All Good Things Must Come To An End

Like kindergarten. Sniff...sniff. Ethan and his teacher.

I love Ethan's head cocked to one side. Huh? I copied this sign from my friend Kami's blog. Thanks for the great idea Kami!
Ethan has been asking to do a lemonade stand for the last few weeks. I kept putting him off and saying "sometime after school is done." He really held me to it cause he wanted to do it the very day that school got out. So here he is with his lemonade stand. I was going to do it on the nice and quiet street by our house but he was smarter than that and knew that he wouldn't get much business there, so we moved to a much busier street. Within 30 seconds of sitting and waiting for customers he goes, "I really hope people come, cause if no one does, that would just be embarassing." People were so nice as they gave him a dollar for a cup of lemonade even though he was only asking 25 cents. As customers came I was feeling so guilty for all the lemonade stands I've passed up in the past. I VOW TO STOP AT EVERY LEMONADE STAND I SEE.

After he sold his first cup of lemonade he was so elated and was jumping up and down. It was cute. His elation quickly turned to despair as he lost the first dollar he made. It had blown away in the wind. Courtney was so nice to come to the rescue and pretended to find it, even though it was her own dollar. Thanks for saving the day Court!

Here's one of his first customers - his cousin Maddie.

This is the soccer team I've been playing on this last season. We're stopping for the summer and hoping to resume this fall. I'm going to miss playing. Its been so much fun.

Our team came in 4th place. Not bad, right? Not really when there are only 4 teams playing. We had fun anyway. This trophy is purely a prop as we found it somewhere in the soccer building to use in our photos. Yeah, we're dorks.

Sometimes...

Hi. I'm back from my blogging hiatus. Sometimes its nice to just lay off the blogosphere for a while. And sometimes it's nice to get back into it. You know what I'm sayin?

Memorial Day weekend was fun. We barked a lot - you know, laid bark. Weedwacked. Sprinklered. Barbequed with the fam. Played kickball. And heard the phrase "baby bouncies" for the first time in decades. Remember, "baby bouncies" and "big bouncies" in kickball? My least shining moment in the kickball game, besides the fact that I couldn't catch the ball worth beans, was when I was trying to tag my 11 year old nephew and I threw the ball right at his head, knocking him to the ground. I think I let my competitive side get the best of me cause I was really determined to get him out. How dare he try and steal a base. Fortunately he wasn't hurt, but still, I'm a little old to be tagging an 11 year in the head.

Nothing is more infuriating to me than this:

Urrggghhh. Cats. Right in my freshly laid bark.

Mother's Day was loverly. Chad took me out to eat that Saturday and he and Ethan made me breakfast on Mother's Day. I love this card and ceramic plate that Ethan made for me at school. Apparently Ethan thinks I'm 10 feet tall and 48 pounds. I love a kid's perspective.

And the plate is a perfect blend of color and simplicity. I love it.

The other day we sent Tido outside to scare this cat away. Tido did not want to go, but I think he felt a little more empowered since we were out there to save him if he needed it. At about the 25 second mark in the 2nd video he looks back to make sure we were still there before proceeding. Come on Tido, it's a cat, all you gotta do is growl and bare your teeth. This is possibly one of Tido's wimpiest moments:

Upon Request

Following the my post, a few people have been curious about my menu, so here it is:I don't think I make anything that everyone else doesn't make, but maybe posting it will get those dinner ideas flowing. I know I always need a lot of help with meal ideas. I do have to add that things like pizza, lasagne, chicken noodle soup, etc are homemade - I try and avoid premade stuff.

p.s. If its too small to read let me know and I'll do something to make it more readable. I can read it but that's because I know my own handwriting.

p.s.s. Just to let you know, so far its been working out great. Half the battle for me with dinners is just deciding what to make and seeing if I have the ingredients to make it. It can be quite stressful. I feel like we're saving money by not wasting, eating healthier, and there's no more stress about 'what am I going to have for dinner tonight??' Its all decided for me.

Tis The Season For...

