Spring Break

We went to Newport again this Spring Break with the Leaver family. All but one sibling was able to come (A/F were greatly missed!). We had a very relaxing time because we really didn't want to do much other than lazy things, as you can see here. :)
-We visited the local farmers market with the kids. This was the first time they realized you could sample food and ate tons of orange samples. Look at those freckled Luke cheeks- how could I say no to that?
-We went to the beach
-We saw cool cars!
-We played Just Dance with cousins

We also went to Legoland. The new Star Wars mini land was open and I couldn't resist sharing a few views of the Endor moon. They had scenes from each film. So awesome. The rides were fun but the lines were long. What else is new during Spring Break.

We took some (windy) family pictures on Sunday and as is customary with serious photos, we had funny faces to make as well. We also happened to run into some old friends from our San Francisco days also vacationing in Newport. What a cool surprise that was!

Twins Birthday

Lookie there! It came and went and I didn't even make a wooplah about it here. I confess that it reflects what happened in real life. I have just not been in the mood to fuss over a big celebration and thank heavens the kids are at an age that they didn't care (or notice). Whew.
We still had the kitchen all decorated that morning and made pancakes with cake sprinkles (Haha! I have to laugh at myself. That is so ghetto, is it not? Me stretching the 'cake' fun with the least amount of effort I can muster!)

When asked what treat they wanted to share with their classes at school, donuts was the choice. Awesome! No baking for moi. They were pleased as punch.

The twins Birthday is also special because they share the same Birthday as their Grandmother, Mimi. We usually celebrate with them so they came over for a little family fun. They are always so generous with the kids, it makes our gifts in return seem kind of boring (Lego's vs. Personalized Postage Machine? Hmmm...)
I think Luke's favorite present was the singing Despicable Me Birthday card. Which I still hear in his bedroom late at night. Agh. Look at these cuties. They are getting so big on me.

I thought I would at least make them the cake of their choice, because that would represent love. Well, I don't love them enough to make a Lego Harry Potter for Luke and a replica of Sadie's current favorite stuffed animal kitty. And I thought, as a compromise, that instead I would make cake pops, something I have never attempted. Then I could sort of make something Lego and a kitty head and have a lot less leftovers. Luckily Luke changed his mind to Batman. Can you see the pictures? They make me laugh. Wow, they were horrid looking. Big, lumpy yellow cake balls with bats and Sadie's poor kitty replicated to a swollen mass... some even slid down the sticks. But this is what I love about 7 year olds.
"Mom! Those are awesome!!"
"Oh, thanks, guys! It's because I love you so much!"
We stuck candles in and sang Happy Bday.


Happy eaters.

Right now I so enjoy these kids. Sadie is such a busy, inquisitive girl. She cannot hold still, loves to play and help and is the child who surprises me with very profound questions. She also has a laugh that dances out like butterflies; so contagious you are compelled to join in.
Luke is such a good kid. I love how he still walks up to kids in the supermarket or park and just says hello & invites them to play. He loves to share fun stories and laugh. He is also my music head. He'll hear one song and pick things up so well. I love sharing music with him and anticipate this will be something we share a lot of together.
What a blessing children are! I learn so much from what they teach me.
Happy Birthday to my sweet twins!xoxoxoxoxoxo

Fringe

This post is going to be all over the place. As I was removing all the pics off my phone and camera, I forgot I had these to share so I have thrown them all together in one post. Enjoy the scattered experiences. :)
This first one is what I found on the kids marker board the other night. Sadie had written Elliet such a sweet message and placed this by her door so she would wake up and find it. The next morning Elliet found it alright. Her corrections are in blue.

I had some extra phyllo dough in my fridge so I made up some quick apple pie filling and tried this technique with my mandolin. It was super easy and fast and the texture was fun so I wanted to share. Just wash the apple and slide it right on through. You can see I didn't even peel them. Add a little lemon juice, cinnamon, fresh nutmeg and sugar (I tried Agave nectar and it was great) and throw them in some kind of crust and bake. Mm-mm!

A few weeks ago TENNIS came to Vegas and played for free! S and I made a fun date night out of it. They are an awesome band if you want something beachy and fun to get you in the mood for summer approaching.

Beautiful sunset at Luke's soccer practice. I will never get enough of this large desert sky.

Here's another awesome sky photo I took a while back. One night I was driving home and could not stop gaping at this long, fat cloud hovering over downtown. It was so orange underneath with a crisp white line up by the moon. Beautiful! I didn't have my camera so I had to use my phone. It's not the best photo but it gives you an idea.

Thanks to a sweet online deal, a group of friends and I went to a local spa across the valley at the Lakes. We stayed overnight in this beautiful villa and this was the view when we woke up. I love that lime green color of new leaves each spring.

