Mud Pies

Ian grabbed a fistful of mud to eat before I could stop him while we were out watering flowers. I guess he wanted to demonstrate the best way to eat mud for the picture too. Ian thought it was a great game to try not to let me take his picture. This is the best one I could get of his messy face.

Curb Appeal

I am trying to decide on a new color for the front door. I wish I could paint my door some shade of red, but I just don't think it would jive well (or at all) with the other colors. What do you guys think of it being a shade of sage green or gray? There is one color that is called cement that is a greenish-gray I like. It has been orange and then forest green in the past. Yuck! (We sanded part of it and found those colors.) I just would like some kind of accent color to get away from brown and beige blah.

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

The house across the street has been for sale for a few months and yesterday the sign disappeared so we knew that new neighbors were coming. Kind of gave me a sense of forboding, but I hoped for the best. The first sign of them appeared in the evening. Two giant motorcycles parked in the carport. "That's not necessarily bad," I told myself. "You've known good people who had motorcycles." Well this morning there are some cars there, and for lack of a better word, one is "pimped out." Oh boy. I know I still don't know anything about them but my hopes for a nice family to move in have kind of been dashed. Oh well, this may add some excitement to our lives if nothing else. :)

Why don't they just fry them up now, and serve them with chips!??

Cali went in to the doctor's for her pre-kindergarten check up this morning. She asked last night if I would drop her off at school after the doctor's. She wants to go to school NOW. The doctor's office was showing "Finding Nemo" in the waiting room. This is the first time that I almost cried at the part where Marlin takes Nemo to his first day of school.

Has it been one year already?

I had high hopes of making a cute slideshow with music and everything, but as things seem to go for me I was thwarted at every attempt to make it work. So this will be a manual slideshow which means you must use your mouse to scroll down the page and listen to your own music or sing a little song as you go. I couldn't upload every picture because it takes too long, but these are a few of my favorites.

Enjoy this look at Ian's first year!

Happy Birthday Ian!

SPRING???? (again)

The snow on Thursday was melted by the afternoon, thank goodness. I didn't think that I would be making another post about snow, but here we are again.

I hope the daffodils make it.

Spring?

This is the weather outside my house right now.

My poor little daffodils. They just started blooming yesterday.

Happy Easter!

We hope that everyone had a great Easter! Our power went out Saturday just as our eggs were coming to a boil, and it stayed off for the rest of the day so we discovered that you can dye soft boiled eggs too. We also discovered that Cali and Kimi like to eat eggs that way. They just slurped them down much to Scott and my disgust. Of all the things they won't eat, we continue to be surprised at what they will. The Easter Bunny didn't seem to mind them either and he left them some exciting surprises. Ian got a new ball and the girls got "Enchanted." Scott had taken them to the theater to see it and they loooove it. Kimi asked us last night if she could skip sleeping to stay up and watch it all night. The easter bunny also left some peeps. This morning while I was braiding Cali's hair Kimi starting yelling down the stairs, "Ian's eating the chickens!" I had no idea what she was talking about so I didn't run right up. When I went upstairs he had eaten, of course, the peeps. Those that he didn't smear all of the floor and himself, that is. I cleaned it up before I got any pictures, sorry. We made all sorts of food discoveries this weekend.

We had fun trying to get pictures of everyone's new Easter clothes outside. Last Sunday it snowed so we were happy with the beautiful Spring day.

The Next Generation

We are back home now, but we had so much fun going back up North for a while. Here's one highlight: I mentioned that I thought that Cali looked like Captain Kirk in her outfit so Grandpa Cracken had to complete her ensemble. No one plays dress up like Grandpa.

Kimi had to get her share of dress up, and I couldn't resist snapping a few photos with Ian too.

Holy Rollers!

Christine had her hair in curlers getting ready for closing night on Saturday so Cali and Kimi joined in the fun. By the way-we loved the play. I thought maybe if I said that Christine wouldn't kill me for putting this picture on here.

Cali is FIVE!

Happy Birthday, Cali!Yea, presents!

Cali had her fifth birthday yesterday. She went out to lunch and ice cream with Grandma Colton. She picked what we should do in the afternoon together: play her Polly Pocket game. She chose what to have for dinner: Ramen noodles. She even chose to have a surprise party after dinner so Kimi and I decorated while Scott took her to the store to pick out a present from him. Oh boy, was she surprised. :) She told me what a great day it was with everything going her way.

There's a First

Ian has had a few firsts these past few weeks. He has learned his first word: Uh-oh. It is a useful word for him as he says it whenever he throws things to the ground, gets into things, or as we chase him when he's going somewhere he shouldn't.

He also got his first real haircut. Scott gave him a little military buzz.

Here is the "before" mohawk.

Here he is after. (The first picture is one of my favorites of him ever)

Happy Valentine's Day!

We just wanted to send everyone a Valentine.

It took a little more work than I thought it would.

For He's A Jolly Good Chia

Chia is getting older and heading off to retirement. As you can tell from the hairline, he's getting close to the end of his life. We'll sure miss him! (Until we plant him again sometime, that is.)

The monster under Kimi's bed

So he's not really a monster, but he keeps me on my toes. The other day I left him in the family room while I took laundry upstairs and when I came back downstairs he had pushed the door to the furnace room open and was wiggling past the furnace on his way to the crawl space. He'll go anywhere in the name of exploration.