Almost Summer!

I didn't want to forget some of the fun, end of the school year things we did! 

Hudson had his Kindergarten field trip to the zoo. He was so excited to ride on the bus!  

He picked a cute group of girls to walk around the zoo with. Both of our boys have totally gravitated to the girls and are into the whole "crush" scene. It cracks me up! They take after their uncle Teal, who's had his eye on someone new every year since preschool!

On Memorial Day we went to my Nan and Pomps' grave to put flowers there.

The boys were fascinated with the whole idea of it all.

I discovered Pinterest, and am officially addicted. I found this recipe for sugar cookie bars and they became an instant favorite! I've made them several times since. You should try them!

I had to snap a picture of Hud going into his Kindergarten class for the very last time. My little man is growing up so fast!

The boys took these salvia plants to their teachers to thank them for all of their hard work. The tag says "Thanks for helping me grow this year"

Steve planted strawberries in the yard, and here are the fruits of his labor. Pun completely intended.

 The kids think it's pretty cool!

I try to get pictures of the kids each week after church when they're all clean and sweet looking.

Oliver has always been a good sport, but I don't get Hud to comply too often!

Steve even humors me sometimes! Penelope loves being tossed up high.

This used to be our car (first my dad's, then ours, then we sold it back to Teal) and my dad was getting ready to sell it, so we wanted a picture with it. It's going to be so hard to say goodbye to it, it's been in our family for so many years!

For Father's Day the kids and I made this cute "back rub" shirt for Steve. They had so much fun doing it and did a great job staying in the lines when they were coloring!

Steve thought it was the best present ever.

We love going on family walks now that the weather is warming up. 

More to come...

Tootles!

Just For Fun

As I was going through our picture files, I came across some really hilarious pictures, so I thought I'd dedicate an entire post just to them!

Disclaimer: some of these are from my camera phone so the quality isn't superb. 

Hope you enjoy!

I went in to Penelope's room one morning when she woke up, and this is the face she was pulling. 

I'm so glad my camera was right there to capture it!

Oliver was busy tinkering in his room and came out wearing this shirt. He said "Look mom, this shirt fits me! I like it! Where did it come from?"  I almost wet my pants!

I got it at the hospital about 2 seconds after I delivered him, as a gift from my doctor. It's so hideous, but I still haven't been able to part with it. I love that he found it and put it on! It's even better that I made him pose in it while I was laughing hysterically. He was mortified, hence the face. I sound so mean!!

While I was driving Oliver to school, Penelope was starving and ready to nurse. I was furiously handing her back these little "yogurt melts" to keep her screaming to a minimum. When I finally could pull over in a parking lot to feed her, this is what I found. At first I thought she was bleeding, but when I figured out it was the stupid yogurt melts, I had a good chuckle to myself.

Ollie and me being obnoxious.

OK. This one takes the cake. I'll start at the beginning. 

You know the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day? Well that was MY day. Start to finish. It was so bad in fact, that I had to write it down before I went to bed so I would never forget it. Because I knew I would laugh one day!

* First off, I was making waffles for breakfast. I forgot to spray the waffle iron, and ended up with waffles stuck to both sides of my huge waffle iron (that makes 6 at once). So that's 12 total slots I had to scrape burnt chocolate waffle off of before I could continue. And wasted about 1/2 my batter. And if that wasn't bad enough, I burned my finger on the dumb thing too.

* I spent an hour and half trying to get Penelope to nap.

* I lost my cell phone at Walmart. Went to customer service and they called it for me. It was under my stupid box of donuts that I swear I lifted up 3 times to check under. 

* As I was leaving Walmart, there was a mom surrounded by paramedics. She had her little girl with her who looked so scared. Since I had just picked up donuts for Oliver's birthday treat for school the next day, I gave her one to cheer her up. I was glad I could do something little for her.

(Nothing bad for me on that one, just a weird thing to add to my weird day.)

* When I got home, I realized that I had locked myself out of my house. I could get in the garage, but that was it. Steve was out of town, and I had forgotten I had locked the garage door going into the house the night before. It's a relatively new doorknob, and I didn't realize that it could still turn from the inside even if it was locked. Nice. Penelope was starving, and I was so grateful I was still nursing her because I didn't have any baby food in the car with me. While I'm sitting there, I am furiously dialing Teal to see if he can come over and try to get in one of my windows when I hear: 

"Yoo Hoo!......I said hey girl!.... Are you lookin' to adopt a pregnant lady from Texas?" 

Um, what? I poke my head out of the car. Standing in my garage is this pregnant black lady.

"What?" I ask her.

"You lookin' to adopt a pregnant black lady honey? I'm just kiddin'!"

(I'm so confused I'm not sure what to say)

"You got some stains on your carpet? Fingerprints on your mirror? What's the dirtiest spot in your house? I can clean in for you!"

Then she holds up a bottle of cleaner and it all starts coming together. She's going door to door selling things. Only she didn't go to my door. She went to my car. Where my ta tas are half hanging out while I'm feeding my baby because I'm locked out of the house. Lovely.

