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Date Posted: 6/22/2009
Father’s Day quickly arrived yesterday. We didn’t do anything out of the ordinary like give gifts and our meals were actually unplanned and dinner in particular was extra terrible. I was feeling kind of guilty for not even getting Luke a card and then it happened. We were driving in the car and Luke started talking.
He said something like this, ”You know how you don’t go out of the house in your pajama’s, not even to the grocery store? Well I didn’t used to get it, as to what the big deal was. But I think you’re rubbing off on me because yesterday I saw this lady wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, pajama style and I thought – what was she thinking wearing that out in public. Actually now when I see anyone wearing any type of lounge wear, weather it matches or not I tend to think – what are they wearing?! Why don’t they go put some real clothes on. I don’t think I’d ever think about something like that if it wasn’t for you.”
It might be a strange story for you, but to me it was very sweet and sentimental. And so now instead of feeling “kind of” guilty I feel a little extra guilty. So I just wanted to take this time to say:
Happy Father’s Day!
…and more importantly Happy Husband’s Day…you’re great at both!
Here are some cute pictures we took yesterday with our hoodies on. Yep, it’s officially summer and we were all wearing our hoodies yesterday…why is it still so cold and rainy outside?!
...Date Posted: 6/19/2009
We just got back from our trip to California. We arrived to overgrown weeds knee high in our front yard which was a little disappointing to say the least. Especially since we’ve been working really hard to clear the yard out. I can’t decide if I’m more annoyed with the overgrown weeds or with my overgrown eyebrows! I totally forgot to pack tweezers for my trip. But I’m sure everything will be well manicured soon.
It was a big downer to be in CLOUDY California for 2 weeks and be reminded several times that it was SUNNY almost the entire time here in Washington. What are the odds?!
For my twitter followers – no I didn’t pack a sweater. I rebelliously wore tank tops, flip flops and other summer wear the entire time.
But enough with the small annoyances. I had a really great time hanging out with my friends and family. Am I glad to be home? 
Well I’d be more glad if my suitcases would unpack themselves. Being home increased my awareness to how much my children grew while we were away. Alyssa went straight up to the forbidden DVD’s and barley used her tippy toes to reach the DVD’s! I guess her piggy can come off of time out now. (Here’s the reminder picture) As for Evan, he thinks anything on the floor is for eating (especially lint) and he’s also army crawling like crazy and is even crawling up stairs! So I’m pretty much about to pin him to the ceiling anytime now.
Oh right – enough with the small talk. I suppose what you really want to see are pictures from our trip. I’ll try to make it brief. :)
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Our first major outing was to the local petting zoo with my sister, her son Andrew and my parents. I wasn’t sure how this was going to go over because Alyssa has been afraid animals lately. But we went and although she was timid and didn’t touch any of the animals I think it was a good experience for her.
I let Evan pet the animals with his feet. He seemed to like it. hehe
This horse almost ate his cheerio holder! yikes. 
She enjoyed the ducks the best because she was able to throw food AT them. lol
We were really excited to see our good friends Matt & Melissa and their son Cayden a few times during our trip. When we first arrived we went to their house for a day trip. Alyssa and Cayden really enjoyed chasing after each other around the house and laughing. They wore themselves out and it was an amazing feat to have all three kids go down for naps at the same time (and bed for that matter) so that we could resume our tradition of playing Rook late into the night! (See Melissa’s blog for a similar summary of our trip with way cuter pictures! hehe)
Next on the agenda was a get together with my high school friends. I’m hitting myself for not getting a group picture of my friends, but we did get cute pictures of the newest babies of 2009 from oldest to youngest. Madison, Evan, Jake & Zoey. This is a plea to my friends to send me their pictures from the party! :)
One of the main events of our trip was my sister’s 29th Birthday. Uh, which means I’ll be turning 31 soon…but not that soon. :) If you’ve never met my sister, you’re missing out. We’re total opposites, but share a sense of humor. I’d like to say I’m funnier than her, but right now it could be a toss up. Or maybe she’s not that funny, but fun to laugh at! lol hehe just kidding. Just to give you a random piece of information about my sister. She’s gone through more cell phone services (which means cell phones as well), dogs and cars as I go through - well let’s just say it’s a lot. And why you ask? Well because you can’t have any of those things for more than a few months without some sort of excuse to get a new one right?! lol
We also used her birthday party as an excuse to take a few family pictures. As you can see from this first one, we might should have hired a professional. We took several and this was the best one. :) Can you tell we were all smiling for way too long before the picture was taken?! lol
Sabrina, Evan, Luke, Alyssa
Linda, Mike (mom and dad)
Betty, Hollis (grandma and grandpa)
Sandra, Ken, Camila (my mom’s brother & his family
Kari, Andrew, Wes (my sister & her family)
Here’s a really cute one of my grandparents
And finally…the main event picture. We took this one last and now that I look back on this day we should have taken it first and we might have gotten a better picture. This is the picture my parents want to have blown up and placed over their fireplace…we’ll see how it works to crop it because our feet are already out of the picture. Maybe they should use the one of them and the grandkids instead. :)
So as you can see by the pictures above I may have been slightly exaggerating the fact that it was cloudy the entire time of our trip. But mostly it was – regardless, it was not what I was expecting. However, we were able to go swimming a few times in Kari’s heated pool and spa and the kids (and myself) LOVED every second of it.