Wall Ball

My kids have come to the age where the recess games infiltrate family life. The hand games with rhymes as well as jump-roping while chanting:
"Bubble Gum Bubble Gum,
Cherry on top....
Who's your boyfriend, I forgot...
Is it
A
B
C..." until they trip and name a classmate with that letter.
But the most apparent addiction is Luke to Wall Ball. He has been playing for months. INSIDE our house.
It's been fun to play with him because he's getting good at it. The things that make me laugh the most are the names of the plays. I'll be hitting back and forth with him and when the ball falls close to the wall, he'll call "Waterfall!". Or if it's hit hard, a 'bullet'. I've learned a plethora of terms: cross country, slicey, butt crack...(ahemyes, you read that correctly).
I wake up in the morning to the bud-dam, bud-doom, bud-dom over and over again or the slappy-slaps of the jump ropes.
And as much as it causes some headaches, it's the sound of active, happy kids growing up and I love it.

Give and Take

While we were in Utah, we fit in a quick trip to the BYU Bookstore. I love that place. And they have an awesome section of childrens books so I wanted to take the kids and share it with them. As we were all reading different things, I pulled this off the shelf and laughed out loud through the entire thing. It is so hilarious. If you grew up on 'The Giving Tree', then this is a must in your collection. I scanned in a few pages to share with you here but I highly recommend you acquire one of your own. These scans post small, so click on them to see full size (i.e. to read the super tiny text).





I skipped a bit here, now he is older and returned again...

passed a few more pages.... aren't you so curious now? (and hopefully chuckling)

Ahhh.... so great. Hope you enjoy.

St Pattys

Well, as you know, sometimes we create fun that comes back to pinch us a year later.
Case in point, our leprechaun trap from last year.
So here we are this year heading to bed and I'm reminded last minute that we needed to set a NEW trap (ugh- why hadn't I thought of this before bedtime?). So here is our tale. Prepare for some amazing ingenuity.
(That's sarcasm)

I proposed we use the wastebasket from our bathroom as a trap. It's heavier than the cardboard box that the Leprechaun ripped free from last year.
But what to prop it on? How about an Avocado! It's green and he will slip inside, lured by all the treasure, and pull it to eat from within, hence trapping himself! (with enough food until he's discovered. Yes, his welfare was a concern.)

The hastily scribbled notes of temptation (we use old check stubbs for drawing on which is why this is especially ghetto).

The kids ran and grabbed some sparkly things and placed their notes inside.

Here is a close up of the goods. Did you know metallic pipe cleaner art and cheap mardi gras beads are highly valued to them? Neither did I.

Ooh darn! We missed him again. I remembered this time to write a tiny note with tiny letters to match his tiny footprints.

He tried to pull the treasure away but it was stuck in the trap. Oh well.
Good thing the kids haven't picked up on the fact that, even though he leaves small footprints as evidence he came and went, there is not a patch of mess for him to step in to cause such.
Give me ideas on that for next year because I'll need it.
Hope you had a fun Green Day!

To Utah For Earnest

My ever so talented Mother and sister were in a performance of "The Importance of Being Earnest" in March. We have not been up to UT in many months so we decided to make a quick trip and see the play.
I thought Elliet would be old enough now to follow the story a little so she joined us and really had a great time (I am so enjoying my children getting old enough to share these things with them!). We had watched the movie to prepare and as a result, the kids played dress up, or as they say, played "Earnest", while we were there. Here is Sadie playing a tune for a tired 'Earnest' on the couch. She has this funky feather thing stuck in her hair- it was so cute.
The play was very entertaining and they did an amazing job. Plus, the costumes were great! Too bad I don't have a sliver of acting skills - it would be fun to have that byproduct of such talent. As I reviewed these photos, I was smiling. I keep hearing my mom say, "Mistah Wuh-theeng..."
You girls were wonderful! Thanks for the fun weekend!

Banner Happy

I was privileged recently to be featured on the Bake It Pretty blog to design a fun printable for them.
{BTW-Bake It Pretty have some fantastic and fun baking supplies. I highly recommend you check them out!)
I made something like this for a friends Birthday cake and it turned out cute so I thought it would be fun to improve the idea and share it.
There were so many color ideas I had that I ended up making two instead of one. And I will probably make even more.
How can I use these, you may ask?
They look adorable glued onto striped twine and hung over a cake from tall skewers, but there are many more fun things you can do with them, all of which are listed on their blog. If nothing else, hang one on your computer monitor.
Click on the links here to have some fun!
MOD BANNER
SMALL BLUE DOT BANNER

Kids Are Funny

Wow- way behind on posting. I am trying to catch up today so updates are coming.
Enjoy these scans that have been piling up to share with you.
1) This top one from Sadie is awesome. Read to the end.
2) Didn't know Sadie even knew about Hawaii.
3) Luke's idea of a presidency (as a teeny, tiny president with an enormous head. Hey, we have that now!)
4) Luke's ship doodle one day littered with drama: Man eating whales, high fives and a mermaid romance at the bottom of the sea while a shipmate is eaten by a shark.

