I've Had It!!

Many of you know that we have an apple tree in our front yard. This tree has brought us much joy over the last few years. However, it has also brought me many ulcers and white hairs. You see, we live in a neighborhood overflowing with little kids, and not a single one of these little mongrels has any manners. Each summer as our apples begin to grow my front yard is crawling with these greedy little apple-stealers. They come and taste the unripe apples and throw them on the grass half eaten. They try to reach the highest apples and break tree branches off leaving us a graveyard of leaves and apples and branches. I have yelled at them. I have made them drop whatever they have in their arms and demand that they leave my property only to have them return within a couple days time. I have even waddled myself down the street 8 months pregnant (with Gabe), knocked on a door and told a mother that her daughter is a repeat offender and I'd like her to PLEASE keep her kid out of my yard and away from my apples!!!!!!!!!!! This apple tree is the bain of my existence every summer!!!!!

So, imagine my pleasure today as I walked through Walmart and found this sign!!!

I doctored it up a bit, as you can see ..... and it's going in my front yard!!!!

I WILL GET YOU YOU APPLE STEALING DEVIANTS!!!!

Splish Splash

Remember when you were a kid and you really,really wanted a Slip N' Slide??? Remember in the 80's when they were still kind of new and cost a fortune so your parents told you that your kiddie pool was good enough??

Well, now you can pick one up at Target for less than $20 and they have two "lanes" ... and a splash pool ... and they come with two inflatable "slide boogies"!!!! Summer time has finally arrived here in the Rockies and now that the kids are getting a little bit bigger we thought they might enjoy having a Slip N' Slide to play on. So, we bought one yesterday and we tried it out today!! It turned out to be a worthy investment .... there was non-stop giggling for the better part of an hour!

Waiting patiently for Daddy to finish setting it up.

All ready to go!

The concept of running only until you get to the Slip N' Slide never fully stuck. They thought it was better to run ON the Slip N' Slide.

I think their goal was just to get to the pool at the end.

Only problem with that philosophy is that thing is slick as snot ... we had a few wipe outs. They don't call it a Slip N' Slide for nothin'. Every time Gabe slipped he would get up and proudly proclaim, "I did it! I did it!" Guess he thought as long as he was slipping or sliding he had done it right!

The ultimate goal .... to make it to the splash pool at the end.

Daddy finally had to give a demonstration.

We finally gave up and just started pushing them from the starting line.

Worked like a charm!

Gabe is more of a daredevil than Isabel is. He was more willing to dive face first onto the thing and see what happened .... as a result, Isabel very rarely made it the pool at the end. That's the look of satisfaction and accomplishment you are seeing here!

Joel is trying to teach her how to hang on to the boogie whilst she slides ..... she never fully grasped this concept .... I think it is because she never heard a word of what Joel was telling her .... she WOULD NOT stop giggling!!! :)

Gabe was so excited he squeezed whatever he could get his hands on!

Due to Gabe's fearless nature, he had more success than Isabel did. By the end Gabe was giving Isabel pointers on how she might make it all the way to the end without running the whole way.

He was FROZEN but he would not come out and wrap in a towel.

Isabel was happy to sunbathe for a bit!

I finally coaxed him out and into my lap! What a sweet bundle of wet, cold, squishy boy!!!!!!

May Flowers

Look at my house!!!!!!!!

Isn't it pretty??

The flowers along the walkway are the current work-in-progress.

This is the planter in front of the house .... these things come back every year and I've transplanted most of them from Joel's mom's garden over the last couple of years. Not too shabby!

These are some of the pots I planted on Saturday.

These are the others.

I LOVE spring and summer!!!! It's so colorful!!

The Best Job

I love being home with the kids! I love being able to spend days watching movies and playing games and baking cookies, and doing this ..........

Isabel took this one of me ... she thought we needed a picture of me too :)

The quality is poor, but here are the finished products!!!

Memorial Day Weekend

The temperatures in Colorado have finally reached the 80's .... and just in time for Memorial Day weekend!!! I'm sorry to say that I only have pictures from one of the three days of the holiday weekend because I forgot my camera every time we went somewhere, but I do have a few cute moments caught on film.
On Saturday we spent most of the day doing yard work. We started the day off at Lowe's and Home Depot so that I could buy flowers to plant in my pots on the front porch. We drove to two separate stores on two separate ends of town because I didn't think I'd found enough flowers at the first store to fill all of my pots. We got home and unloaded everything we bought onto the front porch and I soon realized that I had more than enough flowers. My pots are overflowing with flowers (no pictures of these yet ... coming soon!) and I had to go scrounge up another pot just to fit what I had. I even had to put a few things in the flower bed because the pots just wouldn't hold anymore. My flower bed out front is in full bloom and looking FABULOUS (if I do say so myself) and my flower pots on the front porch are looking colorful and vibrant and wonderfully summery!!! I love driving home from an outing because I LOVE looking at the front of my house!! It's so pretty.

