Happy Father's Day

Here is my shout out to THE DADS in my life:

MY DAD

This picture was taken in December 2005 after my Grandma's funeral. My uncle snapped this pic when we weren't looking and this is one of my favorites. The picture at the top is Dad and I riding when I was 14 or 15.

I am grateful that my dad taught me how to work hard to reach my dreams. That is what he has always done. One of my best memories of growing up is the summer when I was 14 and my dad and I worked together to brake a horse. He didn't know much about horses but had always wanted them so he did tons of research and just went for it. He bought me a pair of red ropers and we shoveled manure together, trained a colt and talked a lot. The next summer, we decided to try our hand at training me to be a barrel racer. One day we were out riding with our old neighbor Pete. I was riding Pete's spirited horse, Sunny. Sunny got spooked and starting bucking hard. I was holding on for dear life and I can still hear my dad yelling, "Ride 'em, Darla, ride 'em. " After seven or eight bucks, I was on the ground and Pete was off chasing Sunny back home. My dad was so proud of me for hanging on and that is what he has taught me: to follow my dreams, work hard and ride it out when it gets hard!!! Oh, and my goofiness comes from him, too. (And in case you are wondering, I tucked my red ropers away after that summer and I never did become a barrel racer, but I had fun trying.)

MY FATHER-IN-LAW

This picture was taken at Disneyland in January 2008. I love how Tim's dad is a kid at heart and there is no one more fun to be with at an amusement park than D-man. As a kid, he was actually at Disneyland on the day it opened, which I think is the coolest thing!!! The day after Tim and I got engaged we went to Sea World with his whole family. We were sitting in the stands waiting for a show to start and no one could find Dad. I will never forget looking down a seeing him walking to his seat eating the biggest cotton candy I have ever seen. He was oblivious to the fact that everyone was looking for him and was just enjoying himself and his cotton candy. I still crack up when I think about that scene. I couldn't ask for a better father-in-law and a better example to my husband on how to be a loving father.

THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN

I didn't blog about Mother's Day but I will say that I spent most of the day thinking of how lucky I am to be a parent with Tim. As a dad he is the perfect balance of making sure the kids are "towing the line" and learning discipline but also showing them tons of love. He loves to be with them, especially one-on-one. Tim believes in being involved and I never feel alone in my parenting duties. He is always there to swoop in and take over when I am at the brink. I am so grateful for the way he makes up for all of my deficiencies as a parent. It sounds cliche, I know, but he really is my best friend and there is no one I would rather be on this parenting journey with.

10 Things That Happened to Me This Week...

1. I got to dig through my green trash barrel full of leaves and grass (and other things that stink) after I had the bright idea to have Hog get in the barrel and jump up and down so we could fit more leaves. (Don't let your kid do this while wearing flip flops.)
2. After I prepared my famous gourmet meal of sloppy joes (made with Manwich) that included no buns I got to hear Cupcake declare..."That was deeeeeeeeelicious."
3. I ran eight miles without stopping and loved every minute of it. I now know what a runner's high means.
4. I unlocked a new song after belting out a few High School Musical tunes on Wii Sing-It.
5. I grocery shopped by myself.
6. I got to sit at a swim meet for three hours and watch my daughter be her outgoing, social self and swim her heart out for some much loved ribbons.
7. I woke up this morning with the great feeling that I already prepared my Primary lesson.
8. I attempted to mow the lawn, but found out that all those body pump classes have not given me enough strength to pull the cord and actually get the lawn mower started.
9. I scored bigtime with some smokin' deals at Goodwill.
10. I watched my husband working and felt really grateful he gets to make money doing something he loves and enjoys.

Albert's First Book Club

Albert hosted her very first book club!! She wanted a way to stay in touch with her friends over the summer. We talked about it and came up with the idea of starting a book club. The week before school got out she passed out invitations to all the girls at school and to some friends from the neighborhood. Albert decided the book would be Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock, which I think was the perfect book. (Thanks to my friend, Robin, for the recommendation.)

For some reason, I never read Nancy Drew growing up, but I loved reading this book as much as Albert did!!

On the night of the book club Albert wore her best Nancy Drew outfit complete with a headband. For dessert she served rice krispie treats, cupcake pops (which she helped me make using directions from Bakerella and we also served at Cupcake's birthday), chocolate, Skittles and chocolate covered pretzels. Several of the guests brought treats to share as well.

