Pack Night @ Fire Station

A trip to the fire station is always a treat... but even more so when your daddy is the firefighter on duty!
Blake & Ryan loved having Pack Night at their dad's station. Jason did a great job, as always, giving the tour to the kids.

DADDY & KIDS:




SCOUTS:

Question of the Day

Allison asked me today, "Mommy, what happens if we keep in our yawns?"
Hmmm... interesting thought process she has.

School Carnival

Blake & Ryan's school put on a carnival for a PTA fundraiser. They had a lot of the classics like a cake walk, fishing, ring toss, etc. But the big hit of the night was a new thing the school tried this year. A place called GAMES2U brought their mobile game van and sold tickets for each event. They had video games, lazer tag and the hamster ball. The kids favorite was the hamster ball.

BLAKE:


RYAN:


ALLISON:

This was so funny because they rolled it down a big grassy hill on the playground.



Lazer Tag:



Another highlight was the Jump Rope Team performance. Blake is on the team this year and it was his first big performance. Go Blake!

Look at that determination on his face:

Tumblebees

The Tumblebees bus came to Alli's preschool today. It's a travelling gym of sorts for preschoolers. The inside of an old school bus has been gutted out (painted w/ black & yellow stripes) and "Coach Ryan" brings it place to place for some tumbling fun! It's filled with cushions and he's made an obstacle course inside. Alli loved it!


They did a balance beam, rings, hand stands, monkey bars & somer saults in the rainbow cushion. Clever idea!

Pump It Up!

One day during Spring Break, a group of us friends took our kids to this place for some indoor play. It was so fun! We had the whole place reserved for our group. It was our first time there and we had a blast!



We started out in one giant room with slides, basketball, boxing, climbing walls, etc., all in big blow up bouncers.


Ryan & Blake tried out the boxing. It was hysterical!!


Then Tracy and Blake went head to head. Is this child abuse at the hand of my friend? Probably not since I was right there photographing the entire thing and couldn't stop laughing!


Next I was challenged to take on my son's attacker! (I'm the 2 pics on the left w/ the orange shirt on) Tracy was so funny! She laughed the entire time which made it even more entertaining. After she and I had a round, Jill jumped in the ring. What a riot!!


After 1/2 hour, they switched us to a new room with more fun! There was a giant maze, another giant slide, a bounce house and a jousting ring set up like king of the hill!

Here are Blake & Ryan on top, battling to be the last man standing.




After an hour of play, we had pizza and soda in the party room which was all part of the package.
We will definitely go here again!

Happy Easter!!

 

Happy Easter 2010!

Snake Bite?!

We think Jason may have been bitten by a rattlesnake this weekend. He took the scouts rock climbing on Saturday, to prepare them for a week long rock climbing trip in Joshua Tree over Spring Break. While he was tying a rope around a rock, he started moving the tall grass around with his hand. Doing so unveiled a rattlesnake coiled up in what he THOUGHT was hibernation. He was practically standing on top of it while working with the ropes, before he ever noticed it. It wasn't until the next day he realized he had a tender spot on his calf. A little inflamed and sore, he realized it was right above where his boots come to. And the two little marks there sure look suspiciously like fang marks. In all the excitement of "hey... there's a snake!" and using a stick to pick up and relocate the snake, he may have been bitten and not known it! What else could these marks be? It was an adult rattler who knows how to control its venom and probably just gave him a warning w/out venom. Lucky him. What do you think?

Like Mother Like Daughter?

People always tell me how much Alli looks like me. Although that's a huge compliment because my unbiased opinion is that my daughter is absolutely beautiful, I don't see what everyone else sees. Here's a pic of us side by side - both 3 years old. But still... do you see it?

Mommy-Daughter Day

For a while now I've been wanting to take Allison to Disneyland, just she and I. A girls day, you know? So we can do all the girly Princess things without any pressure from boys! Well, my niece Hannah was turning 3 and since that's where she wanted to go along with her mom, we joined them. And we had the ultimate girls day at Disneyland!! I had such an amazing day with my daughter. It was fun from start to finish. The best part is that she didn't know where we were headed that day. Even when we pulled in the parking structure and met up with her cousin, she still wasn't sure. When we got to the trams she finally said, "We're at Disneyland!!" And it was all smiles from there.

We met so many characters! This was so fun and something we never stop to do as a family. The boys (including Daddy) have outgrown that and don't want to waste ride time. This day we were able to enjoy it all! Happy Birthday cousin Hannah! teacups rockets Heaven help me when she turns 16!

