Olivia

Just a quick note about Olivia. I am always hearing such nice things about Olivia from her first grade teacher, which I love to hear, but today I got a nice compliment from a parent even though it was not intended to be a compliment.

There is a boy in Olivia's class who is autistic. He has very poor social skills to say the least. So his mom approached me today and asked if Olivia would like to have a playdate with him. She said the teacher recommended Olivia as a good classmate to play with the boy because she could handle her son's social level, be a good example of how children play together and still have fun(not get frustrated with him). Last year the district psychologist approached me because Olivia's kindergarten teacher said similar things about Olivia. She also wanted Olivia to be a mentor to a girl with mild autism.

I am very proud of Olivia. She must be representing us well. She already serves her friends just by being her.

Green Hudson by Martha Stewart

For our 10th anniversary Ann gave us a new set of dishes. I was looking forward to them because the wedding dishes we chose were blue and white. As a side note, when Daniel and I registered for our wedding gifts we still did not know each other very well. If I would have known how little he cared, I would have chosen more things on my own. It turns out he chose the blue and white dinner ware because it had the largest cereal bowl!! Anyway, a while ago I became tired of the blue dishes and put them way. Ann knew I was tired of the blue and thought it would be fun to get new dishes for our big anniversary. She loves dishes and has quite a collection of her own. Here are the plates we choose.

As I took the picture of our dinner setting I began to see how telling this picture is of our family at dinner time. I thought I would point out some small details to tell you more about us.
1. I like to serve dinner around 4:30pm. Sometimes Daniel is home and sometimes he isn't, but the kids are hungry by then and I like to get dinner over with.
2. The kids always like to sit by Lula and take care of her. Today she is sitting by Olivia on the end.
3. Daniel and I always sit together...me as far from the kids as possible!
4. Olivia and I really like to have a napkin. Daniel does not like to have a napkin(I gave Daniel a small napkin for the picture). Sam needs a napkin, otherwise he will use the front of his shirt.

5. All the kids, especially Lula like the small glasses for dinner...no plastic cups.
6. I started using a pitcher of water (today it is lemonade-it is VERY rare for us to not have water...we never drink milk or juice with dinner) because someone is always spilling their water and needs a refill.
7. At Ikea we bought these high chairs that the kids love.
8. Most of the time my salad dressing is olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
9. The kids are only given what I have made for dinner; I don't allow them to go make a pb and j if they don't like what I cooked. I like the kids to try different things, not just noodles. Usually there is something they will eat.
10. I like the dinner table to look nice. So, thank you, Ann, for the new set of dishes.

Happy 10 years

At 2pm...well 3:30pm (but that is a different story) Daniel and I became Husband and Wife April 21, 2000.
Happy anniversary Daniel. My mom sent us these beautiful flowers.
The green ball flowers are something that were in my wedding bouquet and are always fun to see again.

The other day I was riding home from dropping Sam off at preschool and I saw a lilac bush blooming. It reminded me how much I love lilacs and their smell. I was delighted to see lilacs in the bouquet my mom gave us.
Thanks mom.

Surfs Up!

Daniel had a great time learning to surf. He is ready to do it on his own!


For Bob's birthday I gave him surfing lessons.

surf

Our First Time

Kelli told me I had better take my kids to Disneyland before they were too old for the magic. So Daniel and I decided to take the kids this spring break. Ann stayed in San Diego with Chloë and Lula while Daniel and I took the 2 older kids and enjoyed the magic. Sam is so excited I could not even get a picture of him looking at the camera, he was trying to process everything around him!

Here is Sleepy Beauty's castle. It was amazing!
Later in the day we took the grand tour and even found Sleeping Beauty with her Prince.

Our first rides were Dumbo, PeterPan, and Casey Jr.'s railroad ride. Then we headed to It's a Small World boat tour and ended up in Toon Town. We were so lucky to see Goofy. Sam just wanted to watch, but Olivia wanted a picture!

Sam was waiting for a picture with Micky Mouse. That was very exciting!

By now the kids were getting the gist of the rides and having such a great time.

At this point we had been at Disneyland for about 5 hours. Sam and Olivia, for some reason, made a big deal about taking turns riding with Daniel and I. It was cute, they wanted to make sure they were being fair riding with each of us. Everything about the park was so nice. Daniel was commenting on the amount of details that had been thought through. Another nice thing was the short lines. The longest we ended up waiting was about 20 minutes for the submarine ride and race cars.
I am glad we came mid week. The weather was great as well.


By now we had eaten all our snacks and we were ready for some real food... well some of us were ready for real food. Olivia did not want pizza or salad so she had an apple and Cheetos. She was in heaven!

