"Twins"

Alexis and Joe came out with as close to what you could call matching outfits with each other Monday morning. It gave me a good little laugh. I particularly like the matching headbands...

Favorite DAD game

The kids absolutely love when they get the chance to rough house with dad. They love wrestling with him, but another favorite activity is trying to get dad off the couch. It takes a large combined effort and some definite time, but they eventually win, especially on the leather sofa that is a little more slick!

Valentine's Day

We had a fun Valentine's Day. The kids had parties at school. We were also able to have our very good friends, the Minnicks, come visit us for the afternoon/evening. We ate pizza, went bowling (always fun when 6 of the participants are kids!), and then out to Fenton's for ice cream.

Joe had fun getting ready for the big day with his Spiderman valentine cards too...of course he wouldn't give them away because they were his...

Free Pancakes!

Tuesday was National Pancake Day at IHOP. You get a free stack of pancakes and then if you want, you can donate to the Children's Miracle Network (I think that is the one).

So Ez and I thought, gee, wouldn't it be fun to get the kids up and ready for school and then take them out to breakfast? We never go out to breakfast, what a fun idea that I am certain everyone will love! Well, it was a great idea--in theory!

This is more how the morning played out. My alarm went off. Ugh. Oh yeah, I am doing this getting up earlier on a school morning thing so we can have fun family time. Next--wake up the kids and convince them it is worth it to get out of bed a bit early do we can have fun! Try to wake up a dad who is used to sleeping in in the morning since he works graveyards.

Ok. So everyone is essentially happy and ready to go. The lady at IHOP is smart, sees our little group, and quite literally sticks us in a little corner. I actually didn't mind! So we order the pancakes plus a few other little things to make sure everyone eats enough breakfast. The food comes, the bacon and sausage are eaten quickly. No one want the yummy $10 omlet I bought to make sure there is enough protein to go around. There is some encouraging on my end to please, please, please drink all that Orange Juice sitting in front of you that we are paying for. Breakfast is done. Mom and Dad ate their pancakes, everyone else nibbled and wasted. The bill comes. We pay it, we drop kids off to school, come home, and relax.

At home, I think--boy, that was not quite what I expected. It is a darn good thing that this fun idea of getting free pancakes for breakfast ended up costing me $30 and no one actually ate the free part! Breakfast is not the meal to eat out, if you are going to go out at all!

Fun for all!

The kids had Monday off and as luck would have it, so did Ez! He actually had this entire week off. Of course with Ez's responsibilities at work, his week off still ended up including needing work 3 of his nights off--what can we expect?!

Alexis spent the morning running to San Francisco with Grandma Jane. It was her first time on the BART!

I had a lunch already planned with some friends for a birthday, so my day was planned out for me--lunch at Fentons, YUM!

Ez got to take David, Lily, and Joe on a special date. They headed in to Sacramento to play at Chuck E. Cheese, go out to lunch, and then spend a bit of time at the Sacramento Zoo!

It was a fun, fun day for everyone!

My little love affair...

Here's my story:

A little over a week ago we were having a visiting teaching brunch to celebrate a friend's birthday. All being moms, we shared the wonderful stories the joy of having children tends to bring into our lives! Messes got brought up, what a surprise. Having lots of little ones, especially Joe, we tend to have our fair share of messes.

I mentioned one particular time when Joe found a tube of toothpaste and squirted it in blobs on the carpet in my bedroom. I dabbed it up and did a basic cleaning of the mess, but it was night time, I was tired and busy and didn't feel like scrubbing for an hour. So of course the stain sat there for a few weeks. I know that sounds so lazy, but how often is company in my room?

So my friend mentions this tool called the SpotBot and tells me how wonderful it is--you sit it on top of the stain, turn it on and walk away. When it is done cleaning, it beeps at you until you pick it up. She lent me her SpotBot to give it a whirl.

