"Hail the conquering hero"

10 points to whoever can name that movie quote :)  Last night at about 10 we had a HUGE storm.  Lots of hail, wind, and scary stuff.  I drove around today and found that we were on the edge of a tornado... so we were lucky.  And, don't worry, our weeds survived too...

But our toys didn't...
Nor did our tomatoes, zucchini, squash, peppers, watermelon, cucumbers, beans, and pumpkins...
Our porch didn't fare too well either...
This is the hail, it was about quarter size, but the wind made it sound so much worse!
The kids didn't even wake up, and thank goodness we weren't in a tornado or else DAve and I would have still been standing upstairs in the hall waiting for the kids to cry.  Next time we'll probably wake them up and bring them downstairs.  Now I'm convinced that tornado sirens come way too late.

track & field

My sister Nichole is in town with her family.  I might get pictures of all of them, but I at least got a picture of Simone (the birthday girl) at her party.

Al and Elijah sporting the hats, here's is happy Simone... not too sure about the hat
I also signed up Alex for track this summer.  It has been sooooo funny to watch him.  He did get Dave's competitive edge, which is not an edge at all... more like a flat field.  It would be hard to find a competitive bone in his body.  We didn't go to a meet yet because we lost all the maps, but we finally got to one last saturday.
HEre's Al competing in the 6 x 50m relay :)  He ran hard, I think he felt the thrill of it finally.  An below he is prepping for his standing long jump.  His track shirt has the words "winner winner" and then a picture of a "chicken dinner" underneath.  He's totally awesome :)
 I'll post more pictures of nikki and nate soon.  They decided to visit before they move to Hawaii, so I want to get some current pictures of them.

California

We went to San Clemente this week for a family reunion on my dad's side.  We got a beach house with my mom and dad, here's the back, all festively lit with tiki torches

It was a literally a 5 minute walk to the beach, where we spent most of our time.  Buried in the sand, catching sand crabs, boogie boarding, trying to surf, and getting totally burned.

This is the backyard of the house, yes, that's a cliff behind us, notice my death grip on Lydia :)  Here was a gorgeous sunset with my Aunt Lu
  We also went to the Santa Monica Pier and rode a ferris wheel, in preparation for Disneyland :)

Disneyland

  After lots of begging and whining and planning we finally got to disneyland!  I only agreed because Dave said the kids could go too :)  Dave loves disneyland, and he did a great job holding himself back so the kids could enjoy themselves too.

I always forget how HAPPY disneyland is.  Early in the morning when we were parking, we waited in line to pay the attendant and we asked how he was and he said with a HUGE smile "FANTASTIC!  AWESOME!"  It made us laugh, what do they give their employees?

  Here's autotopia, Alex did a fair job, he never hit us once :)

 Lydia was really interested in meeting Snow White, until we got there.  Here's my princess with the fake one...
  And oh, the dumbo ride... I don't like this ride, but Lydia was SOOOO excited for it so we waited 30 minutes in line for this.  Her picture didn't turn out so good, she was tired of being excited for 30 minutes too
  Besides these we went on plenty of other rides.  It was a blast, as always, and felt way more relaxed than usual this year.  Alex is tall enough to go on all the big kid rides so he did "grizzly river run", "space tours", "big thunder mountain railroad", and "soarin' over california".  He loved them, even if he held his breath the whole time :)

the week

Dave and I are both teaching lessons and giving talks today, so this week has been busier.  Luckily, Alex has been helping out around the house.  Today he got Lydia dressed :)

Summertime

  Don't laugh at the title... although I only have one child in school and he only goes two days a week for two hours each day, summertime is a HUGE deal!  Here's how summer has been so far (the past two weeks :)  Here's our one iris, I have a whole bed of them, but only one bloomed...hmmm

This picture is only for Melissa and Jason, this is your old dresser!  I love it, thank you for letting me have it and do whatever I wanted to :)
Here's our beautiful garden :)  We're going to have a scrumptious spinach salad this week, the rest isn't done yet.  Lydia helps pick out the mushrooms
  Alex made me a "grasshead" for mother's day.  It's basically a homemade chia pet, but I love it all the same 
  This is the last day of preschool, we had a party at the park.  And this is Al and his best buddy James.  James won't be there next year, he's going to kindergarten and lives in Golden so chances are that they'll never be in the same school again.  It was good while it lasted James!

Lydia

Lydia turned 2 recently and I've decided I need to write some of the crazy, interesting facts about her.  And of course, show her yearly progress :)

  She acts very old for her age, already talking in sentences and moving almost as fast as the big kids :)  I've never cut her hair, not even a snip.  As you see she was born with pretty much none, and it's grown in very evenly.  There hasn't been a really awkward stage yet in hair growth, which I'm happy about because I don't want to cut her hair...it scares me :)

   Her jumping off stairs, climbing tall ladders, sliding down slides, and walking through waterfalls show us that she has no fear.  Alex is her favorite person, and Al seems to like her a lot too.  I love all the stages my kids are in for various reasons, but I really love when they start to talk.  Lydia is already attempting knock knock jokes, although she says "ding dong" instead.  And she likes to tell long drawn out stories and sing songs, mostly "popcorn popping".  We love her in our family and she makes us laugh every day!

Birthday

  Lydia turned 2 on Friday, so we gave her a "big girl bed".  (our presents are always lame like that :)  Her and Alex played pretend go to sleep all day, Al here is reading her the books... so sweet.

  We did have a party, with the amount of family that lives so close it was pretty large, but very very fun.

