Merry Unbirthday Lunch

For the kids' birthdays, we let them stay home from school and take them out to lunch. Carter's birthday always falls during winter break, so we deemed today his unbirthday and took him to Shari's. He's a Shari's fan.

Lately he's into magic tricks - he saw an older kid performing tricks at Farmers Market last week - so he also got a couple decks of cards from Winco out of the deal. A fun afternoon.

Messing with the Hutch

Ta-daaaa

The bells are my new favorite

Hi Mom :)

Mom came for a quick visit today. We had a great time together, shopping and lunch and picking up and dropping off Bella. She brought over some lampshades and a couple of other antique-y items and some old rugs she doesn't need anymore. Yay, new stuff! :)

There are those naughty girls again

Naughty Kitty Olive

Pay no attention to the mess on the dressers.

We never see Olive for very long, so I decided to grab a few pics of her. She's a beautiful cat and has become a lot more social, but is still very shy and easily startled. She loves Bella and Roz and tolerates Harrison and Carter, and has even let Hubby pet her every so often. When I'm sitting on the couch and crocheting, she likes to play with the yarn, but I can't get close to her. Yet.

All of this is a huge improvement over hiding under the bed and only coming out to eat or go potty, which was her routine for at least six months after we adopted her. We're happy she likes us and feels safe now.

Naughty girl

This is right before she bit Roz's nose. Silly kitty.

Good Neighbors

We went to the Farmers Market this morning. Everyone had a treat and we brought home some awesome hummus (holy mcyummus).

George and the kids. "Carter! Get off that globe!"

Later in the day, Roz decided it was time for a party and show with the neighbor kids. She and Emma and Dylan put together a tumbling and hula hoop performance and then invited Emma's and Dylan's parents to our backyard to watch. They sweetly indulged our weird party-obsessed kid.

Roz, Jamison, Dylan, Emma

So as we parents were sitting there, we started talking about chickens and chicken coops and how crappily our back fence was built (Jason, Dylan's dad, planted English ivy on his side of the fence to cover the ugliness) and just house-y stuff in general, and it came up that our back steps are crumbling and we have no way to saw wood to the right length to put in new steps. Jason is a contractor and of course has everything. So does Emma's dad, John, who also had leftover deck wood, and before I knew it they'd both left to get tools and wood and pretty soon they were measuring our steps and yelling measurements to each other over the back fence. Nice!

Bri: "I guess I should go get my hammer."

Look, new firewood!

The ladies enjoying Emma's huge PVC hula hoop

Jason "The Man"

New step! Yay!

After all this happened, Dada took a couple of boys shopping for some much-needed new clothes. Carter made a new friend.

C and friend

Ward Carnival

Oh what a fun time we had.

Three-legged race

Hubby and Carter kickin' it

Tug o' war #1

Sack races

Tug o' war #2 - Primary teachers vs. Primary kids

Egg on spoon relay

Whipped cream eating contest

Brother G made all the kids say "ho ho ho"

Silly Harrison :)

Yep

Little Monkeys

We're having beautiful weather this week. Tonight we went over to the Fort for some Frisbee and of course there were trees to climb...

Shade! Ahhhh

Bella and Harrison received Red Robin gift cards for their birthdays and tonight they went out to dinner together. Harrison received some valuable "how to go on a date" training from his sister, and they both came home with major food babies.

I've been messing around with my family tree on Rootsweb. Feel free to browse (but it only has dead people so you won't find yourself there, unless you're surfing the 'net from beyond the grave... woooooooo)

Mother's Day

Oh just look

Breakfast in bed. Mmmm!

Mother's Day was great. Hubby and kids wouldn't let me do anything all day. Roz gifted me with a lovely card and a bag of gifts (her gifts are always something she had up in her room - so cute).

At church, Bella was the first speaker and of course I blubbered through her entire talk. The menfolk and young menfolk handed out Dove chocolate bars with a note attached. Righteous! We went home and had spaghetti for dinner, which I was not allowed to help with. It was a wonderful day.

School Prom

I told her to keep her watch in her purse. Such an obedient child ;)

One of her friends was on the Prom Court :) 

The Official Prom Pic