The "Egg"speriment

So, I'm still trying to post pictures, and it's still not working for me. I don't know what the deal is. In the meantime, I had to tell a funny story from the kids last night.
Jessica came home from school yesterday and kept saying she wanted an "egg" baby. I asked her what that was and she said she read in a book (she loves to read) about this girl who had to take care of an "egg" for a school assignment, and not let it break. (Kind of like simulating how it would be to take care of a baby.) She kept insisting she wanted to take care of an "egg" baby, and I had visions of yucky egg yolk getting all over my house. So I told her she could "hard boil" some eggs and use that. She was thrilled. Her and Ashley cooked up their "babies" and made little beds, booster seats, and all kinds of stuff for their new babies. Tyler decided to join in on the fun and take care of one, too. So they are feeding their new "egg" babies at dinner, and taking such good care of their new little ones.
The weather was so nice, we decided to go for a walk/bikeride with the kids. The kids strapped their eggs into little carriers, and proceeded to ride their bikes. As we were riding, Tyler's egg popped out of his carrier, and cracked on the ground. Oh No, what to do. I knew he'd be sad, and he was at first, but then I started laughing about how he was lucky because he could eat his egg now. He was hungry, and thought that was a pretty cool thing. So I peeled his egg and he ate it. Well, Jessica was appalled. She called Tyler a cannibal, and said that he was being "cannibalistic". (Dave was impressed she knew this word, and actually wondered how she had learned it. All that reading I guess.) Tyler didn't care, as his egg tasted pretty yummy to him. Well, later on in our ride, we had stopped. Jessica was holding her egg and kissing it, and accidentally dropped it. It was pretty funny. She was being all melodramatic about her "poor egg baby", and laughing at the same time. She said she was going to get an F- on her "project". Then Tyler said the cutest thing. He said "Oh no! Jessica is going to get an F-, and I'm going to get a G!!!" I was busting up so hard, I loved his thought process on that one!! Well, needless to say, Jessica did give in, and ended up eating her egg, too. (And I think Ashley ended up eating hers as well.)

Kindergarten Fun

Finally, I was able to post a picture again. I think my computer is having problems. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Hopefully it will keep working again......

Well, yesterday was "shadow your student" day for Tyler at Kindergarten. It was so fun and cute to watch these little Kindergarteners sitting in their little chairs and doing their work. He has Mrs. Motroni and she is quite amazing!!! (If anyone has the chance to get her, you will be so happy!!) She's teaching them about bubble maps, fractions, sign language, and I'm sitting there wondering if I really am in a Kindergarten class. It was pretty neat to see all the fun things they're learning. I'm looking around the classroom and the teacher is so organized. I'm wishing she'd come to my house and work her magic.

So, I have this cute picture of Tyler and I at his Kindergarten class, but for some reason I can't post it. I tried to upload it onto blogger, and the photo uploads, and then it says "Your image has been added. (then there is a picture of the image) After clicking 'done' you can change your post and publish to your blog." Only, after it says this, there is no "done" button to click. So there is nowhere else to go or click to. The picture is not able to post to the blog. Has this ever happened to anyone? I tried yesterday, and today, with no luck. I also tried to go to Picasso and blog it from there, but it says "error with text" or something like that. So, I'm not sure how to fix this and get pictures on the posts. I'll keep trying, but was just wondering if anyone else has had problems with this.

Kyle Turns 2!!

Today was Kyle's 2nd birthday and it was a fun one. (It's pretty easy to please a 2 year old.) Since it wasn't a school night, the kids wanted to put up the big tent in the family room and sleep in it. Kyle thought it was the coolest thing to play in the tent.

Here he is with his new pajamas from Grandma Susie. As you can see he still has his cast on, but it's not really slowing him down anymore.

For his birthday we got him this little plastic golf set from Wal-Mart and a Little People car garage. He carried this little golf set around all day. It was the cutest thing. It was from Wal-Mart for $3.00 on clearance. (I told you it's easy to please a 2 year old.) The clubs kept falling apart, but a little tape and it was good as new. He kept trying to use the clubs as a bat, but finally figured it was easier to hit the ball when it was on the ground. Kyle is definitely our ball guy. Give him a ball and he's happy for hours.

