Fun with Friends

On Friday, the kids and I met Natalie's 2nd grade teacher (Jen Muhlbeier) and her kids, and their neighbor for lunch at a sprinkler park in Kennewick. The kids loved the sprinklers, but had more fun at the koi pond and garden that is next to it. Here's all the kids (minus Kaylee - she was guarding our picnic paraphernalia). from the left - Andrew, Trace (on the floor), Laney, Caden, Natalie, Macy, Drew, & Colten.
What is is about a fish pond that makes the kids just flock to it??
Now, this is why we love Jen sooo much! She totally turned into teacher mode and was giving the kids lessons on the herbs that the Master Gardeners have in the garden. She had the kids taste a leaf from most of the herbs and then would tell them what kinds of foods that they would go with. "The is rosemary, it goes well with chicken or pork." "This is thyme, it goes with meat or you can taste it in spaghetti sauce." "This is dill, doesn't it taste like pickles?" The kids were totally mesmerized! The garden also has veggies in it. It was fun to go around and see how all the different veggies grow. We see the onions, cucumbers, asparagus and peppers on the farm all the time, but it was really neat to see how other veggies grow too. What I thought was going to be just a fun play day turned into a learning experience that the kids thought was so much fun.

I didn't mow my lawn yesterday. . .

. . . and I had a great excuse. The lawn was too wet because my kids decided to make a "water park".

Here are the blue prints: Here is the main attraction - riding the scooters around the sprinkler thats on the sidewalk.
And here is the side attraction - the slide that goes to the clubhouse propped up by buckets from their bedrooms. I wonder what their rooms look like? I think that's a whole other post.
** Please ignore my weeds and dead spots!

100 things you might not know about me . . .

I was tagged by my friend Carol to make this list and she wanted me to post the answers to my blog instead of just emailing it to her. She doesn't have a blog, so she doesn't understand the pressure I feel to perform well . . . ARGH!!!!! Here goes:

1. I go by my middle name
2. My siblings and I all had the same initials (until us girls got married)
3. I love pizza
4. I have 2 dogs
5. and a cat
6. Also a fish
7. and 2 snails
8. I love to read
9. rubber stamping is TONS of fun
10. I love it when my friends come over to stamp with me
11. We lived in Colorado during the summer between 4th and 5th grade
12. We drove there from Seattle.
13. It wasn't fun
14. I'll never do that with my kids
15. I enjoy camping
16. Especially smores
17. I make my smores with a peanut butter cup instead of a hershey bar
18. I LOVE pb cups!
19. I met my best friend from jr high/high school over a pb cup. ( Hi Amy!!)
20. I've been to Disneyland
21. twice
22. Once on crutches
23. I broke my toe 3 weeks before graduating high school
24. I fell down the stairs in front of our house.
25. It was painful
26. I'm always stubbing my toes on something
27. It's not me, it's the furniture. It's out to get me.
28. I broke 2 more toes in the fall of 2005.
29. I fell down the stairs at my sisters house.
30. My house does not have any stairs.
31. I find this difficult
32. So I will not tag anyone else!
33. I would read everyone else's 100 lists if they made one.
34. I like the summer
35. It gets a little too hot for me where I live.
36. I prefer 84 degrees
37. Hawaii is 84 degrees
38. I love Hawaii
39. I can't wait to go back
40. I love the fall
41. My birthday is in the fall
42. the air is cooler in the fall
43. the kids go back to school in the fall
44. all my kids will be in school this fall
45. I'm VERY sad about this
46. I want to know where all my years with them have gone
47. My favorite number is 47
48. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my kids
49. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my hubby
50. I'm half way done!
51. I really don't like the winter
52. I don't like driving on the freezing rain/snow
53. Or the black ice
54. I flipped my car after hitting a patch of black ice.
55. It was the scariest thing ever!
56. More scary than finding a spider in the shower.
57. I am very afraid of spiders.
58. I have to kill them for my kids
59. I. DON'T. LIKE. SPIDERS.
60. I do like kittens and puppies and all baby animals.
61. They help me not to think about big old nasty black hairy jumping spiders.
62. I just shuddered.
63. Thinking happy thoughts!!!
64. I like watching movies.
65. Especially Disney movies.
66. My favorite Disney movie is Monsters Inc.
67. I love Mike & Sully.
68. I have a stuffed Mike & Sully on my dresser
69. I have Mike & Sully characters from the Cars movie
70. Monte drew the line at Mike & Sully sheets
71. I'm kidding
72. I didn't really want them bad enough to try to convince him of the security features.
73. He wouldn't have believed me
74. So I didn't even try
75. I'm LDS
76. I grew up in the church.
77. I have a simple testimony.
78. I wish I had a stronger one
79. It's very difficult to take my kids to church by myself.
80. I feel frustrated most Sundays
81. but I love church and my friends there so I keep pluggin' along
82. I'm almost done!
83. I'm not perfect
84. I don't want to be - that would be boring!
85. I HATE folding socks.
86. I would rather balance my checkbook than fold socks
87. I don't like balancing my checkbook but it has to be done
88. My kids don't have to wear socks, do they?
89. I love flip flops
90. I could wear flip flops year round in Hawaii
91. Did I mention that I love Hawaii?
92. Oh I did? Oh well I said it again!
93. I love to get pedicures
94. I love the color lime green
95. This is the year I graduated from high school
96. This is the year I got married.
97. This is the year I had my first baby
98. I have to mow the lawn today
99. I have LOTS of weeds to mow too.
100. I love you all!!!!!!

Waiting . . . .

What goes on a bagel?

Sorry, I don't have a picture for this post, but I had to share a conversation I had with Colten yesterday.

