A weekend of fun and a day to remember.

What a crazy busy weekend, but truly only full of fun things and special moments.  Most of this post will be told in pictures, because there are just way more then any one really wants to look at.  But I will say I got the pleasure of spending a couple of days with my "bestest good friend" and her kids.  We had no schedule, no events and no need to do anything but hang out.  That is SO rare.  We kept the kids busy and thus tired, which is not a bad thing.  Then on Monday the kids and I headed to Willamette National Cemetery where Kyle's band was playing for their Memorial Day ceremony.  As it turns out that is where my grandfather is buried, so after we watched daddy do his thing we headed on the huge search to find my grandpas grave marker. What an amazing place, and even if you have no one buried there it would be a wonderful way to spend the memorial day.  Your kids could really see a visual of the amount of people that give at least a part of their lives towards serving this country.  Not to mention there are jets and guys with guns and hummers.  Oh yeah!

Adventure #1 was the carousel and the park.  The kids had a blast riding these pretty horses, except Adam, who gets very nervous, had to ride in the wagon the first time and then practically jumped into my arms half way through the second ride he got so freaked out.  Hard to believe that kid has ever been to Disneyland.
A simply beautiful day.  Here they are checking out the water, they later got to wave at the river boat as it passed.  And the girls were so cute, holding hands and loving each other as we walked around the park.  Those two are just precious and they love each other so much.  Makes my heart so happy.
The boys really know how to relax.  
We of course had to have some water fun with this beautiful weather.  After some initial arguing over sprinkler does and don'ts they had a great time.  

I have a feeling we will have lots of pictures like this one of them sunbathing and the one of them below just looking so beautiful.  

Oh those silly boys, they spent some time poking around our creek.  
What weekend wouldn't be complete without the trip to the ice cream parlor?!  Clearly they enjoyed it!
Here are the jets that flew over at the beginning of the ceremony.  We barely made it up the hill and to the spot before they cam whizzing by.  We parked really far away and had to walk up hill to get there.  We never would have made it if this really nice couple had not picked us up in their truck and taken us the rest of the way.  What a nice couple they were.  The kids were the most excited for those jets and Sarah was actually crying at the thought of us missing them, phew we made it.
Here is Kyle's band playing the armed forces medley.  I was so amazed to see so many of his kids give up part of their day to be there.  It truly was an honor.  It's so neat to watch as each theme is played people that served in that branch stood up.  Brought tears to my eyes.  It was also very touching when they did the rifle salute and then played taps.  What amazing traditions that few people really get to witness.  
A couple of pictures of things around the cemetery.  The missing soldier, or is it fallen soldier, is always neat to see.
Sarah sitting in a hummer, the boys are in the front seat pretending to drive.
All the service guys were really nice and posed for pictures with kids.  It was really neat hearing my kids say thanks to these guys, for serving our country.  
Posing in a different Army vehicle.  
Just one of the many hills loaded with flags.  Every single marker had a flag, in the background you can see Mt. Hood if you look really hard.  It was a bit hazy out.
Here we are at my grandfather's marker.  Don N. Price.  He was on subs in the Navy during WWII.  He was also one of the most amazing men I have ever known and I miss him so much!  The kids loved the adventure of finding his marker, there are two Don Price's and the first time we were sent to the wrong marker.  They all have numbers in the corner and that is how you find them, as well as letters marking areas of the cemetery.  cc496 is his number.  I'm very proud of him for lots of reasons but serving our country is right up there.

At the end of the day Alex said he wanted to fly airplanes, or be on subs when he grows up.  But he could always fall back on his first future ambition.....mall cop!

1st Graders Know it All!

Did you know that first graders know it all.  This is something that at least my first grader believes whole heartedly.  I thought this opinion of knowing more then your parents came after double digits.  Came with numbers followed by teen or at least being a "tween".  However I was horribly, painfully wrong.  And what is really scary to me is that my first grader is a boy, what will I do with this lovely girl God has given me.  I fear even greater, "man your dumb", eye rolling, argumentative moments from her.  In fact as I type this I recall just last night my sweet husband saying to her, don't roll your eyes, it's rude.  Oh Lord give us patience and help us not lock them in their rooms until they reach 25.  Now on the flip side, they may be early in the whole, "I'm gonna give you lip at every turn because I know better then you thing", but they still love to cuddle like they are babies.  It's really amazing to me that they still, even Alex, want to curl up on our laps.  That they can be anywhere in the house and hear if I sit down.  Before I know it they are curling up under the blanket with me asking if we can watch a cooking show together.  So sweet.  There are even times when they say, "cuddle with me", or "I need to cuddle with somebody".  That last one they just throw out to the room and hope that either Kyle or I will jump on it, and of course we do.  We are throwing punches and tripping each other just to get there in fact.  So, we will just keep praying - loving them- praying - cuddling them - praying-and teaching them to Love the Lord and that, believe it or not, God has placed us in charge of you not the other way around.  At least, not yet.