I wasn't sure how the book discussion was going to go, but I decided to write down questions, which we put in a bowl and the girls took turns pulling out questions, reading them and giving their answer. I thought it was going to be hard to get them to discuss their thoughts on the book, but it was the complete opposite. I was blown away with the insights a group of nine year olds came up with. They were amazing and they spent a lot more time discussing the book than I expected.

We also played several games along the theme of the book which included a version of "Don't Eat Pete" which Albert changed to "Don't Eat Nancy." Before the party, Albert wrote down the names of several characters from the book on note cards. Each girl taped a card with a character's name on their back and they had to ask questions of the other girls to figure out who their character was. They played this several times. At the end they played "Thief in the Night" (which was really "Murder in the Dark" but I didn't want to call it that.)

Book club was an excellent opportunity for Albert to practice her planning and hostess skills. She did a great job and we both felt like the evening was a great success. I cannot even express how grateful I am that my daughter has good friends with good parents at both school and in the neighborhood. My only regret is that I forgot to take a group picture of them!!! The good news is, they voted on a new book to read...

I'll get a picture next time.

A Cupcake Birthday

Cupcake turned TWO a few days ago and we celebrated with lots of presents and of course, CUPCAKES! She was more than a little excited about having a birthday and she is still talking about all the presents she opened.

Here she is modeling the adorable apron Aunt Christin made for her. (Thanks, C!)

Next she opened the tutu that Albert made for her and added it to her birthday attire ensemble.

Blow out the candles on those cupcakes!!!!

Cupcake enjoyed chocolate cupcakes, vanilla ice cream and homemade cupcake pops made by me and Albert. The ice cream was her favorite. Yummy!!!

Here are some of my favorite pics of her from the past year.

July 2008 at the Ranch

Labor Day 2008 at the Ranch

October 2008

Halloween 2008

Christmas Morning 2008

January 2009 at Kids Rockstars Race

Valentine's Day 2009 at our cousins' V-day party

March 2009 with "Kitty"

May 2009 feeding a horse on the farm field trip

HAPPY SECOND BIRTHDAY, CUPCAKE!!!!

We've been busy!

The culminating events of the extracurricular activities have kept us crazy busy in the last month. I am telling you that May is the new December as far as stuff to go to and places to be is concerned. This post is mostly for grandparents near and far who love to see their grandchildren accomplishing things...but if you're curious, too, read on.

Hog finished his first basketball season, graduated from Let's Play Music by composing and performing his very own piano piece entitled "NBC" (I have it on video but blogger wouldn't let me upload...I am e-mailing it to the grandma's though.) and is now officially moving on to second grade.

LPM Graduate!

Goodbye First Grade. Yeah!!!

Snausage graduated from preschool for the second time (we are so proud!) and is gearing up to go to school everyday next year. He also had a fun season playing soccer. His favorite game of the year was played completely in the rain. He had the best attitude.

Snausage will miss Ms. Nicole!!!

Farm Fieldtrip

A horrible soccer picture, but people, it's all I got. He does look enthusiastic, though.

Albert, our little over-achieving child, played the piano beautifully at her recital, took first place in the poetry recitation contest and the creative writing contest at school, participated in her very first dance recital (LOVED having Aunt Misty as her teacher!), and finished the school year with an "O" in handwriting, something she has been striving for for two years!

Albert and Aunt Misty

On to fourth grade.

Cupcake's extra-curricular activities have included, dumping several cups of sugar all over the kitchen and smearing half a tube of foundation all over her body...in a one hour period. Since she can't crawl out of bed anymore, she has also mastered the art of taking off her diaper and proudly declares, "I did it by myself." Her greatest accomplish lately seems to be that she has put it in stone for her parents that she is the youngest child in this family!

Sugar and snot...Yummy!!!!!

Oh, and this is what Tim does with the camera while we are attending all these functions!

Wow, you made it to the end of this very long post. In the words of Cupcake, "Good job." I am resolving to put "stuff" on here more often. Tim tells me I have been slacking, that people really do read this blog and that he likes to read what is going on in our family, so I even have some goals to revamp "Small and Simple Things" a little this summer. Come back.

Is this my hairstyle?

I saw this on a blog I lurk on. Give it a try and see what hairstyle you are. I think my result is kind of funny.

You Are Pigtails

You are fun loving, sweet, and cute. You radiate happiness and pure joy. Your idea of style is wearing the things you love most. And you love colorful, happy things. At your best, you are optimistic and open hearted. You find the good in everything. At your worst, you refuse to grow up. You are very prone to daydreaming and fantasizing.

