat less candy. We even got to show it off at our ward christmas party this year (there was a contest). Although we didn't even come close to winning :)

I wanted to put in a picture of Autumn, she's one year now and Lydia is starting to realize how cool she is
Melissa was getting rid of some clothes and gave us this kid scrub uniform. Jason (my brother) got it for his son when he was in medical school many moons ago.
Alex was wearing it while playing with Jason & Melissa's kids at grandma's house. Alex was screaming loud and so Jason came in and said "Alex, don't scream" and Alex held up his hand and said "excuse me, call me doctor" I'm so glad he said that to Jason, it made it that much more hilarious ;)

Earrings

When I was 7 years old my mom finally let me pierce my ears. She didn't want me to do it for all those adult reasons, i.e. big responsibility, permanently changing my body, etc. Anyway, she gave in and I got them pierced. When I was 13 they closed up because I'm allergic to all earrings besides the 14K gold posts...

I never really cared that they were closed, but I started getting the itch to have some more bling on my face :) So, last night I got them pierced again :)

It was really funny because at first she thought I was getting Lydia's ears pierced, then she thought I must be getting 2nd holes because what 29 year old doesn't have their ears pierced? It didn't hurt as much as I remember, I fainted the first time :) I also really felt like I should call my mom first and ask her, but I didn't...such a rebel :) Now with all the cleaning and "careful sleeping" I have to do with newly pierced ears, I totally agree that it's much too great of a responsibility for a 7 year old.

EEG

The test I took after the last post was an EEG test. It's such a funny test, and I keep trying to remember to take a camera, but always forget. So here's a picture of what I kind of look like during the test...

photo courtesy of wisconline.com

Although, all my cords are different colors and I have hair :) During this test you lay on a really comfortable bed in a dark hotel-like room. You have to blink a whole bunch of times, then you keep your eyes closed while you make yourself hyperventilate, then a strobe light is in your eyes for like 3 minutes going faster and faster, and then you try to fall asleep.

The reason this test is funny is because of how it looks, and that it seems like they're just playing with you the whole time. That's how all of neurology seems to me. They make you stand on one foot, and then they kind of tap little places to see if you fall. I think they go back to their office and just LAUGH at all the silly things they made me do :)

Anyway, my test is over and I don't know the results. But, I did get to sleep last night, so I'm a happy camper! Happy thanksgiving!

Scary movies, anyone?

This was the only picture I could find of me looking scared, but...
I must be 8 years old again

I'm scared to look out the windows, I don't want to be close to under my bed, I don't like walking in the dark, and I have the TV on just for company. Why? I did something dumb.

I'm staying up late for another test tomorrow morning. I went shopping at midnight (it wasn't nearly as fun as in college, but I did sing to the music for old times' sake :), and then I rented a movie. Dave likes most movies, but he HATES scary movies. So I decided to rent one. I just finished. It's 2 am and I'm scared! I should've gotten someone to watch it with me. I still have 45 minutes until I can go find comfort in my bed, until then I think I'll waste time with facebook...

Alex

Alex has always sounded older than he is (not acted).  He even defined the word "omnipotent" in primary when he was 3.  Today we both have colds and were sniffing.  He said, "mom, let's make a nose band"  Recently he's started to put his gift onto paper.  This was my birthday card this year...

I know you can't read that or see what it is, so I'll explain :)  It's a rocket ship, with a man hanging off it, and then his name up at the top written pretty fancy.  Then he had Dave write this, "Dear Mom, We're going to have a blast birthday party. Happy birthday!  I love you"  Hallmark, here we come :)

    Alex and Lydia have also starting taking pictures.  Thank GOODNESS for digital.  Anyway, I found this one on the camera today...

That little temptress :)

Snow

We had our first big snowfall this winter, about two days before halloween!  This was the first day, the second day it snowed all day too, but there was only about 6 more inches

I LOVE the snow.  It makes everything so quiet.  We played forever outside, and when Dave came home he helped the kids make a hilarious snowman (sorry, no pictures)

And of course we went sledding. Lydia is a trooper, she walks up the hill all by herself, always face plants in the snow, usually can't see because of her hat, and never complains.  She just says "let's do it again!".  Alex is finally starting to get steering down, which is better for everyone on the hill :)
Luckily it was mostly gone by Saturday night, so trick-or-treating was still a success :)