Grandpa Young

We always love when Grandpa Young comes for a visit. The kids love playing with him and Jason knows that it's the only time I'll agree to go out for real Chinese food. Kylie has jumped on the Dim Sum bandwagon and definately puts me to shame. She even out does me when it comes to chopsticks. Jayden on the other hand is definately my son. After throwing fits about everything but the white rice, we finally convinced him to eat a little custard pie. After his first bite he got all excited and said, "I'm eating real Chinese food, and I like it!" Maddox passed the test when he couldn't get enough of his first taste of rice. It was funny, when we were waiting for our table Kylie kept seeing people that looked like her teacher, Mrs. Hsu (all Asians look the same, right Jay? ;) and then when we were eating she actually really did show up! After lunch we had fun visiting an art museum and the Asian marketplace. Maddox discovered not only his love for rice, but his love for ice-cream all in the same day. (notice how he is securely fastened in his carseat while in the stroller :) The kids sure love their Grandpa, he is such a sweet man and we love having him visit!

Happy Father's Day

We were traveling home from Cali on Father's day, which was ironic since we were traveling on Mother's Day too. Fortunately for Jason (and unfortunately for me) we made it back early enough to still make him a nice dinner and the kids had fun filling out surveys for him. Thanks for being such a great dad, some of my favorite moments are when I'm watching you play with the kids and I know that those will be some of their favorite memories also. We love you, happy father's day! How old is dad? 33 (Kylie), 20 (Jayden) How tall is he? 11 feet (Kylie), 40 (Jayden) What is his favorite food? pasta (Kylie), pepperoni pizza (Jayden) What is his favorite thing to do? play with me and wash the car with me (Kylie), make food and go to church with us, that's special, huh mom? (Jayden) If he could travel anywhere, where would he go? to visit grrampa young or safersicko (San Francisco) (Kylie), Las Vegas (Jayden) If he had $100, what would he buy? a new car or no smelling cat trap (Kylie), batteries (Jayden) What does he do at work? work on the conpuiter and work (Kylie), drives all day and gets us money (Jayden) What is his favorite tv show? baskiball and basball football (Kylie), basketball (Jayden)What is his favorite store? K-mart (Kylie), Lowes (Jayden) What is his favorite part about being a dad? to play with us (Kylie), play with eachothers (Jayden)

Seven year old interview

A month and a half later, I'm finally getting around to Kylie's birthday interview...

Who are you best friends? Noelle, Marlee and Mia
What is your favorite food? pizza squares
What is your favorite outfit? my pink tank top from my dance recital and my dark shorts that I got for my birthday
What do you want to be when you grow up? a teacher
What is your favorite song? "Jesus came to John the Baptist" and "I've got my eyes set on you"
What is your favorite movie? Madagascar 2
What is your favorite game? Pictureka
What is your favorite book? Henry Huggins and Ribsy
What was your favorite part about being 6? losing my first two teeth and going to the Easter Bunny caves
What do you like most about being 7? going in second grade and I can write and read better
What are your hopes for this next year? to have a nice teacher and nice friends in my class

Happy birthday, Kylie! I am so proud of all you have accomplished over this past year. You have blossomed into such an energetic, outgoing and beautiful girl. You have such a love for life but are never too busy to look out for the needs of others. Your sensitivity is such an example to me, like whenever you get mad at me you immediately say, "I love you mom" even if you're still upset. It immediately makes us both feel better and you've definately taught me a lesson. You are such a great big sister, Jayden looks up to you so much and loves playing with you and Maddox lights up every time he sees you. Thanks for all your smiles, all your hugs, all your kisses, all your love letters, all your little surprises and all the joy you bring to our family. We love you!

