The Last 6 Weeks

So i don't know what my problem has been with blogging lately. Every time i think about it i get stressed out. Probably cause i promised pictures of the house all cute and decorated and i cant even seem to get it all the way unpacked let alone decorate it. So there are no pictures of the house just everything else. This is all that as happened in the last 6 weeks. Enjoy!Ryan graduated preschool. We did a very low key swim party. It was a blast. Ryan was just happy to see his friends from " California" again. He doesn't realize that we still live in Cali. LOL

So that the little siblings didn't feel left out we let them join in the fun, it was adorable.

Look at this picture closely, you will get a good laugh :o

The three that were actually in preschool.

Avery, Ryan, and Audra

Me and my mama have been cooking it up in the kitchen. I love my kitchen, its one of my favorite places to be these days.( as long as I'm not doing the dishes)

Ryan has finally made new friends. He is such a social butterfly. The first thing he asks in the morning is 'who am i going to play with today?'

We have one small apple tree in the back that is bearing fruit. The kids were so excited. I love this picture too:)

Lacy has hit the terrible two's. Here she is with my mascara all over her face.

AND here she is with a packet of hot cocoa all over her and the chair. At least it smells like chocolate now!






The Birthday

Lacy turned two on June 18th!

I wake up to Ryan running in my room to remind me that it is Lacy's birthday so we go get Lacy and Ryan insists that we open AT LEAST one present so i give in and go get one. I think Ryan was more excited that Lacy. But she was very happy. She loves animals so i got her some littlest pet shop stuff and she loves it so much.

Our traditional pancake breakfast. I had to relight the candle like ten times. She loved blowing it out.

Later that night we had a little family celebration. I love this cake and so did Lacy. Ryan only ate the cake and Lacy only ate the frosting. They couldn't be more different. We then opened presents. More littlest pet shop and a baby doll from Grandma and Grandpa Longhurst.




The Party

I decided to throw a small party to celebrate Lacy's Birthday. Well It ended up being not that small but so much fun. We had cup cakes, hot dogs, chips and drinks and lots of water( the kind you play in). I have to tell of the unfortunate incident right before all the guests got to the party. So i set up the tables and brought out the water and the cupcakes and decided to move the table well about 20 seconds later it decided it didn't like where i moved it and crashed down. Not only did the cupcakes fall, the glass plates and then the water on top of that. I was horrified. That was the only desert and i didn't have any more. So i salvaged the ones that i could and threw the rest away. I still cant believe it happened. But the rest of the party turned out great. One of the little girls told her mom that this was the best day of her life and my Grandpa said it was the best little kid party he had ever been too. He might have been saying that to be nice but i am taking it to heart. The kids did have a blast.

We a had a 'baby pool'

water balloon fight

slip n slide

and more presents. I re painted the baby crib and high chair and my sister made a baby pillow and blanket. it turned out great.Lacy loves it and it looks so nice that they are toys that i don't mind being out in the open.

She got some really cute things, Thanks all!

I got her this wagon that she pulled all her small presents around in. I think the wagon is her favorite toy now.





HAPPY FATHERS DAY

Some things in life turn out perfect, fathers day was one of them for me. I made 'big breakfast' which pretty much entails all breakfast food at once. But the thing that was great was the gravy. I made it about four years ago and screwed it up terribly and said i would never make it again. When i told Brent that i was going to make it he actually told me not too. He was afraid that it would turn out bad and then he would not have a happy wife the rest of the day. He knows me all too Well. I take my cooking very seriously. Anyways, it turned out GREAT.