Things we love about Kyle:

How he gets so excited when you come home from something, and he gets a big grin on his face and runs right up to you and wraps his arms around your legs.

When he's eating and he keeps patting the chair next to him for you to come sit by him.

How every morning when I'm putting lotion on my legs, he puts his hand out for me to give him some so he can rub it on his legs.

His playfullness. Get down on the floor with him and he'll play for hours.

His love for his baby sister. He's constantly trying to play with her, talk to her, love her, and climb all over her. (I often find him laying on top of her saying "Hi Kelsey!") Hopefully he'll learn to be a little softer soon......

His constant need to be in motion. I don't think I've ever seen a kid move so much. He doesn't know how to sit still. (It's been a little easier to read a book to him since he broke his leg, but not much.)

His no-fear attitude. He'll jump off couches, chairs, even our big waterfall into the pool. (We make sure someone is there to catch him, of course...) His Uncle has nicknamed him "Crash" because he's always crashing into everything. He is one tough kid.

We're so lucky to have Kyle in our family. Happy Birthday Kyle. We love you!!!!!

Completed Bathroom

Our contractor sure didn't waste any time. Here's the final product. We still need to hang the picture on the wall but other than that it looks good.

Oh No! A leak!

Well, about a week ago, we noticed our carpet was really wet by the shower. We lifted up the carpet and found a bunch of water on the floor. Water was leaking from somewhere, but we weren't sure where. So the plumber came out yesterday and found the leak. It was on the pipes where the bath faucets come out. He showed it to me and I could see this little stream of water squirting out all over the drywall. I wonder how long it had been leaking. Probably a while, I guess you never know what's going on behind those walls. So he fixed the leak, and today the disaster people came out. You can see from the pictures they had to rip out the shower to get to all the water damage. In the process, they had to cut away the carpet, it had been damaged, too. So, I guess we are remodeling our bathroom. The good part is that we've been talking about doing it someday. We think our shower is much to small, and I'd love a bench in it, and our bathtub is really shallow. This makes us just move along in the process much sooner than we thought. So now we need to look around and get ideas for what we want to do. Of course the insurance only covers the basics of what we had before, so we'll definitely be pitching in the extras, but the nice thing is that they'll cover some. I'm excited to have a new bathroom, but not excited to try and pick everything out. I just want someone to get an idea of my tastes, and then come in and do it themselves. Then I'll walk in and say "Oh it's so wonderful!!" (Kind of like in the Extreme Makeover Home Edition, wouldn't that be cool....) So, I guess we'll be taking some trips to "The Great Indoors" and hopefully we'll figure out something good. In the meantime, it's a good thing we have another bathroom to use, huh?

Horay For Ashley!

Well, as promised, it's time to spotlight our next super soccer star. (She is excited because she thinks she has been neglected on the blog. She says it's only about Tyler and Kyle...=) Ashley played in her second game of the season today and loves it. It was a bit hot out there, but we survived. She was so excited to wear pink this year. (It's her favorite color.) They are called the Pink Panthers and we were so excited because Kevin and Tammy are coaching her team. They are old friends of ours from California that moved out here, and we just happened to be put on their team. She loves her coaches and thinks she has the greatest team ever!!

Way to go Ashley!! You are such a fun girl and we sure do love you. Our family just wouldn't be the same without you. We are lucky to have you.

