Mother's Day

I had a great Mother's Day in Oroville! We went to the greatly anticipated "Feather Fiesta Day Parade" on Saturday. Too bad the belly dancer float and guy getting tatooed in the back of his truck were left out this year! But we had other great surprises. Good times. Mother's day was wonderful with cards galore from Lily. She made me a new card each day all last week and made a bunch of new ones in Oroville. Baby No and E were also forced to make me cards :). I appreciated it all! Dave even actually made french toast. Very nice. Here's my stash! I sure do love my kids.

I was asked on two separate occasions to say something special about Lils and Ebay. So I thought I'd put them down on here because without my kids, I wouldn't be the awesome Mom that I am! :)
Lils is 7 years old, she loves to laugh, paint, and create projects as gifts and give them away. She loves to tell jokes, usually the same ones over and over, so we have to tell her "it's only funny the first time!". She loves pink and blue. Recess (the monkey bars) are her favorite school subject and she is an excellent big sister. She will swing her baby sister for hours! Her greatest ambition right now is to pass her reading level because her Daddy has promised her her very own Venus fly trap.
Ebay's good at:

Playing cars for over 2 hours a day
Jumping into the love sac from the stairs
making his sisters laugh
making Lunchable pizzas
putting the soap in the dishwasher
being silly
making everyone around him happy

Baby No is definitely a feisty little thing. Her favorite things to say are "No! No Weey!" and "No weey!" and "No!"... I think you get the picture. She doesn't say yes yet, she just goes "uh huuh". She loves, loves, loves shoes! Especially her yellow monkey rain boots and pink cowgirl boots. She also loves big 'ol princess shoes. She is sweet and sour and we love her.

Playhouse

Dave's been working on a playhouse for the kids for the past month or so. 6 weeks ago he and his Dad and bro poured the concrete and he's worked on it a few hours every few nights since. He loves being out there working with his hands, power tools, and using his brain for building instead of Excel speadsheets. He is crafty. Who knew that an Intel finance guy could also built a tree house, install a new garbage disposal, change the oil in our cars, wire for surround sound, and now build a tree house.... thank you google. I can say I'm sure glad I married such a handyman! Here are pictures of the playhouse so far. It has a little loft over the porch that the kids absolutely love! All that he has to do now is finish the roof, put on the white trim, and paint the inside.

Horrifying, but Brillaint!

It is done. I did it. A half marathon. 13.1 miles. And don't let the .1 fool you! That was the hardest part of the run for me!!! It was the most difficult physical endurance I've ever faced, and yes, I have had 3 kids. But pleeease- they were all c-section, ok?! We're talking over 2 hours of running. Running so far, I didn't think it was possible for me to do it. Sure, I trained. I ran the prescribed amounts of time during the 2 1/2 months I trained. But the most I had ever run was 10 miles. I did that twice. I don't think I was really ready, but I don't know if I ever could be more ready! :) It was an amazing experience and I don't think I really ever knew myself until I hit mile 11.5 and pushed myself and all of the runners around me- "we can do this!" The last 3 miles I had to run/walk. But I finished, and then yelled at Dave through exhaustion/sweat/tears "never again!". Now I feel differently. I want to do it again and be really ready. Be faster, be stronger. But as it is, I can't even walk up or down stairs without pain right now in my thighs... so it'll be a while yet!


There's me steps from the finish line... don't ask me what that dude is checking on his ipod... lame! The finish line is right in front of you! "c'mon!

Dave, the kids, and my brother-in-law Jeff and his wife Steph were there to cheer me on. They were the best! They ran into me on mile 5 with smiles, big posters and a squirt of water. Then they surprised me again on mile 9! Their posters said "Go Mommy Go!" and "Party in the USA!" (my favorite running song right now:) You know you like it! That just made my day. Seeing those kids and my awesome husband and Jeffanie cheering me on just made me feel so good and gave me a much needed push! Thanks guys!

Our Front Room Makeover

I took this "before" picture to sell this rug on Craisglist... still hasn't sold. But it shows the room before I freshened it up. It was a dusty room with never-used furniture, a hard, linty (ugly) rug, and three paintings that I had done. I wanted something fresh and usable! So we threw the lovesac down there, brought our old TV out of hiding and mounted it. I made some throw pillows to go with the gorgeous blue ones that I found at Pier 1. And my favorite thing is the rug! It is a 3 inch thick shag pile rug! It is so soft and comfy! The kids, and Dave, love it! It was Dave approved as he laid out and napped on it yesterday. I have a few little sea shells laying around in jars that I put in there to go with the ocean painting (hard to see it with the lamp light on it, but oh well!). We use this room so much more now. And it is the first thing people see when they come over, so hopefully it will give a nice impression. It is always good to actually use rooms in your house. The last thing I'm going to do is get some pretty white curtains and lamps.

