Kindergarten Graduation

Today Hayden had his Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony. It's hard to believe the school year is over.

The ceremony consisted of getting a certificate, singing songs, and eating your fill of cookies, cupcakes, and punch before lunch time.

Hayden with some of his best friends. Is that my child wearing a hummer t-shirt? For the record, I HATE character t-shirts, but sadly, my son enjoys them. I have relinquished control over choosing what he wears every day, and this photo is proof... but I may start taking a little control back :)

Finally Done

For the past three weeks, Callie's room has been a disaster. As the girls will now be sharing a room, we ordered a bunk bed online. When the pieces came, we noticed a few of them had cracks, so we ordered replacement pieces. What was supposed to take 1 week, ended up taking over 3 weeks! Which was so frustrating. So the poor girls slept on their mattresses on the floor, leaving little room to play and making it very difficult to keep the room clean.

Finally the pieces came last week, and we were able to get the bunk beds set up. The girls LOVE their bunk beds, but adjusting to sharing a room has been a little challenging. Callie will put herself on a time-out in her room, letting Bells know she's not allowed into the room - which makes Bells very upset. Isabella has the "what's yours is mine" attitude and hasn't learned about personal space and items yet - which makes Callie very upset. Slowly I think they are learning.

Someone started to creep into the photos as I was taking them :)

I love the purple walls and white furniture. It makes it so clean and girly looking. I have put a little bit of vinyl up, but didn't go with a theme for their room, as they are different ages and like different things. So far everyone is happy with how the room turned out, and I am glad they are not sleeping on the floor anymore.

Little Belly

This little girl loves to play outside,

and then scooter herself inside

for a little nap ( I almost said cat nap :)

Other things I don't want to forget about Isabella:

1) She hates being called anything but Belly or Bella. For example, if you say, "oh, you're so cute" or "you're so sweet" or "you're funny" she will correct you instantly with "NO I'M NOT! I'm Belly, you're cute".

2) She can't stand getting her clothes wet, even if it's just a drip. So, we go through a lot of clothes during a day. (I joke that she's borderline OCD, but it's not so funny when we're on the 4th outfit)

3) She loves playing with Callie & Hayden, and will not be left out, which results in lots of screaming, yelling, and crying. But she can also be quite independent too, it just depends on the day.

4) Her favorite movie, by far, is Stuart Little. And her favorite shirts are any that say "daddy's girl". I now tell her that every shirt is a daddy's girl shirt, so that more than 1 shirt gets worn.

5) She has to have the last word. Me:"Goodnight, I love you". Bells: "No, I love you". Me: "No, I love you. Bells: "NO.. I....LOVE....YOU!!!"

6) Her favorite response, to just about anything, "oh me goodness"

We love our little Isabella.

Mommy Daughter Date

The boys left on Friday for the annual Father & Son's camp-out. They had a great time, and Hayden broke the two year tradition of throwing up when he gets to camp - whew! Us girls were left to play and have some girl fun. On Friday we had plans to hang out with some girls for talking and ice-cream, so we made some waffle bowls dipped in chocolate. Callie has so much fun helping me make these.

On Saturday, we kept up with tradition and went shopping for new earrings. ( Callie asked if Isabella was old enough to get her ears pierced. I opted not, but by next year, I could see it happening.....maybe). We each got a new pair of earrings, and Callie ended up getting some fashion glasses as well, which she hasn't taken off of her face yet! She even got in the shower with them on :) She is THRILLED to have her own pair of glasses. We then headed to Chipotle for lunch and Costco for some groceries, and by the time we got home the boys were already back from their camp-out. Callie was a little upset they were already back, as it concluded our mommy-daughter date.


PS - on Saturday night Jeff and I had the opportunity to chaperone a youth dance. What a fun time we had meeting new people and dancing together! I felt so uncomfortable approaching youth who had gotten in wearing something immodest or who were dancing too close. During one of the songs, Jeff leaned over to me and said, "do they really need to be playing music this loud?" I just laughed and realized that somehow we have gotten old.

School Open House

Wednesday was Open House at school for Callie & Hayden. They were sooooo excited to take us to their classrooms and to show us what they have been working on. Callie dropped a little hint that Grandparents were invited too, so Nana & Grandpa joined us for dinner first, then touring the two classrooms.

