riley turns THREE

Since the Caelan turned ONE year old, I have made cupcakes in the early morning.... then that morning for breakfast we all have cupcakes to celebrate that persons birthday. i mean what a treat to have a cupcake before lunch! around here we stick to the rules, no treat until you eat all your lunch or dinner, so the girls have loved having a huge treat like this.... a they have gotten older they have been able to "help" with making them...

this year they basically were able to do it all, other than pour the batter in the cupcake pan... that's something we need to work on, it was a disaster, but hey, we had fun right? :)

The next stop was swim lessons, ya-ya and nana were there to join us!

after swim lessons we headed out to the beach with nana and spent the afternoon there! the weather was perfect! i stitched more of the quilt squares for Riley's birthday quilt! yes, i am still stitching! the girls enjoyed swimming in the ocean, it has really become a favorite place to go this summer.... we didn't spend much time at the beach last summer, other than eric, who went quite a bit to surf...

we came back to the house and katie had called and said they were on their way! we all laughed cause the day just got so jumbled! none of us seemed to know what to do for the day! :)

my parents and my sister were coming over for dinner, so everyone joined in the fun for

spaghetti, salad and bread! that's what Riley wanted.... we even kept changing the menu

first it was homemade pizza, but that changed too! it was such a confusing day.... BUT in the end, none of the confusion mattered because Riley was in heaven and had a really great day! and that's all that matters!

it is very important in this house to make sure that when it is your birthday, we have a birthday dinner for you.... so it was neat to be able to share that with family!

for her birthday, we got her a new bed. we actually got it the day before her birthday... :)we sold the bunk beds on Craig's list and needed to pick one out for her. we went to several stores.... we allowed her to pick out her own bed.... this was the one she fell in love with.... perfect to have a friend spend the night and a trundle underneath if there is more than one friend staying! and perfect for Riley since she sleeps a bit restlessly, now she has plenty of room and has been sleeping through the night! :) yeah! and the bed was a total deal! so double plus!

then..................... back home we went and we made spaghetti, salad and bread! yum! and brownies for dessert!

Mimi scored points with a Dora nightgown... Nana scored points in giving Riley a blanket for bunny that Nana had made herself! Riley liked all the gifts.... first year that everything was such a hit! :) ya just never know with little kids what they will end up liking! Riley is easy to please and loved every bit of it! thanks everybody! all of you are amazing at showing our kids such love! :) we appreciate you!

caelans first day of school....

caelan started school about two weeks ago but i haven't had a chance to post the blog about it all yet.... i was able to post my 'thoughts and feelings' on it all but i hadn't gone through all the pix yet, and of course there were 100's of them- surprise surprise! but, hey come on. give me a little slack- after all i had to take a lot of photos since it was her 1st day of kindergarten!






here is caelan with her teacher....






















 here are me and my girls on our porch before school!























nana came....
here is her classroom.... she mentioned to her ya-ya that she doesn't have a desk, she had a craft table! :)


























here is her classroom!!!















here are all the kids in her class all lined up, ready to go! and the kid behind her.... yeah, that's her new friend. within 2 minutes of the first day "they were friends".....











notice the caption on the pic.

(click on any pix on this site to enlarge the view)

swim lessons august 6-15. 2008

swim lessons....

my kids have never taken swim lessons, yeah, so fire me!

first, on a side note:

It is hilarious the amount of opinions and comments you get from people, especially moms at the park, whats up with moms at parks?.. ooh, or the grocery store! shoot, everyone wants to tell you what kind of mom to be.... its so funny to me...

so, no my kids haven't been doing swim lessons like some of the people out there that have had their kids in lessons since zero.... :) everyone does what works for them....

so, amazingly, my mom was generous and offered to pay for the lessons, so Eric and i thought since it was such an amazing offer, we said let's do it! the lessons were every day for two weeks... swim lessons are so very important, just haven't had the money to do it... we aren't around the water at all, unless at the lake and they obviously wear life jackets, so it was never an urgent thing.... but anyhow...... having them in lessons was pretty amazing!