She hands me a brochure that explains all about it.Then she starts doing all sorts of demos on my car with the cleaner, and then sprays it IN HER MOUTH because it's all natural. I'm starting to not be so annoyed and really want to buy her cleaner! Except my purse is locked in the house. I explain that to her, and I don't think she believes me, because she turns not-so-friendly on me and snatches the brochure back out of my hand and walks out of my garage. Now I've made her mad and I don't know what the cleaner is called so I can get it later!!! Just my luck.

Teal gets there a few minutes later and thankfully, there is a window open that he got on a ladder and crawled through. Then he went and picked the boys up from school so I could finish feeding the baby in the house.  Thank heaven for my manny!

* Remember the donuts I bought? They were still in the car throughout this whole fiasco, and when Teal was driving to pick the boys up, he decided to help himself to a couple. Which would have been fine normally, but I only had enough FOR OLIVER'S BIRTHDAY TREAT AT SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY!!! Really????

* That evening, things had been so chaotic, so obviously I didn't have anything going for dinner. I decided to push the easy button and  load everyone up and go get hamburgers. Don't worry. Oliver spilled his drink all over his when we pulled in the driveway, and it wasn't edible. I gave him mine.

*While refilling my  paper towels that night, I slammed my finger in the stupid holder. It's the worst holder on Earth, and I normally refuse to refill it. But with Steve out of town, I had no choice! 

*Hudson's tooth fell out, to add to the mayhem. Thankfully I had stocked up on Tooth Fairy prizes, so at least I was covered, but seriously? How about one less thing to worry about?

* Teal was desperate for a haircut, so at 11:00 pm, we found ourselves out on my front porch cutting away. 

I hated that day. Some days are like that. Even in Australia.

While driving one day, I spotted this sign at a pottery store and pulled over to take a picture. It was Mother's Day weekend, and I thought it was so clever! I wouldn't have minded a "little pot" after my Terrible Horrible Day!

 And finally...Spider Pip! The boys love to dress her up in their masks, and she goes right along with it happily! 

Hope this made you giggle today!

Oliver's Birthday Day

We like to celebrate birthdays at our house as much as possible. When I was younger (and had more time to care about myself) I would have a whole birthday month. I'd always be cooking something up and counting it "for my birthday." As I've gotten older, it slowly turned into a birthday week, and now finally just the actual day (that let's face--isn't really that fun when you're old).
I want our kids to live it up while they can, so even if we've had the party with friends on the weekend, I want their actual day to be just as fun...


I made Oliver some yummy cake batter pancakes complete with sprinkles for breakfast.

He opened a Hot Wheels laser car decorating toy from Hudson.

I love these rare, sweet hugs so much!  

 
Gretel sent him this Tron motorcycle, and the boys spent the rest of the day fighting over it.

That night we invited cousins and grandparents to Chuck E. Cheese for some fun and games!
He'd been dying to get in the ticket blower machine since he'd seen other kids do it on their birthdays, so we made his birthday wish come true. He was so calm and methodical about gathering the tickets. He just stood their calmly and clasped them in his little hands. There was no frantic frenzy to be had!

He had a yummy candy cake I bought at our ward service auction. I was so glad to be off the hook for a second cake! Thanks Lithia, for the darling dessert!

Here he is posing in his birthday crown from preschool,

and with Dad, being super macho,

and with me, being the cutest little troll that ever lived!
I love you so much, Ollie!

Here are some things about Oliver Finn at age 5:

*He wakes up every morning happy and ready to eat his bowl of mixed kinds of cold cereal.

* He hounds me incessantly  asks very kindly all morning if I can play game after game after game with him.

*He's really into race cars and super heroes right now. Especially Spiderman (still).

*He's a really good eater and will try almost anything.

*He loves to read.

*If I would let him, he would spend all day playing "guys" with me. We have to make his guys talk and go places together and battle each other. I hate it love it and would spend all day doing it too! The thing that's the worst about it is that he makes you say whatever he wants you to say. You can't make anything up yourself, and if you try, he corrects you. It's the worst. But I know one day I'll miss it, so I keep doing it!

*His energy is endless. He rarely wants to rest and watch a show. If he does want to watch something, he's usually doing headstands on the couch to keep himself from relaxing too much.

*He is the most happy, positive, joyful child I have ever known. I feel so lucky to be his mom!

Racing to Five

My baby boy turned 5!
How did this happen?!?

He's loving race cars right now, so it made an easy theme.
Here are some of the fun details of the party:

His cute, simple cake. I love the way it turned out! I made the cake party myself and then ordered the race cars and track on Etsy. This was the most simple cake I've done in a while, and it was like a breath of fresh air. I might be on to something! Or not. Depends on my mood.

Golden trophy favors for all the guests

And of course, the party table!

We played a rousing game of Hot Wheels (instead of Hot Potato)

Raced cars down a track

 

We set up every car track we had for the kids just to play with as much as they wanted. We had Criss Cross Crash ( a classic), the Hot Wheels wall tracks, and a couple of other ones. The activities were a hit!

Opening presents is always the best part!

My big boy. I think he finally looks his age in this picture.
 I don't like it.

 

 

I had to include the cute "checkered flag" inside of his cake.
Happy day to my sweet, sweet boy!