good news

yay.........i have a job next year!!! just found out on friday that i will get to return to at least my health asst job next year. i will just continue to pray that God will provide and that He has a plan. if i am suppose to work more than 2 hours a day, He will provide extra work for me. just thought i would share!

invasion

those of you who really know me, know that i cannot stand ants. i swear we live on a giant ant hill and they have literally been all over our house at one point or another. last year it was our kitchen, which completely grossed me out! so far this year we have kept them out of the house for the most part, but this morning i went out to go to costco and discovered for the fourth time this week a huge pile of ants in front ofo ur garage. they were scurrying and there was hundreds of them. it was so disgusting!!! so i thought i would share my dismay with you...all of my friends. i am sure that you cringe at the sight of these little nasty beasts too!!! bloody beasts of terror!!! (that was sydnie's input)

Crazy Hair Day!!!

friday was crazy hair day at school and we completely forgot!!! syd's friend called and reminded her at 8:40am, so we ran upstairs and got our crazy on!!! which was only like 20% crazy because we just did not have time. but it was fun and the kids loved having their hair done. during our drive to school their was some apprehension, what if no one else had theirs done? and as we pulled up no one out in front had crazy hair!!! but as we entered the building, there was lots of crazy hair. good times...good crazy...good memories!

benadryl + melatonin cocktails!

so here is the deal...i have blogged before about my sons sleep issues. serious nightmares, waking up at all hours of the night, sleepwalking! but over the course of the last month we have been dealing with not being able to go to sleep until 2:30am!!! there has been a severe lack of sleep around here for both mommy and noah! last thursday we hit our last hurrah with the lack of sleep and i was bound determined to do something about it! i had heard several moms talking about melatonin, a natural chemical our body produces that helps us fall asleep, but can be lacking in some people and therefore their little ones were having a hard time sleeping. i stored the info in my head and finally pulled it out last week! noah had stayed up until 3:30am on wednesday night, we went to school and he walked around like a zombie that day! he could not function, learn, eat, walk, keep his eyes open.....so i ended up taking him home early that day. we started the cocktail that night. i spoke to the nurse who comes to our school everyday and asked her advice...she told me to give him benedryl at the same time for about 2 weeks so that the build up of melatonin can take effect.

the results have been nothing short of a miracle. he is noah again. he is not as whiney, crying or cantankerous!!! he is a typical boy again. it has been a Godsend!!! we have had two times where he has fought it, but still gotten to sleep by 10pm! if i look back i guess that what i thought was a little boy fighting going to bed....you know the routine (i need water, i need to go to the bathroom) and then his crying after an hour of being asleep, that is probably all wrapped up in this little chemical! so thank you for the pink chemical induced sleep............it has been fun mixing up that cocktail every night!

its all about the details

while we were at the beach last weekend noah was so excited to build a sandcastle with his daddy. this is like his ultimate adventure on the beach. he loves to build! so they worked for a good 45 minutes on this castle, complete with moat and bridge. but unfortunately when thad stepped away for a minute noah rushed in to add one more stack to the center of the castle and it ended up falling apart. suprisingly he was not upset by it at all, in fact he was so pumped about his little castle he proudly exclaimed to me: "hey, mom....look i am adding some detail to make it look old by taking the dry sand and putting it on top of the wet sand to make it look aged!"

seriously....i just about died. what 7 year old boy knows that!!! i think he pays attention to everything that i say, whether i know he is listening or not. he hears it and absorbs it and stores that knowledge for later. he is a very creative soul at heart. he loves to create and is very proud of his creations. he looks for those details that no one else will see and adds them just because they make him happy. someday that eye for detail will serve him well.

swimmin'

memorial day..........bbq..........family.......swimming.

Pacific City

you are my sunshine

search and destroy mission

sand dune adventures

noah buried himself, with a little help from mom

he just did not want his toes buried :)

the little mermaid

searching in the tide pools




on sunday after church we decided to pack up and head to pacific city for the day! it was a beautiful day and we had absolutely no plans or time issues. i did not realize that thad had not been there for a very long time, so for him it was like seeing it for the first time again. we set up camp next to the dune, of course, my kids would have it no other way. they each went up the dune several times, noah enjoyed rolling in the sand while sydnie was bound and determined to make it to the top. it was a little chilly, but overall a fabulous day to sit in the sand and listen to the waves. good memories for our family together~

Science Fair

can soap cause movement? do you have a prediction? well let's find out! these were all parts of the third grade science speech that every third grader had to do this year. everyone was allowed to pick their own experiments and no suprise to me, sydnie chose the one involving some bling! she had to prove that by adding a little dish soap to some water and glitter, that it would cause the glitter to rapidly move by breaking the surface tension. she did a fantastic job on science fair night! each child had drawn their own poster and and set up their station and were expected to give their speech to anyone who wanted to listen. she knew exactly what to say, she had a smile on her face and she was confident in giving her speech. overall it was a smashing success!

