spontaneous vacation

eric has been flying to san diego for work for a few months now (just part time, he still has to do his job here) and so we went out for two weeks over 4th of july because we miss him so. it was super fun, but also exhausting, and it is so great to be home.

legoland was kind of cool, at least the amazing things that they build out of legos, but i think we were all a little too old for the rides. the most exciting thing to calvin and jack was the gift shop.

jack, erin, annie, clayton

del mar beach was great, the water was warm, and this was probably the nicest day we had while we were in socal. (that little guy was a neighbor who only had big teenage brothers and was excited to have some younger kids to play with. his family comes out and stays in a condo for six weeks every summer, talk about fun!)

at the wild animal park, this baby bird was trying to learn how to fly, but got tired and landed right in the middle of the sidewalk. his mommy kept bringing him food, but we were afraid he would get stepped on if we left him, so we babysat him until the security guard came.

getting to see the animals in a more natural setting was fun. i especially loved the baby elephants, there were at least three tiny guys (relatively speaking)

sea world was amazing! i wouldn't let the kids sit in the soak zone, though, because the temp was only in the low sixties. there was a lot of cool educational stuff too, besides the shows.

jack

we did the beach again, because i was too tired to go back to another park. so we missed the zoo, but we have a great zoo here, so we didn't feel too bad.

calvin, jack r., jack e.

on the way up to norcal, we stopped off in valencia and saw Eric's Uncle Bob and Aunt Anne, their son John and his wife Ginger, and their two boys, Jack and Justin. our Jack and their Jack are only a few months apart in age, so they have a lot of fun together.

annette, moi

in Hollister, we stayed at our good friends the Anderson's who were out in Utah (thanks again, Caroline!) it was so nice to have a home base and to be able to do laundry! it was also great because they live right next door to the Dickson's, who are also awesome!

kayla, erin, corey

Annette and Loren fed us and let our kids sleep over every night! Erin had so much fun catching up with Kayla, and Calvin and Jack couldn't get enough of playing with Corey and Bradley!

calvin, erin, tyler, caleb, jack, sam, annie

on saturday we drove up to Eric's parent's place to spend as much time as possible with Grandpa. Dean's family came down from seattle, so we got to hang out with some cousins!

annie, mercedes, reef

we went back down to hollister for more fun with more friends, here we are at the beach in santa cruz with the Sowards! the kids were a little shocked to find the water a bit colder than in san diego county, though!

calvin, beau, jack

tuesday night is family night at the santa cruz boardwalk, which means all rides are $1, so we went and hung out there, it was a lot of fun, i can't believe we never went there when we lived there. well, yes i can, we had 4 tiny kids, so that would have been torture. we stayed way longer than we should have (i got a parking ticket) but it's just so hard to say goodbye. i'm sad that i didn't get any pictures of Brandon and Tiff's new little guy Cruz, he's adorable.

we miss you guys a ton! it was so fun to see you all!

summer plans

i saw this great idea on A Soft Place to Land - we're going to make out our summer list tomorrow.

i told the kids they could have tomorrow off - it's the first real day of vacation and they don't have to get up early or do chores. the fun starts on tuesday.

i've just spent the last half hour placing books on hold at our library. i found a great list last year on Pioneer Woman, it lists favorite books by age. i picked out a few that i want the kids to read, and then i'll let them look at the list and pick some more. by the way, does anyone have any good reads for a boy entering 4th grade who is only interested in pokemon, legos, and video games? easy chapter books with a few pictures are best - i haven't been able to find a series that he can get into yet.

my sister (who has 8 kids) found some great links for getting kids to do their chores.

-here's a great idea for multiple kids (and super cute)

-here's a good one for having a big picture plan for the summer

-LOVE this idea, but not sure i have the guts and stick-to-it-iveness

-scroll down to comments, and you'll get to read about the way my sister does it.

i will probably modify our current method, which is charts with a morning, afternoon, and evening section and a token system. i've got one day to figure it out!

lego my messy legos

I wrote this post a few weeks ago, knowing I would be too busy to blog for awhile. The table's been finished for almost a month now, and we are still loving it!

if you have boys, then you know what i'm talking about. legos have taken over our lives here. my 8 year old son LOVES them, asks for them for every birthday/christmas. the problem is, with so many different sets, how do you find the teeny tiny specific piece that you need when making a particular project?