What Hairstyle Are You?

Miss Independent

I am a mom who values independence in her children. It starts from day one of their lives when I put them to sleep in the crib. None of our kids ever slept in a bassinet or in our room. They always started out in the crib in their own bedroom. They learned to soothe themselves to sleep because in my quest to raise independent children I never rocked them to sleep. I rocked them to read books or sing songs but never to go to sleep. There is no doubt that I enjoy watching my kids learn to do things on their own.

However, my desire to teach my children independence was reigned in a few nights ago. Tuesday night I finally got the kids to bed and settled down on the couch for a much needed break. Fifteen minutes later, Cupcake came walking in to the family room and proudly announced, "I did it all by myself." What she "did" was crawl out of her crib. She had never done that before and I guess she wanted me to rejoice in her independence with her. Tim and I spent the next hour in the pattern of putting her back in her crib only to have her get out again two minutes later. Somehow, we finally got her to stay and go to sleep. As we were going to bed that night, I told Tim that life as we have known it just ended.

At one o'clock in the morning, we both awoke to a loud thud across the hall and then looked up to see our little 23 month old princess by our bedside. Even in the middle of the night she wanted to exert her new found freedom. We reluctantly put her in bed with us knowing the pattern would just be repeated and had a lovely night with our little girl sleeping horizontally between us rolling back and forth and kicking. UGH!

When morning came, Tim and I promptly got on line and ordered the Cozy Crib Tent. Apparently, we are foregoing the independence thing on this one. I am not ready for the four hour afternoon naps to end and Tim and I are both ready for a good nights sleep again. Independence lost out on this one but sleep will be gained by all parties involved.

Cupcake and The Princess Tent

Butterfly Central

A few weeks ago, we got to see the amazing process of a small caterpillar growing, moving into a cocoon, and emerging as a butterfly. Snasauge brought four caterpillars home from preschool and one evening all six of us were actually home together getting ready for dinner and we all gathered around and watched a butterfly leave his cocoon. It was total excitement around here. Even Tim and I were amazed by this process. One of our caterpillars died before he reached his cocoon and two of them came out of the cocoon with "special needs" (i.e. bent wings). We had them in Mason jars and I think they didn't have enough room to "spread their wings" and pump the blood once they came out. I truly felt bad about that.

Ms. Nicole, Snausage's preschool teacher, had to go out of town for the weekend and she let us "babysit" all of her cocoons while she was gone. In the span of two days, we got to watch 15 more butterflies enter the world. (I have to admit that I was a bit surprised and a little grossed out by how much blood came with the butterflies. The butterfly home was kind of disgusting by the end of the weekend.)

Sunday afternoon we let four of the butterflies go. Snausage took the rest back to preschool and released them with his class. Every butterfly we see outside now is one of "our" butterflies. We are so glad we got to see this fantastic process first hand.

Easter Weekend

Our Easter celebration is the same every year--FHE with 12 Easter eggs reminding us of the holiday's true meaning, dyeing eggs and going to the Easter party at Grandma and Grandpa T's house. This year we added in a little rain at the party and strep throat on Easter Sunday, just for fun!!!

The purple egg that Cupcake dyed turned out to be the best one of the three dozen!!! She loved the whole thing.

Albert invited her friend, (who had never colored Easter eggs before) to join us for the annual dyeing. I don't think he was that impressed with our eggs because he didn't want to take any home. Oh well.

I taped the whole table down with wax paper and painter's tape and clean-up was so easy. (I promise you that someday I am going to learn to take good pictures. My photog skills are really lacking here, but at least I got a picture taken, right? That's more than I can say for the preblog days.)

We have a huge Easter party at Tim's parents house with all of Tim's extended family on the day before Easter every year. The bouncy slide got a lot bigger this year, and to balance that out the candy hunt shrunk a little. The kids still loved it. Look at all those cousins. Can you see why this party is the highlight of my kids whole year?

Grandpa T loves giving rides on the Happy Times Express.

The rain did not slow Cupcake down until the very end. Her favorite part was the soft serve ice cream. I think that was her favorite last year, too.

Albert was a trooper and even though she was getting sick (the next day she came down with strep throat.) she wasn't going to miss out on the fun.

This guy loves candy!! On Sunday, his Easter basket candy was gone by the end of the day and he then resorted to sneaking candy from the baskets of those who were sick!

Can you believe we actually got to wear sweatshirts!!! Doesn't happen very often, especially not this time of year.