Happy Birthday to......me

This week was laid back, we enjoyed doing a little less. We still spent plenty of time outdoors. Infact, we cleaned up alot of the yard and garden. We harvested our first bunch of green beans. We need to get up really early one morning before it gets too hot and get the rest. I painted a wall (with the can of paint I had originally wanted for the front door.) We did a little toy shuffle and put all the kids' toys in their own rooms, cleaned out closets and put all our books on the big book cabinet we were using for toys. So we have tried very hard not to call it the play room, even though it's been called that for about 8 years now. We are slowly claiming back our space. It is now the library...with a tread mill and train table and a few other kids' things.
I had a great birthday thanks to everyone I know. I was lucky and almost forgot I was having a birthday...usually they haunt me for a while before and after the actual day. I got some new clothes at Kohls...thanks to my 3 handy co-shoppers. All of the kids had suggestions of which things they liked the best. We spent a little more time in the dressing room because we had to be fair and "at least try it on". Gene took the kids and I to Chili's for dinner Saturday. Jacob looks unhappy....only because we stopped to take pictures...supposedly he was hungry.
So, here we go....3 dozen and 1....look out, here I come! 40 please stay away for a little while!

Tara's doodling

Every Monday night we sit down as a family and go over our weekly calendar. Tara has a puppy calendar this year. As she listens to us she's always writing something. I thought she was keeping track of everyone else's activities....instead, she was doing a little doodling.....like this.

No matter what.

I added this entry in because later on in years to come I will wonder about Jacob and I'm sure it will all make sense...but, right now it's funny.
Jacob has to have a bowl of Peanut butter crunch cereal every morning. I'll ask him..."hey Jake, do you want scrambled eggs for breakfast." He will reply "sure, Mom"...then after he's finished he will say "I'm still hungry, can I have my pb crunch?"....the next day "hey, Jake you want a banana and toast for breakfast." the same reply, "yes,Mom"....He will then proceed to put his dishes away and stand in the kitchen and say "I haven't had my peanut butter crunch yet"......What is it with the peanut butter crunch?

How convenient...

Gene bought me a dozen beautiful red roses for our anniversary...and this year it worked out perfectly. One for every year we have been married ....how convenient!

Happy Father's Day. Here's Gene and the kids today after church. Tara made a cake for our anniversary and Father's day weekend. It's been a nice quiet day...hope all you Dads out there have a great day!

Mural art project

This summer I decided to paint a mural in our hallway for the kid's art project.
We started yesterday with the blue background of our underwater world. I'll show you photos of each step we take along the way.....here is the water.....and the feet that helped. We used sponges and brushes and papertowels to blot and swirl making the ocean waves and bubbles.

This summer has been great so far. We have kept busy. This week was fun we saw free movies at the theatre and went to the cove and helped the young women on Friday with a garage sale. They raised almost $400 dollars for girl's camp. Yahoo.
The kids have kept busy with games and reading and getting together with some friends. These first few weeks of summer have gone by fast. We do love sleeping in.
This picture I took of the kid's blow-up rafts...that I spent alot of time and air blowing up. They played with them for a few minutes and then left them there on the grass in front of me for the rest of the time.

June is for weddings

Gene and I will celebrate our 12th anniversary this week. I recently found a picture on-line thanks to my uncle Joe of my grandparents wedding day. I was surprised to see that they were married in June too. So, we were married on the 20th, Joe(my brother) and his wife Diana were married on the 21st ( I can't find a picture guys!Sorry..). my grandparents (Ribera) were married on the 24th and my parents were married on the 27th. Happy Anniversary month to us all.

"Palm Tree"

summer favorite recommendations

We have been able to rent and borrow a few fun movies so far during our break.
The kids are so excited about some of the old classics....well, what I consider classics.

Emily loves "Heidi" with Shirley Temple. She's been walking around trying to yodel like Heidi did. She makes the same little pouty face and I wouldn't be surprised if she soon asked if her hair could curl like that too.

Tara's new discovery is Pippi Longstocking. Now that is a fabulous movie! Tara can't believe there is really a girl who can lift a horse. We really want to try that hair! I'm sure there is wire involved there somehow. Harry Potter movies are her favorite though. She wears her hair in braids and puts on glasses and talks like Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter. She does the voice exactly like her.

My book club is reading North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. I started the book on Thursday. I can't put it down. Of course, this is a recommendation for all of you who have in past years watched all 6 hours of Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibilty with me. I watched the first half of the movie and have to wait until my Netflix movie time turns over on the 9th. I'm speeding through reading to try to get done so I can see the second half of the movie version.

The other discovery is cold chocolate milk. I've only bought the packets for hot chocolate in the past. I broke down and bought the hershey's syrup on my second trip to the store with all three in tow. Now, chocolate milk and popsicles are the staples of my kids' diets.

Tara started the Italian class. She loves it. She keeps saying Ciao Madre. Buongiorno! She walks around with her vocabulary paper and says "Do you like gatto?"
We guess yes or no..."ah! gatto is cat." then "Do you like birra?" Then we guess. "ah! birra is beer". I asked her why is she learning the Italian word for beer? "I don't know why....I just have to know it" she says. Next time you go to Rome Jonathan, let us know and you can take her along.

All three kids are going to "summer camp" at a friend's house. The girls who sometimes babysit for us are making up their own camp. The kids have come home so excited about it. Other kids from the ward are there. The first day they learned about other countries. They made origami cups and had fortune cookies. On Friday they had "wild west day" and lassoed a candy bottle and made little ponies from tp rolls and popsicle sticks. Tara named hers "Fabio", Emily named hers "Cheeto", Jordan (a friend) named hers "Burrito" and Jacob named his "Palm Tree." Hmmmm....

A big OOOPs!!

We went to the sprinkler park to celebrate summer ...yeah.
It was raining that morning when we got there....we played and the sun came out..but, we forgot to put on sunscreen. Emily's been suffering ever since. Oops.

Summer means......messy faces