Country Fair

Last night was our elementary school's annual carnival, The Country Fair. The girls both entered cakes in the cake decorating contest and both won 2nd place for their grade. They were very excited. We had a great time except for the fact that I spent most of the night having to volunteer at booths. Each class runs one booth and I have three children at the school so that means three booths! When I went to check in and see which booth I was at first they said, "Oh you're the lady that signed up for so many." It's not that I am so willing to give of my time it's just three kids equals three booths and I doubt that anyone else at our school has three kids all attending the same school! But next year Amanda heads off to Middle school so that puts me down to two! You'll notice Connor is not in any of the pictures. He was there with us for a short time, but he and Shaun headed off to a Father-Son camp out last night! It really was fun to just have a girls night last night!




Amanda and her friend Amelia with their prize winning cake!

Sam with her 2nd place ribbon.

The girls.

Mads and Amanda doing the Caterpillar obstacle course, which Mads lost her bow in! I had to send a little girl we know back through to find it!

Mads hanging out, and getting disgustingly dirty and sticky at the Country Fair.

Madison's obsession

Madison is OBSESSED with toothbrushes! She is always carrying them around or chewing on them. She is just the right height that she can open the drawers in either bathroom and grab them out. At our house toothbrushes seem to spend more time in the dishwasher being cleaned then they do in the bathroom! On the plus side, since she has started walking they don't seem to get as dirty! When she crawled around with them in her hand the bristles got disgustingly dirty! A friend of ours, who happens to be a dentist, saw her with some and was very proud that she was so concerned with good oral hygiene at such a young age! I suggested that he give me a few of the toothbrushes he hands out at his office with his name on them for her to carry around for some free advertising, because we take them EVERYWHERE! Plus, it would save me the small fortune I am going through constantly replacing the ones we loose or the ones that in good faith I really can't let my kids use again. I mean we take them EVERYWHERE!

Memorial Day

A couple of days before Memorial day Shaun and I were talking about what we wanted to do. He said he wanted to go do something outside and active, he didn't want to just take the kids to a movie or anything like that. Naturally I suggested going to a mall. We live in Southern California where the majority of malls are outdoor malls and walking up and down is certainly active! It may not have been exactly what he had in mind but he went for it anyway. Since we were going for this whole "outdoor nature" theme for Memorial Day we headed out east to the Viejas Indian Reservation which has a great outlet mall that is very nature themed. Lots of water and rocks and plants , and its on different levels, so there was definitely "hiking" involved (with a double stroller, no less!). We all really had a great time, except maybe Sam. She saw a jacket in the first store we went into she just HAD to have (I did not agree, the only thing she has more of than shoes is jackets!) and so she whined almost the entire time, except for when I pulled the camera out, she didn't want to look bad on my blog! She also reminded me this morning before school that she could be wearing a new jacket to school if I had bought her one! I told her to go pick one of the 8 or so out of her closet. That did not go over well. Good times!

She did it!

Madison turned fourteen months on Tuesday and the scales finally tipped! Her crawling-walking ratio finally tipped to the walking side! She definitely walks more than she crawls now. Every once and awhile she still drops to her knees if she wants to get somewhere real quick (like if a sibling drops a fruit snack!) but for the most part she is just walking. On the plus side I got to go and buy her her first two pairs of real walking shoes. Quite honestly the girl probably has more shoes than anyone in this house (except maybe Sam!) but none of them intended for real walking! But, I will miss watching her "gorilla" crawl (ever since she started crawling she has crawled with her left hand in a fist like a gorilla!) but you can't beat a stiff legged, "I might fall at any second" walk! Way to go Mads!

Wedding Day

On Saturday our family got to go up to Redlands California to attend Shaun's cousins wedding. We had a great time! I was especially proud of my two big girls who, while Shaun and I sat in a cool air conditioned room of the temple, they roamed the temple grounds taking turns pushing a double stroller ( containing their younger brother and sister) in 100 degree heat for about 40 minutes! I had originally planned to stay out with them and watch the kidos during the ceremony, but the girls thought they could handle it (with the help of Shaun's uncle), and they did wonderfully! After the ceremony we attended the wedding luncheon-reception in nearby San Bernadino. The best part of that was being able to spend time with Shaun's parents, even if it was for only a couple of hours! While we were doing this our home teacher was slaving away in the heat down in Poway to get our AC fixed, so we could return to a cool home! A good day all in all!

Man it's hot

Man it's so hot my chocolate is melting. It's been up to 100 degrees today. Its been dripping on the piano. While it's melting Amanda and I have been having fun seeing how gooey it gets.

posted by Samantha Young

My Favorite Things

I can't believe I've been blogging for this long and have not included this on "My Favorite Things" posts yet, because I LOVE it! RUBIOS! Another thing that I can't believe is that I lived in California for about 10 years before even trying it. They are a fast food chain that is famous for their fish tacos. See, wouldn't that scare a few of you away also? Then one night Shaun brought home some of their chicken tacos for dinner. I've been hooked ever since. I can't get enough. Can you go wrong with a place that has churros in their kids meals, and a huge HUGE aquarium full of exotic fish? The place is fantastic! If you've been to a Rubios before you know what I'm talking about, if you've never been to a Rubios I would suggest finding one near you as soon as possible. If there is not one near you I would suggest moving. Seriously.