One of Those Days

Have you ever had one of those days? Well, for me yesterday was one of those days. It started off at basketball yesterday morning. While I was playing, and Kyle and Kelsey were playing in the carpeted overflow area of the church, I looked over and noticed the first "mess" of the day. Kyle had gotten a hold of the can of formula in my diaper bag and dumped out the almost-full can all over the carpet. What a mess it was. I vacuumed it up, and continued to play. No big deal, things like that happen. So then Tyler comes home from school with a bag of party favors from someones birthday. There was this gooey eyeball that had a sticky black part for the pupil. (It was not candy, just some slimey ball thing.) He, of course, thought it was so cool and proceeded to go around sticking it to everything. I didn't pay much attention till Dave came home from work and asked what this black stuff was all over the walls. I took a look and sure enough, black sticky slime was all over the hall walls, and even on my white lamp shade. So I spent the next 1/2 hour scrubbing my walls, and trying to make Tyler help, which he wasn't very good at scrubbing. Literally five minutes later, I go in the Kitchen and Kyle had gotten a blue marker and wrote all over his hands and touched the floor and walls with this blue marker. Lovely. So now I'm scrubbing blue marker off the walls, and the floor. Kyle decided to try and help, squirting 409 all over himself while I'm scrubbing the walls. So, then I take the kids to soccer practice and when we get home, Jessica is in Ashley's room with Kyle, I'm thinking they're safe cuz Jessica's a good helper, and then I hear Jessica say "No Kyle!!" I'm actually quite afraid to go in the room, but I do. Kyle had dumped out a tub of crayons and wrote black crayon all over the carpet. At this point I just have to laugh, cuz I know it's just "One of Those Days". Sometimes I think I do need to child proof this house like the cartoon above. (But then I don't think that would stop our little Kyle.....)

San Francisco Advice

I'm planning a family girls trip to San Francisco and wanted to see if anyone had any special advice on fun things to do there. We know we want to go to Alcatraz for sure, but other than that we have no definite plans. Are there any "must see" places that we should go?? What are some of your favorite things to do there??? Let me know!!

Soccer Season Has Begun!

It's finally here, and the kids are excited!! Tyler has been waiting for this day for a couple of years now. With the girls in soccer for the past 3 years, Tyler has been begging to play. We weren't as excited about it, knowing we'd have 3 in soccer, so we told Tyler he had to wait till he was 5 to play. So he finally got his wish and played in his first soccer game yesterday. They are the "Scooby Blues" and won their first game. He did great, and as you can see from the pictures, he loved being out there and was not afraid to get in there and kick the ball. It was so cute because the week before when he got his uniform, he carried it around with him, and couldn't wait to show everyone. He is definetely ready for this. Jessica and Ashley also had games and are glad to be playing again. I'll post their pictures after future games. So now we have the three oldest in soccer and hopefully we survive the season. It gets tricky as your kids get older and their involved in all their activities. I always said I was never going to be one of those crazy moms that drive their kids to a million different things. I enjoy keeping my life simple, and not complicating things. But you do want your kids to have life experiences, so I guess you have to find the right balance. We have Jessica and Ashley taking piano, and they are enjoying that. What I've decided is that they can pick one activity to do, besides the piano. It's worked out pretty good, and we still manage to eat dinner together for the most part. (Which has always been important to me since that is the one time you can all gather together as a family and talk, even though it does seem to be the craziest part of the day.) I love that the kids enjoy playing sports. As most of you know, we definetely enjoy that aspect of life. It's not that the kids need to be the best on their team, but I love that they are experiencing all the benifits of being on a team. (exercise, responsibility, team work, having fun, gaining confidence, etc...) And the nice thing about exposing your kids to different activities is that they can find the ones their good at and continue on in those, whether it be music, sports, dance, sewing, cooking, drama, whatever they choose. (even though Dave has high hopes for the sports route. =)

Labor Day Weekend

Well, we've had a great weekend. Dave's sister Tami and her husband Bill came into town friday and it was fun to visit with them. We hung out at Grandma and Grandpa's over the weekend and spent lots of time visiting, swiming, and of course eating. Thanks for all the fun!! The kids always love going there. Who wouldn't love it when their grandparents have a basement created just for them, complete with pool table, regulation size shuffle board, a basketball arcade game, an air hockey table, and big screen TV. Not to mention all the fun toys there are to play with. Dave even went downstairs and found the box of pipes and connectors he used to play with as a kid. He looked in the instruction book and found out how to build this wheelchair. It was so cute. Kyle felt pretty cool being able to get around in this thing. We even got to take it home for a few days for him to use. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!!(And Uncle Mikey for letting us borrow your toy. :)