you dump out all 240,000 legos all over the carpet in your bedroom and dig through them. then when your mommy comes in and says it's time to pick up and get ready for bed, you cry because you just spent the last 6 hours hunting for that piece and still didn't find it, and now you have to pick them all up and start over tomorrow.

my kids may tell you differently, but i really am a compassionate person. i TOTALLY understand the frustration of not being able to find something when you need it. believe me, a good portion of my childhood was spent searching for things and then giving up on whatever game/craft/school project i was working on because our house was a black hole.

this boy is so creative and i don't want him to give up on that. coming up with a lego solution was on the list, but lots of other things were coming first, until my friend Kathleen needed to go to IKEA and even though i didn't need to, i went along (because i can always find something to buy at IKEA) so the project began, even though it was probably not as urgent as some other things on the list.

here's how we did it:

i bought two TROFAST units in pine and primed them.

eric and i went to Lowes' and got some 1/2 inch MDF and 3x1 birch boards, and built a top for the tables.

then we painted the TROFAST units black using a gloss latex enamel and a sponge roller (and lots of Flotrol)

two coats

he spray-painted the table top - it needs to be a bit more durable.

we sorted all of the legos by color, as well as people and wheels, and any other categories that make sense to the kids. (there is room for 18 small bins)

Eric went to the Lego store and got some of the flat gray base pieces. he was going to glue them down, but then we wouldn't be able to use the table for games or other stuff, so they are just sitting on top.

i made some labels using clip art from Just Something I Made, cut them out and taped them on with packing tape.

the kids were thrilled, and I love that the legos get put away! there is a huge resurgence of creative building in our house thanks to this simple and awesome organizing tool!

No, I didn't die

Yes, I realize I haven't posted in over 4 months. I felt guilty about it at least twice. But at this point, where do I start? I should probably just bag this blog and start a new one, although I guess that doesn't really make sense. I'll start with something a little wierd.

All 4 of my kids are in karate, and they're halfway to black belt, which means they get to join the Black Belt Club. It's a little extra motivation for them to follow through and reach their goal. It also means new uniforms:

Yes, I used fabric softener. Why do you ask?

The Happiest Place on Earth

Eric had a conference in of all places, Disney World, so we headed down a few days early to take the kids.

Eric and I went to Disney World when I was pregnant with Jack, and I went to Epcot when I was in high school, but the last time we were at Disneyland was when Calvin was a new baby (over 7 years ago!)

We left Cincinnati after school on Friday, and stayed the night in Atlanta. We drove the rest of the way on Saturday, arriving at the hotel at about 4 pm. We checked in and went swimming. If you've ever stayed at any of the Disney hotels, then you'll know what I mean when I say that the pool is almost as good as the park itself!

We headed to Downtown Disney, stopping first at the Lego Store, which I knew my boys would go berserk over. Calvin was in absolute ecstasy. They had a huge model of the Millenium Falcon, giant robots and dinosaurs, etc. all made out of Legos. We stopped at the wall and packed a cup full of all sorts of Legos and brought it home.

For dinner we ate at Captain Jack's Restaurant, where the waiter clunked the lady at the table next to us in the back of the head with his tray, spilling a big icy coke all over her head. Oops. Anyway, it was right on the water, which was pretty cool, but the boys were starting to lose it, so we headed back and put them to bed.

On Sunday we went to the Magic Kingdom and were immediately disappointed to find that Space Mountain was closed. To quote Eric, "Leave it to Disney to break my kid's heart!"

(FYI, Eric is not a big fan of Disney, or any other over-commercialized venture. When we took the girls to Disneyland when they were little, we stood in line to meet Buzz Lightyear, only to have him leave after he was done with the kid in front of Erin. And there was no one behind us! He couldn't stick around for even one more cute little red-headed girl! So now we say "Leave it to Disney to break my kid's heart!" all the time, it's a funny family joke, especially if you know Eric and the way he reacts to stuff!)

Calvin freaked out on Stitch's Great Escape, who would have seen that coming? That was the first ride we went on and I thought they were going to have to stop the whole thing to let us leave. Serious screaming, feet drawn up to his chest, hyperventilating, I don't think anyone else in the room could hear anything. He asked to go home after that, but we decided he needed a good old fashioned go-kart to set him right again.

