Summer = Swimming

This summer, one of our family goals was to have the girls learn to swim. Last year we were too busy traveling to take any classes and the year before Sarah and Natalie basically just had that class where the kids get used to the water. I've felt like we were a little behind and this summer we are catching up. We've been at a local pool almost every day for the past two weeks. It has made a huge difference! Sarah and Natalie have taken turns doing private lessons with a friend of mine at her apartment complex. It has been fabulous because while one is having lessons, the rest of us swim in the other side of the pool. And many of thier lessons have been sandwiched between other friends' lessons. It's been a pool party every morning! We've started going more as a family too and the last six weeks of the summer, Sarah and Natalie have private lessons (just the two of them) at the Rec Center. Hopefully, we will have some good water skills by the time school starts!

Natalie has been more resistant to trying new things, but as she's watched Sarah try new things every day - and have fun doing it - she has been inspired to do new things too.

Sarah has really taken off. Once she got over the hesitancy of putting her face in the water - just a few days ago - she has learned quickly. She is learning the front crawl and just started learning the side breathing method. I am excited to see the girls getting more confident, having fun and most of all, learning skills that will help keep them safe. Angela, in the mean time, is revved up and ready to go - she will do awesome when she takes swimming lessons next year. (If I can get her potty trained by then!)

One funny side note ... Sarah found something that helped her feel more brave. It wasn't goggles, but a swim cap of all things! She loves not having her hair in her face and thinks it makes her float better! She even wanted to wear her new cap at home today - what a nut! She was being pretty silly this afternoon pulling it down over her face. (o:

We are Sowing....

In preparation for the big swingset installation, we had to relocate the garden bed we inherited with the house from the previous owners. I enjoyed the raised garden bed and wanted to keep it. We moved it to the east side of the house where we had more room, so we decided to take some measurements and create a duplicate raised garden bed. It turned out really nice and I love how they look in the middle of the grass. It is so easy to get right in and check on my little "babies" growing in the backyard. They are thriving in the good soil, except for one goofy tomato plant. I LOVE having my garden area. The whole east side of the yard is dedicated to our vegetables and fruit gardens. We have our fruit trees over there, our new raised garden beds as well as a section dedicated to raspberries, strawberries and blueberries. Yeah! I've been wanting to have a big garden for years. Our raised garden beds contain four tomato plants, several lettuce plants and cabbage plants, a zucchini, a cucumber, 2 green peper plants, sweet basil, cilantro and 6 or 7 green bean bushes. Not to mention several marigolds and a praying mantis egg (I hope it will hatch soon) to help with pest control. I think that's everything. It is so fun to check on my little garden every day - I have a cucumber nearly ready to be picked and we've already enjoyed salad from the fresh lettuce leaves. There is something so satisfying about doing a vegetable garden. I love it!

4th of July Review

We had a fun fourth of July, but we sure missed the Clarks this year when it came to the BBQ and fireworks! For the past 4 years we had the luxury of having family in town to celebrate this fun holiday. Thanksgiving and the 4th of July were often spent with Jeff and Kelly and the kids when they were going to dental school out here. We still had a good time, it just felt more lonely without them - we miss you guys!

We enjoyed good food - potato salad, BBQ chicken, fruit pizza and we even made fresh lemonade. Sarah helped me on this one and thought it was fun (and hard work) to squeeze all the lemons. We didn't get to set up the pool like we usually do because it was only around 70 degrees and sprinkled on and off during the day. Kind of weird 4th of July weather - I swear that summer doesn't really ever start in the northwest until AFTER the 4th of July. Then it's gorgeous through the end of September.

While the food was being prepared, the girls were being so cute and doing bubbles in the backyard. Angela was prancing around and laughing hysterically as she tried to pop the bubbles. It was so cute, I stopped my food prep and grabbed the video camera. Before I got outside the laughter turned to screams of terror. A dumb yellow jacket ruined the perfect moment. Natalie was the little hero - Sarah screamed, "get it off her" and apparently Natalie was the brave one who ran over and swept the dumb thing off of Angela as she screamed in horror. Unfortunately, it was too late, but I was proud of Natalie for forgetting her own fears of the dumb things and helping her sister out. She really is my little "mommy" in the family.