The kids got him candy and shirt and i got him a new electric razor. He was a happy man. We did good. By the way honey just in case you ever read this, I love you and i am so glad i married you and no one else. You have turned into the greatest Dad and our kids love you so much. Thanks for all you do:)

Our New Place:)

So we moved! It was one crazy move. Probably not as crazy as the last one where i knew i was moving and three days later moved, but it was a lot of work. We moved all our stuff from the apt on Wednesday and then Thursday we went to our storage and moved everything from there. So two straight days of lifting and moving. I hope we can stay in this house till we want to buy. So below are a couple of pictures of the house when it was still empty. I will do more later when i find the time. It is a beautiful house. I am so so happy. Having to be in an apartment for a year has really taught me to appreciate space and a yard. The kids are still in some kind of shock from moving. I think all of us will be happy when they are adjusted and their "nicer" attitudes are back. So far i am loving the ward. The people are so nice and down to earth. Much more on my level than the wealthy side of San Diego. My mom and sister Hannah also moved with us. We are very happy they are here. We are one big happy family and they have been such a huge help through all of this. I cant wait to start our life here and make new friends. Oh and i totally cant wait to decorate. I have had basically the same colors and deco since we were married so time to move on.Entry, our beautiful stairs case and behind is the formal rooms
This is the kitchen, straight through is the formal dining room and behind that is the family room. The only room down stairs that has carpet is the formal rooms everything else is tile. I need slippers cause my feet are killing me.

Here is part of the back yard. This is one of my favorite things about this house is the yard. It is seriously huge. It came with the play set you see in the distance. It needs a little TLC but the kids are already loving it. Back to the right is a huge space fenced off where we will be planting a garden. Its a little late in the year so we will have to find out what can be planted in the summer.

Ryan's First Baseball Game

On Monday Brent called me with good news. He got 4 tickets from his boss to the Padres game. Brent and i are not huge fans of sports. As a matter of fact one of the major reasons for marrying Brent was that he didn't spend his life watching sports on TV. It might be because that's all my Dad did and i hated it. Anyways, i was pretty excited because Ryan is getting into sports and we have convinced him that he is a great baseball player. He was so excited to be there. Hannah also loves going to games so i was so glad that we could take her. It was a super fun game. Since we got four $50 tickets for free we felt a little better about splurging and getting whatever looked good, something we would normally not have done. So i feel like the whole time we were just eating really yummy bad for you food and that's all i really got pictures of.Ice cream cookies, cotton candy
Family shot

Yummy nachos

And hot dogs! I'm not too sure what kind of face he is making. When i told him to smile for the pix he did and then when i looked at the picture after taking this is what i saw

Two really neat things happened at the game. #1 Hannah made a lot of noise and got thrown a ball. #2 we saw a guy with a video camera taping some people and when the live shots came on of the crowd we started going crazy so he would get us and he did so we were all on the big jumbo tran ( or whatever they call it.) It was pretty exciting out of 50,00 people we got on the big screen.

poopy BATH story

WARNING: if you are not fond of poop stories don't read!!!
Okay so i know as mothers we all have poop stories, i don't write all of them down, but this is a pretty good one. Well, now that its all cleaned up its good! So Lacy and Ryan are in the bath and Ryan yells "Lacy is pooping." To which i say "okay, thanks for telling me." Lacy has a hard time in this area and it takes her a good long time to get anything out. Ryan continues yelling at me so i finally take her out and put her on the potty and she goes. Since she is kind of potty training i give her treats. Well Ryan thinks he needs a treat too so i put Lacy back in the bath and give them both suckers. After all thats probably the safest place to give a kid a sucker cause they cant get dirty in the bath! See how smart i am???
So a little bit later Ryan starts yelling that she is pooping which i ignore again because she just went. After a bit i realize i should take her out just in case and then decide to just get them both out. The rest of the day every time i walked by the bathroom it didn't smell right. So tonight after the kids are in bed and i have a minute to pick up the bathroom and all the toys i really just smell poop, and it should have hit me but it didn't until as i am picking up the toys i see something that is not a toy. And you know what it was. I just about died. Needless to say i let them take ALL there toys in the tub today so i not only had to clean the tub but ALL their toys too. It was very interesting. For the fun of it if you read this and your poop story tops mine you should share it, wouldn't that be fun, we could all share our poop stories. Tiffanie you should tell yours... ha ha!

Easter, Beach, and other things...