So, to make a long story short, we did Big Thunder Mt. twice, Splash Mountain once (Jack didn't want to get wet, but when you're the baby you don't get a choice!), Pirates, Haunted Mansion (no boys for that one, that would have been bad) I had never done the FastPass thing before, but it was great! No lines!

We went back to cool off in the pool for the afternoon, and Eric went to buy a new memory card for the camera since we had been taking pictures for the last 2 days without one! Aaargh! Those Lego pictures would have been awesome!

We took the bus back to the park, and it seemed like every bus was going to Epcot. Who goes to Epcot? I don't remember it being that much fun. The kids were giving me palpitations by getting so close to the street.

We had dinner at Tony's, the restaurant where Lady and the Tramp share a plate of spaghetti. Just as we walked in, it started to pour. REALLY pour. So, we ate and waited for it to stop.

But it kept raining, so we bought the $8 ponchos and made the best of it. Luckily, a lot of other people had given up and left, but they did cancel the parade and fireworks. Waaa.

Because of the lightning, the outside rides were closed, so we went on all the little kid rides in Fantasyland, like It's A Small World. That was my favorite when I was a kid, but I guess I was too little to notice that it's kind of cheesy. Annie said it was the scariest ride she'd been on all day.

We walked around and looked at the stuff we'd missed during the day. Do you remember the stocks from when you were a kid? And how you wished you could really leave your brother there?

The boys got tired, so we rode the bus back to the hotel and Eric and the girls stayed until the park closed at midnight.

The next morning we headed to Hollywood Studios, which Disney bought from MGM. I knew we'd come to the right place when we saw that Star Tours was there! I remember waiting for hours in line to get to ride that! It was still pretty fun, the boys loved it!

I made the boys take their picture with McQueen and Mater, even though CARS is SO last year.

We played in the really cool Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground. Everything is giant, I really liked it.

The best part of the day was seeing the stunt car show! It was amazing! All the guys loved it!

Silly plastic army guy from Toy Story.

My boat.

We took off at about 5, and drove to Macon, stayed the night, then in the morning dropped Eric off at the airport in Atlanta, and the kids and I drove the rest of the way home. Everyone was so good in the car, and it was really fun! This is what my mother-in-law meant when she said she was glad she had had all of her kids so close together. We've arrived at that time where nobody's a baby, no naps, strollers, diapers, tantrums. The kids didn't even really beg us to buy them stuff! It was awesome!

In case you were thinking of rubbing it in that it's been in the 80's in Cali......

We were expecting a lot of snow, so they closed school.

We see a lot of wildlife down the hill in our woods, but this heron (or whatever type of waterfowl) was sitting there so still by the creek, it's the first time we've some any of his kind around here.

Later on that evening we got freezing rain. When I first moved here I thought Ohioans were big wussies for refusing to drive when there was 1/2 an inch of snow, but this freezing rain stuff is bad news.

But it sure is pretty! It rained, and then froze to every surface, and when the sun comes out, it's amazing!

It looks like every single tree is a chandelier! It almost makes the cold worth it.

Except that we still have to go outside sometimes.

And kids stayed home from school for 5 days.

Which means we have to go extra days this summer.

But everyone improved greatly on their Wii skills.

When I was looking at this picture of my kid's sitting by the reflecting pool in D.C., it reminded me of another picture of them, taken by my good friend Stefani, photographer extraordinaire.

Our husband's had gone out scuba diving together, so we brought the kids to play at the beach, and maybe get a few good photos for Christmas cards/presents.  

I love this one because of Calvin turning around to look at the camera.  I think it really captures his personality. Jack is crying, which you really can't see unless you look - he's being dragged along by the hand.  Also fitting.  And my girls, being cooperative, as usual. 

 This was one of our last outings before we moved away from Hollister.

Thanks, Stef, this is one of my favorites!

My kids WISH they had a "County Fair" mom!

Eric, he's a Disneyland Dad all the way. From the nightly game of "Attack Dad" to signing permission slips allowing our 12 year old to go on overnight choir trips that cost $500.


As for me, I'm not even fun enough to be a "County Fair" mom. I'm more like a "Sacrament Meeting" mom or a "Fabric Store" mom. Both not fun places for kids to go.

I came across this article in the Wall Street Journal which I found very insightful on how we are raising our kids.

Nestled in the Lap of Luxury