Our busy, but fun, holiday weekend

I hope everyone had a fun 4th of July weekend! We sure did!

Saturday. of course, was the 4th and we had a lot of fun! We started out the day by having a very yummylicious breakfast of my absolute favorite.... french toast! Mmmmmmmmmmm!!!! We were going to go to the parade after breakfast, but sometimes things get in the way and we didn't make it. We were having some people over for dinner later anyway that we needed to get things ready for.

People started showing up around 4 for dinner and fireworks. We had a delicious bbq and Peter cooked enough to feed a small army! Hotdogs and brats, hamburgers, and chicken galore! Our guests also brought the side dishes so we had potato salad, bean dip with chips, and water melon and cantaloupe. It was a very yummy feast! We were all very fat feeling afterwards, hehe!

Then the time came for fireworks! Every year we put on our own show as well as watch the professional displays put on by all the towns around here. Peter's parents live on top of a hill where we can see the whole valley and on hte 4th see all the different cities firework displays! It's really cool! Anyway, we started our own display of fireworks around 9ish with the kiddy stuff that it doesn't really need to be dark for. The girls had a lot of fun playing with sparklers! Alexis was so good at being sure she held it outward from her body! Once it got dark, we got to the good stuff! It was very fun, pretty, and loud! :) We finished our display around midnight. I let both girls stay up totally expecting at least Alexis to fall asleep in someones arms, Natalie always did, but neither didn't, they both stayed awake the whole time! But they had a lot of fun watching the pretty "boom booms" so I didn't mind too much.

Peter and my anniversary is on the 6th. We celebrated it on Sunday though this year. We left the girls with Grandma and Papa and we went out. I had no idea what was on the agenda and of course, PEter wasn't telling me. He surprised me by taking me to lunch in Blaine, WA and then we ventured up to Canada and to Vancouver BC! We walked off our lunch at Metropolis, a large mall in Vancouver BC. It was three stories of stores, stores, stores! Most of them were stores that looked too expensive to even walk into because I knew that there wasn't anything I could afford in them. But the best part of the mall experience was people watching! There were a few interesting characters.... AFter we were done walking the mall (which took over 2 hours and we didn't go into that many stores), we drove around the beautiful city Vancouver! I was in high school the last time I had been there and that was 10 years ago! It was gorgeous! After our drive, we headed back to the border and then stopped at a very nice restaurant for dinner. And let me tell you, I had the best steak I've EVER had. Yummm! My mouth still waters when I think of that steak! We were going to go watch a movie after dinner and we had crossed the border back into the US, but the movie that we wanted to see didn't start again until 10:30 and we didn't want to wait an hour and a half, so we rented a movie instead and came home and watched "In Pursuit of Happyness." Such a great movie! I'd recommend it if you haven't seen it!

That was our weekend! It was a fun filled weekend! And now for some non-weekend related news and a bragging mother moment. Alexis has started counting and attempting to say her ABCs. She can count to 13 consistantly, there was one time she counted up to 18 all by herself! And she'll start saying her ABCs in chunks! Her favorite chunk is O, P, Q, R, S, T, U! She is so smart! As is her sister! We are working on reading with Natalie, and when Natalie is really focused into it (which sometimes is a struggle), she can sound out words! We may have a reader before school starts again!!!

Happy Birthday USA

I just wanted to take a few moments to wish everyone a

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!

Photo found on Flickr

Funny Story

So today as we are running around town Alexis starts copying everything Natalie was saying so Natalie called her a copycat. Alexis then said "I not copycat." So Natalie then said "OK then you're an echo." Alexis responds with "I not echo!" We then all start teasing her calling her either a copycat or an echo. And each time she responds with "I not copycat/echo!" Peter eventually says, "Ok you're an Alexis," to which she responds "I not Alexis." So I ask her if she's not an Alexis, then what is she? She answers, "Monster! Hahahaha!" She has such the sense of humor!

We Have a Graduate

Today Natalie graduated from pre-school! We woke up and curled her hair. Isn't she beautiful?!?

We were all excited and happy for her! OK off topic a little bit here, but I have two gorgeous girls! I know, I know, all mom's say that right? But I tried looking at them objectively (impossible for me to do) and they really are beautiful! Now back to the topic at hand....

We all got to go to school with her today and got to participate in all the fun activities! Like coloring whales with chalk. Alexis and Natalie had a blast coloring with each other! You'd think they've never colored before.

Alexis got to sit with Naatlie during their circle time. I'm blessed to have two girls that absolutely love and adore each other! I thought that it was such a sweet thing that Natalie had her arm around her sister!



They made little diplomas for all the kids and held an actual ceremony for them. This, obviously, is Natalie getting her diploma.

Natalie with her teachers Teacher Molly and Teacher Becky. Two of the greatest ladies you'll ever meet!

Pre-School Graduating Class of '09

Birthday Time!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEXIS!!!
We love you lots!

This is a picture of Alexis two years ago. She was so tiny.


This is a picture of Alexis today (OK Saturday, but close enough!) It's hard for me to believe that so much time has gone by already and accept that she's no longer a baby. She's officially a toddler (age wise that is. She's been 'toddling' around for awhile now). Sigh....