While I was doing all the flower potting, Joel was mowing, fertilizing, and weeding. The lawn is coming along very nicely this year! Once Joel had finished the lawn we turned the sprinklers on for the kids to run through. Here are a few photos of their fun:




















After church on Sunday, we took the kids to the movies to see the new SHREK movie. Gabe's favorite movie of all time is anything SHREK so we couldn't miss this opportunity to see the new one! This was a pretty big deal for them because we don't take them to the movies regularly. This was only Isabel's 3rd movie theater experience and Gabe's 1st (we don't count the one where we spent 75% of the movie in the hallway). SHREK was a big hit and so was the popcorn!!After the movies we went to my parent's house for a BBQ. It was a small gathering this year since Auntie Mady was at a sleepover, but the kids enjoyed having Grannie and Grandpa all to themselves!! We grilled burgers and corn and had TONS of watermelon!! The kids got to jump on the trampoline and swing on the swing set and the highlight of the day was making S'mores around Grannie and Grandpa's new outdoor fire pit!!

On Memorial Day we went to Joel's parent's house for a BBQ with his family. This was a large gathering with 8 adults and 7 kids. The kids spent most of the day outside. They got to go swimming in the new pool Savta bought. Sabba brought out the tractor and hitched up the trailor to it. It was just the right size for 8 little bodies to sit in! They had a great time touring the property in the back of the tractor! Also, a neighbor let us use their ATV so we all got to take a ride on that. Thank goodness Sabba and Savta have 80 acres for us to explore!

I'm very upset with myself for forgetting my camera. There were many photo-ops this weekend and I didn't get to share any of them with you. The cuteness would have melted your hearts! Next time I will try to do better. Hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend too!

Visiting The Palmas

This past weekend we drove to Brigham City, UT to visit Druh and Candice. Druh received his Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering in December and the ceremony was May 7, so the whole family drive out to spend a long weekend together and to attend the graduation.

We squeezed 10 people into Druh and Candice's 3 bedroom home and we had a nice weekend of visiting and eating!! Two days before we arrived, Druh and Candice brought home the newest addition to their family ...... Guierrmo, a 6 week old bullmastiff puppy. He was the highlight of the trip by far. My mom even liked him and if you know my mom you know she is NOT a dog person! We drove all day on Thursday and arrived just in time for Candice's yummy lasagna dinner! My parents arrived later that night. The next day was Graduation Day. The ceremony wasn't until the evening so we were able to spend a relaxing day at the house. We were lucky enough to get front row seats at the graduation, so we got to see EVERYTHING! The next day was .... ZOO DAY!!!! We all drove to Salt Lake City and we visited the Hogle Zoo for the second time. It was perfect zoo weather and the animals were very active! We got to see lots of neat things including a baby elephant!! I just LOVE the zoo!!! The next day was Mother's Day. Candice prepared a nice breakfast for us ... biscuits and gravy and bacon (my mom's favorite). My parents were heading home that day so after they left we went to Ogden for lunch with Druh and Candice and then came back to the house for a taco dinner!! The next morning we were up early and headed home around 8 am. It was a long drive, but the kids did great and the weather was nice and cool. It's always fun visiting Uncle Druh and Auntie Candice!

Mother's Tea

A couple of weeks ago I attended the anual Mother's Tea at Isabel's school. It's such a fun time for the kids and their moms and the kids work really hard to prepare tons of homemade gifts to give and songs to perform.

Some of you who know our little Isabel well know that she has a a little problem with being the center of attention. It makes her very nervous and she usually ends up in tears when she is faced with a whole room of staring people. She has two wonderful teachers this year who have been working so hard to encourage her and to comfort her when these situations arise. They were thoughful enough to put her right on the end so she'd be close to where I was sitting and they also let her stand next to her best friend, Olivia. Joel and I also talked to her often about how much fun she'd have at the Mother's Tea and we tried to prepare her for the situation she'd face so she could be prepared and wouldn't be surprised or taken aback when she entered the room full of moms. The big day came and she was so excited to get to school! We dressed her up and gave her a few last words of encouragement and then sent her off to school. Isabel went to her classroom and then I went to the gym to wait with the other moms. When the kids came in she did wonderfully! She had a big smile on her face and even participated in the first song! After the first song, things started to fall apart a little. She began to cry and stopped singing, but she stayed in her spot and pulled it together. By the 4th song, she was composed and even started singing again. She finished the whole rest of the program and then came over to eat snacks with me! I was so proud of her!!!!

(Last year, she entered the room crying and then ended up sitting with the teacher the whole time while she sobbed uncontrollably ...... needless to say, I cried through the whole thing as well)

After we finished our snack time, the kids had to go back to class and as I was saying goodbye to her, I told her how proud I was of her. She said, "But mommy, I cried". And I told her, "Yes, but you only cried a little and you kept singing! You were very brave. That's what makes me so proud!" She gave me a big hug and ran over to join her friends. My cup runneth over :)