Heidi & Olivia

Just a cute picture of Heidi at her friend Olivia's house.

My exposure to Catholicism

Every 4th grade class in California has to study the California Missions for their curriculum. So I decided to go with Ashley's class on her Mission field trip. We went down to Oceanside first to the last fully operating Mission, San Louis Rey. It is used as a retreat now but was interesting. But the Jesus in the chapel, freaked me out. It had real hair donated by someone in the 1700s. (And I could swear his skin was donated too) Creepy! We then headed back to Mission San Juan Capistrano. The mission was destroyed in an earthquake but a few walls stand, so the tour focuses on "mission life" which, which was in my opinion, a way of enslaving the indians for the good of european trade and, of course, the church. All in the name of Jesus and other assorted Saints.
The audio tour that they had the kids take was also a little disturbing. They kept talking about how adobe was made of cow poop, and audio of cows farting!?! They had a fictional character going back and forth in time, with the idea that they would keep the kids attention if they threw in time travel and poop. No wonder our kid's education is suffering and quite frankly, why they are so confused and have no concept of real life. I wish that people would teach it like it is, boring or not.
All in all, it was a fun day. And the group I was in charge of learned a lot, because after each section of the audio tour, I gave my own tour. It was good to spend time with Ashley too.

The Joys of Being 5

Every once in a while your kids will do something that makes you stop everything and think..... You are soooo cute...where do you come up with these things? I guess with Heidi being the youngest and home alone with me alot, I notice her little sweetness in the things she does. But I also noticed she is quite crafty. She will make full floral arrangements from flowers in the yard, and jewelry for herself out of notebook paper, the paper people she cuts out have 5 individually cut out fingers and 3 dimensional hair . I have to ask myself.....What 5 year old does these things? The picture above is of a "Balloon Bride" that she made with balloons left over from Ashley's birthday party. She made an entire family, including the "Groom" which she thought was the name for the preacher. Sadly, the dog popped the entire family.

Heidi also likes Barbie movies and when she got the Barbie 3 musketeers movie, she was obsessed with being a musketeer. She made her outfit herself and asked me to make her a mask out of paper (the least I could do, given she put together such a fabulous outfit on her own). She then commissioned Reed to give her "Musketeer Lessons" because he is the expert sword fighter in the family. He had her doing all sorts of commands like "stand at attention...etc" and she thrived on every word.
Having your kids grow up is bittersweet. They drive you nuts and you can't wait for them to grow up, but they are so cute and sweet and you want them to stay that way forever.

Disneyland

We took the kids to Disneyland on March 9th, courtesy of our lemonade stand we did for the pet rescue center. The kids had a blast and it was like the first time for Heidi. The lines were super short and the weather was wonderful. The best times to go are Sept 15-Oct 20 and Jan-Mar 15. Otherwise prepare to be annoyed by hoards of people. We almost lost Heidi when she thought we were going to another ride and started to follow some man thinking he was Dan. We realized she was gone, and luckily, saw her 30 yards down the sidewalk thanks to the lack of crowds.