Angela was actually very brave once the yellow jacket was gone - the sting looked painful, but she just wimpered a bit while she held a little ice cube on it.

After dinner, Angela was all better once daddy put on his big firework show purchased from Costco. He loves fire and fireworks - such a boy. (O: I told him it would be faster to just light a bunch of money on fire we when purchased it, but he said it wouldn't be as fun. He was right. The girls got a little freaked out by a few of the bigger ones, but we had a great time and dad deserved a standing ovation for his skill in lighting more than one firework at a time and stacking them on top of each other to make them taller. (o:

One other fun highlight of the night was watching some of the Olympic swimming trials. We watched Phelps set a new world record in the trials! He has a new American competitor who really gave him a run for his money - they just pushed each other so hard - both several feet ahead of everyone else. It was very exciting. I can't wait for the Olympics!

Favorite Running Songs

I have a few people to thank for my accomplishment of running 3 miles (3.5 this week) as mentioned in the previous articles.

#1 my husband - for getting the treadmill and cheering me on
#2 my cute pink iPod nano
#3 Jim Steinman and Dean Pitchford (my good friends - just kidding, they are the guys who wrote "Holding Out for a Hero")

Seriously, that last song is the best running song! (o: When I was about ready to quit running last Friday at around 2 miles, Bonnie Tyler came on singing this song and got me through the next mile! (o: Dorky, I know.

A couple other favorites - Weezer's "Perfect Situation" and Celine Dion's "I'm Alive"

If anyone else has favorite workout songs - I'd love to hear them. Having some good songs to listen to REALLY helps!! (o:

One other little tidbit - Wanting to find tips on running, I checked out www.livestrong.com today - it's an awesome website with information on health, exercise, etc.

33 - Reinventing Me

Above are two pictures of things that I never would have defined myself with even just a couple years ago. I turned 33 this summer and life is great. As I get older, I have more courage to try things I didn't think I could do when I was younger. I had a limited definition of myself and just assumed that certain abilities just weren't my God-given talents. Now that I am older and wiser, I figure, who cares if I'm not a natural at something - I can still try. Five, ten, twenty years more are going to pass by no matter what I do. If I fill the time trying out new things and working on goals - maybe I'll discover and develop completely new abilities I wouldn't have if I just do the same old thing.

One of those abilities I am specifically speaking of is playing the piano. I never really had piano lessons growing up and for my teenage and early twenties I figured that meant I'd never be a pianist. I did take lessons for a short while in my twenties, but it was a time of transition and didn't last. Then came babies and motherhood - I had no time to think about developing a new talent from scratch. Then a year and a half ago, I decided I was tired of wishing I could play and envying the ladies who could sit down and play a song at church. I was in young women's then and there was not a single person - leader or girl - who could play the accompanyment for the hymns. I decided that even though it wouldn't solve that immediate problem - sometime down the road if that ever happened again, I wanted to be able to say, "I can play".

Now a year and a half later, I actually own a piano - something that was beyond what I ever imagined. Why spend thousands of dollars on something you can't really use? I had no idea how much I would LOVE playing the piano and how much I would LOVE hearing the sound in my home. It has been the best purchase - besides our house and maybe the van - that we have ever made. It has brought so much joy into my life. When I sit down to play - even though I am still quite a novice - I can't believe that it's me making the music and playing the notes. I am learning a song now that I heard over 12 years ago at a sorority talent show. I still remember the room we were sitting in, my friend Angie who played it and how I felt when I heard it. I was so envious that Angie could play something so beautiful. I don't know if I'm learning the same version she played (it's probably much easier (o: David Lanz "Return to the Heart" if your curious) but when I play it, I can't believe how far I've come. I can't wait to keep getting better and list "pianist" as one of the things that defines me.