Happy Mother's Day

My mom and I are alike in many ways and one of those is that we hate having out picture taken! This was the most recent picture of us together that I could find. I was one month old. We'll maybe it's not the most recent, but it's one of the few that I found that I like my hair in and that I don't think "Boy, I need to loose some weight!", when I look at it. Just wanted to let my mom know how much I love and appreciate her and hope I can be half the mother to my kids that she has always been to all of us, right boys? Love you Mom!

I can't let Mother's day pass without giving a shout out to the Mother that raised my husband. She raised a wonderful husband and father and I can't thank her enough. I know someday I will have to put my son in another woman's care, and it won't be easy (I'm a bit of a control freak, I wonder if she'll still let me pick out his outfits every day?), but I hope I can be as loving and accepting of her, as Vicki has always been of me! Thank you Vicki, love you!

Mother's Day, Samantha style

I don't know if many of you know this about my Sammy, but she is OVERLY concerned about things being exactly fair, or exactly even, to her advantage. Quite often Shaun stops at 7-11 on his way home from work and gets all the kids a treat. Inevitably the first question out of Sam's mouth is, "How much did Amanda's and Connor's treats cost?" Then she wants to know how much hers cost. If hers cost less than theirs we then "owe" her the difference. And she keeps track! I can buy Sam a pair of shoes on Monday, and then come home with a pair for Amanda on Thursday, and she will end up in tears because I didn't buy her a pair, and it's just not fair, I ALWAYS buy new stuff for Amanda, and not her. I remind her that she got a new pair on Monday, but according to her that was four days ago, so they are not new anymore, and Amanda's are, so it is still not fair! Somehow that seems to make sense in her head! So the reason I am posting this is because last night Sam went to a little craft class and made this completely edible basket for me for Mother's day. This morning she noticed on my blog that I had posted about my Mother's day tea at Connor's preschool. She immediately went and found my camera so that I could take a picture of her with the basket and then asked me to post it on my blog. I told her I would. About five minutes later she asked me if I had posted it yet, and she has continued to ask me all morning. So here I am posting about my edible Mother's day basket from Sam. I do love it and in fact before the picture was taken I broke off one of the chocolate covered pretzel rods right in the front and popped it in my mouth. I figured that would be OK since it was my basket. Not OK with Sam. Even though it is for Mother's day, which would make me the natural recipient, and even though I paid the $20 for her to go to the class, it is still considered hers since she made it and I need to ask her if I want to eat anything off of it! I LOVE that girl! She makes life so interesting! Thanks Sam!

Mother's Day Tea

Today was the Mother's Day Tea at Connor's preschool. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, and I missed some great Kodak moments! As we were eating our finger sandwiches and drinking our tea (I opted for pink lemonade!) his teacher shared these forms she had helped the kids fill out. It was funny to hear how much our kids thought we weighed and how old they thought we were. Of course they totally underestimated in both categories, except for one kid that guessed his mom's age to be 67. She did not seem amused. The best part was when she shared the "In her free time she likes to..." line. The first one the teacher shared the little girl had said her mother likes to read, the next was go to the gym, then the third was "Nap" That mother seemed mortified! I think she felt bad because the two previous moms children had answered what all the rest of us were hoping our kids answered. She turned red and started making excuses for why he had said that! The funny thing was, with the exception of two other overly ambitious mothers who also apparently like to work out and go to the gym, all the rest said "Nap", or in my case, "Lay in her bed and rest". But poor little Connor, when they got to his she had to point out that when asked what my name was he didn't know! After it was over I asked him if he knew what my name was. He answered the obvious, "mom".

I said, "No, my first name."

He had no clue. So I had to start prompting him,

"Is it Shaun?"

"No, that's dad's name."

"You have NO IDEA what my name is?"

"Oh, yeah, it's Sister Young!"

Even when I finally told him, it didn't seem to ring a bell! Oh, well I guess I'm just mom to him and that's OK. What's more important is that he knows how much I love him and that I really do love to hug him all the time!

Field Trip to Sea World

Madison and I got to go on Connors field trip to Sea World last week and we had a blast! Most of the pictures I took were in one of the darkened, cool aquarium rooms, because that is where we spent most of out time. It was REALLY hot that day, about 100 degrees! Good times were had by all and the only one who got blisters on her feet was Madison(the only one NOT walking!). I put some sandals on her feet with tight straps so that I wouldn't lose them! Anyway, they were really cute and matched her outfit perfectly. You're never too young to learn that sometimes us women sacrifice comfort for beauty!

Champions!

Well, softball season is officially over for both girls. Amanda had a great season, but her team got knocked out of the play-offs in the first round. Sam also had a great year, and her team ended up winning the division championship! Yeah! She was very excited! She had a great year and was even invited to try-out for the all-star team. Unfortunately, the try outs for all-star and many of the tournament games are on Sundays. We did all we could to try and get around it. But, unlike a "Children's Friend" experience they did not change try-outs for us, or tell her she could play, even if she couldn't make it to the Sunday games. Oh well, as I had to explain to Shaun (over and over!) some of the lessons we have to teach our children, are more important that 9 year old girl softball all-star teams! He eventually came around, (honestly, I think he was more excited about her playing than she was!) and was happy with the decision we made. Our family has really enjoyed the season this year and look forward to many more in the years to come!

The official signing of the jerseys. A softball tradition.

A shot of Sam's team and the runner-up team!