Random Coolness

S and I went to San Diego last weekend for a little getaway. He had a conference to attend so I explored the city a little while he went to meetings about important stuff. Unfortunately the weather was not as sunny as it could have been, but ees okay. One of the shops we walked in had these awesome wire sneaks on the wall. What art! Why do I drag my feet to do this? I am determined to make a wire sculpture. Soon. So I need an idea of something. So begins my stalling....
On another note, my style savvy brother sent me this link today that I absolutely flipped over. This is what I call Mt. Biking. Sign me up because I would so prefer to ride something like this than in the mountains around my house...
Does that look super fun or what?!

VCA 2010 RACE RUN from changoman on Vimeo.

Leggo

Thanks to some awesome friends and their gifting of Williams Sonoma gift cards for my Bday, I decided to splurge on this weird egg waffle pan (among other things). First of all, I cannot walk into that store, no matter how dedicated I am to only purchase what I intend to (a cookbook, for example) and exit successful. I always end up with arms full of things I must have. Must. Things that are essential for feeding the hungry mouths that depend on me.
Like this waffle pan.
How fun to make these with the kids? And isn't that noble of me to think of the children with my birthday gift? {Think of the children!}
I thought so.
As you can see, we did make them and had lots of fun but mine are no where near as beautiful. Our mouths didn't care, though. They tasted like crepes and were perf with a wee dusting of powdered sugar. YUM.

We Have Funski

I haven't been skiing in a looong time. I went a lot during High School, then tried snowboarding during college & after (but was never great at it) and then had kids. That pretty much squashes slope time for a while. But I digress...
We have talked about starting up with the kids but I keep dragging my feet, putting off acquiring all the gear to suit up the family. Scott's business partner invited us to join him recently at Mt. Charleston so after borrowing a few things and renting the rest, we met him on a Friday morning after dropping the kids off at school. Mt. Charleston is about 45 mins. from our house so we got in a good 4.5 hours before having to head home. Now Scott, he's been snowboarding with me, but this was his first time skiing and he did really well. He loved it, and I forgot how much I loved it. The snow was better than I expected and it was a beautiful day. I kept telling him that he was lucky- everyone would like snow sports on days like this. It's the windy, snowy, wet days that test your loyalty. :)
So now my focus is renewed. I can't wait to get all of us up here next season. If you have any old kids ski gear you want to ditch, ring me up!

Vogue Vent

You know what I am REALLY tired of? High fashion prices.
It is Spring. A time when wardrobe renewal receives a little TLC, a new lift. I'd like to try because mine is really overdue. But it's hard to find unique items that are designed well and not millions of beans. Is it really that hard to make a simple, flat leather sandal such as this? That is NOT around $500?! It's just leather straps; no intricate, woven, hand painted with vintage horse hair brush designs or anything. Just straps. $500. This upsets me. And you'd be surprised- you'd think you could find something like this out there, but I have been looking and you can't.
And this dress is fantastic. Way cool print, flattering and modern, {LONG ENOUGH}...Oh- what's that? $415? Faaaaantastic. I can't justify that in my lifestyle of professional domesticity.
Where are the designers making modern lines for the real peeps?

It's OUT

Preview the sounds here.
It's great stuff, peeps!

Close...

Luke has these pages in his homework every week where he needs to read a simple story and answer some comprehensive questions. Lately he has been reading the story and answering the questions himself. Which is why I review them. He kind of, sort of doesn't comprehend that much when the stories are "boring".
This week the story was "Cry Wolf" but instead titled, "A Boy And His Trick", and as the story goes, he tricked the town people by calling "Wolf!" and they responded by running to scare the wolf, which was no where to be seen. You know the rest. Here were his answers (the last one is the best; the entire point of me keeping this memory):
1. What happened the first time the boy called out "Wolf!"?
The people in the town wanted to scare the wolf.
2. What happened the second time the boy called out "Wolf!"?
The people went to scare the wolf.
3. What happened the third time the boy called out "Wolf!"?
The people did not come.
4. Why didn't the people come the third time?
Because the people thought (he had 'thinked', which we corrected) he tricked again.
5. What lesson can you learn from this story?
Kill the wolf.

Instant Love

Well, if you're a last minute Mom like me this year, then perhaps you will find these useful. I needed to make some Valentines quick-like so I googled some ideas and this owl one came up (see first image). I thought it was A) clever and B) could be improved upon. A few minutes later (+ a free vector owl) I whipped these out, all in different colors according to my kids requests.
My kids will finish with personalization, but thought I would share them with you in case you need something fast, like me. Don't I lerve you so?
Slice two openings by the feet, thread a pencil for the 'branch' & you're set. Oh-and of course glue some festive sugar on there somewhere (like I did on the top one). It is Valentines.
Click here to print the Purple ones
Click here to print the Green ones
Click here to print the Pink ones

Estate For Real

Why didn't I think of this? Genius!
A customizable, stackable doll house.
Even I would play with this.