Some of Lydia's presents.  The hat and sunglasses were from Dave and I (told you they were all lame).  And the baby elmo actually asks for his bottle and goes to sleep and all that stuff, it's great.
  Another quick funny story... We were in the car listening to a church CD that Jaynie bought for me for mother's day.  Alex asked me to play the song about Christ, to which I replied "which one?"  Alex quickly said "oh mom, you know, the one in heaven!".....  Ah, that Christ, thanks Al :)

Day camp

Happy mother's day!!!  

 On friday we went up the mountains a ways and roasted some hotdogs and marshmallows with our colorado cousins.

                       Throwing rocks in the stream
                   Practicing with papa's axe (Elijah seriously almost lopped off a leg in this picture)
               S'mores.......
We came home sufficiently tired and dirty, it was wonderful.

Kite festival

Every year since we've had kids we've gone to the kite festival.  It's a small party at a huge park where you just go fly kites.  They even have some wonderful hippie 60s music blaring.  It's so relaxing that it starts our spring (even though it is snowing today again ;)  This first picture is Dave trying to fly our kite that was put together wrong...

I'm actually flying the fixed kite here, Lydia is holding on to the handle and I am holding the string...even though it looks like I'm modeling...
During this gorgeous daddy/daughter shot there was a Simon and Garfunkel song playing, it was beautiful
And last, we have a overhang on our house right by the front door.  People seem to think they can walk down the stairs and miss hitting their head, but EVERYONE hits their head on it.  We put a huge potted pine tree in front that stopped most people.  But, it died and slow and painful death.  So, I decided to try my hand at making wind chimes...maybe the noise will deter any potential head bonks.    I do realize that they are crooked, but I don't know how to fix it.  Now our tree can go to the dump.

Easter

Happy easter!  We've had such a fun weekend that I wanted to post a few updates.   I decided to do a before church photo, it was really cold but you can't have coats covering those cute little outfits can you?

  Saturday we had a massive easter egg hunt with the Rozeski's.  Madeline, Jaxen, and Elijah have HUGE baskets because their mom is a HUGE basket kind of a gal.  Grandma is in the back holding Autumn who I'm pretty sure thought we were all crazy.
On another note, Alex speaks like an old man.  He always gives advice to store clerks when we're leaving, and he told grandma that if there was anything she needed, just let him know.  Yesterday he leaned over to Dave and said, "Mom's a slow learner."  I don't know if this is from TV, books, preschool...or if this is how Dave and I actually talk.  But he's so formal for a 4 year old that we usually laugh.  He is brutally honest like most 4 year olds.  He told our neighbor that she was getting pretty old the other day.  What do you do in that situation?  I hide.
Lydia is hilarious.  She holds her own with everyone, even giving the older kids a run for their money on the egg hunt.  She's potty training herself because of her non-committal mom that doesn't want to start.  And she sings nursery rhymes continuously.  She also always walks into the Rozeski's with a "I win!" shout.  (they play a lot of games there, she must think if you shout it that you really win)
  I'll post some pictures of Dave and I soon.  We haven't changed at all :)  No wrinkles, no gray, no extra flab.   We just haven't been able to match the pictures in our head to the pictures that show up in the camera :)  Maybe our camera's broken...

Spreading Sunshine

This sounded fun, so here it goes :) 

The first three people to respond to this post will get something made by me! Made with tons of love just for you! It might be a card, goodies, or you might be surprised what you get! Give it a try! The catch? You must re -post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 3 people who do the same on your blog. The first 3 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a lovely little treat for themselves! Have Fun! Ready........Set............Go!

Maybe you could even leave a comment of what you'd actually want...I'm not exactly famous for anything :)  But I like the idea of service...and I want one of my other friend's gifts :)

Crazy Colorado

We've been having a really mild winter...we even got flowers early.  These daffodils were taken from my grandma's garden a couple days ago.  They weren't cut for fear of frost, but fear of deer (which eat them).  

This morning we woke up to a little snow...it's noon and you can't tell from this picture, but it's a BLIZZARD!  We've gotten over 10 inches of snow in a little more than 3 hours!  Dave works minutes from home and I'm scared for him to get home.  
He's coming home early because he doesn't like me scared :)  But, we're sooooo excited to go sledding and snowman making tomorrow!

zoo

  Lydia's been sick so we've been laying low.  But we decided to go to the zoo today for the afternoon.  The weatherman said it would be 70, but it wasn't.  Oh well, still fun!

Al is an eagle in this picture.  We went into Bird World (it's an indoor area where birds fly around you and walk around freely)  A bird pooped right on Alex's head.  He wasn't even that mad about the whole thing...maybe because there weren't any other kids in there to laugh at him.  It's an older exhibit.
  Lydia had fun looking at the elephants, and they named the crocodile Charlie.  Good day

Chairs

  I found out something yesterday that I should have known...  even if there are only pinks in your wardrobe that doesn't mean everything will match.  Who knew that there were 10 different kinds of pinks?  Now I do.  This picture doesn't do her justice...the shirt has sparkles on it with polka dot sleeves, the pants are orange and pink plaid, the socks have a dark pink ruffle, and then her dirty camo pink crocs.  It was almost hard to take her out :)

Alex has learned to write his name.  He practices all the time now, but he still doesn't understand how we only read from left to right...not up, down, in a circle, and upside down.  If you look closely, you can pick out all the letters from his name...or this could be his dinosaur :)
  And last, it's almost spring and I'm getting the bug.  So I decided to reupholster my dining room chairs.  They are hand-me-downs and the cane in the back has holes all over the place.  So I replaced them.

Before
After
  That's all here, I hope you are all doing well there!