they did great. Riley is quite a swimmer, she is a very strong little girl, built like a gymnast, she just scoots across the water with no trouble... she is great at swimming under water like a frog, get the visual? there is probably a technical name for it, but that's all i can think of to describe it... she is also doing great at using her "big arms!" they call it in her lessons. she adored her teacher miss jade, but i think her teacher adored her just as much as she adored her if not more so! it was very cute the friendship they established by the end of the two weeks.... jade even had all the kids sing happy birthday to her on her birthday which made Riley's day.... and she even let her jump off the diving board THREE times since she is 3 years old, and the diving board is Riley's favorite!!!!!!!!!!!!! the second day was the first time she jumped, crazy, i know.... she asked to go jump off and her teacher kinda looked at us for the go ahead and i shrugged and said, "whatever... (shes crazy)" ever since that's all she wants to do! :) not usually something they do the second day of lessons, but hey, worked for riley! :)

video day TWO


video day THREE

Lou, she is such a fish. she loves the water! she loves swim lessons and loves the social interaction with others, we had to tell her a few times to stop chatting and listen to her teacher, miss debbie. it was hilarious... guess we may have a few parent teacher phone calls saying 'she talks too much in class" i think i had those every report card! ;) but anyhow, she is doing very well too, using 'big arms' but she is having trouble with her 'kickers'.... she is very very petite. some of the shorts she wears are still 24 month old.... hello, she is FIVE.... but she's getting there, she will just be smaller than the other kids her age! so anyhow, we are working with her trying to get her big and strong! but she can swim pretty darn far!!!

so, anyhow, kids did amazing. we went to the river the weekend of the first set of lessons (so, after 4 days of lessons) and when we beached the boat to hang out in a cove on the sand we had them practice jumping off the back of the boat and they did amazing. crazy how quick it all happens with a little bit of help using the lessons. a valuable gift that my mom blessed us with for our girls. thank you! we appreciate your help with it! next year eric and i plan to enroll them in lessons through out the summer, two sessions, which is a whole month worth! by then they should be all set to go, and then we'll see after that....

August 6-10th....................

the classic riley and caelan shot!

River time! We all went to the lake house.... what all of us??? yep, we all went! even Claire! We haven't all been to the river together in a very long time (of course it was Claire's 1st time), so we took advantage of the summer time, and the time Katie and Mike have had off since moving back to Virginia before getting jobs.

The weather was perfect- not too hot- but it was a little stormy and the water was pretty blown out for the most of the time.... which didn't allow for ANY ski time which is odd, but we did test out the new tube mike and Mary bought.... its a new double person one.... and i am not one for tubing. i didn't have the smoothest of rides my first attempt (thanks to my father-in-law ripping me around the water)... :). i haven't trusted it since! but we gave it a go and i figured if Mary was on with me he wouldn't rip us around.... and he was very nice! and i actually liked tubing... it was a blast! lots of laughter that's for sure.... Eric got a wild ride though- mike wasn't as nice to him! :) he can take it! :) then mike and mary rode, and mike couldn't seem to stay on, guess eric wasn't so nice driving the boat with them in tow?? :).... oh and how can i forget to mention that riley rode on the tube with eric! she's our little daredevil always wanting to do crazy stuff... she loved it! of course mike drove the boat slower than usual but still, she rode the tube with guts and glory! :) and was smiling the whole way through!!! :)

anyhow, we all kinda shared in bringing meals and preparing them each meal which helped not put the load all on one person which was great.... Claire did amazing, she loved the boat and her life vest fit perfectly even at 7 weeks old! she slept most of the time and loved being in her car seat on the sand when we 'beached' the boat and hung out for the greater part of the day...

Mary and I did some sewing which was great! I needed to work on some things for Riley's birthday. I have been working on her quilt from her FIRST birthday, pathetic i know, but we have had to stitch all of the squares that people signed at the birthday... which has taken forever! mary helped me quite a bit, thank goodness, eric even figured out to stitch his own!!! :) holy moly! :) but anyways, i needed to cut all the fabric to start designing and piecing the quilt! then after that we even took a little time to show the girls to sew! Mary helped Caelan make a blanket for her dolls and I helped riley make a blanket for "leo" her bunny... and of course I made one for Claire- she had to have one too ;)

Eric and Mike did a little cliff diving, or jumping i guess.... Not my favorite thing to watch being i am overly paranoid of injury with it all.... but they jumped, i closed my eyes while capturing it all on film.... good thing i got them in the frame!

after that we swam a little by the dam and then decided we should head back in and its a good thing we did.....the rain sure came down!!!! glad we got off the water in time. (god is good-not fun to be out there in a storm, rough waters and lightening)....

anyhow, all and all, good times.