So Easter was great this year. I didn't do as much as i wanted because my mind was occupied with MOVING. Yup we are moving. The apts didn't want to work with us and so we found a house in Temecula CA that we will be moving into in about two weeks. More to come on that later. We had three Easter egg hunts this year and i think we ended up with more candy than we had at Halloween. The kids loved the chase for the eggs. Lacy caught on very quickly. I think once she new candy was in the eggs nothing would get in her way. She wanted them all. Ryan ended up with more eggs than anyone at our ward Easter egg hunt. I made him share with others cause it was quite embarrassing that he had so many.Before
And after. She is so happy!

His bucket is overflowing!

The next one was at my grandparents house. They were so nice to have us come over. They hid all the eggs and fed us a yummy lunch.

Here they are with there cousins Eddie and Dillan

Me and the Babes

The Easter bunny came...

We must have been thinking alike cause he brought summer themed items, that's just what i would have done:)

Ryan was so happy. I have been trying to get him into soccer lately and it hasn't been working, well it's because it was the wrong sport. For never really playing softball before Ryan was very good at it.

Lacy was happy with her Princess and the Frog movie and fruit snacks.



We were kind of slacking on painting eggs and i almost got away without doing it this year but Ryan reminded me so we painted eggs. It was quite fun, after they were dry Brent and i hid them around the house. They loved it and i loved that there was no more candy.

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We went to the beach last week while Hannah had spring break. It was the perfect day. Great weather, no bird poop, great company. Just a perfect day.

Ryan finding all the rocks

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I signed up my family for the 'Give a day, get a day' Disney thing. We chose to make welcome home baskets for family's who lost their home in the southern cally fires a couple years ago. There are still like 700 + families that still haven't rebuilt after they lost there home. It was great fun to do and great that we all get to go to Disney for free. We are planning on going in December so we can see all the Christmas deco.

My mommy, Brent, Hunter, Lacy, Ryan, and me
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Here are the kids on our way to church in their new Easter outfits. Well Ryan is supposed to be wearing the pink tie i bought him to match Lacy's outfit but he told me he wouldn't wear it to church because he said that people will think he is a girl. I assured him that they wouldn't and boys can wear pink 'sometimes.' He told me that he would wear it to get pictures in but not for church. So i agreed.

Oh how i ADORE my kids. I love them so much and i am so grateful everyday to be there mother. It really is the greatest gift.

Getaway

So Brent works A LOT in the summer months and since that time is fastly approaching we thought we should take a little vaca just the two of us. My mom was nice enough to watch the kids at a moments notice. There are many perks to having my mom live here and this is one of them. We decided to stay pretty close so we didn't have to waste time or gas driving somewhere since we live in one of the best vacation spots around. We ended up going to a place called the Inn at Rancho Santa Fe. It was truly amazing. Almost a little to ritzy for me, but just enough to where you feel spoiled. We were in the 'cottages.' It was like a little piece of heaven. Our room was almost as big as our apartment. The bed was so soft you didn't want to get up once you laid down and the bathroom was what i would want in my dream bathroom. Here are some pictures of our room below. It had an awesome fire place. They had it all ready to go with wood, and newspaper and kindling. Even a really stupid person could light this fire.
Here is the bed, so beautiful

Oh the tub!

The first morning we were there we decided to go on a walk. There is an amazing golf course right there so we walked about three miles around it. Since there was no one golfing right then we decided to explore. We walked to this very little waterfall, across some bridges, sat on some hills until we saw golfers coming and got off the field. Since the whole bird poop thing i am trying to not let anything land on me. It was a great peaceful morning.

Here is a friend we met along the way.


Next we snuck back to our apartments to discuss leasing options( it was our last day to do so.) They pretty much told us they they don't give a D***( don't worry that really isn't a swear word, what were you thinking of me..) about us and that if we wouldn't pay the outrageous amount they wanted to raise our rent that someone else would. I hate apartments. I miss owning our own home and cant wait to do so again in a couple years. This time we will be much smarter. Anyways after that we went to lunch at this really good Texas barbecue place. And then spent the night being without kids and all alone. The next morning after sleeping in and taking as long as i wanted to get ready we left our lovely second home and went for the afternoon to the beach( all alone with out kids, did i mention!!!)

