Strawberries

We love strawberries, especially dipped in a bit of sugar. Being the youngest, Evelyn is always trying to do the same things her older brothers and sisters are doing, so when we are eating strawberries Evie must have them in "big kid" form, not cut smaller for her smaller mouth. It is fun to watch her try to get them to fit in her mouth!

Any Given Sunday...

Sundays are fantastic. No doubt they get rather busy with church, meetings, that sort of thing. But we are together more on Sundays than any other day of the week. Ez doesn't work, the kids have no school and no school work--just time to be together. It is a great thing!

Here are some photos from a few of our Sundays in January:

Yummy ice cream and brownies

Evie REALLY enjoying the dessert!

Playing Triple Triumph

Ez trying to make the best placement of his pieces



Evie thoroughly enjoys coloring, and having free reign on the crayons!

Making a pillow/blanket/stuffed animal fortress and attacking mom with nerf bullets

Wiped out at the end of a fun Sunday!

We're Back!

The longer I have stayed away from blogging, the worse it has gotten mentally to want to come back and tackle everything that has happened over the past few weeks! It all started when the computer started to get worse to use. I have known for months that it needed some work done on it to get it cleaned up, but I just kept putting it off. It got really frustrating when I could not longer edit my photos, which is what took me away from blogging in the first place! I always try to edit my photos and clean them up before putting them up on the blog. I finally got the computer fixed last week, on Friday. Yeah! It is nice to have it up and running much more smoothly now.

Last week we had sick kids at home. All week. David got sick Sunday night, so he stayed home from school on Tuesday. ALexis got sick Tuesday and was sick until Saturday! Lily was down and out on Friday and Saturday, and Joseph and Evelyn were slightly affected by it all on Saturday. Mom and Dad's room became the infirmary, the quarantined room. Anyone sick was sent to lay on our floor (NOT our bed), and nap and rest and watch TV. It was the best way to keep the germs as contained as possible. Poor Alexis was there the most, and by the end I was teasing her that she was wearing a spot on my carpet from being there so long! We were glad this morning to take everyone to school! Mom is ready for a little relief.

Yesterday was the Super Bowl. We decided a long time ago as a family to not watch TV on Sundays, except some church videos sometimes. Ez has DVR'd the Super Bowl game the past couple of years and has done his best to not hear anything about the game until he had time to watch it on Monday. Last year he came up with the idea that anyone that wants to stay home from school the day after the big game, could watch it and have a little party. David was particularly excited about this, until we realized that Ez has responsibilities at work that he could absolutely not get out of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week--he's gone from about 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. each day! Then David decided he would just get up early on Monday morning and watch it. Finally on Sunday, Ez and David came up with a great solution. Wake up at midnight and watch it, have a bit of a party! In fact, the boys ended up going over to a friends for that very thing. They had a great time and can't wait to do it again next year. It will be a few more years at least before I think I am ready to get other kids up to watch a football game at that hour! I just in it for the commercials, anyway...

Just thought I'd share

I added new links to my side bar, sites I like to visit. Some of them I visit because I USE what I find on there. Othere I visit because I have grand dreams of being more productive and having free time to do all the cute things I'd like to do. Anyway, I find them fun!

Ice Hockey

Living in Vacaville where it never really gets THAT cold, and most definitely never snows, I have always found it surprising and kind of cool that there is an ice rink in town.

Just prior to Christmas break the kids came home with flyers about some fun events happening at the ice rink, including 2 days where you could try out ice hockey for free! David has long thought it would be fun to give it a try, and since he is a seasoned ice skater (he went once with his boy scout troop in November), we decided to let him give it a try.

David had a great time! Apparently they give the kids skates, a helmet and a stick. Then the instructor lines up a bunch of pucks and lets the kids just got at it for an hour. Very little instruction (none), but it's free so I guess you can't be too picky about those minor details.

When David had gone ice skating, he picked up on it quickly and did really well, so he of course expected this experience to be the same. Apparently it is harder to skate in the ice hockey skates so there was MUCH falling, but he did good with the stick and had fun getting the pucks in the goals.

The down side of this experience? David came home rather bruised up. He had huge bruises on his knees and ankles and was sore for a good few days. He even was too sore to get up into the top bunk for a couple of days! Of course if asked if he would ever want to try it again, he said yes!
Getting the hang of it!

Joe had fun braving the cold and watching David

Quick Visit

My Grandpa and his wife, Rosie, went out to Albuquerque to visit my mom and dad for Christmas. Scott, Meagan and Aaron and Emery got to visit with them. Jolie and Mark and their kids drove out after Christmas to see them too. What made it special for us is that we were able to grab a quick visit as well!

Grandpa and Rosie live up in Medford, Oregon so their closest airport is in Sacramento. They flew in the Sunday after Christmas and drove to our house for the night. We had a nice dinner and a fun visit.

Getting Back

I am really not sure why it has been so hard to get back into the swing of "regular" life after just 2 weeks off for Christmas. Really. It's not like it was summer vacation and everyone got into crazy, lazy habits or anything. We've just had a hard time getting back into getting up on time, getting going, and even getting to school on time has been a challenge!

I am one of those people that has their clocks set 5 minutes ahead on purpose. There are times when I wonder why I do it when every time I look at the clock, I automatically subtract 5 minutes in my head. Partly I do it out of habit because I have been doing it for so long. The other reason? Because when we are in a hurry to get things going in the morning and kids moving, it helps us move a little quicker. The kids can't do the math quick enough, nor do they probably realize the clocks are ahead!

It shocked me Tuesday morning when the kids ended up being 5 minutes late to school, even though we left at our normal time. It has surprised me all week at how close we are cutting it to get places on time, or how I ended up finding Alexis and David walking home from school and almost to the house when I had fully intended to pick them up on time! Yes, that all shocked me until yesterday when I looked at the clock on my cell phone and it matched the time on the microwave! We had lost power for a bit last weekend, and apparently I didn't reset the clocks properly! How annoying, but once I realized it, it made me feel much better about my tardiness issues this week!

In other news...

Ez has started his new schedule this week. It in no way means that he will be home more. It simply means that we will get to see a bit more of dad. A bit more. But we have really been loving it! Ez was home for dinner AND for helping the kids into bed at night Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week! He will be home a little more on Thursday mornings too.

In fact, my thoughtful husband thought that since Joe is at preschool on Thursday mornings, it would be a fun thing for us to go out to breakfast once all the kids are at school (except for when it's my turn to teach Joe's class or Ez has to go in to work early). We went to Lyon's with Evie this week. It was great to have a little time to just sit and chat. I am really going to love our little "dates".