I'm back!

Well I am back! I am getting a new schedule down.... with a daughter starting kindergarten this week, and my other daughter doing school for her therapy, and my husband being off only 2.5 weeks for the whole summer since he spent his summer teaching life has been nuts!

I am getting together all of my updates now.... I have updated my shutterfly recently and am working on updating a few more things on there, but I will be getting caught up here too! check back later on, i promise you'll see some new stuff! Goodness, a lot of you have sure been nagging me! :) and the naggers don't have a blog, so get with it and set something up so we can both share what's up! :)

later on...

busy....

life is so hectic. i have been thinking about updating the blog as days go by, and then only to have out i am only adding to the amount of updates.... i have been turned into a bus driver! :) we have been going to support the girls in swim lessons (that my mom helped us pay for or we wouldn't have been able to have the girls in lessons- thanks mom!).... riley has had therapy and just had her IEP with Anaheim district.... caelan has testing for kindergarten along with orientation.... life is crazy.... we have been to Palm springs with 9 couples as our FIRST ever in FIVE years getaway- thanks mike and mary for keeping the girls to make that possible... we went to the river.... riley turned THREE and got a new big girl bed!.... we have sold a TON of stuff on Craig's list- every day we have someone else coming over to pay and pick up! feels good getting rid of those un-needing things and getting some money to pay bills!................ anyhow, life is crazy. we are having a very small party tomorrow so i have been sewing like crazy.... a quilt for riley.... and three table cloth scarfs!..... so i will be updating. i promise. i know so many of you think i fell off the earth- well it feels like it sometimes.... but really i will be updating this next week. Monday is the day................ so check for updates then! hopefully i will get most of the way caught up by then! :)
hope you are all doing well... i am off to bed.... its late. :(

update

well, first i have to share a cute picture. i let the girls lay in my bed one morning last week and watch a show.... a few minutes later i already found them playing in their rooms, guess the show wasn't that big of a deal.... well the left behind 'their friends'..... and lucy somehow made it on the bed with them, that had to be caelan to put her up there, she'll never be able to jump up on a bed not even after a lifetime of trying, she is after all a teacup yorkie, a hole 5 or so pounds and she's pretty much full grown.... anyhow, lucy loved their friends 'bearcat' and 'bunny'....

well, other than that..... life is busy. i have been so behind at 'blogging'.... i will try and catch up.... i have posted a few blogs following this one and i will try and do some more tomorrow..... its been swimming lessons, oh and eric and i hired a babysitter for the first time to go out on a date with our friends matt and kendra, that's a big thing! we have also been making some cards for different occasions, caelan went to Vacation Bible School, first time ever since she is going into kindergarten! holy cow, hard to say kindergarten, my little girl isn't so little anymore.... the girls and i went to free movie day at brea cinema's the day of the 5.4 earthquake! wow was that an event! yikes, we were there with my friend elizabeth and her son carter.... so we'll have to post from that day too.... just a lot going on.... eric and i went away for the FIRST time in FIVE years. we went with 9 married couples to palm springs from friday through sunday this last weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and we go to the lakehouse this weekend............................. busy busy busy. i'll try and catch you all up to speed.... until then, i hope you start bloggin! we want to know whats up with you! :)

have a great weekend..... i'll be blogging again soon! :)

at it again. house-re-do.

well, okay, so, yeah.... we like paint. we like 'to paint'..... well, this was an unplanned painting situation but because we were dreading the 'baseboard project' we were forced to paint 'again'.....