After lunch we went on the Buzz Light Year ride. Sam and Daniel loved the gun to shoot the targets. Of course, Daniel blew everyone away with his score in the hundreds of thousands.
We were still trying to rest up from our exciting morning so we went on the Jungle Cruise. For some reason Sam was scared of everything. Throughout the day if he was scared he would put his finger in his ear.

Our afternoon was spent on the Big Kid side of the park. We took the kids on Space Mountain, which they just loved. Olivia had the time of her life, wanting more fast dark rides. Sam really liked it as well. He is funny; he looks serious while on the ride, but then he says how much he LOVES the roller coasters and wants to go again.

After the fireworks show the park was basically empty. We went over to Splash Mountain and walked right onto our own log. The kids loved that ride and, since no one was around, we ran back around and did it again, and again. Then we tried the Winnie the Pooh ride. We were the only ones there as well. The worker said Sam and Liv would be alright alone, so we let them sit together in front. They were so proud of that.

We were about to leave because it was almost 11pm, but we decided to see if Peter Pan was still open. It was, so we went on that ride one last time.
It was a great way to end our first day with Sam and Liv at Disneyland...where dreams do come true!

day 2

The next day we went to a park in Sea Port village to fly our kite, but I forgot our kite and decided not to buy another one. Grandma did buy us these fun toys that pop a ball up in the air to be caught by the other cup. It was a little too windy for the ball to be caught easily, so we will have to use it some place there is less windy.
Thanks grandma!

It was a beautiful day just to run around and be us!

While Lula was napping, Olivia and I went to set up Daniel's surf lessons and get her a wet suit. Olivia is a great boogie boarder. We thought a full body suit would protect her knees from the sand and body from the sun. How do you like their new glasses?

Spring Break in San Diegp

For Spring Break Grandma Ann met us in San Diego for a week of sun, surfing and Disneyland. I drove the kids down to San Diego alone. Which was so much easier for me than when Daniel drives with us because I did not have to continually turn around to help the kids. As soon as we arrived in San Diego we headed for the airport to pick up Grandma Ann. Our timing could not have been better!!

Then we went to Costco for some groceries and dinner.
The next morning we organized our things and then went shopping to look for dishes. Ann know I have grown tired of my blue dinnerware and thought a great anniversary gift would be new dinnerware. I did find a set I loved, but of course it is out of print. One the way to the dishes we stopped in a children's store and Ann bought each of the kids a present...or two!
After Lula's nap we went to Belmont Park. The kids had a great time on the bumper cars, sailboat ride, submarine ride and carousel. Well, Olivia did not like the carousel as much as she use to. Which made me sad because that means she is growing up.



One fun fact about Belmont Park is that Poppie Mike worked here when he would visit San Diego for the summers during high school. I added a picture of Belmont Park from Poppie's era...just kidding.

Lula loves Pico

Todd and Sam's birthday dinner

Before dinner we got to rest on the new couch and play with Pico. We love him, but Daniel is, of course, allergic to him. By the time we got home he was sniffily and wheezing.

Todd's birthday is 2 days after Sam's so they usually have a family birthday dinner together. This year Andrea hosted us at her house. As usual she made a yummy dinner and dessert. The meat was so good poor Todd had every little time to eat b/c my kids kept requesting more meat.

Sam opened some great gifts. Thanks everyone. The Miner's gave him a cowboy costume complete with chaps, a vest, hat and boots. Sam came out the next day dress completely backwards. The chaps were over his neck and one arm and the vest was over his chest and open in the back. I gave him a little cowboy giddy-up lessons and he was good to go.

Sam's 5th Birthday

Sam's birthday will always be on General Conference weekend and this year it happened to be on Easter. So this year we celebrated it the week after. Sam had a few of his friends come over. I tried to get the kids organized to play some games, but they would not have anything to do with it! Oh well. The kids did organize their own tug of war.

After not playing games we broke open the pinata.

Then the kids enjoyed the candy and we went for the cake and ice cream. Thanks to the Dots gum drop in Sam's mouth he can't give the camera a very good smile.

Sam had a great day. He gave each of his friends a big ball with their name on it which he had written. After opening presents the kids had free playtime with Daniel in the backyard.

Easter time

In my opinion the egg dyes have changed since I was a kid. I can remember sitting at our glass kitchen table just WAITING FOREVER for my white egg to turn a deep turquoise color. But now, the egg doesn't even need to be in the dye for a minute to turn the egg the deep color. I feel like my kids have been robbed of the skill to sit and wait with your arm at a funny angle so they can dye 1/2 the egg one color and the other 1/2 of the egg another. It is so easy now. Everything is so much easier than when I was a kid! (Oh Drama!!)

Oh well, we still had a great time dying eggs just with our own little family.