First we stopped for lunch at El Indio ( if you come to San Diego stop by here you wont be disappointed.)

And go to Torrey Pines beach. It is amazingly beautiful. We had a blast finding rocks and shells for the kids cause the best gifts are the ones from the heart ( or the free ones..hehe). Then we laid out our towel and took a nap. AND i didn't get pooped on once. It was great. I think Brent and i are going to make this an annual get a way. I love just being alone with my husband in such a wonderful place.

Shamu Friends

So last Thursday my good friend Shaun invited me to go with her family to Sea World. I love going with good company, it makes it so much more fun. I haven't seen Shaun for about 5 months so it was so fun to hang out and actually talk in person instead of over the phone. The kids loved being with each other too. When we first got there we decided to see the sharks and on our walk over we see this (below). About 20 flamingos walking down the street. It was cool to see tham so close. One nearly ran over me and Lacy.Lacy, katie, and Ryan all going for a ride

Me and the kids at the sea lion show. It is one of my favorites.

Terry, Shaun, Abby and Katie at the Shamu show.

I must say that now that 'the people' cant go in the water the show just wasn't the same. I hope they change there minds soon.

Thanks once again Whipple family for inviting me. It was an amazing day. I loved hanging out with you.

Happy Green Day!

And it was green...lots of green eggs. I have to say they were actually kind of hard to eat like that. I had to close my eyes. But the kids loved it. I think i will have to color eggs more often. Later we painted shamrocks, cut them out, and then i hid them throughout the house for the kids to find. It was a great activity.

Ryan has been obsessed with drawing and coloring lately. He learned how to color in the lines and he does an amazing job, so he loved this. He took his time and his turned out really well.

That night i printed off free burrito coupons for Baja Fresh from facebook. All you had to do was buy a large drink for 2 bucks and you got a $7 burrito for free. And they were so so good.

Here we are chowing down..yum yum!

Lacy & Ryan

Sometimes i feel like life just gets away from me. Days seem like forever, months pass by quickly. I carry my camera a lot less than i used to. I feel like i don't capture as many of those special little memories that i want. Well here are a couple that i did capture that i want to remember. Lacy has been on a clothing binge. She is always putting on lots of clothing. Hers, Ryan's, mine and well anything laying around, hanging up or in Antone's drawers. She is also taking of her clothing these days. Especially at night. I HAVE to check on her at night before i go to bed. MOST nights she is either naked all the way or maybe she just took her diaper off or her pj's. Last night i went in and she had thrown out all her blankets and stuffed animals but she was at least dressed. As i bent down to pick up her blankets i picked up a diaper. I looked over at her and all her clothes were on , so i go over and feel her and yup there is no diaper on.
Here she is with swim diapers around her ankles. She gets really inventive.
I also wanted to note that she is highly afraid of feathers. For some people its foil, some its the dark but my child is afraid of feathers. Also when Lacy is concentrating on things she makes the s sound over and over again. It is the curtest thing. ssssssssssss

Ryan is doing lots of interesting poses for the camera lately. Thank goodness we don't have any clothing issues with him lately. Four is actually going quite well. Now i just have to be constantly teaching lessons, which he actually understands quite a bit. Pre school is going well. He is finally coloring in the lines, which i think is a great achievement. Now the big decision is whether to put him in kindergarten this year or not.

The infamous monkey that he still loves!

I was busy the other day and i knew Lacy was getting in trouble some how because she was really quite. So i go into the kitchen and i see this...

She had pushed a chair over to the pantry, found the packet of hot cocoa, chewed it open and was eating it. I let her have some more as i continued to snap away. I probably should have taken it away and put her in time out or something but i thought it was cute.

Here is Ryan and Avery. They are still inseparable. We shall see what the future holds. I think its so funny that we sit around and talk like our kids are going to get married. I know the chances are slim but wouldn't that be a great story.

Here is Ryan and Lacy having fun, getting everything dirty. As you can see the pine needles all over the porch, i guess i should have swept first.