Legoland Marathon Mile

Li’l sister rocks big brothers’ underschwears underneath her pink girly twirly dress:

Loving our cozy fleece pjs this month:

Working on memorizing Bible verses for Awana:

Erasing one line at a time:

Jeff took the boys camping with their Adventure Guides group and they loved riding their bikes and swimming for hours in the hot spring pools.  I asked the devoted Mr. Garland for a photo of the 3 of them, and this was what I got (wink wink Hi Honey!):

Josh is in the white/blue shirt on left. 

The girls and I were up early to help out with the Legoland Marathon Mile kids running race.  Sarah and Rachel palled around with Siena and (birthday boy – 12 years old!!) Sterling at the Expo:

…while the always lovely Mrs. Hansen and I handed out registration bibs to runners:

Our friends the McMahans at the finish line… hooray!  We may have to run this race ourselves one of these years.

My parents have this wonderful group of friends from church that they regularly spend time with…  the “Gourmet Group”.  Here they are in Newport Beach last week.  I love that my parents know how to have a good time with people goofy enough to wear these silly glasses that my dad made them wear.  They are great sports!

Sarah and Josh completed oral reports (and a model) on the San Luis Obispo de Tolosa California Mission last month.  They both did a great job!

Severe bed head:

Not sure if 5 crayons are heavier than a ruler?  Zac-the-balance-guy is your man:

chocolate pudding + 2 year old =

Special video on adoption that I loved.

I can totally relate to this:

I’m laughing (and crying).  Can anyone relate?

Blessings to you all!

Grammar Lessons

We hit the beach last weekend.  I love going to the beach in January! It truly gets cold here, but every once in a while we get a warm spell in January:

January, 2011 (2 years ago)

Here’s our January beach visit this year (same beach!):

The winter storms have sucked about 7 feet of sand out into the ocean, and they haven’t pumped it back in yet (coming for Spring break):

Garland and Cliff Kids

The lack of sand (big drop-off) made for some fun jumping and sliding:

And I couldn’t believe Sarah and Evie (and Louisa) were boogie boarding… that water was c-c-cold!  All things are possible with a wetsuit…

8 mile run last weekend.  Man, 8 miles isn’t easy or pretty for me!

While I was in Portland last weekend, my (rockstar) Mom took our kids on a school field trip to Mission San Juan Capistrano… that’s Mission visit #4 for us!

Sarah (top left) having fun with friends at workshop:

I can’t believe my ‘baby’ is almost 10 years old:

Saw a blogpost making snowflake tortillas for a snack so we gave it a go:

tortillas (folded into sixths) with cut-in designs, melted butter, cinnamon sugar, and toasted (or burned, in my case) in the oven

Josh ate his with peanut butter.  But he eats everything with peanut butter on it.

Snowflakes consumed in the backyard because I hate sweeping my kitchen floor. 

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Lots of UNO being played at the our home recently:

For our Grammar lessons, I often write 2 sentences on our white board for the kids to diagram.  They copy the sentences into their journal and label the words (noun, verb, adjective, adverb).  Then we go over the sentences together.  Josh finished his sentences a little early so he added a third sentence for me (in red). 

I have tough homeschool days when I feel like I’m not the best teacher for my kids and I question “am I really doing enough?”, but Sentence #3 keeps me going:

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Conversation with our kids recently… explaining the concept that their dad and I love them and are proud of them.  But.  We live for something beyond them.   

We would die for our kids, but we do not live for them.

A big idea… it will take a lifetime to soak in.  I’m still soaking it in myself.  My parents were so good to model this for me.

Warmest blessings to you all!

Portland

It’s January, and our neighborhood trees finally decided to drop their leaves:

Playtime at the park with school friends:

Disneyland with the Shlemons and my dad:

Cars Radiator Springs Racers ride at California Adventures.  Josh, Zac, Sarah, me, Rachel and my Dad.  Rachel and Dad’s first time on the ride (they both loved it).  Still cracks me up that Rachel can go on all these rides now:

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My dad and I took a trip to Portland last weekend to spend some time with my dad’s big sister, my Aunt Caroline.  We had such a fun time with her.  It was such a full and fun (and juuuust a little cold!) weekend.

Yosemite Valley from the airplane.  Can you pick out Half Dome and El Cap?

My Aunt Caroline sings in her church choir:

Sister and brother:

Pizza Schmizza (dinner out one night):

Les Miserables (Dad saw Zero Dark Thirty while we saw our ‘chick flick’):

I love my family!

10 on 10

Take 10 photos on the 10th day of every month.

Tuesday, January 10, 2013

I didn’t notice it was January 10 until it was dinnertime.

I’m awesome like that.

So I bring you 10 on 10:  the nighttime edition.

We had workshop in the morning… carpool with our friends, then Rachel and I headed to the gym for a little treadmill time. 

Rachel loves the Childwatch program… I’m thankful for that.

Lunch: sliced turkey and a bowl of oatmeal squares (love this cereal!) with milk.

Dinner:  hot dogs with spinach salad and sliced pears.  Sometimes dinner just needs to be simple.

Lonely socks… the cats, oh how we love them, but they think the kids’ socks are toys so random socks are strewn all over the house.

I heart laundry.

My impulse buy at Costco this week:

Always Fat-Free means you can eat 38 of them at once, right?

It’s been over 6 weeks of fighting a nasty cough, so I finally broke down and asked for some meds:

I am not good at taking syrup meds.  Blech.

Friends blessed us with a huge bag of these green avocado beauties this week.  We’ll have one massive bowl of guac once they ripen:

My trusty alarm clock (I‘ve had since high school) and my rockin’ heated mattress pad controller (on left). Our home is a Frigidaire. My toes and fingers are ice cubes recently. It’s expensive to have the heat on and I’m afraid I’m a little too frugal sometimes. I love a warm bed.

Rachel enjoys her jumping jacks punishment a little too much:

Loving our log fires (they help take the edge off the aforementioned frigid house):

Nighttime routine: teeth brushing, fluoride gel, floss.  My wonderful husband is the Closer.  Because Mean Mom arrives at about 7pm every night.

Did I mention that I burned my daughter’s hair?

Sure did. Christmas Eve church service… I thought it’d be special to curl Rachel’s sweet fine hair with my flat iron.

I’m afraid the temperature dial got bumped in travel so the flat iron heat setting was way too hot.

Fried Rachel’s ends. Oh I felt horrible. It was awful brushing her hair with her already very tender scalp.

After a week of tears, I trimmed the tangled ends off. Much better now, but it was a tough lesson to learn. Ugh.

Jeff reading the Hobbit to the kids at bedtime:

4 kids sleep in one room.  It’s how we roll.