This picture below cracks me up. With a Luke head being scratched and Andrew’s crazy face. hehe
All three cousins posing in the pool. :) So cute.
Speaking of posing. Let’s regroup and finish our trip at a later time. Whew, blogging this trip is a doosey!
...Date Posted: 5/19/2009
Alyssa woke up from her nap the day of her birthday party to the sound of kids arriving to her party. Let’s just say she was very surprised and excited. I’m not sure why she didn’t see it coming with all the decorations we put up in the morning! Maybe it’s because she’s 2 years old! :)
She had all of her favorite friends join her for her party. The girls decorated pink star fairy wands and the boys decorated knight shields.
Her friends and family brought her lots of amazing presents. She opened them throughout the party at her leisure. It worked out well that way because she was able to enjoy each present one at a time. Here she is opening a really cool car from her Grandma Vistercil.
My mom helped her take the cards out and look at them. She was surprisingly interested in the cards.
Here are just a few pictures of some of her gifts:
Fairy-Princess dress up clothes/accessories…she especially loves the necklace.
Baby doll that she has named and continues to call ‘Baby Evan’
One present had these really cute sunglasses and she couldn't wait to try them on.
It also had a very cute shirt that she insisted she try on right then, which actually worked out perfectly because she had smeared a little bit of chocolate from her cupcake on her orange shirt.
Speaking of Cupcakes. I made quite a few cupcakes for her party and piped on a letter for each of the kids names. We had about 10 kids plus parents so it was quite the turnout.
She LOVED blowing out the candles, except we had to sing the song twice to get her to blow out the candles. I had put 2 candles in her cupcake and the flame was too strong so I took one off and then I confused her so we had to sing again to get her to blow out her candle. She didn’t eat much of her cupcake, but really enjoyed using the icing to finger paint the tablecloth! She might be an anti-icing girl when she gets a little older – like her daddy.
She might be an anti-icing girl when she gets a little older – like her daddy. Her best friend Natalie however had no hesitation to eating her cupcake – so hilarious! :) No Hands!
I think she thoroughly enjoyed her birthday party and we want to thank all of her friends for coming to help make her day very special! 
...Date Posted: 5/4/2009
I made Easter baskets for all of us this year…not sure how long I’ll do that for Luke and me, but it was fun this year. Especially since my friend Rebeccah sent me some cute stuff to fill mine with and I had been wanting an excuse to buy Luke an itunes gift card. :)
Our Easter morning was filled with fun church activities of course. These next few pictures are so cute. They have been letting Alyssa sit and have “Second Breakfast” with the older kids before Kidz Church and then they send her off to the nursery. She’s so little sitting with the older kids and they help her eat her food, very cute. Although she is sometimes VERY sad to leave and cries at the nursery door because I think she gets her feelings hurt that they are ‘sending her away.’
The teacher of this early church class brings an awesome meal every single Sunday and the kids call it “Second Breakfast.” This week she brought 2 types of egg and sausage muffins, fruit and juice boxes. She sets up each place setting with a paper towel placemat, plate, fork, etc. So cute. 
They also had an Easter egg hunt after church. The little kids had their own hunt where they found eggs filled with small crackers and cookies and also rubber duckies. Once Alyssa realized they were filled with food she just wanted to eat and didn’t want to hunt for more. Here is Luke trying to convince her to find more eggs. hehe
Alyssa snacked on her treats in the car, took a nap once we got home and missed seeing the deer again!
Okay I think I need to stop obsessing over the deer. :)
When she woke up we had her basket all ready for her. She was pretty excited about her “candy” aka fruit gummy snacks.
Evan seemed pretty excited about his (empty) basket too…maybe there will be more exciting things in your basket next year buddy.
Then of course we took some pictures of the two of them in their Easter outfits.
Later that day we went to a friend’s house to celebrate a birthday and they took a picture of our family for us. It was kinda late at night and it was hard to get the kids to cooperate and smile at their camera, but at least Luke and I look good. :) hehe
Thanks Hennessy’s and Happy Birthday Tyler!
It was a busy day for us, but we had a great Easter and hope you all did as well.
Happy Easter!
...Date Posted: 4/13/2009
The things you do for your kids:
I put this song in a playlist we play to help our 8 month old sleep. Now the play count is embarrassingly high. I am very tempted to use the reset play count feature of iTunes to cover my tracks…
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