Ventura, CA

Jason is traveling pretty much the whole summer to Vegas for work, and after spending my first week at home with all the kids all day long we were getting anxious for a vacation. Our friends, the Larson's were so nice to invite us to their beach house in Ventura (or maybe they got tired of Jason giving them a guilt trip for not being able to go on the cruise with us like we had planned :). I drove by myself with the kids and met Jason in Ontario where he flew into from Vegas. I was a little nervous about the drive, especially since Maddox doesn't sleep in the car and especially since our DVD player broke. It actually went really well, though. Maddox slept for all of 15 minutes the entire 5 1/2 hour drive but he was happy the rest of the time and we actually had a lot of fun resorting to the old school games like the alphabet game, add-on storytelling and dance parties. We stayed in Ventura and had the best time hanging out at the beach. There is nothing more relaxing than laying on the beach watching your kids building sand castles and playing in the waves. They even discovered that if you dug deep enough you could find clams and sand crabs which they thought was totally amazing (and even made up for the dolphins that we never saw, even though the Larson's swore they saw like 20 earlier in the week :). A long day at the beach, eating at In-N-Out, hanging out at the hot tub and pool then putting the kids to bed and watching a scary movie (which I've been having nightmares about now that Jason's gone again, and I even had a pillow over my face and my ears plugged for the majority of it).....ahhhh, what a perfect day. And it was the perfect way to spend our anniversary. It was the big 1-0 that we went on the cruise for back in March, but the 19th was our actual anniversary and it was fun spending it at the same place where we took our honeymoon. The next day we went to this great farm where we picked and ate way too many of the most delicious strawberries ever. Store bought strawberries will never be the same after that. The kids were in heaven and pretty much want to be farmers when they grow up now and Jason and Joe decided they wanted to start a "J&J Farms" after realizing how much you can make when people actually pay you to harvest your own food. The tractor ride and feeding the farm animals were an added bonus to an already fun day and then we topped it off with Wahoo's, swimming at the hotel and running around playing hide-and-seek in the hotel room (we got a loft/suite hotel room that we shared in Ontario the third night).....ahhhhh, two perfect days. The thing I like most about vacations is that I'm finally able to be just "mom". I don't have to worry about what to make for dinner, or if the house is clean, or what errands need to be run, or what activities need to be planned for my calling or if I've gotten caught up on emails and blogs or anything else that distracts me from just hanging out and playing with my kids. Oh how I love summer vacations. It really was the perfect little getaway, thanks so much Joe and Alisa for sharing your vacation with us!

Makeover

Letting my kids give me a makeover sounded like a good idea....

I knew I should be scared when he came at me with the mascara brush pointed straight at my eye. He never did learn to turn it sideways. (I love his look of total concentration)

Jayden as my make-up artist and Kylie as our photographer are a killer combination

I think he may have ripped out an extension. Or two. Or three.(I should have known that it wasn't a good idea to move his clothes down lower in the closet so that he could pick out his own outfit :).

I think my son may lead a secret double life as Amy Weinhouse's stylist.Kylie pulled me aside and said that I should let Jayden go first so that she could "fix everything he does wrong". She sure did some pretty good damage control.

I didn't realize that they decided to move on to the make-up after I left to make dinner. Good thing it was the cheap stuff since they used all of it. Jayden's psycho eyes give me the creeps every time.

Thanks Kylie and Jayden for all the pampering, I sure felt (and looked :) like a princess!

The Third

First child:

Ate only baby cereal until 9 months of age. Ate only in a sterilized high chair. Ate only food that was diced into miniscule bites (once she reached the appropriate age for table foods, of course).

Third child:

Gnawing on a whole chunk of french bread at 7 1/2 months, on a floor that hasn't been mopped in a week. (disclaimer: I really was watching him closely so that he wouldn't choke :)

But the look of pure joy and satisfaction on his face is priceless....(besides, it kept him entertained long enough for me to cook lunch).

Little Man

(although mines much cuter, and a little less creepy)

8 months

Besides making us all smile with his adorable giggle, here's what our little Mads has been up to lately....

