Heidi Can Officially Ride a Bike

Teaching each of our kids to ride a bike has been a pain for us....living on a hill, and having random people run into parked cars in front of the house, has hampered their ability to learn like ordinary children. The only chance they have is when we take them to the park which requires us to pack up the bikes on the rack. So it is a great feat and accomplishment to finally have the youngest finally able to ride on her own.

Reed's Yardworking Ethics

I am assuming that it is tough to get the average 14 year old to do any yard work. It takes a good hour of fighting with Reed to where we actually "break" him and he realizes that we are not going to relent and he won't get out of the work. Such was the day...... Dan had Reed doing the simple task of Aerating the yard with some spikes you strap on to your shoe. Reed decided to goof around on them on the hill and the spike plank flipped and went through his shoe and into his foot. He was punctured in 2 places and when Dan took off his shoe, his sock was filled with blood. Reed doesn't handle blood well, so he got really faint and then threw up all over the front lawn. He has since healed and got out of a week's worth of PE and milked us for rides to and from school for a week.

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, all I really wanted was a picture with all of my kids....They're growing so fast.

The OC Marathon

After months of training after school 2 days a week, Emily and Ashley ran a mile lap in the OC Marathon. Ashley gave it all she had and arrived in the middle of the pack.... Emily came in absolutely last just ahead of a kid in a wheelchair. She told me she just doesn't like to run. I am proud of both of them, keeping with the program to the end...and improving their starting time.......despite countless complaining every Monday and Thursday morning.

Lisa's Escape

This weekend I escaped for a "girl's weekend" filled with no responsibility, no appointments to keep...besides a spa appointment....and an open schedule to do as I pleased. I went with 3 other women and we stayed at Mandalay Bay. It was too cold to lounge out by the pool...but I didn't seem to have time to anyways....besides as Heidi told me, trying to convince me not to abandon her "You can lay out by the pool at home and read magazines."
Went to the Cirque De Soliel Show called "O" at the Bellaggio and it was amazing. I highly recommend it to anyone. The stage was a "transforming pool" making for some amazing tricks.
Dan did a great job taking care of the kids while I was gone. But he said "you know, your job isn't as tough as I thought it was" which angered me and encouraged me to plan my next trip...seeing how he can handle everything so easily.

Spring Break 2011

We try not go go anywhere for spring break, because...that is when everyone else is there. So we just stayed home and enjoyed the time off from school (well...some of us enjoyed the time off from school.) Spring break started out with Heidi's class having an Easter party and egg hunt. I came in at the last minute to hide some eggs and give "face-time" since working in the classroom bores me to death and I get angry because I am not getting paid 80K a year to do the same thing the teacher is.
I took Heidi & Emily to the city's Bunny Days to get their picture taken with The Bunny. A must!



We had to drain the pool this year. The water had been in there for about 6 years and the chemicals were out-of-whack. It always reminds me of the Polar Bear Habitat at the Zoo when we refill it. We had neighbors down the street call the water company complaining about all of the water running in the gutters..(water is a precious commodity here...unlike Oregon where I grew up) The water company showed up at 11:15 at night to see what was going on and did'nt care at all what we were doing....they just had to explain it to the people at the end of the street.
On Easter morning we had a visit from the bunny....followed by an egg hunt in the back yard. Reed is taller than me now and he looked like a grown adult running around the yard frantically searching for eggs.....weird..... I baked for 3 hours in prep for Easter ham dinner with relatives. Knowing that Reed would be anxious to tease the girls from all of the candy he had ingested in the morning...I had him cook with me. We made Deviled Eggs topped with bacon bits and chives, pistachio salad, and homemade potato rolls. He did a really good job helping me. Maybe by next year, I can pawn the whole baking thing off on him.

Ashleys 11th Birthday

Ashley's birthday fell on a school day this year and her only birthday wish was to skip school and be taken out to lunch. So, since she is the only student in her class to be getting straight A's, I figured I would give the rest of the class the day to catch up and let her stay home. We went to Nordstrom for lunch and then I took her to get her ears pierced at the mall. She was super nervous, but did just fine. (Isn't she oh-so glamorous?)

I was also convinced to let her have a few friends over after school, which turned into an all day and all night slumber party.