Happy 6th Birthday Natalie!!

I just can't believe that my baby is 6 years old. Last weekend, we had Natie's birthday party at a local farm which was perfectly suited to her love (a bit of an understatement) of animals. She had a great time with her friends first on a Clydesdale horse drawn ride around the farm and then lots of fun feeding the animals, riding on the ponies, climbing on the play equipment, getting muddy, etc.
She said that she wanted a pinata for her birthday. Thinking ahead, I asked her if she would be OK with the pinata being hit and broken. Her response was that it would be fine because there was candy involved-a good enough trade off I guess. So we pick out a cute white pony pinata. We have cake and it's time for the pinata.

She is more than happy to take her turns at it with a stick...

Until it is decapitated...

Can you see the head swinging from the rope? This is when it hits her..."we ripped the pony's head off!!" I didn't get to capture the look of horror on her face as she comes to the realization...

She was so sad for a bit. She just sat there--trying not to cry at her party. Luckily, a trip back to visit some animals cheered her back up. She is still wearing the wrist band that all the kids received at the party. It is getting a little thin, but she refuses to let me cut it off. So the trauma of the pinata is all but forgotten and she had a very happy 6th birthday!!

Beach Time!

We finally carved out enough time in our summer schedule for the kids to have a couple of days at the beach. Cara is quite the boogy-boarder and spent the majority of Tuesday and Thursday in the ocean. Natalie loves to dig but on Thursday, she finally decided to spend some time in the water and really started getting the hang of catching the waves. Thursday was especially great with getting there early. We were there before 10 and we got to see lots of dolphins and seals playing in the water-but of course none of my pictures of them turned out.

Getting ready to go out. She was in the water before I could even set my chair up.

I had to post this one. Yes, I know I should have probably grabbed a towel instead of my camera, but she didn't seem to mind. Thankfully, it wasn't her sister who did this to her :)

Amnesty

In a spirit of goodwill, we had a day of amnesty for toys that had been confiscated.

A while ago, in a creative parenting effort, we decided to make an impression on Natalie by taking away her toys that she loves the most--her ponies. One by one, they slowly disappeared to the "toy time-out spot."

I figured I had suffered enough with looking at all these toys not in their rightful place so it was time to return them. We've curbed the behavior that sparked their removal, so overall I think it was effective. And got to be "fun mom" when I gave them all back!

Haircut!

I hate it when Jeff lets his hair get long, I think there are some guys who look good longer hair, but for the most part, I think men should keep it short--especially when I have to look at him every day with what I call "helmet hair."

So he was long overdue for a cut and my friend generously offered to watch the girls for a few hours so we could enjoy a Saturday afternoon to ourselves last weekend. First on our agenda was getting Jeff's hair cut. Now a disclaimer: I have no influence on his hairstyle...it has been the same since I met him 14 years ago...

I have never been with him to get a haircut and I think I may be banned from ever going again.

Doesn't he look like he's having fun?

Have I ever mentioned how much he likes having his picture taken?

New Parents :)

Jeff's brother Ryan and his wife Kelly, had their first baby this last week. Little Riley was born on June 30th and we are so happy for them.

Now it took me a while to get the details since Jeff was the one who received the message. He had called me from work for something else and mentioned, "Oh, by the way, they had the baby." No details! Is my husband the only one who can't relay important information like weight, height, name?

Since this happened on Monday, throughout the week I was thinking about them being new parents. I was reminiscing to before we had kids and when were brand new in this parenting adventure. I thought about how smart I thought I was back then. It seems like such a short time ago I was passing judgement on other parents thinking "My kids never going to act like that." HA HA! I think it really hit me this week when I said to Natie (you don't want to know the back story on this) "If a friend told you to jump off a bridge, would you?" I think I have eaten every word I ever said about what kind of a mom or how my kids were going to behave. I have no judgements about parents of teenagers :-)
...Ahhh new parents. What an great time you guys are in for. We love you!

Whew!!

It feels like forever since I've posted but in reality it's only been 2 weeks. I can't believe that summer is already under way (and going fast). Here's what we've been up to the last couple of weeks:

After Father's day weekend with my family in the desert, the days flew by until I had a special weekend with my mom and sister in Las Vegas. My mom took Sara and me for our birthdays (mine was an early gift). We saw Phantom of the Opera and had some fun girl time shopping.

We ate lunch at the Treasure Island Buffet one day and I have to say they have one of the best dessert bars I've seen. They had everything from cotton candy, to fresh doughnuts and homemade malted milk balls I had to post this picture for my friends who went on the cruise with us last fall..

Jeff had some father-daughter bonding time with the girls as he took them bowling and they saw Kung-Foo Panda. It was nice to be missed I was happy to return to their sweet little faces.

I finished my crazy, 6-week, 5-hour-per-class AutoCad course. I have to say that after the initial brain shock I really enjoyed the class and I think I'll take advanced AutoCad just for fun-yes I know my sense of fun has become very warped lately. But next time, I think I'll take it over the normal semester so I can have more time to digest the material.

No sooner was my class finished, it was on to another project. My friend Allison has me redesigning her bedroom. We were feeling adventurous so we laid the hardwood floors ourselves. I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with the results. (I'll post a picture when I get one--we were too tired after that day to think about a picture).

This week has been a big catch up around the house...whew!! I can't believe it's already July!

R.I.P. Marsha

We just returned home for a quick visit with my family for Father's Day. I went to feed the fish and I see our newest addition at the bottom of the tank. Not a huge surprise since we never saw her eat when the other ones did.

So my dilemma is, do I spare Cara the sadness of her loss by secretly replacing it, or do we do the whole "circle of life" thing? I lean towards the secret replacement plan since it's just a dumb fish and not a cat or something warm and fuzzy.