The Graduate

I have a kindergartner.....look at him. He has grown up so much in this last year. He was so funny yesterday morning, he wanted to dress up for his graduation..so he picked out his "handsome" shirt (that is what he calls it). He was more excited about the ceremony being over so he could get his gift, than actually graduating. He was counting down the days this week in preparation for this day. He knew that once this day was over he would be in kindergarten. So funny how their little minds work. He was very proud of himself yesterday. His teacher picked out a character trait for each of the kids and Noah's was.....expert. He knows all there is to know about Star Wars and if you don't know it, he will tell you. I knew she was going to get SW in there somehow...you see we have had many talks about noah's desire to only talk about SW. I just about fell out of my chair laughing, it was the perfect compliment for him.

Finally

I have my van back. It took two weeks, many incorrect parts and one bad wire later. You read my story on how Honda would not take care of us, so here is the rest of the story. We had it hauled to a reliable transmission shop in pdx, we were told 3 days.....it took 2 weeks!!! It took 3 days to get the parts in and then they were the wrong parts, this happened twice! After a week and a half they finally had it done. Thad went to pick it up and it was making some noise so the owner said he wanted to keep it over the weekend to work on it. They found out there was an imperfection on a part they just put in...so they had to order that and replace it. it was done wednesday....thad went to pick it up, paid for it, started it and could not get it in gear! Seriously. The owner and three guys worked for an hour and a half and could not figure out what was wrong. They finally rented thad a car and sent him on his way. Yesterday Thad picked up the van and found out it was apparently a loose and dirty wire that caused the problem the night before. It drives great and I think we are just as happy as the owner of the shop to have it home. Patience is the word that comes to mind when I think of this story and expectations crushed. Everyday last week it was a waiting game, will it be done today? NO! I have been blessed to have the jeep to drive in this time, but I really wanted the ease of the van. I cannot believe that I am writing that about a van. Oh well time to grow up and admit I LIKE VANS. There I have said it.....

Road Rules

Noah is a natural on his bike....he loves it. He finally learned to start on his own, stop and turn corners without falling. But his favorite thing is to burn rubber, by throwing his brakes on and stopping as quick as he can. To watch him ride is the scariest thing in the world. He has no regard for cars or people...he just wants to ride fast. We went out the other night to ride and he was trying to catch up with the neighbor boys....he sped up to catch them, did not stop at the "major" intersection....he just ran right thru it - straight....not turning like he should have. Did not see the bronco coming straight at him, finally heard me yell to stop, slammed on his brakes right in the middle of the road. The bronco thank goodness stopped a few feet short of killing him......This kid is going to be the death of me....I literally could not fall asleep that night thinking about his near fatal crash. Needless to say he lost his bike privelage for the next day and he has to be very careful while riding now....he cannot be a speed racer until he gets it.

Sassy

Last night the first graders at Clear Lake put on their big end-of-the-year show "Bugz" Sydnie was a gypsy moth and she had two lines to say. I have to say, even though I am her parent, she was the best one. You could hear what she said and she said it in this southern sassy talk...."I'm a sassy gypsy moth, how do you like my spangles?" So cute. The whole auditorium laughed. I am glad that they got to experience this.....sydnie is used to it because of the kids choir at church, but it is still good to get experience. She looked adorable in her moth costume. We made her costume, because she was not an ordinary butterfly. She needed to be cream colored with hints of gold/brown. I think it turned out well. Not too overdone, just right. The kids had decorated the gym with pictures of animals from the rainforest and we were able to buy raffle tickets to win a rainforest quilt (each class made one with squares that the kids drew of different animals). I cannot believe that the end of first grade is right around the corner...

4 1/2 Years in the making

Behold...the fireplace! Finally after a looooooong time we agreed upon what to do and saved some money and here is the finished product. Okay not completely finished, still need to grout and find some type of mantle. But it is up and ready to finish. The room looks so much better, with the rich earth tones...now I have to reupholster the couch. Thad worked so hard this weekend, while I sat in a chair and watched...I felt like a tile queen. I would give color opinions, but all the labor was done by a big strong man!!! Maybe I can be grout queen too???? he he

Just because

Why are all of our shots together the self portrait ones? Oh well...still nice to have one of the two of us.




When thad and I were in jerome we ran across this old building..I fell in love with the iron work and wanted to take some shots there...literally there is no roof on the place. super cool.

This is pix that thad took in arizona...i loved the color and the setting. I also knew that I wanted a close up to concentrate on just the background and me. He did a good job. I love that because I scrapbook my eyes have been opened to a whole new world.....photography. I look at the world differently. Before I would have passed up this little shed and not seen it for the beauty that could be created.

Oh little brothers.........

we have officially entered the pesky little brother phase. I have noticed over the last year when sydnie would have someone come over to play noah would be right there...begging to play too. I just thought it was interesting, but now I see it's true nature...the little brothers attempt to drive his sister crazy. The last week I have heard this sentence so many times I could scream "mom, he's copying me!!" Noah loves to get under sydnie's skin and he can do it so easily because sydnie likes things just so.....he is going to have a blast in the years to come. And it is so hard to keep a straight face while he is doing it or to actually pull him aside and talk to him. Sydnie reacts every time the way her wants her to...got a lot of work to do with her. This morning I was in the shower and she came running in to tell me he was copying...I looked at her and once again said "ignore him and he will stop" Two minutes later I heard the screams. I love being a parent. I know I just had a vacation without the kids, but I am ready for another one!!!

the good stuff

so yesterday morning i heard the whispers of "lets make mom breakfast in bed' so i dutifully stayed in bed to watch a movie while my family "suprised" me. A while later in charged noah with a big smile on his face and sydnie ran in and jumped on the bed, while thad carried the plate and coffee. I am saying thank you when i hear sydnie say "i cannot wait to grow up and be a mom, just like my mom" and i think to myself, oh good i have not completely messed her up...she still wants to have kids. As i look at the amazing plate of food i see that instead of hashbrowns and i have a lovely assortment of tater tots with ketchup on my plate...thad could not find the hb's. Seriously good stuff there. Only a dad would cook those up for moms day.