i grabbed the caulk gun, grabbed the caulk i have seen eric use for the doors and decided i could caulk the baseboards while he was at work. i was so proud of myself and i was so happy. smiling ear to ear at the fact that i really did figure it all out and i was having fun doing it, and i feel i was doing it well, i even found i was getting a whole system of doing it. you kinda develop a system after 5 rooms.... yep, the whole house needed it.... i tackled the living room, dining room, hallway, bathroom 1 and bathroom 2 and laundry room.... whew! well, after 3 years of the paint being on the wall it made for a difficult time making it all look good when i went to touch up the walls and it didn't match.... fade time, dirty time, scuffs, etc, the walls looked horrible..... well then the truth came out, eric confessed he 'hated the color'.... news to me. i had complained that it isn't flexible with decorating for the holidays but i obviously loved it since i picked it! :) so, yep, eric choose to paint! over night all the furniture was situated in the living room, i patched the holes and he told me to go back and paint all the baseboards white and he would roll the walls with the new color..... so, teamwork! we did it! and i will admit i was irritated, its a lot of work, a mess, like you are moving in all over again rearranging furniture back and such.... well then, ellen and eric confessed they hated the arrangement of the furniture. i told them my thoughts, we combined all of our thoughts and bam! all done! now, even ellen is happy! and she doesn't even live here but hey, we value opinions and are open to suggestions! well, not now, we're closed! we don't want to do anything else.
i laughed because when eric made the decision to paint it all over again he hadn't read 'the blog'..... i had blogged recently about being done with the house work and ready to focus on the kids and he's tearing up the living room, dining room and hallway, which mind you is half the house :) well, he then confessed he never has read the blog..... so you'll all have to give him a hard time and tell him you saw something really really cool! he'll probably play like he knows what you are talking about! silly eric.... anyhow, room is ALL done! and WE ALL LOVE IT! EVEN THE GIRLS. :) SO TIME TO QUIT WORKING ON THE HOUSE AND ENJOY TIME TOGETHER AS A FAMILY, RIGHT ERIC ? :)
anyhow...... guess you'll have to come over and check it out! :)
no, i am sure i will post pictures for ya at some point but we havent taken any yet! but,
i swear now that there are so many blogs roaming around people don't feel the need to call each other anymore, since they know whats going on, but we don't know whats going on in your life unless you too have a blog.... and people don't get to share the excitement of what they have done around the house or projects, or what have you, cause everyone sees it on their blogs! :)

anyhow, get started on a blog and give us a call and we'll give you a call! gotta connect! not just through the computer! :)

the beach.

July 27th..... 2008 the US Open Surfing Competition at Huntington Beach... we love it! we go every year. this year we went on sunday which was a first for us, we normally go on saturday, as it lasts all weekend. sundays are much less crowded!

this year we shopped, walked a little, went down to the sand, walked the vendors, picked up cheesy stickers companies passed out free (since we collect them, and are now putting them on our fridge at home along with erics cabinet in the garage....) after finding free cheesy stickers we moved the car down a ways and decided to hang out and lay out! well the kids decided to go in the water, and i was totally shocked to see riley all the way out in the water with eric! crazy! she has really become our water-baby.... sudden shift from how she was with the water even a short month ago.... now we can't get her to come back out of the water... :) anyhow, we hung out all day, the girls were wiped, we were wiped, and lucy was lonely at home :(

anyhow. good times. we love the beach. we are a family that will be spending a whole lot of time TOGETHER at the beach. it normally consists of eric going surfing and coming home, well now we can all go and enjoy the water since riley is over her first dislike : sand and her fear : water. we're all set and ready to go now! yippppeeee :)

i loved just sitting and relaxing. i love it that the kids are older. no pack-n-play to haul with us, no juice cups (oh yeah we ditched all of those and the kids now have 'normal' drinks in normal cups (apple juice or sprite for riley and now that caelan is FIVE we allow diet pepsi every now and then- oooh big stuff- yeah we're strict, just don't want the whole soda thing around yet.... every one has their own rules, their own way to do things.... :)

i was so happy to be with my family. ;) i love being happy, but who doesn't? :)

proof that she's over her dislike of sand

proof she has no fear of water, being she also apparently has no fear of waves- didn't think that would go over well, but she asked to go out, and told eric to keep going further, of course he was stoked on that! i was nervous, him stoked. yeah the mom vs. the dad. total different perspectives as it is with most households :)

caelan's sand castle

dude- yeah, our daughter has 'hops'

time to bury daddy!

all tired out.