Catching up

Here are the last few weeks in pictures! Starting with the latest- Dave is working on a playhouse for our never-used sideyard. When you live in California, you have to use every inch of your yard- because it's usually pretty meager! Dave, his Dad, and brother poured the concrete a few weekends ago and now Dave's building the walls. Ebay got to stay up a bit late tonight to help his Daddy out. He and Lils were running back and forth fetching nails, screws, levelers, and tape measurers! They were also great helps with knocking boards over and playing in the dirt. :)

Just a few shots of Rose. She wore pigtails for the first time today! I've tried them in the past, but this time there was actually a decent amount of hair to work with. My kid's favorite snack right now: banana boats. You know, you cut a notch in a banana, fill with peanut butter and then put your "people" on your boat. Lils favorite toppers are chocolate chips, E likes goldfish on his, and Rose likes raisins. It's just the little details I like to remember about my kids.


Oh, if you haven't heard, Lils FINALLY lost her first tooth! One of her bottom teeth! I have never seen anyone so excited and consumed with a tooth coming out, but I know any of you guys with 6/7 yr olds can vouch for the awesome excitement of toothlessness... Dave tied dental floss around her tooth to "test" how loose it was. He took two little tugs to see if it was loose enough to tie on the door, but instead he just yanked a bit harder the third time and out it came! Lils was so surprised! She and Dave couldn't stop laughing! Daddys can be tricky!

Speaking of... Dave's usual month-long birthday celebration has not disappointed this year. His birthday seems to get bigger and more time-enveloping as the years go by. It starts in March with a "oh, I'll just get this for my birthday". It continues with "let's celebrate this weekend early because my family's in town" and ends with "this is my actual birthday weekend!" Yes. It is a good time. I surprised him with his Dad, brother, and bro-in-law taking him out to play golf on Saturday. Then we had pizza, chips, and this lovely cake. Dave's two favorite cakes are carrot cake and cheese cake... so I combined them. Yes, it is homemade cheesecake sandwiched between homemade carrot cake and finished off with cream cheese frosting! it was SO good! Try it! I froze the cakes to make them easier to layer.

MMMMMM.....

Last weekend we were in Oroville with Dave's family. We had a wonderful weekend playing outside and using their restaurant-grade ice cream machine every minute of the day! Yum! Everyone took a trip up to Table Mountain to see the blossoming wild flowers. Lils and I missed out on this outing because She got a migraine. So i stayed home with her. Poor girl. She gets headaches pretty often and migraines once or twice a month where she'll go up to her room, put a pillow over her head, throw up a few times, cry... and Dave and I are pretty helpless. We're trying a few medications to see if we can help her. I've also been tracking what she eats and does to see if there's a correlation.

Anyways, Rose and Ebay had a great time with their Grampy and Gramma.

E looking at the flowers up close.

We're in the grade levels now so that means project time! Lils first school project was to make a diaramma of her favorite book. She chose Dr. Seuss' "McEligot's Pool". She cut the shoe box, painted it, wrote all the the information and colored in all of the characters! The only thing I had to do was draw the pictures and hang them. She looked at the book and colored the fish just like the book, mixing colors! I was very proud.

Well, thats' all for now. Loving the beautiful spring weather! Oh, and Dave's REAL birthday is not until the 25th. More fun to come for Dave's Birthday Bash 2010!

New Painting

I did this painting a few weeks ago when Dave was in Boston on business. I bought this huge 4 x 5 ft canvas from "Micheal's" for $45 and wanted to really take my time on this one. So, I put my "Masterpiece Theatre" on the TV, propped the canvas up on the back of my couch and began. I thought that I would spend the whole first night on just the sky. Well, three hours later I was almost done! So, this one took me 4 hours. I want to learn how to paint more technically and realistic. Maybe take some Rec painting courses, but for now I am happy with this! I wanted it to be playful, colorful, and fresh. It was a really fun experience. I am re-decorating my front room into a more useful, soft space. We never use the area because the rug was hard, the couch was not inviting and it was just a blah room. We've added our extra TV down there, we're getting a soft shag rug, new curtains and pillows, and throwing the love sac down there. So it should be a fun space for the kids to watch a movie or play games! Once we get all of the things together, I'll post before and after pictures.


Here's the photo. It's of Sand Dollar Beach at Ft. Bragg. I took this photo when we were there last Sept. and have been wanting to paint it. Don't compare too closely! I just had fun with it.

For My Family...

Here are some more pictures that we took last Sunday before church in our front yard!