"Runner" is another word I never identified with and never really cared to. My experiences running growing up were miserable - I hated running in gym, I never passed off running the mile in jr. high and any time I put forth an honest effort, my side would be in stitches. A few weeks ago, for father's day, Jayson decided he really, really wanted a treadmill. I thought that was great - something to help keep him healthy sounded good to me. Then a few days later, I decided to give it a shot, just for fun. I put on my shoes, but didn't even bother to get out of my pajamas - I was just trying it out. The first little bit was miserable, but for some reason I just kept going. After a little while, it wasn't so bad. I focused on breathing in a rhythm and soon I realized I had almost run a mile - hey!, something I hadn't ever really done before - so I kept going. When I finally had to stop to get Sarah to piano lessons, I had run 2 miles and felt like I could have kept going! This was a huge accomplishment for me! I could not believe it. The next day I wanted to see if I could go farther. 3 miles! The next day I ran 10! (Okay just kidding on that last one. (o: ) I literally cheered out loud after 3 miles - I had no idea I had that in me. I guess my workouts with Gilad (my personal trainer via FitTV) and my visits to the gym were doing some good.

I still don't love running - and don't know if I've completely felt the "runner's high" that everyone talks about unless you count my elation upon discovering that I could run 3 miles - something I never thought I could do or really had much desire to try. But after about three weeks of running 3 times a week, I'm starting to think about trying a 5K. I even have a friend who just did a local triathalon who is encouraging me to join her next year. A few weeks ago I would have laughed out loud. Now, I find myself asking her all kinds of questions about it and imagining what it would be like. Maybe I could actually do it... Above you see my new "running shoes" - who knew I'd ever consider myself a runner? I can't wait to see what other barriers I break in the coming years - what other things will I add to my definition of me? Opera singer? Auto mechanic, sky diver? (o:

Potty Training Woes

Well, we've reached that ripe old age of 3 - when I start thinking that enough is enough with the diapers. Angela has a late birthday and has another deadline - besides her third birthday. She needs to be potty trained for preschool in September. So, while I love the convenience of diapers and hate cleaning up all the accidents and spending lots of time running back and forth from the potty - I finally decided it was time to dive in to the potty training adventure once again.

In this picture Angela is holding her new Cabbage Patch doll that pees - an important element of the "Potty Training in a Day" method. (She is also sporting her new My Little Pony underwear - soo cute, but I didn't want to post the full pic on the blog.) Angela loved the dolly and all the hoopla that went along with her successes. Everything went fairly smooth for the first little bit. She did have a HUGE and I mean HUGE accident the first 30 minutes of training. The program instructs you to give your little student lots and lots of fluids for obvious reasons. I cannot believe just how much Angela's bladder could hold when the puddle beneath her kept growing to gallon-sized proportions. Okay - it probably just looked that way, but I was amazed and thought that we'd never get her to pee again because she must be totally dried out inside. Nevertheless, we did have success after the pee tsunami and things went well the rest of the day. She even pooped on the potty the first day!! Wahoo - Sarah and Natalie were freaked out about this at first when they were training. I thought we had the whole thing in the bag. Easy Peasy.

It's dangerous to think that way. Don't ever think anything with kids will turn out so easy - you will be disappointed about 96.4% of the time. I should never allow the thought, "Wow, that was easy" to cross my mind. Because then the next day came. Things went well until the #2 came. It hit when we were outside - Angela was riding around the garage and driveway on her scooter. Natalie came running over and informed me that Angela ran over some dog poop. You'd think I would have clued in earlier, but I was seriously mad and disgusted at whatever dog left us a little present in our yard. It turned out to be an imaginary dog. I don't know why it took me so long to put two and two together. When I started finding little droppings around the garage I started thinking, "What in the world was a dog doing in our garage?" Then the lightbulb turned on. Duh. It was MY little pet, Angela. The funny thing is that Angela got a little confused and was talking about the dog poop the rest of the day. I had to clarify that it was not a dog, but herself and wasn't that yucky pooping on the ground like a dog? She agreed, "Yeah, it's 'lily' yucky" (Angela says Lily instead of Really)