One of the BEST parts of my day was the street parade. Hannah & Courtney headed home right before dinner. I wanted to stick around with Alli for the parade, since this is another thing we don't ever do with the boys. I knew she would LOVE it! We grabbed dinner and a front row seat and waited for the parade. Little did we know she'd get picked out of the crowd 3 times!! She got to dance with Tigger, and later participate in a train around the parade! Then they gave her a drum to bang on toward the end. What fun!! Here's a sketchy video. I guess my little camera couldn't handle the dark so well. There are 2 spots where I move the camera to the left. There's an asian girl dancing that I was trying to get a good pic of. She had an asian paparazzi surrounding her in a VIP area roped off next to us. I was thinking she may be one of the Olympic skaters since this was just days after the Olympics ended. Does anyone else recognize her?


On this day, we truly were at the Happiest Place on Earth! And we were the Happiest Mommy & Daughter!

Dance Class 2010

Alli is once again enrolled in dance class with Miss Holly. She's really enjoying it this year and the pictures are priceless! (to me anyway)

Here's Allison with her friends Madeline and Gracie. They are such good girls!





The cutest little tooshy around!




Alli loves the tumbling part of class:

Paint Pals

Alli had a preschool field trip to Paint Pals! She picked a ceramic butterfly and chose a lovely rainbow of colors to paint it with. They had other fun activities like a shadow room, black light maze, karaoke, giant bubble, dress-up, etc. It was a fun morning with her teacher and class.










This is Miss Chris and Teacher Traci. They both taught all my boys when they were 2 and 3 years old. Sadly, Teacher Traci quit the preschool scene (to teach at Pierce College) the same year Alli started so she had a different 2 year old teacher. But she came to our field trip so it was great fun to visit with her and catch up. I sure missed having her last year. We do still love Miss Chris for the 3 year old class!


Jan 25, 2010

Pinewood Derby 2010!

Blake & Ryan are finally at the age to join in the long anticipated Pinewood Derby! After watching their big brother have a go at it, they were quite eager to finally participate. Their leaders made it known that the MAIN criteria for this years derby would be creativity. It wasn't about speed. Really? Well, they took it to heart and got creative. I am grateful their den leader set up an appt. for the den to go to the Berg's to cut their designs.

Blake instantly decided he wanted to do a skateboard. He designed the "color burst" design on the deck and painted it (with a little touch-up work done by Mom). He was so proud of his board! It weighed in at exactly 5.0 ounces, with MANY weights hiding under the grip tape.





Ryan had a tougher time figuring out his idea. For HOURS we kept at it, giving him many suggestions. Nothing struck his fancy. Finally while being pressured to just make a decision, and in his frustration he blurted out, "WHAT?? Am I just supposed to do a Wii game or something?" This was not one of our previous suggestions, it was not one of the ideas we had seen online, it just came from him. We all stared at him and said "That's it! A Wii controller!" A huge grin spread across his face and he was finally excited!

Ryan loved painting it. Then we found a Wii remote candy dispenser and took it apart for the buttons. He super glued them on and used a toothpick to paint "Wii" at the bottom. Nice job Ry!





Here is Ryan winning one of his heats.


Our boys placed 8th and 10th out of about 25 cars. Not bad. And we had a fun family night hanging out at the race track.

my silly girl

Yesterday Allison dropped something down a small hole in her carseat and was upset that she couldn't get it out. I was driving at the time so I couldn't help her. She said, "Mommy, someday when my dreams come true, this hole will get really big so I can get it out."
I just thought it was so funny! Too much Disney maybe?

Ultimate Playdate

Allison invited her friend Madeline to go to the library with us for story time, and then back to our house for a play date. It turned out to be a fun-filled day!

After the library the girls played dress-up.
Next they made sugar cookies. Yum! They used alphabet cookie cutters and made each of their siblings a cookie with the first letter of their names.


Ready for the oven!


While waiting for the cookies to bake & cool, the girls decided it would be fun to paint nails. We got out the pink polish and Allison set up this salon. Before I could get over there, she had the polish opened and started painting away on Madeline's nails. She did pretty well for her first time. Madeline was the model client, knowing how to sit perfectly still and keep her hands flat until they were dry. (she's no rookie - she had obviously done this before!)

When the nails were dry, the girls frosted and decorated their masterpieces.
Allison had the best playdate with her best friend Madeline! She can't wait til Madeline comes to play again!