"let's eat!!!"

tonight was noah's first grade concert and boy was it fun! they sang songs all about food. throw in a little hand movements, instruments and the macarena and you have quite a show! noah is a typical boy when he sings, sometimes he is completely into it and sometimes he is just sort of standing there. his favorite song is different everytime you ask him..........."icky, icky lollipop"........"worms"........"cookie as big as my head".............."guacomole" were just a few that stuck out. on friday all of the first graders are having an eating party, where they will get to sample all of the delicious foods they sang about, except the worms will just be gummy worms for these first graders(were not playing survivor here) we really do have a great music teacher and are blessed that our kids have done many performances at our school.

Taylor Swift

syd made the sign to bring....so cute

the two of us

me, syd, jeananne and kynzi

kyzni and jeananne

in our seats, waiting for taylor to come out on stage

sydney m., kynzi, sydnie

the girl bobbi asked to pose as taylor swift
and the girls totally acted the part too.

after the purchases!!!!

the cool moms inherited the cowboy hats

"should have said no"

the rain spelled out words, like her cma performance

have a good night portland!!

so as a last minute thing i looked online to see if i could get tickets for syd and i to go see taylor swift and they had just released a bunch of tickets for sale. so i crawled on my hands and knees to beg thad to spend the money on a concert for a 9 year old!!! he said he was fine with that and then i called my friend jeananne and asked if her and kynzi wanted to go!!! she told me repeatedly that night that she was cursing my name all day, because she is not a concert person...but i think she ended up having fun anyway. i told syd after i had bought the tickets and she was totally excited. she immediately said that she had to make a sign to take with her and ran up to her room to make it. then it became what outfit to wear and painting her toenails and flat ironing her hair and she was ready to go. we picked up the other girls and syd was like "ummmm, hey do you have a cowboy hat for me?" so after a stop at target, we now own a cowboy hat. ha ha. then we headed up for dinner and then to the concert. we arrived just in time for kellie pickler to take the stage and enjoyed her part of the show. then i caved and went and bought the girls the light up glow sticks so they could swing them in time to the music!! and then of course it was time to buy the t-shirts. totally something i am willing to do for her first concert...maybe not the next couple. so she walked out with a shirt and a new hat, which has to be shared with her mom. the concert was awesome!!! she is definitely a performer. she did a bunch of skits that went along with her songs and she even made fun of the fact that she writes so many songs about boys that have treated her bad. syd and i had fun trying to figure out when she was talking about joe jonas. syd was so into it. our seats were not the best, but we had a great time together. she screamed and clapped and dance until she was so tired that she just had to sit and take it all in. it was an amazing experience to do something like this for the first time. her first concert. she has been dying to go do something with me in portland, where she could get dressed up and spend an evening with me. it was the best ever.

Iris Festival Parade

lots of good times at the parade this year! we sat with some good friends and the kids got lots and lots of candy. everybody really liked the helicopter that started the parade and did a bunch of spins and was super loud. we of course screamed really loud for a jumping stars (the jump rope club at our school) as they jumped by us in time to alvin and chipmunks. my favorite time was when the nw natural cars came by and steve yelled out "hey, nw natural.....we love your natural gas!!!!" the old woman in the truck whipped her head around, evil scowl on her face and then saw that we were just a bunch of dorks and her frown turned upside down!!! ha ha.

Iris Fest 3000

ready to run

almost there....

the finish line is in sight!

this year the iris festival decided to add a kids running event to the schedule and at the last minute sydnie decided that she wanted to run in it! we had no idea how long the course was, we were not registered and we had no idea if she could still do it.........but we set off to find out. we arrived just in the nick of time and tehy told ehr she could run, but she would not have a number! that did not stop syd. she was a little apprehensive because she did not "know" the plan, but i assured her that there would be police and volunteers along the way to help her. she stepped up to the starting line and they were off. then i had a moment to think, "what if she totally broke down along the way and could not finish!!!" after the first 10 minutes the first kid arrived, i sent thad down along the course to see if he could find her and run in with her. i was starting to get a little worried, i won't lie, i thought she was not going to make it. but next thing i know she is there in front of me with a huge smile on her face, water bottle in hand, finishing her first one mile race!!!! she said it was "awesome" and she "could not wait to do it next year". she had run and walk and made friends with a girl along the way and they had done it together!!! i was so proud of her i could barely see straight. it was super cool to watch her do it and love it and be excited about it. way to go syd!!!!

downtown disney

sunday morning we decided that we would not do another park, because we were beat up from saturdays heat. so we decided to head into downtown disney, which we could walk to from our hotel and just spend a relaxing morning. i have to say that downtown disney was amazing! it was so much bigger than california's and it was on a wharf, with water surrounding the stores and you could take a water taxi from one side to the other. it was super neat. we strolled through the streets and they were empty. we visited the disney store and off course walked through the lego store!! the creations that were built there were absolutely stunning. so much work went into them. that was kind of the hightlite for both of us. we also decided that since we were alone we would go see the new star trek movie!!!! it was sooooooo good. i absolutely loved it. it was a perfect mother's day treat.....no kids, a movie and eating out!!!! we stopped and bought the kids some souvenirs on the way out, disneyworld t-shirts!!! then we began our long journey home and back to normal life.