So, we are on day 4 and haven't had a successful #2 in the potty since day #1. I am getting tired of finding surprises upon inspection of Angela's Winnie the Pooh's. (Ha, no pun intended) Angela HATES the practicing we have to do as her punishment as prescribed in the "Potty Training in a Day" (HA - try multiplying that by 4, 5, 20) After an accident, the potty student has to help clean up and then "practice" running to the potty from the spot and various other locations when they get that "feeling". Here's my favorite "practice" Angela did with daddy yesterday. It went' something like this, Daddy: "What do you do if you are trying on a sombrero from the dress ups and you get that funny feeling?" Angela: "Oh man.." and some dramatic sighs. Daddy: "Angela, what do you do?" Angela: "Run to the Potty". (She used to say this with such gusto, but after practicing around 100 times the enthusiasm is gone.) After an accident when we've practiced 3-4 times Angela usually tells me, "Leave me alone." or exclaims, "Oh Dahn-it" (darn it). It is good that she doesn't like practicing - I'm hoping that will be motivating enough to stop having accidents. Oh please let it motivate her...

Wish me luck!

"Getaway" From the Kid's Point of View

The girls snuggled with grandma during the T-Rex scene on Night at the Museum. (o:

Sarah's favorite thing about the whole beach trip, she said, was the ping pong table. We had a fun "game room" with our beach cottage that had a ping pong table. Sarah challenged each of us big kids to a few games of ping pong and it was nothing short of HILARIOUS. Chris and I laughed our heads off as more times than not, the games ended up being played off everything, BUT the table. It was especially fun because this made Sarah laugh hysterically. I was actually proud that she was doing this - she is such a perfectionist that usually playing something so horribly frustrates her. However, the fact that everyone else stunk at playing too probably made it easier to laugh at herself! Good times.

The minute grandma and grandpa arrived to our house on Wednesday, Sarah talked for about 4 hours straight. She had so many things to tell them about. It was pretty cute. She and Natalie and Angela showed grandma every inch of their rooms, every toy, every doll on their beds, etc. The car ride to the beach was never ending chatter in the back seat. I think a while after we arrived at the beach house Sarah took a breath.

I really enjoyed hanging out with Sarah on this trip and watching her with her grandparents. She is really growing up to be quite a fun young lady and so cute. She had cute jokes and observations and questions. I feel like she is growing right before my eyes and every once in a while it really hits me. Taking a minute to step back and watching her talk to someone else like she often talks to me, it was neat to get a glimpse of my growing girl.

Sarah was all about being brave and trying new things - she loves to "be brave". Sarah is a cautious girl and has many things that make her nervous - but she is trying to be a big girl and conquer these fears. Taunting the ocean while throwing rocks at it and playing chase with grandpa, "Is that all you've got?!" - for example. Then on the boat ride, which she was nervous about, she stayed at the bow almost the whole time and tried not to flinch when it bobbed up and down (I tried not to flinch either). She even held a crab with her bare hands from the crab ring she tossed! Another example: when she was gung ho about boogie boarding and her wetsuit - until she actually got in the water. Then the wind hit and that was it - no more even pretending to be brave. That darn wind just about did Sarah in. I am really proud of her for being our brave girl and trying to step out of her comfort zone to experience some new adventures.

Our favorite quote from Sarah on the trip was a comment to grandpa at the surf shop when he had just put on his wetsuit, "You look like Mr. Incredible, before he exercised!"

The best souvenir ever for all the girls had to be the ukeleles daddy found at the surf shop. Natalie and Angela refer to them as "uke-ladies". Each of the girls got one and grandma showed them a few chords she knew. One of my favorite memories was hearing Chris and the two girls make up their kooky rhymes using the 'my dog has fleas' tune that grandma uses to tune her ukeleles. One person would say a line like, "I can not hear" and then the second person would say something like, "Please lend and ear". Natalie cracked us up by using big words to rhyme like, "that souvenir" Another one that got some of us chuckling was Natalie's reply to "Please scratch my back". She replied, "ii-in the sack."