Colten: Mom, where's the chowder cream?
Me: Huh??
Colten: The chowder cream.
Me: What is chowder cream?
Colten: You know - for my bagel.
Me: You want chowder cream for your bagel? ( I still don't know what he's talking about)
Colten: YES!
Me: What is it?
Colten: You know (no, I don't!) the stuff that Kaylee puts on her bagel - the white stuff in the 'tainer in the fridge that you spread on a bagel.
Me: (digging around in the fridge for the new 'tainer of the stuff - by this time I'd finally figured out that he meant CREAM CHEESE!) You mean this stuff??
Colten: YES! chowder cream.
Me: OK, I call it cream cheese though.
Colten: ohhhhhh

long pause . . . . . . . . .

Colten: I like to call it chowder cream.
Me: OK

hehehe I LOVE KIDS!!!!

Spa-gar-a-gus

So I was going to blog about swimming lessons today (ya, I know, big deal) but Monte came home today with not one . . but TWO 28 pound boxes of spagaragus. (This is what Andrew calls it and I think it's so darn cute that I've started calling it that too) So what exactly does one do with 56 pounds of spagaragus??? You make Pickled Spagaragus!! Of course I couldn't possibly have done it all on my own . . the kids had to help. They were quite helpful as you can see: Kaylee and Natalie cut the spears to the correct length . . .
while giving the camera lovely smiles.
It was the boys job to take off the rubberbands that hold the spagaragus so nicely together. Oh they are not rubberbands . . they are slingshots. Colten corrected me. The boys also made sure that the girls had plenty of un-slingshot bound spagaragus.

And what was I doing during all this? Why, taking pictures of course!

Oh, wait. I was also packing jars with garlic, dill and spagaragus, filling them with vinegar/water mix, and giving the many jars a water bath.

These are the many beautiful jars that we filled today. 23 in all - one broke :(

But don't be sad for us . . . there will be more jars tomrorrow. There's still one 28 pound box of spagaragus left to do.

Birthday Shout Out!

Happy Birthday Ethan!
Great big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my nephew Ethan!!
He turns 8 today! We love you big guy!
** Thanks to Cheri for the great picture!! **

The second day of Summer Vacation.

Now this is a much better choice for my sanity during summer break. We now have a routine! We get up in the morning and have breakfast, then we start on some schoolwork. Yes, I'm one of those mean moms who makes their kids do schoolwork during summer break. I just don't want their brains to turn to jell-o in the next 10 weeks. (Actually it's really so I can have 20 minutes to stalk all my friends' blogs, but shhhhh don't tell my kids!)

After that they do their chores, read books or watch a little TV. Then it's time for lunch and quiet time, then they can play the rest of the day! If you're interested the books I use are called Summer Bridge Activities. I bought mine on eBay (I know . . shocking) but you can also purchase them from amazon.com or at the teacher supply store in Kennewick.

How not to spend your first day of Summer Vacation.

Just because the kids are out of school and you don't have to get up at o'dark hundred to get them on the bus DOES NOT mean that you should ever stay in bed after they get up. This is what you will wake up to:

Yep, that's popcorn all over my living room. Dunno how this makes a good breakfast choice . . but that's what they made. Then again they didn't really eat it now did they?

I'm baaaack

Ok so I didn't really go anywhere, I was just mia from the blogging world. I got a little reminder yesterday (thanks Em!) that I hadn't posted in a while so today you're gonna get a couple. 'K?

PB&J's

This morning I made my last PB&J . . . for the school year that is! School isn't out 'til Friday, but the girls wanted to buy hot lunch tomorrow and they don't have lunch at school on Friday. It's kind of a sad thing for me, our routine will be out the window & things will get crazy quickly!!!But we'll get to sleep in :D and spend lots of time together. I've got the kids in swimming lessons and we'll go to Whidbey Island/Seattle at least twice. Other than that our summer will be free to go play at the park or have lunch at the farm with Monte or sit in our air conditioned house and watch TV all day . . . oh wait we'd never do that! Or would we?

Nat's sandwich is on the left - pb only and no crust cut into 4 triangles please!

Kaylee's on the right with pb and homemade strawberry jam (it's not on there yet) and please do not cut into a bunch of little pieces mom, I'm not a baby.

(Which then starts Nat into her "I'm not a baby" rant . . we have to do this almost every morning . . it's tradition)

Kaylee's Party

Kaylee's party was a total BLAST!! I was really a bad mom and forgot to take pictures along the way, but I was running the show okay! We started off having the girls make their own treasure chests. My sis-in-law had some extra from one of her kids parties and she was happy to unload them onto me. They were little wooden boxes and the girls decorated them with peel & stick jewels. Then we started the movie. I had given the girls each 10 tickets when they arrived . . they had to use the tickets to "pay" for their dinner and movie. One ticket got them a hot dog, nachos, candy, pop or popcorn. My great fabulous neighbor Sandy, served them in those paper boat thingy's. About an hour into the movie, I pushed pause and sent the girls on a treasure hunt. Our neighbor Todd made up these great rhymes/clues for about 9 locations around our yards. I could not have come up with such fun clues. The girls loved it. Then we had mud pie and opened presents, then finished the movie. All in all it was a great day . . . just wish I had more pictures!!!

Kaylee's Party Invitations

These were the invitations for Kaylee's birthday party. I made them!! She wanted to have a movie theme, so we decided on National Treasure 2. It's a great movie!! She had invited 10 girls and we had to hand deliver these to them because silly me didn't take into consideration that the "popcorn" spilled out the top of the box so they wouldn't fit into a normal sized envelope. Gee price of postage to send out 10 invites - $4.20 . . gallon of gas to hand deliver them - $4.05 . . so it was CHEAPER to hand deliver them . . interesting!

** Note to self . . make smaller invites next time.**