T-BALL Right before we left for Ethan's first t-ball game he said, "I think I should have played soccer again." He was nervous. As we were waiting for the game to start we noticed that Ethan was crying in the batting line-up. Since we went through this before with soccer and the whole crying thing we decided it was best to let the coach handle it. We saw him talking to Ethan for a few minutes and then the coach comes over to us and Chad goes, "He doesn't want to play?" And the coach goes, "Actually, Ethan is requesting that you don't cheer for him. He knows that you will, and it makes him nervous." OK! Not what we expected to hear.

and PARENTHOOD:

Tido is officially a proud papa of 4 little puppies. This is a picture of Tido's cute baby mama, Samee and her four little ones (3 girls and a boy). Aren't they cute (in their own little newborn way)?and Getting Organized

This is my fridge after I cleaned out all the tupperware containers full of old food. And it was completely FULL before - Like hard to find a place to put things full. Then I went grocery shopping, spent large amounts of money and now I've got a completely organized fridge, freezer, and pantry with food I'm not nervous to eat. PLUS I've got a meal plan for every day of the week except for Saturdays (thats leftovers day) until the 18th of May. I made sure to give Chad a full tour when he got home from work and now I'm tooting my own horn on the blogosphere. The goal is to not step foot in a grocery store for the next 3 weeks.
This is a grocery bag full of all the bread heels that I found in my freezer. We used about an eighth of the bag while feeding the ducks yesterday. The ducks actually swam away after a while. Since when do ducks swim away from food?

A Good Idea, Gone VERY Wrong

On Saturday morning Chad and Ethan were heading out to Home Depot and I suggested they bring Tido with them since dogs are allowed in that store. Plus Tido LOVES any type of outing so I thought it would be fun for all.

Within the first 15 seconds that Chad and Ethan were in the store Tido decided to go poop right on the floor. Chad didn't notice until Ethan tells him, "Uh, dad, Tido just pooped." So they got something to clean it up and headed to another part of the store. As Chad was browsing some things Ethan tells him, "Uh, dad, Tido just peed." There it was, a big ol' puddle of pee on the floor. Again, they went to go find something to clean it up. At this point you can imagine how perturbed Chad was. Not too long after that Ethan goes, "uh, dad, Tido just pooped again." After cleaning up the mess AGAIN, Tido was banned to the car. Chad had spent the first 15 minutes of his Home Depot trip cleaning up after Tido!

Taking Tido on outings always sounds fun in theory, but in the end always becomes much more of a pain.

We had a very lovely Easter weekend filled with sunshine, egg dying, 3 egg hunts, a family dinner, and of course many reflections and gratitude turned towards our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Ethan at the friend Easter egg hunt at the park.

Flashback Friday

Ethan came home complaining today about his bad day at school. In p.e. the class had to run two laps around the track, which he wasn't happy about. Then we started discussing school and how he doesn't like it. How he wants to go back to preschool cause its so much more fun. Apparently kindergarten is too much work.

So I started talking about how much I LOVED kindergarten. I went in the afternoon and I remember just longing to go to school. The afternoon didn't come soon enough. It was an 'If You Give A Moose A Muffin' moment as I started to reminisce about the good ol' elementary school days. Then of course I had to whip out the old scrapbooks of my schoolwork. Which of course I had to look at all the old pictures and read all my "squiggle stories" (as they were called) to Ethan, which he actually enjoyed. I noticed I used the word weird a lot and spelled bushes 'booshes' - I love those phonetic spellings that kids do. Then there was a light bulb moment of this blog post. And who knows, maybe we'll end the day with Ethan's complaints about school again.

Ahhh....squiggle stories. Its the one thing I remember about 2nd & 3rd grade (except for stapling two of my fingers together). Did anyone else do these? The teacher draws a funky line on a paper and then you create a picture out of it. Then from the picture you write a story. I loved them. I also loved how every Friday my teacher popped popcorn during lunch recess and the smell would come wafting out the windows. Then we'd come in from recess and eat the popcorn while some of the students read their squiggle stories. Oh, those happy childhood memories...

This is my class in 2nd grade. If I were in Facebook I'd tag the people I'm facebook friends with, which is 7 of them. Can you guess which one I am?

Disney Dreamin'

So, our Disneyland Spring Break was awesome. The only thing that keeps Disneyland from being the happiest place on earth for me would be the crowds - I could definitely do without the crowds. Our next trip to Disneyland will be planned around the least busiest time of year. But honestly the lines weren't all that long. I would say we waited 20-30 minutes on average. I loved the fast passes. After a while I felt like everything should have a fast pass - lines at the snack stands, bathrooms, shops, etc.