What a way to spend an evening

last night we had our little family movie night....the kids eat this up. we also have game nights, but movie nights include pizza and some type of treat. we decided to watch night at the museum, again.......the kids loved it. i was laughing at how excited they were about rexie. we also had rootbeer floats.........nothing better. they are so funny about these nights. they have to pick the perfect movie, although sydnie wanted to watch high school musical and i had to explain that daddy would not be able to sit through the entire movie, so she moved on. if i tell them too early in the week that we are doing it, they will drive me crazy about picking out the movie and treat...so i now tell them the day of, works out better for all of us. i think this was the perfect kickoff to a great mothers day weekend, which hopefully includes some alone time for mom...although sydnie asked if she could take me out to coffee in the morning....just me and her....how adorable is that. hope you all have a great weekend.

Awana Club - over and out

so another year of awana has ended. the kids each finished their books and wednesday night we had our awards ceremony. They each got to go on stage and get their ribbons for completing a ton of verses. We missed a lot of club this year, with surgery, pnuemonia and vacations, but we had a great time.Sydnie finally got her trophy for first place design at the awana grand prix. This is my fourth year of being a leader in the truth and training group and I still love it. I love the relationship established with each of the girls and seeing them around town or at church. I still have girls that come up to me from my first year and say hi. I am thankful for the break though...ready to just spend our evening doing family things.

Update

my uncle(used to work for honda/now a car dealer in eugene) just called and confirmed that we are in the vortex....honda will not service us at all. Oh well...a transmission shop in portland is coming to pick up the van tonight and will hopefully have it done by next monday. I never realized how much I hate the jeep. super comfortable, but totally inconvient with little kids. I hate to admit it, but I am a van mom. I never thought I would hear myself utter those words!!! I love that the kids can climb in so quickly, both of my doors open automatically and I love all the room. But I still hold onto the dream that once my kids are grown up a bit more I will be sportin' a suburban or some other totally cool SUV. What I really want is that new chocolate brown honda element, but i would love it in green as well. Someday I will not be a mom with young kids and will once again have a car I love.

losties vs the others

before we left for disneyland we noticed our van was having a couple of issues, and once we got back it was full transmission issues. so we researched and found out that honda made bad tranny's a couple of years and has replaced them for free, under warranty or not. so we got all excited about this and then we found out that ours is a canadian model, which should be no big deal, but to honda america it is huge. honda america won't help us because it is a cand. model and canada won't help us because we are in the states.....seriously. i have spent more time on the phone this week than i care to recall and still have gotten nowhere. we are literally stuck in some weird vortex. even though they acknowledge there is a problem and they have helped many others...they will not help us. we are basically feeling like we are on this little tiny island and that the others are out to not pay for our transmission. we feel like losties!!!! Where is Locke when we need him.......

Scottsdale AZ

Look at that cactus!!! Did you know that this cactus is probably 400 years old...they only grow about 2-4 inces a year.


Sedona - beatiful red rock and a little bit of rain



more sedona pix...from the chapel on the hill.



montezuma's castle...these are cave dwellings from hundreds of years ago..pretty interesting stuff.

we had a great time in scottsdale. we hung by the pool. ate really well. had a fantastic spa treatment. the spa was fantastic..eucalyptis steam room, waterfall room, rooftop pool and utter relaxation. we got to go out to morton's steakhouse the last night...holy cow. that is good stuff. we had about 8 appetizers(lobster, crab, smoked salmon, scallops, 2 different shrimp dishes) and then we each ordered a salad, steak, vegetables and a desert...they literally had to roll us out of there. good thing we were not paying...that would have cost us a mortgage payment. all in all it was a great weekend. we drove to sedona and jerome on saturday..were literally were snowed on!!! can you believe that, in arizona. i am so thankful that thad and i were able to get away together....just the two of us.

Seaworld

Petting Sydney the dolphin

Shamu

Soaked to the bone from the cute little dolphin

What a cute little dolphin....

We went to Seaworld on Saturday...drove down in a 12 passenger van, stopped at starbucks (definately not in the northwest!) and headed in to watch several shows. The lines were worse at Seaworld than at Disneyland! We sat in the soak zones everytime and did not get wet at the shamu show....so we thought the dolphin show would be the same...we were wrong. The cute little dolphin came to say hi to us, then turned tail and soaked us 4 times with his powerful tail. the kids loved it and I did too, until the sun went away and it turned cold and I stayed wet until we got to our hotel at 10:30 that night.

Disneyland

the force is strong in this one!

making a sign really worked....he was the first one chosen

gotta love princess ears

it's a pirate!

What a fantastic vacation. we are all exhausted, we hit the park every morning at 8am and didn't leave until it was dark outside. The kids did such a good job, they never complained and they walked everywhere. The lines were great, we walked right onto pirates the first morning (twice). I took sydnie to ariel's grotto and we all ate at the blue bayou. We met a bunch of characters and they each bought some pins to do some trading with (which we never did). I will say that it was super hard to get really good shots, because you are constantly going. I did take a few posed ones, but everything was just okay. Noah's highlite was being chosen for the jedi training academy. He fought darth vader and could not stop grinning the rest of the day. Sydnie loved the roller coaster in california....screamin'. Good times. Cannot wait to go again.