What was I thinking??????

At what point do you realize that you actually have no pride left? Oh, I know, it is when you dress up as Princess Leia for the Cub Scout Space Derby. WOW!! For being pretty shy, I can't believe what I am willing to go through for the scouts. Chris Youngberg was Darth Vader and we did this awesome skit complete with my blaster hooked to fishing line so he could use the "FORCE" to take it away from me. The kids LOVED it and we were actually pretty big celebrities. Everyone got their pictures taken with us afterwards. Sadly Carl missed it. He seriously wanted to have a Star Wars themed wedding to which I had to regretfully decline, and then he missed his chance to see me as the Princess. Oh well next time maybe.

Celebrating Mel and Calvin

Tami, Misty and I threw our sweet friend Mel a baby shower. Tami is such an amazing party planner and Misty is so creative that it turned out really great. We had yummy food and good friends and we can't wait for CALVIN to get here.

Carissa made this awesome cake.

Misty and Tam made the diaper cake.

Windy Days

We've had some pretty windy days lately so the girls and I decided to fly kites at the park while Caleb was at baseball practice. They had lots of fun, especially since this year Syd has figured out how NOT to let go of the string. Anytime we leave the park with the same number of kites we came with is a success. Poor Ashlee got a new kite that you fill with air, let's just say if you see it at Target and think it looks great, just walk away. It didn't fly at all, not for lack of Ashlee running all over the park trying to get it in the air.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA

Today is Grandpa's Birthday and we just wanted to tell him how much we love and appreciate all he does for us. We have a pretty neat grandpa that does fun things with us like go boating, water skiing, hiking and snow skiing. The kids have a blast playing with him. Thanks Grandpa for being so awesome!!! Hope you have a SUPER Birthday :)

This was taken last year on mine and Caleb's birthday.

Caleb and Grandpa enjoying the boat.

Funworks is better than Disneyland.....

Or so Sydney claimed last night when she was throwing a fit about having to leave. Carl asked her if she wanted to go to Disneyland for her birthday this year and she said "NO, I want to come back to Funworks!!!" We took the kids on a date last night to go play Putt Putt golf. It was a blast to watch them play. Sydney was hilarious and actually hit 2 holes in one. Caleb and Ashlee were pretty competitive, but had fun anyway. We had icecream after and Carl, Caleb and I took turns hitting in the batting cages. What great kiddos we have.

Tie Dye

The 1/2 Marathon that Misty and I are running in is coming up in 2 weeks. We decided to be the coolest runners there and tie dye our own tanks to wear. Jared is running with us but he refuses to wear anything tie dyed. Your loss Jared. So Misty and the kids came over yesterday to work on our creative masterpieces. We were pretty cool because we had to watch some crazy girl on YouTube to figure out how to do it, and we also had to wait 8 or 9 hours to see if it worked. It was a lot of fun and I know I could do better next time so I can't wait to tie dye more stuff. hmmm I'm thinking Christmas presents, so wait anxiously for yours........

Misty's before

Mine before

The finished product!!!!

All in the name of Science

Caleb and his friend Samuel are doing their Science Fair project together. They decided to plant seeds and water it with different types of liquid to see what makes them grow the fastest. I will keep you posted on the status.

Small Things

It's the small things that really help me refocus on all that I have been blessed with. I came upstairs the other night and found this. I LOVE when they get along. They are getting so big and changing so much. I decided to leave them there, but found Caleb in his own bed next morning. He said it was too crowded.

Did you know?

Bees poop!! It's totally disgusting yet totally true. There are these weird spots all over my car. like I parked under some crazy tree or something. I asked my friend Jan (who by the way, knows everything about farming) what she thought it was. She laughed at me and said it was bee poop. Who knew?

Family Pictures

The last family picture that we had professionally taken was when Sydney was 1. I know we are lame. I think Carl got sick of waiting for me to do something about it so he booked us a sitting for Family night a couple of weeks ago. Here are just a few. I had a little trouble with the scanner so just ignore the first photo with an issue. I loved the one of just the kids.

Baseball

Well it's here....baseball season officially started for Caleb on Saturday. He did great. He was only up once because there was some confusion with the lineup but he hit a double. He is also playing Shortstop this season and he caught 3 pop flies. His friend Nate from church was pitching. Before the game the girls played on the playground while he warmed up. The sorry pictures I got of the game are because if you recall a few posts back, I have that crazy competitive spark that fires in my brain and I can't focus on anything but the game.

2 for 1

So my fantastic running partner Heather lost her sanity and had nine 10 and 11 year old girls spend the night Friday night for her daughter Avery's birthday. So being the fine, upstanding role model she is this is what my yard looked like Saturday morning.......from what the girls told me when they came to clean it up the next day, Heather was the loudest of them all. It was a first for a few of the girls. They did a pretty great job.

So you might be wondering about my blog title "2 for 1". Well Heather also lives behind us and Carl decided to break out some concrete to plant a small garden of salsa ingredients and strawberries for my girls. Let's just say that this jack hammer wasn't exactly quiet and so there was a little payback in the form of obnoxious noise for our T.P. Bandit. He did a great job and I will post of pictures of his garden when it's done.

He had a little too much fun with big, loud tool toy.

Happy Really Late Birthday Mel.....

My beautiful friend Mel had a birthday last month when we were in Utah. So on Friday we were FINALLY able to take her out. We went to Mike's Roadhouse. YUM! It was me, Tami Tam, Misty, Mel and Alyssa. Mel wore the fabulous "flashing" crown and was beautiful in it. Happy Birthday friend.

Smartie Pants......

On Thursday Van Allen had their second Blue and Gold Assembly. Caleb was awarded
Academic Excellence in English and Mathematics again. Way to go bud. We are so proud of him and his hard work in school and everything he does. He is a really great kid.

My beautiful Ashlee

Once again Misty amazes me. She took Ashlee to take pictures for her 7th birthday, here are just a few. Thank you thank you!!! Misty we love you, your the BEST!!

Ashlee just lost that front tooth this week. It was a pretty big deal around our house.