Birthday Pictures

I had Ashley & Heidi's birthday pictures taken last week... Here they are... still growing! (Cant find a few, I will post the rest later.)

Spring Fever

Taking advantage of the 80 degree weather we have been having lately, we went to the lake today and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. Reed and Dan rented a fishing boat for an hour and tried out Reed's new pole he got for christmas.... only to come back with the line tied in knots and Dan's blood pressure up another 10 points. (I had a good laugh though!) Then Dan proceeded to tell me that the guy at the boat rental said the fishing has been horrible. Not less than 2 minutes later I look out and another boater is reeling in a big fish! We took our Taco Bell lunch and just read, played track-ball and lounged around. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.........

Disneyland Band

On Monday, Emily had a field trip so I decided to tag along. We rode the bus to the Saddleback Church (where McCain debated Obama). The Disneyland Band was there to play for about 1500 2nd graders. We sat in the bleachers so I had a good view of all of the children. It was hilarious, and I shot video and then accidentially erased it, when the band played William Tell's Overture. 15oo heads started to bob up and down and thousands of little legs started swinging because none of them could touch the floor. It was a very funny sight.

Love Thy Neighbor

For those of you who spend a fair amount of time at our house, by now you have met our neighbor Pam. So this picture comes as no shock or surprise to you, in fact, you are relieved to see her in a swimsuit instead of nude. For the rest of you, as I was walking around the corner yesterday, I shot this pic with my cell phone so you could have some idea of what we talk about when we refer to Pam. She is our liberal nudist neighbor for whom we had to add another 8 foot fence ontop of our 6 foot fence to keep the kids from looking over at her and her friends. (Although when the kids told me there were naked people in Pam's yard I asked them if they were men or women, they told me "We don't know".) It seems now she has taken her sunbatheing to the front yard and it is repulsing/humoring the neighborhood. My neighbor called me this morning laughing so hard she could hardly talk to tell me Pam was at it again. Now from this picture you can see a giant obnoxious eagle in the yard, and christmas lights still up on the 17th of January, combine that with Pam sprawled on the grass and ask the question"Is this a matter for the Homeowner's Association?"

Heidi turns 4!

Another hard to believe birthday. My baby is 4 and thinks she is 13. She is a binky addict. And even for her it has become imbarassing to have a binky around "non family". She has resorted to hiding the binky by putting her blanket (silkie) over her face to cover her indescressions. In an effort to ween her, I told her that when she turns 4 she can no longer have the binky. So she came to me about 3 weeks ago and said she didn't want to have her birthday because she still wanted to have her binky. So I hid the binkys one by one, systematically, until they were gone a week before her birthday. She had a few forlorn bedtimes searching high and low for the binky, that I, of course, had no idea where to find :) She has been binky sober for 9 days now!

Her birthday consisted of a family party with Dan's fam 2 days before her actual birthday. We combined Reed's, Heidi's and Ruckus's partys into one for the family. Unfortunately for all of them they were just born too close together. And, being sick of family gatherings, we only planned one. On her actual birthday, she was sure to remind us throughout the day that it was her birthday and that she could do anything she wanted. Her little friend Paisley came over for a few hours and they played. I asked her what special thing she wanted to do for her birthday and she simply said "money, money, shop". So I took her shopping with her birthday money. Then she opened her presents when the kids got home from school. After that I didn't see her much because she was busy playing with new toys.

Reed is 12!

It didn't hit me until about a week ago that Reed was turning 12. I don't know where the time has gone. It seems like he should be turning ...9. His birthday was low-key, but fun. He had 2 friends over for the morning then we took them to lunch at Rainforest Cafe. He opened his presents in the evening, and according to him, he had an awesome day. Thats all that matters!

I Hate 2008 Celebration.

Sick of relatives, turkey and ham, we just couldn't bring ourselves to spend one more evening with extended family. It was too late to plan a party with friends, so we decided to do nothing for New Years Eve. And it was actually quite fun. Reed & Ashley had friends over and we played games and Mario Cart all night long. We would pause for the occasional illegal firework, and dip in the hot tub, then resume our game playing. We have had a lousy year and couldn't wait to see it end so we named the evening our "I hate 2008" party. When the clock struck 12:00 we headed to the front of the house to bang pots & pans and be as loud as we can. We topped the night off with some sparkling cider toasts and headed to bed. In the morning we watched the Rose Parade to gloat in our work that we had done on the float.