Camping 2014

Eden-7

Anna-4 1/2

Catie-2 1/2

Fun for all!!

Fair Fun

Love this little fair

Back on vacation

Eden's last day of ESY was Tuesday and that was also Anna's last day if preschool. We celebrated Wednesday with a trip to the boardwalk. Eden lived playing in the ocean and riding the mini helicopter rides. Anna and Catie liked the beach and arcade. 

We also were fortunate to have a visit with some cousins. 

So happy to have two more weeks to enjoy before school starts again. 

Birthdays

We are getting ready for Anna's 5th birthday and have been recounting everyone's birthdays. I'm already starting to forget some so I wanted to right them down before I forget even more.

Eden
1 - Party at Yaya's house
2 - Family Party
3 - Kite Party at Wilma house
4 - Rainbow Party at Wilma house
5 - Trip to Monterey Bay Aquarium
6 - The Jungle with friends
7 - Spongebob Party at Arbutus house

Anna
1 - Party in Denver
2 - Family Party
3 - Strawberry party at Wilma house
4 - Party in Denver
5 - Hello Kitty party

Catie
1 - Family party at Wilma house
2 - Party with Godparents at Arbutus house

Seven quick takes April

This is the last weekday of Spring Break. It has been everything we wanted. I love the relaxing mornings, Eden has loved the SpongeBob marathons. And we get a date at the end to go to Giants game for the first time in two seasons!! I checked out the calendar and there are eight weeks till summer vacation. I'm not sure if that seems long or short. The six weeks between winter vacation and spring break seemed REALLY long to me but a lot of that had to do with Eden's evaluations and IEP meetings. So I think I'll be more relaxed now even if it is an extra two weeks! Plus, there are many celebrations within in these eight weeks.
Easter!
Divine Mercy Sunday!
Mother's Day!
Pentecost!
Memorial Day!
Eden's Birthday!
Father's Day!

Here are seven things I would like to accomplish during these eight weeks:

1. Lose 16 pounds. Two pounds a week right? Included in this is I'd like to swim and take a spin class at least once a week. Obviously, I'll need to do more than this but I don't want to set the bar too high.

2. No more SpongeBob watching. Phew, Eden has been binging big time this week and hitting the scripts a lot so we will need to go cold turkey. It will be hard for everyone but it is necessary. She graduated to the next level in her play group so for six of the eight weeks she will have that to focus on Wednesdays.

3. I'll probably do this on the weekend but just in case, there needs to be a toy purge/reorganization. There are four boxes of just random little toys that need to get put back together and there are way too many baby toys that I think need to find new homes with babies.

4. Try some new recipes from Gwenyth paltrows new book. I've skimmed it so far and they look okay. Definitely good for Steve's diet. 

5.  What is everyone eating for Easter? Ham, potatoes and asparagus is the usual menu but maybe something new. 

6. Still trying to decide if Eden wants a birthday party or not. She said she wants a "yellow party" not sure what that means. 

7. My grandma is turning 100 at the end of May. She is having a party at her church and I wish we could go, especially so all the little cousins could play together but it won't work wis year but we love Great Gran!!

7 quick takes

1.  Yay! We bought a new mattress. It is getting delivered today and I'm nervous and excited. I hope we LOVE it. It does have 30 day return policy. I can't believe we have slept on grandmas old mattress with memory phone topper this long. 

2.  Eden has finished all her evaluations and we are getting ready for her big meeting next week. I'm so anxious to learn how she tested. Steve and I were thinking how long we need to make her goals. He is thinking life goals and I'm thinking more elementary goals. Mr w said she's tested the highest he's ever seen. Really makes me question if this right placement for her. He said he has no other meetings on Monday so we have plenty of time to assess results. 

3.  I had these chocolate croissants from trader joes in my freezer forever and I finally cooked them this week. Bad idea during Lent. I felt bad for eating something so decadent in this season of fasting but I recommend you go and get them to eat after Easter.

4. So the Internet said I could make soft playdough with just corn starch and lotion.Ugh, it hasn't mixed together well at all. Anna keeps looking at the corn starch box for the recipe. I'm on the look out for another recipe.

5. I've been watching this video all week. Anna doesn't like it when I show her not actual Frozen videos but I can't get enough of them.


6. Clover sisters!

7. Finished bed!

Here's hoping it is comfy for many years!

Family outing Alviso

Poor mom just gets her shadow in, ha!

7 Quick Takes March 7

1. I love March!! So many fun things. Spring training, St. Patrick's day, March Madness and my birthday!!  We have almost everything ready to wear for "leprechaun day" but Anna really wants a green tutu like they had at party city. I wanted to find a cheaper one but haven't been able to find anything yet.

2.  Do you have a park that you hate going to but the kids love it? We went to that one this week and I was more freaked out than usual because a couple just let their big dogs run around with no leashes. Control your dogs people especially with little kids around. 

3.  Steve made this gumbo recipe last Sunday.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/shrimp-and-andouille-gumbo-recipe0.html
The spice was good but with the shrimp stock, it tasted too fishy for me. But if you like that sort of thing, you should check this out. There was a lot of prep which I was glad not to be a part of.

4. I loved this little paragraph from Magnificat this morning:

Fasting is a form of self-deprivation that deepens our appreciation of and longing for the food we really need.  The reason why Christ's disciples do not fast is because they have given themselves over to Jesus who is their Food.  We fast in order to seek him day after day and to desire more to know his ways. We fast so that this Lent Christ will become our All.