Playing Hooky

So I woke up on Friday for my early morning walk and was so happy to get my body moving and my day started.  Then for some reason between that walk and getting the kids up for school I thought "I want a random day of fun with my kids".  It was so pretty out and I thought they would enjoy taking daddy some lunch and then going to the zoo.  We have a membership there and we NEVER use it, so I thought why not.  I got them up at basically the same time and made a deal with them, if they cleaned the upstairs, which was in desperate need, then we could have this really fun day together.  Well they took the bait, worked really hard and at 10:45 we were off on our adventure.  It was such a great day.  Kyle recently had a brand new room built at school so we had fun checking that out.  Then lunch at Taco Bell and this really nice lady that came up to us there and told us we had a beautiful family.  So sweet, the kids were actually being really good and funny so I'm sure that didn't hurt our beautiful standings.  Then off to the zoo we went.  Kyle had to go back to work so I was on my own, but it went GREAT!  We were laid back and just went to see the animals we felt like seeing.  I had luckily packed a ton of snacks, the kids eat non stop these days.  They cleaned me out and wanted more.  We even rode the train, which used to be a longer ride but was still a blast to them.  The baby elephant was super cute and I really enjoyed watching them just have a fun day with me.  The worst part was of course the walk to the car.  It's all up hill out of that Zoo to get back to the car so I had to carry, in shifts, the two younger ones.  Alex begged me but he was where I drew the line, I wanted to live to see another day after all.

Now here are way to many pictures, as usual, for you to enjoy :)

Sarah took her video camera that she got for her birthday and shot a few of the fun moments.
They all loved finding where we were on the maps.  So cute.
Trying to take a  self portrait.  Hard with this many people.
On the train.  They thought it was great, but really not what it used to be.
A nice person took our picture, good thing because we were having no luck the other way.  We tried several times.
Elephant booty, see the cute baby.
The elephant museum was actually really cool.  We stepped in to address a serious boo-boo that Adam had gotten and ended up enjoying strolling through there and looking at all the cool stuff.  Especially this mastodon. (sp?) 
Alex LOVES bats.  Although he made a funny observation that they look just like our dog Padme'.  Scary.
We were all a little concerned about the Naked Mole Rats.  
Here is my little sweetie in the cutest mask.  These were actually pretty reasonably priced compared to most of the things there, but I could not convince anyone to buy one.  I thought it was cute and they had about 15 different animals to choose from.

A super fun day!

Blog Makeover!

I have been wanting to do a little blog makeover for a while.  I have time on my hands today, always a blessing, so thought I would just make that happen.  You will see I have included a new section - cooking tips.  I have had a few people request that I give some helpful cooking, especially baking, tips.  I love to bake, it's a hobby I enjoy greatly, and so I will pass on some of my favorite recipes and cooking tips.  I hope you all enjoy it, and let me know if there are any requests for specific tips or recipes.  

Just a little fun

Just a little fun video I thought I would share.  Kyle and I saw these guys while we were waiting to ride space mountain.  They were amazing and very entertaining.  I wish we had gotten a longer video clip, but you get the idea.

The dreaded baseball

Baseball has always been a dreaded moment in my parenting for me.  I REALLY don't like sports, watching them that is.  I just get so bored, and to me baseball is horrible because it is outside in the spring.  Really people, we live in Oregon, spring time is indoor time.  So I have been putting off signing Alex up, saying he really is not that interested.  But then how can you get interested in something that you are never encouraged to do, oops on my part.  Anyway I was told I had to sign him up for something by my mom or he would be weird.  I'm not sure about the weird part, but really he does need to learn all those valuable things like how to play on a team and blah blah blah. (you can see I'm still not that excited)  Well he LOVES it.  I knew he probably would and of course I think he might actually be good at it.  He is a little behind where he could be if we had done t-ball, but he is catching on fast.  He had been hitting really well until this last game where he started bending down, thus missing.  But he is having a great time, they call him little Alex because he is one of the youngest and his dad got him this snake bat, that all the kids love.  Cute.  I will have to be a strong mom, it's already been cold for games and windy.  I hate the wind.  I'm trying to be prepared with blankets and I may need to consider a yummy coffee as part of my baseball experience to help give me some extra motivation.  It's great watching him out there, but at this level the games drag a bit.  Hopefully by the end of this experience I will be a full fledged team mom that can't get enough of baseball, hmmm.....I laugh even typing that.  We'll see.
Getting ready to go to second.  He looks so serious about it.

Running hard, I think the helmet weighs more then his head.  It might take him down one of these days.
Brr, it was cold.  She was happy to have a little buddy there.  Sadly though we are not supposed to bring dogs.  I didn't know that until we had already brought her.
He loves that he is number 7 because he is 7.  Funny what makes them happy.
He looks great here, swings great, just couldn't hit it this week.
Grandpa is giving him a pep talk.  It's so fun watching them, my parents, be there and cheer him on.
There is this really pretty bridge and a creek right next to the field we were at this week.  These two kids love the games, so much freedom and so many hills to roll down.
I just like this last picture.  Maybe I should try twirling around at the games, might add to my fun.