-loves anything with buttons....remotes, phones, computers...anything that gets ruined when slobbered on

-cries when I walk in his room and turn his sound machine on because he knows it's nap time

-got his second tooth and has the cutest grin

-loves to eat anything and everything, whether it's edible or not

-smiles whenever he sees the camera

-starting to reach to mom and dad when he wants us to hold him

-just starting to scoot backwards

-likes to sit in the bathroom sink and play while I get ready in the mornings. He figured out how to turn the water on and as soon as I turn it off he looks at me then turns it right back on

-loves being carried around in the knock off baby bjorn, he could go hours without making a peep (it comes in handy while shopping)

-he never naps for longer than 20 minutes when he's not in his bed and could go all day with one 20 minute nap

-gets so excited to see the kids and waves his arms back and forth super fast

We've loved spending every day over the past 8 months with you in our family!

Confessions

• I used money out of Kylie's own piggy bank for the toothfairy because I had no cash
• Maddox wakes up at 6:30AM, so I park him in front of the TV for like an hour (or two) while I go back to sleep (sometimes it's time for him to go down for his nap by the time I get out of bed. It's bad.)
• If the kids went swimming that day I count it as their bath
• I watch "Penguins of Madagascar" on Nick even when the kids aren't around because I think King Julien is HILARIOUS
• Sometimes if the kids get a stain that won't come out on their favorite clothes I still let them wear it and act surprised like, "how did that get there??" if somebody says something
• The "no TV on Sundays" rule starts only after we let them watch it all morning so that we can sleep in
• I just cleaned my blinds and baseboards for the second time and we've been in our house for 3 years
• I write things that I've already done on my to-do list just so I can mark it off

I feel better now that I've gotten that off my chest.

DIY project idea



I love doing projects and I've been itching for one lately. I really want to tackle the toy room and do something fun with it, but this was enough to tide me over until then. I got the idea here, but did it for like one tenth of the cost. I love getting new ideas, so I thought I'd pass this along. For the shadows I should have taken a profile picture, blown it up then cut it out and traced it on the black paper. But I'm not that patient. I wanted to get it down right then so I went in a dark room with a lamp, taped a piece of paper on the wall and traced their shadow. It was much trickier (especially with Mads) and I still want to re-do Kylie's because I don't think it looks like her. I got a 12x1x48 board at Lowe's ($5.88) that they cut into 12 inch squares for me, painted the sides, mode podged on the scrapbook paper, white cardstock center and the silhouette then finished it off by hot glueing ric rac around the border. Easy enough and it cost like $10 for all of them, love it!

So ready

Sleeping in, lazy days, swimming, popsicles, tan lines, beach trips, late night parties, no homework, sleepovers with the kids, watermelon, bike rides after dark, play dates, Harkin's summer movies, rootbeer floats, bar-b-ques, campouts, 4th of July in Utah...we are soooo ready for summer, bring it! It's always fun to go to the kids' end of the year parties to see all the good friends they made and see how much they've grown in the past year. They didn't do a preschool graduation for Jayden, which I was kind of sad about, but they did have a cute party. Besides, Jayden was way more excited about a pirate pinata then some lame graduation cap. I love how excited he gets whenever I come to his class and it's going to be sad when the day comes that he outgrows that. Kylie's class had a pizza party and as I watched her run around all crazy with her friends it was hard to believe that this was the same little girl who cried herself to sleep at the beginning of kindergarten because she had no friends. I'm so proud of you guys, you've both grown and accomplished so much over the past year. I'm so excited to spend the summer playing with you guys and can't wait to see what new things you learn next year!

Jayden's best friends, Nicholas and Kenna. I love that he still plays with girls.

Jayden thought he was a part of Kylie's class. He's tagged along with me enough that he's made his own little friends in there.

Kylie's other best friend, Marlee. She still misses Noelle, but it was nice that she still had a best friend to play with.

A while ago I wrote about the mean girl who kept picking on Kylie. Well, after taking a friend's advice and encouraging Kylie to be her secret friend, they became good friends. It was harder for me then it was for Kylie to deliver cookies to a girl who hurt my baby, but it ended up being an awesome learning experience for her. Ever since then the girl has mellowed out and we never had anymore issues with her picking on Kylie.

A fun end to a fun year!

What better way to kick off the summer than with a fort building, pocorn eating, nail painting, movie party sleepover??