Everything went off without a hitch - we got our tickets, which we were a little nervous about since they were getting dropped off at our hotel by an ebay seller. Admittedly we did get a little nervous when we were checking in and the people at the front desk couldn't find them for about 5 minutes. But they did and we were happy. Travel was great. We made a family mix cd to make the long roadtrip pass a little quicker. Even Ethan had a couple of requests for songs (So What, by Pink and Bleeding Love, by Leona Lewis ...keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love...) Weather was perfect. Hotel was really nice - it could have been a little closer but it wasn't too bad. And to top it all off we had fun! Here are some pics to prove it.

Here we are posing with our churros. Our favorite amusement park snack. We tried to be frugal and pack our own lunches but we (Ethan and I) always had to have our daily dose of churros.
This was taken on Ethan's first rollercoaster ride ever - Thunder Mountain. For his first time he got to sit with his grandma Judy. Did I mention that we had the pleasure of having her come with us?? We're so glad she did. She was a TROOPER as she has some knee issues, and never complained as we walked ALL DAY LONG.


This was taken right before we got super dizzy while spinning and spinning on the teacups. You can tell by our happy faces that the dizziness hadn't officially started yet.

Here's Chad in the middle of making us dizzy.

Ethan at Autotopia. I dare say, not the funnest ride.
This. I loved this show. It was the Jedi Training Academy. It was cute because the Jedi trainer called up about 20 kids to be trained. They got their brown robes and light sabers and they learned some Jedi moves. After their training some storm troopers arrived along with Darth Vader and Darth Mal and each kid got to fight one of them. It was really cool. Ethan didn't want to go up, but he enjoyed watching. I'm glad we watched this one.
Then that night we met up with my Auntie Jan (middle) and her hubby Brian and they treated us to a yummy dinner at a local restaurant and then dessert at their house. We also met up with my brother Dave and his wife Kathy (right) as they happened to be at Disneyland for Spring Break also.
2nd day. We headed over to California Adventure and went straight for Soarin' Over California. It was definitely a fun one and not too built up by everyone as I was afraid it would be. This picture was taken as we were on the raft ride. We did this one in the morning since it was only a 5 minute wait. We paid the price for doing it so early in the day since we had to walk around the rest of the day with wet clothes, wet shoes, and in my case, nappy hair. But it was fun nonetheless.

Ethan and I on the bumper cars. This one kept breaking down so we were happy we even got to go on it.
We met up with our friends who live in Orange County (they're behind Chad in this pic and one of their sons is next to Chad) in the afternoon. It was so fun to see them and their kids and to meet their two littlest ones who we haven't met before. I love this picture cause Chad seems so interested in 'Its A Small World.' Admittedly it is a little better than what it used to be.
We got bored as we waited in the hour and ten minute line at Space Mountain, so we decided to take some pictures to pass the time. We somehow met up with Dave and Kathy and fam in line and let them cut in with us. The people in back of us were very gracious about it and said 'its all gravy.' FYI those people were blessed in the end cause they got to go ahead of us as the car in front of us needed two people to fill it up.

3rd day. We met up with my bro and his fam in the afternoon. This is Ethan with his cousin Gwen.

I have to say that my 3 favorite rides were: Space Mountain, Screamin' California, and Soarin' Over California. I love roller coasters. Ethan's favorites were: Haunted Mansion and Thunder Mountain. He wasn't a big fan of any of the dark tunnely ones (Splash Mountain, Pirates, Indiana Jones). And Chad's favorites were Screamin California and Soarin' Over California. We had a great time. I'm glad we finally made the trek out there.

On our way home we stopped at Chad's house for a couple of nights and I got to see 3 of my oldest and dearest friends. Shelby (left) - I've known her since I was 3 years old and she just had her fourth baby 2 weeks ago. Ann (in white) - I've also known her since I was 3 years old and she has 3 kids. Rebecca (next to me) - Had her fourth baby 6 weeks ago. They were so kind to get together last minute. It was so much fun seeing them and they all look beautiful as they always have.
Here I am with Ann's parents. They're amazing people and it was so good to seem them since I hadn't seen them for at least 6 years. They've been in Africa serving for the church. You may have noticed that Pres. P gave the closing prayer for the Saturday morning conference. Go Pres. P!