I love the SpotBot! It is the most wonderful tool for moms and messes. My toothpaste messes were all gone within about 12 minutes (4 spots at 3 minutes each). There was no scrubbing or soaking or wishing I had never had children to make messes in the first place. In fact, I ran around tidying other things at the same time! After it was done, I was amazed how many spots there suddenly were around my house--and I cleaned every one of them up!

I was thankful to have it still in my house yesterday when Joe got into my makeup bag (nothing is sacred these days) and ran my nice new lipstick across the carpet. All clean now!

If you haven't heard of the SpotBot, now you have. If you doubted their effectivenss, you can feel at ease. You should get one, you will love it. It is on my list of things that I love and need to buy.

They should pay me for such great advertising....

Our little beauty is a beast!

Evie and Lily had doctor's appointments today. We have always enjoyed Evie's healthy rolls, but I was surprised to find that at nearly 7 months old she weighs 20 pounds and is 27 inches! This hasn't hampered her desire for mobility, however. Before she even started sitting, she spent most of her time on her belly, rolling around, scooting. She has mastered sitting, but last week decided to start crawling and is now in the dilemma of getting in places she didn't mean to go. Today she kept heading for the table, trying to crawl over the bottom bar of the bench and then getting stuck and crying until someone would rescue her!

Lily had her Kindergarten (YIKES!) appointment today. 5 shots, a TB test, and a hemoglobin test (not to mention the many, many blood-curdling screams) later, we are glad to report that we survived and look forward to the fact that more shots don't come along for a very long time. Lily spent much of the rest of the day needing to be fed due to her sore finger and being carried room to room because of sore arms...

Lily has been looking forward to her birthday because she really wants her ears pierced. This afternoon she asked of it would hurt, I said probably, and now she wants to wait until she is 8 to pierce them! The memory of the painful shots will last her a while, apparently!

Let's Go, G.N.O.!

Alexis, Lily and I got to have a very special G.N.O. (Girl's Night Out) last night. Okay. So it wasn't really a night time event. Alexis actually left school an hour early, but it was still a girl's thing!

Sporting their new Hannah tees, we went to see the Hannah Montana 3D movie! The movie was so much fun. We loved every minute. My only disappointment? I kind of wished that there was an announcement at the beginning encouraging the girls to all get up and dance and sing along--isn't it supposed to be a concert-like thing?? It would have been fun as a mom to watch it. There were a number of times when Lily simply couldn't contain herself and she would be dancing or bouncing in her chair. A few time she cautiously got up and started dancing. It was a treat for me to see the girls enjoy it so much, and it was the perfect kind of concert experience for me at this point!

Joining the ranks!

I have had so much fun exploring other people's blogs lately that I decided to jump on the bandwagon and create one for our family! We will see how long it takes me to really figure out what we are doing and how often we can update it!

David had a basketball game this morning that Ez and I couldn't go to--thanks Grandma for taking him! Only 5 kids were there so they all got to play the entire game. It was not the game to miss, unfortunately, because David scored a number of points and their team actually won!

Lily is currently fascinated with ladybugs and believes they would make great pets. She has caught a few in the last few weeks and I have only let her keep them for a few hours, which breaks her heart every time. Then we discovered how to keep one--she had one for two and a half days before it died. I think we will get better as we go along!

Alexis had to do her presentation of the biography she read this week. She was Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts. Alexis loves to act, so she really enjoyed trying to become her character and really had a fun time. The book was interesting too!!

Evelyn has been busy growing up. She is six months now and is sitting really well and has taken on crawling. I was hoping she would be happy just sitting and playing for a while, but I suppose with everyone else around, she wants to get up and go too! She is getting more and more fun for the kids to interact with, so we are all having great fun.

Joe has managed to avoid any major catastrophies in the home this week--hooray! Has been having load of fun with the football and legos. My favorite thing he says currently--"Leave me my lone!"

We are in the midst of repainting in the house--can we say chaotic? We started the front room this week and realized it's current color required us to prime the walls--and the ceiling unfortunately! So what was initially a 2 day project has been sitting in limbo until Monday until Ez has a bit of free time and can get to the rest of it....we will enjoy it when it is done, at least.