The excitement in Callie's class was over the one day old chicks that hatched just in time for open house. Callie has loved learning about the life cycle of chickens, and getting to see it first hand. She comes home excited to tell us the new developments every day. The butterflies were fun, but not nearly as exciting as the chicks.

Hayden loved showing us EVERYTHING he did in his room. He wanted to make sure we didn't miss a thing. He is growing up so fast. One of the biggest changes I've noticed is how it's not cool anymore to hold my hand or to give me a kiss goodbye. Oh, it breaks my heart . But I guess it's normal.

Hayden's New Room

We've been doing some room switching at our house, so that meant a new room for Hayden. Hayden did not want to switch rooms, because he didn't want a pink girl's room. Once we told him he could paint and decorate it, he was a little more on board with the idea. He picked out a shocking lime green color for the walls, but as I am getting so tired of painting rooms every year when we outgrow the bold colors, we settled on a nice blue, which will hopefully last a long, long time.

The only thing Hayden also wanted in his room was a rocket ship, so we decided on a space themed room. I was thrilled because I had something that would fit perfectly, that has been in my closet. When my Grandmother passed away, my parent's asked each of us if there was anything in her house that we had fond memories of. I instantly thought of a picture she had hanging in her living room of Neil Armstrong commemorating the flight of the Apollo XI, when man first walked on the moon. I never really loved it, but it has memories of my Grandma, of being a kid, and of going to Disneyland (she lived only 20 minutes away). As I child I always noticed it and stared at it, and wondered why my Grandma wanted it in her living room :) So, it has now found a home in Hayden's room.

Of course I had to cut out a little vinyl. A rocket ship over his bed with his name on in.

And some space aliens over his message board.

A map of the world and some magnetic strips for him to hang his drawings on fill up one wall.

Lastly, I painted the planets in the solar system on the ceiling. This is one of my favorite parts of his room. I had so much fun painting them.

Overall, his room came together so nicely, and he has gotten over being in the "smaller girly room".

A Great Mother's Day

raspberry pancakes for breakfast

+

homemade cards & coupons

+

a delish tri-tip dinner

=

a great Mother's Day

Anniversary Time

Wow- I can't believe our anniversary has been and passed again. The years are really starting to fly by. Our 11th anniversary was on Friday and we had a fun and relaxing day. As we weren't going away overnight this year, we tried to think of a fun activity that was different than our usual date nights, consisting of dinner and a movie.

We decided on dinner and Color-Me-Mine, a place where you can paint all different kinds of pottery. While a tad on the cheesy side, we thought it would be cool to have something we made on our anniversary that we would always remember. First we went to dinner at Tahoe Joe's which we always enjoy. Their Railroad Camp Shrimp are one of my favorites.

Then it was off to Color Me Mine. After the nice lady explained all of the fees for painting, firing, etc, we were off to search for our keepsake memento. As we picked up pieces and saw the price tag on the back, Jeff and I were separately doing the math in our heads and thinking... this is a little on the pricy side. After 30 minutes, we decided on a bowl that we could use for salad and such, which would cost us.....$58. While the romantic side of me was thinking, "oh how cute, a keepsake", the practical side of me was thinking, "$58- that's ridiculous. Our kids will probably chip it within a month, and I could buy one that will be WAY cuter". The end result? We left and went over to Bed-Bath-And-Beyond and bought a $2.99 plate that we will sign with a sharpie and display proudly as our 11th anniversary keepsake.

Our last stop was at Sunflower Drive-Inn, where we stopped on our actual wedding day, after we picked up our flowers for the wedding reception. It's a complete dive and super granola-y, but they have carob milkshaves, which I introduced Jeff to on our wedding day. Ever since I was a little girl, I have LOVED the taste of carob. I'm a true chocolate lover, but carob has a place in my heart as well. We haven't been back since our wedding day, so we decided to stop and have a carob milkshake.

Apparently, Jeff didn't remember what carob tasted like, because the first words out of his mouth after he tasted a sip were "EW! What IS this?!" I on the other hand, loved it. We sat outside and watched the chickens around us, laughed about our keepsake plate, realized why we are typically dinner & movie people, and vowed we each had at least another 11 years in us.