Natalie had some other funny things that made us laugh - like the way she would hug grandma with her arms and legs - like a baby monkey. This is a very unique Natalie thing - she does this so people will hold her and because she is a snuggle bunny. Grandma came up with a good nickname for Natalie because grandma ended up holding her this way a lot. She called Natalie her "vest"

One of grandma's favorite Natalie comments was on the drive down to the beach. Natalie was drawing some very interesting shapes and objects on her magna doodle. When grandma commented by saying, "you drew a lot of pretty things", Natalie looked at grandma from the corner of her eyes and very matter-of-factly said, "Art." before getting back to business.

Angela was NOT very happy when we were anywhere near the ocean. I worried the boat ride would do her in, but she did much better than expected. At the beach Angela wanted to be as far away from the crashing waves as possible. Poor thing. She was terrified. Another thing Angela did not like was the filtration/cleaning thing that floated around in the hot tub. We had to remove this every time because it scared her so much for some reason. Poor Angela got a stomach ache one night of our trip and moaned quite a bit. She told me that her tummy needed a baind aid. )o:

It wasn't all misery, however. Angela did like a lot of things on our trip too. She liked sleeping in a big girl bed and the freedom it allowed her to hop right out of bed, sometimes too many times. She enjoyed playing with the basket of seashells in our beach house and listening to the ocean in them. She was excited to find a "Patrick" or star fish and a "Mr. Krabs" (references from SpongeBob) when we did some tidepooling. And she loved getting to eat bubble gum Tillamook ice-cream on the way home.

Getaway

We enjoyed a fabulous visit from my awesome in-laws in June. We had so much fun playing at the beach - even though the weather was not cooperating - hanging out in the hot tub, making s'mores in the backyard, making food together in the kitchen - including a live crab, and laughing together a lot. The girls LOVED their grandma and grandpa time. I'll mention just a few of the highlights. #1 Our whale watching boat ride from Newport. We felt a little brave attempting this one, since our last excursion on a boat (two years ago) found 4 out of 5 of our little family sea sick and crying. My mom and dad came along that last time and couldn't believe we literally "tested the waters" again. We were glad we did. The boat was bigger, the ocean was calmer and the kids were older. Natalie and Angela weren't happy with the cold winds, but they found a very happy spot with grandma inside looking out a window and both ended up falling asleep in grandma's lap. Sarah on the other hand, was our adventurous girl. She tried her hand at crabbing, played with another little girl - with whom she showed all her beach treasures she had in her pocket, and oohed and ahhed at the three whales we saw. It was awesome to follow the whales for a little bit and anticipate where they'd be popping up next. We had a wonderful time and were grateful to have a positive experience on a boat again!
Another memorable highlight was going boogie boarding. Well, grandma watched Natalie and Angela while the rest of us went. We all got fitted for wetsuits in Depot Bay, even Sarah. She looked so cute, I had to include a pciture. The boogie boarding was tons of fun, but a little short lived. Sarah actually wasn't too fond of the boogie boarding - it made her nervous and it was very windy and cold. After about 45 minutes of riding the waves, we headed inland for some Lunchables. The weather started getting REALLY windy and the girls were cold. Things went downhill fast. When our beach tent started blowing away, we decided it was time to go! As we headed back, I'm sure we were quite a site. It is HARD to put a tent away in 40 mph winds (that's what they felt like - it was probably close). Chris and I grabbed as much stuff as we could and started heading back with the girls - walking into the blustering winds and flying sand, whiel the boys finished putting away the tent. The girls were crying, my wetsuit boots were filled with sand and water and the short walk felt like the longest trek ever. We just had to laugh at how ridiculous it all was. Thank goodness we had a beautiful beach home and hot tub to return to. We were happy to head back earlier than planned.

A note on the pictures below - Starting at the top left: the Sea Mist beach cottage, the awesome gas firepit in the backyard, Jay teasing Mr. Crabs - lucky he didn't get pinched!, the HUGE waves the first day we arrived - watching Sarah and grandpa play "chase" with the waves was hilarious - especially when grandpa got "tagged"!, and Angela was in heaven holding grandma and grandpa's hands.

Awesome Bokeh!