5.  Eden was so proud of this paper. It is her progress report for Lexia, the reading program at school. 

  

6.   I forgot to post this pic from our winter vacation a couple of weeks ago. 

7.  Eden is still doing her evaluations and I'm getting anxious for her results. Her teacher gave her high remarks this afternoon for what he has tested so far. 

Homework helper

Eden had a two year old help her with her homework tonight. 

And here is a pic from pre-homework play time. Eden says she can't do homework till it is dark outside. 

7-Fail

I didn't make the last two days of the challenge. Nothing special happened over the weekend. Just forgot. Anna found out her recital in June is going to be Aladdin so she gets a super cute costume for that. Anna went to her first chuck e cheese party.

The first thing Eden did when she got up Saturday was go out and play in the rain. Our yard brings a lot of worms for some reason.

Here is a picture I took of Catie in the van. Wonder how long she will be a thumb sucker 

St. Katharine Drexel, pray for us!

7-quick takes February

1. I'm officially a catechist for Playways. I've helped out a few Sundays so far. Four year olds are hilarious and exhausting. After this Sunday, Anna said she didn't want me to come to Sunday school anymore, ha! Oh we'll it is like one more month.

2. We caught up on the True Detective episodes on HBO. Bummed that ther are only two more episodes. At first I liked it better than Homeland but I really like Claire Danes and Tru Detective is missing that female lead but it is still really good. 

3. Happy to have some rain around here. Yesterday the girls were arguing about it because Anna didn't want it to rain because then her soccer practice would be cancelled. Luckily it didn't rain so she was still able to practice and then splash in puddles this morning. 

4.  I'm thinking for Lent that I need to take some time for me to make some art. I often feel inspired to make some type of religious art but I never feel like I have the talent or the time. I'm no artist for sure but I still just have this feeling like I want to create something. Stay tuned......

5. My new guilty pleasure from Trader Joe's, yummy!

6. I've been using random.org to find new blogs to read because there are 303 people doing this seven day challenge. It's fun just to pick a random blog to read. I try to comment when I can.

7. A picture from Steve's birthday/Superbowl party. Not much of a party for him but we were happy at least the Broncos made it to the Superbowl. I ordered a special cake topper but then when I went to pick up a plain cake at Safeway they already had pre-made cakes with Bronco colors (and Seahawks), oh well.

7-Throwback

Oops, didn't post this yesterday. 

But I wanted to throwback all the way to two weeks ago when Steve and finally got to see The Hobbit Desolation of Smaug. It had been in theaters for two months and there were only two local theaters still showing it. We had to drive across town but we were happy to have a chance to see it before it left theaters. 

When I saw the preview, I thought they showed all the Legolas parts since he wasn't in the book. But luckily he was in it a lot with a new character too. I thinked I liked it more than Steve because he is still stuck on it being exactly like the book which it is not. My favorite parts were the dwarfs in the barrels and the gold statue melting on Smaug. Those two things didn't happen in the book though. So bummed to wait a whole year for the last movie. Darn you Peter Jackson. 

7-Catie

Our little baby turned two last month so she isn't such a little baby anymore.
When you ask her if she is a big girl or a baby, she always responds, "Im baby". So cute. She is actually coming around to saying big girl some, ha!
She loves playing with her sisters. She started a new game of her own though playing with all the rubber duckies in the house, a mommy, a daddy and a baby.
We love her!

7-Anna

  Today Anna got to celebrate her four and a half birthday at school. It was so cute. She held a little earth ball and walked around the "sun" candle four and a half times. She explained the pictures on her photo poster. Her friends gave her hugs and told her they like to play with her on the playground. All the kids are so sweet in her class. They got to eat a special snack. Anna wanted to bring chocolate chip cookies

7-Eden

This is a picture of Eden last week on our mini-vacation to Morro Bay. She LOVED climbing on the rocks that you can kind of see in the background on the beach line. She loved that yellow shovel and held it in the car on the trip down. She pretended it was a guitar. Can hardly believe she is closer to her seventh birthday than she was her sixth.

The next six weeks are going to be challenging for her so I'm sending in extra prayers. She has six weeks of her social skills group which is really good for her but also a challenge. When we've been talking about it she says she doesn't want to go and that she is "scared" which really means it is hard. Why is it hard? Just a playgroup right? But she is asked to talk to her friends, make requests of adults and friends and just overall be social and that is difficult for her. She understands the concepts of social thinking (she loves to read the books) but it is a challenge for her to put them into action.

Also, she is going through testing/evaluations for her triennial review. Three years since her initial testing, wow! She is being tested for executive function which is a term that is hard to explain and understand but we hope it will give us some answers to help her with the prompting.

Her current interest for now is the Bubble Guppies. I gave her the coloring sheets a few weeks ago and she would bring all the characters to her bed and "tuck them into bed" and instruct her sisters not to go in the room because "her Bubble Guppies are sleeping". She was devastated when she left the sheets at Ya-Ya's house but I just ordered the figurines so she is playing with those now.

Steve took her to a climbing gym a couple of times over the winter break. She was into it at first but then she got scared and was afraid of falling even though she was harnessed in and Steve was holding the other end of the rope.

Post a day for seven days

I have been away for too long.  Joining Jen again for her seven day challenge.

I've come up with a schedule to try to keep me on track with posts.
Mondays - Eden
Tuesdays - Anna
Wednesdays - Catie
Thursdays - Throwbacks
Fridays - 7 quick takes
Saturdays - Sports
Sundays - Catholic

Wish me luck!
Random picture of Eden from February 2008