This weekend we had a couple of friends, both of the tall and short variety, over for a birthday bbq. Alexis had a lot of fun playing with the kids that came and we had fun visiting with the adults. All in all, it was a very fun day! Be sure to check out the birthday slide show above!

Hello World, It's Me

Yes, I am still around. Just have been extremely busy it seems. But as I was talking with a friend of mine, when asked I can't come up with much of anything we have done. I've been extremely busy subbing. I've worked almost every day so far this month. And yesterday I had a great thing happen. I was booked for a second grade class but when I got there, there was another teacher already signed in for my teacher. I asked about it and the secretary said that he somehoow got mixed up and went to the wrong class, that he should be doing Special Ed. That's when the principal came out and asked what happened. When he was told, he turned to me and asked me if I'd mind doing the SpEd class instead, because, and I quote "I'm not a big fan of Mr. ____ and I'd rather him in the second grade and you in the Special Ed classroom where it's a bit more unorganized and chaotic. You'd do a much better job!" Ummmm YAY!!! And then the secretary called the Special Ed teacher and explained the situation to her and then said, "Believe me, you got the better end of the deal!" I was giddy inside! It's good to know that I am doing a good job when so many days I have to wonder.

Mother's Day was a little over a week ago and I had a good weekend. We've been wanting to plant a garden, and on that Saturday I started digging out the walkways and making the raised beds. That was HARD work and took all day! The area that we're using as the garden is extremely rocky and had a couple stumps going through it, so I had to dig out a whole bunch of big boulders, pull out the smaller rocks, and dig around and cut out some tree roots/stumps. Exhausting to say the least, but I, with some help from Peter, got it all done! And then on Sunday we got to plant everything. We planted three types of corn, early, mid, and late corn, two types of green beans, two types of peas, two types of carrots (has anyone heard of rainbow carrots before? Suppposedly, they grow a bunch of different colors, purple, pink, green, etc. It'll be interesting to see.) zuccini, yellow crookneck squash, green onion, onions, cucumber, radishes, beets, parsnips and a couple other varieties of squash. Natalie even gets her own section of the garden where she planted some carrots, radishes for grandma and a variety of flowers. Another tiring day, but it was a nice feeling to finish it and actually have some input in it!

Of course, we didn't spend all of Mother's Day woeking. Peter let me sleep in a little bit and then he and the girls surprised me with a beautiful necklace. It's a tulip to represent my first official "run" that I did a couple weeks ago. He also made me a special breakfast. It was nice!

This past weekend, Kathy and I were supposed to do another walk. This time the 2 mile "Women's Run." Unfortunately Kathy got sick, so Lynelle went with me instead. It was a perfect day for it, just warm enough to not get chilled, but not too warm that you were overheated during the walk. We finished the walk in 34 minutes 9 seconds. My goal for the next one is to run/jog most of it.

Anyway, that's the most exciting things that has happened since the last time I updated. I thought I'd include a couple videos of Alexis being silly! She has such a great sense of humor!

Our Easter Weekend

This weekend was a lot of fun!

On Saturday, Peter, Natalie, Kathy and I participated in the Tulip Run. We ran/walked 2 miles (well, with the walk from the car to the registration place and then to the starting line of the actual race and back to the car, we probably did a total of 3 miles). Peter ran the 2 miles in 19 minutes 41 seconds. And then he rounded back to meet up with us. Kathy and I walked the 2 miles but we walked it fast. Natalie wanted to run the whole thing so we'd let her run a little ahead of us and then make her stop for us to catch up. Once I saw Peter up ahead I let her run to him and the ran and finished the race, again for Peter, at 32 minutes 28 seconds. Kathy and I finished at 34 minutes 35 seconds. Natalie really wanted a trophy, but didn't finish well enough in her age group, but we were able to convince her that she got a tulip trophy instead.... it helped that Peter didn't take one so that someone else, who otherwise wouldn't get one could and they had run out by the time Kathy and I got to the finish line, so none of us got one. But I was so proud of all of us. This was my first official walk and I had so much fun! I'm already signed up for another in May!

We also decorated Easter Eggs on Saturday. Natalie and Alexis had so much fun coloring the eggs. We kept it pretty simple this year and just worked with the dye and crayons. Maybe next year we can pull out some other supplies like tape, Q-tips, etc. We colored 36 eggs and they all turned out really great! I wish I had thought to take pictures during this, but I didn't even think of that at the time.

Then Sunday of course was Easter.

Natalie was so excited, she woke earlier than her sister.... a rare occurance. Because we're mean parents we wouldn't let Natalie go downstairs until her sister was awake, so we made her wait until the time that Alexis usually wakes up before we would wake her up.

When we did wake her up, she was groggy and needed some time to fully wake up.







The girls had a lot of fun looking for the eggs and candy the Easter Bunny left for them! Even Alexis got really into it, which surprised me because Natalie didn't until she was about three. I guess having a big sister to show you how exciting it really is, helps!






Hope everyone had as great of an Easter as we did!