A couple weeks ago, I got to take pictures at the LDS Portland Temple and a wedding reception of one of the Young Women I taught about 7 years ago! I was very excited and very nervous - doing wedding pictures is a BIG deal. I didn't want to screw them up. I thought it would be fun to rent a lens or two to make the pictures even better and I found the one I want to use the $$ I made from that day. It's the Canon fixed 85mm f/1.8 lens and these are a few pictures I took of Angela with it. I just love the bokeh (the blur in the background - I am a photography nerd) that this lens creates. It is so nice for portraits. It was a ton of fun to use at the wedding, as was the $1700, 70 -200 f/2.8L lens!(FYI - more expensive than my camera) That one will take a while longer to save up for! And the wide angle 10-22 mm lens was awesome. Another one I'll have to save up for! Drat - I need about $20,000 to get all the photography toys I want. Maybe I could win the lottery. I'll post a few pics from the wedding later...

We were in the neighborhood...

We had a wonderful visit last month from my grandparents and aunt Ann who were so nice to make a special stop to see us on their quest to the Redwoods. We had a great afternoon visiting, showing them the house and smelling the roses - literally - together. (o: Natalie and Sarah were excited the whole week and kept asking when grandma and grandpa "artist" were coming. (My grandma painted a beautiful painting we have hanging in our front room - thus the nickname from Natalie - to distinguish them from the other grandma and grandpa Thorup.)After all the visiting and playing in the backyard, we worked up an appetite for dinner. We headed to IHOP and had a wonderful time chatting over pancakes! The girls were gems and LOVED being with great grandma and grandpa and aunt Ann. At one point during the night, Angela got hurt and was very sad. I went to gather her up and see if she was okay, but she didn't want me - she reached out for grandpa! I think she got lots of points from grandpa for that one! (o: Thanks for coming to see us grandma and grandpa and Ann - we love you!

It all begins with a line...

Angela LOVES to draw alongside her big sisters. Up until recently she would mostly color on coloring book pages and draw circles and scribbles. Suddenly she has blossomed into another budding artist just like the big girls. She drew her first "person" this month and she draws whole families of them now. They are about the cutest drawings I've ever seen. She draws big eyes, a flat straight-lined mouth and with our encouragement, she started drawing eyelashes and straight legs. Every one of her people is carefully drawn and she can tell us who each one is in the family - often the pictures include a grandma or grandpa. She is so proud of herself and loves drawing even more with Sarah and Natalie.

A Whole New World

Well, I have been humming and hawing over doing a blog for a few months now. You might notice that my only other posts are clear back in February when I toyed with the idea of doing a blog, rather than my Preece Post e-mails. Well, life has gotten crazy enough that I think this will be the most realistic way for me to continue keeping in touch with all you awesome people. (o:

I have a few issues with doing blogs - like not having as much control over what the blog looks like - I'll figure that out later. I have other issues: worrying about privacy, having backups of my entries and being able to make a hard copy, etc. But the main goal of my Preece Posts was to keep a family history and keep friends and family up to date with our "goings on". Since the Preece Post takes so long to compile, it is becoming fewer and farther between... So short story long - I'm entering a whole new world of communication. I am now officially, a BLOGGER. I hope it will work well. I've done the Preece Post for 5 years straight and I guess I am a bit resistant to change, but here goes...

Mom of the Year

Oh boy. I felt like a winner mom yesterday. I am constantly feeling guilty about this or that - like when I lose my temper with the girls, when I don't spend enough time playing with them, when I am distracted by other less important things, you get the idea.

Here is my excuse for being such a dumb mom yesterday. We've been sick - I have had to cancel just about everything for the past week and a half and my brain was not in my usual "sort of organized" mode. All organization was out the window. Angela got Scarlet fever this week and that kind of threw me off a bit. So yesterday one of Sarah's good friends from school had a birthday party. And boy did it sound like it was going to be a blast. A pool party at a local athletic club with "Wally the Whale" a big blow up pool play structure. A first grader's dream come true.

So Friday night I remembered that this party was going to be happening on Saturday. I hadn't RSVPed because I just plain forgot. Saturday morning was pretty busy, but I wanted to take Sarah to the party - I knew she would not want to miss it. We picked up a gift at Fred Meyer and headed home to get all ready. I even had a new swimsuit for Sarah that I bought about a month ago. She was sooo excited. As I went to grab the invite to bring along my heart sank. At the bottom of the card I saw the words that didn't register the week before, "RSVP by 2/21" - two days earlier. Crap. I told Jayson my dilemma and we just didn't think it would be right to just show up. What if they needed an exact count to pay for the kids beforehand? So as Sarah came bouncing down the stairs with her bright beach towel I just wanted to cry. In hindsight, I would just go anyway and would have explained to Sarah that there might be a chance that we would have to come back if they couldn't accomodate us. I say that because I called Michaela's mom and found out they could have worked it out. Drat.

Instead we decided to try and soften the blow to Sarah by going on a family outing to a park. Sarah was pretty disappointed, but was soon laughing and having a great time at the park. However, when we got home she started to cry. She told me she didn't want to go to school and hear from the other kids about the party and have Michaela ask where she was. Ugh. I wanted to crawl under a rock. Luckily, we came up with a solution that I hope will make up for my horrible mother moment. I called Michaela's mom and explained what happened. We invited Michaela's family on a playdate to "Pump it Up" next week and offerred to pay Michaela's way for part of her birthday gift. Sarah's excitement over the idea slowly took over her disappointment. And the cherry on top was finding out that because Michaela was just getting over strep throat - her mom decided to not do the pool party. They did the rock wall instead at the party. Sarah was relieved to hear she did not miss "Wally the Whale"! Whew.

As for the park, we really did have a wonderful time and even though I was feeling pretty frustrated with myself at first - it was a fun afternoon. The weather was absolutely beautiful. We played hide and seek, we laughed and Angela learned to climb up the slide - which she was so proud of. We played restaraunt, went down the slide together and had some fun with a couple friends from our ward who thought it was a perfect park day too. Hopefully Sarah will remember that part of the day more than mom's dumb mistake.

First Sleepover

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

Monday through Tuesday we had Allie and Luke over while my friend Kim had her baby girl. The kids were sooo excited to be together and were so good. Since having five kids is quite a bit busier than three, I decided to help motivate them to be extra good. The kids earned tickets for being helpful and following directions. They got to use the tickets to buy prizes the next day. It worked like a charm! The big girls were so excited to earn tickets, they helped clean up hundreds of sticks after Jayson pruned the fruit trees. We had a great time and I loved getting to take Allie and Luke to meet little Kate for the first time. She was a doll and it was fun to watch the kids ooh and ahh over their little sister. Allie was particularly proud of her sister so we printed up a couple pictures for her to take to school the next day. Unfortunately, the next day Angela was very sick and ended up getting diagnosed with Scarlet fever. Our fun with Allie and Luke was cut short, but it was fun while it lasted. (o:

Sick Days

We have had an odd couple of weeks - someone in the family has been sick for the past two and a half weeks. We've had a wide array of germs and what I refer to as "yuck" take over our home. Diversity is not always a positive thing. We've had your typical run of the mill colds, influenza, a ruptured eardrum, bronchitis and scarlet fever! Whew! What else can we get? Oh wait - don't answer that. Did you know that scarlet fever is actually a strain of the strep virus - it just includes a fun rash and very high fever in addition to the awful sore throat. Hey, and did I mention that it can also lead to ear infections - which it did in Angela's case?

Our kitchen sink area looks like a pharmacy - amoxicillan (sp?), ear drops, cough syrup with codiene (my drug of choice last week), Dymetap, Children's Tylenol, Children's Advil, throat lozenges, etc. Another clue that we are sufferring from lots of "yuck" is the fact that I have to keep running the dishwasher just to clean all the medicine droppers and liquid medicine cups. Our silverware basket is constantly overflowing with dirty medicine droppers/cups.

Luckily, I think we are finally on the mend. Now my only problem is that I have this stuck in my head... "This day is bananas: B-A-N-A-N-A-S!" Thanks Jays! (This was a chant Kelly did on an episode of "The Office")