April 2011

Well folks May is nearly over and I thought I'd let you know what we did in April. These pictures are in reverse order, but you'll get the general idea.

Near the end of April I (Rachel) went to Holland!

What would a trip to Holland be with out some of the following country features?

Windmills anyone? This is looking up one of the canals at Kinderdijk. It happened to be very windy this day and we witnessed up close how fast the blades on a windmill can turn.

We got to visit with some of our favorite people who also happen to be relatives.

How about these lovely ladies? It was fun to be with cousins, even the famous one.

How cute is my Sissy?

There can never be enough tulips. We drove by many fields that were ablaze with color and then the next day they were gone. That's how they roll at the end up the tulip season.

My grandmother's family home in Breukelen.

Its been for sale if you have a few million laying around.

All of us together for dinner.

Can you seriously get over the tulips?

I brought home some crowns for the girls so that we could celebrate Queen's Day on April 30th. Happy birthday Queen Beatrix!

This was the last play group at our house, just before Easter. We had an egg hunt in our backyard while wearing dress-ups. What a fun time we've had with these girls.

I made some cowboy quilts. I did a trade with a photographer back in February and over the two or so months it took me to complete these it was really hard to pack them up and mail them off. Luckily they love them as much as I do. We assembled a shed, and the garden that we planted at the end of March began to grow. It looks a lot different now that it resembles a jungle. Maybe I'll post an update in my May post.

I celebrated my birthday. Each candle on the cake represents four years of my life.

Happy birthday to me!

What We Did for Christmas

Christmas was good. We traveled up to Utah to see our family and to surprise one of our Papas. I'm pretty sure he was surprised by the look on his face when he answered the door. It was a treat for him to have all his family together for Christmas since its been a few years since we've all been together during the holidays.

On Christmas Eve, while Noelle was sleeping and dreaming of the presents she was going to open, Santa brought her some great things in her stocking and while he was putting out the gifts he thought he'd better check to make sure Noelle was asleep. Sure enough, she was and Santa was kind enough to cover her up with her special silky blankets.

Noelle was especially delighted with the set of markers she found in her stocking. She's been using them since. We decided that we should store the chocolate from all our stockings and ration it out from time to time. Noelle even tried to convince her Grammy who was at our house that it would be okay since mom was gone to get the chocolate down from the closet.

During our Christmas vacation our girls did a fair amount of sleeping in coats, in the car. We're not used to wearing big coats and I think Sis thought it might just be a sleeping bag.
Our girls also spent some time with their cousins. This is just an example of how much fun it can be. You can't tell from this picture, but Jackson on the other hand was not having all that much fun. Poor guy.

Next year we're going to suggest that Santa bring Sis a bucket. She had more fun playing with a bucket on her head than she did with any of the toys she was given. Isn't that always the case?

We were glad to have had the chance to spend the holidays with our families despite the long drive. We're glad to have missed any major storms during our travels and maybe we'll come again in a few years...maybe.

Camping 101

This past weekend we went camping in the Tonto National Forest at a place called Bear Flat. It was a nice to get away from the cacti and see pine trees and other green foliage. Clearly this is a place popular for fishing as we encountered many day visitors but managed to be the only over nighters brave enough. Or maybe its stupid enough. Either way we had a nice time together and our kids seemed to also enjoy the change of scenery.

Reggie thought it was great to be able to wander in the wilderness. So much so, that he wandered off and made friends with some of the fishermen. Don't worry, because Boo already did that for you, we found him two minutes later bouncing all around the strangers doing his best to be adopted into their family.

This is pretty much the epitome of what our kids did the whole time. Noelle thought it was cool to throw the fine-grained soil into the air to make "magic." This was not especially pleasing to the dad when she would do it next to our tent and it would waft into the windows.

The water was nice and chilly. Almost take your breath away chilly.
I'm not sure what's up with this pose, but it was all she was willing to do for a picture.

It rained pretty much all night long and so we woke up to Noelle's second favorite thing to play in, mud. Sydney managed to find any sort of rock or acorn to put in her mouth. As a result she looked like so. Stinkin' cute if you ask me.

For any friends out there thinking about going camping with small children I offer up a small list of things to consider for your trip to the wilderness.

1. Take rope. It comes in handy if you need to tie up a wandering dog or a toddler that wants to play in the fire pit.

2. Setting up the tent you had to borrow in your living room the night before sounds overly ridiculous, but helps get the eye rolling out of your system when you have to do if for real.

3. Invest in an air mattress or some other sort of sleeping pad that doesn't require MacGyver skills to inflate. If you're like us it tends to be more along the lines of MacGruber.

4. Think through every scenario so that you don't forget crucial things like plates. Its very hard to prepare any meals without plates. Or clean out a fire pit without a shovel.

5. Pack a few extra clothes for your kids and let them go wild. You will both be much happier when they occupy themselves in the dirt for long periods of time.

6. If at all possible, opt out of sleeping with the baby. And better yet opt out of baby on shared air mattress. You might find yourself airborne at some point when co-sleeper gets up in the night and you find yourself trying to make sure baby doesn't roll off, or get squished in the meantime.

7. Do not let your mind wander off into any worst case scenarios. Because that sound you hear probably isn't a murderer in the woods and you don't sleep very well.

8. Pack more food than you might actually consume in a 36 hour period. You'll all be happier that way.

9. If you have to make a quick stop at RadioShack for your trip out of town, chances are you're not going to be happy. I'm just sayin'.

10. Have a tent that is large enough for two families even if you are only a four man troupe. Having space inside the tent is essential. Save that body heat business for the Himylayas.

Summer 2010

Well school has started and playgroup is set and we're just trying to get our lives back into some sort of routine so that we can function in the world again. Although, it sounds like summer is over its still a hefty 110 and humid thanks to the monsoon season here in Arizona.

First and foremost I should let you all know that we did indeed find our dog (aka brother) Reggie. After a 24 hour spree of life in the fast lane we found him at the pound in a kennel with some chiuauas that looked as if they'd had their way with him. That also might explain his hysteria as we walked away because the lady didn't have a key with her. Reggie learned some tricks in the slammer and passed kennel cough around to all his friends, even though vaccinated. We later found out a nice lady picked him up, or should I say he jumped in her car, and then called us to let us know she had found him. I'm pretty sure she found him in the front yard of my parent's house. Whatever.

So now that life has slowed a bit here's a recap of our summer for anyone who cares.

This is our family at the "bucket pool." We spent many days here for swimming lessons and as a way to get out of the house for a couple hours a few days a week.

Sydney celebrated her first birthday. She preferred smashing the cupcake more than eating it.

We ventured to Utah for the greater part of July. As we rolled into town we came across these hobos. Somehow they all share some resemblance.

We celebrated the Fourth of July in style with the whole neighborhood at the 19th annual neighborhood parade. It was good to see old friends and strange to see kids I used to babysit all grown up. Makes me feel old.

Noelle really liked the Utah Museum of Natural History. Although the dinosaur bones were really cool, I think she liked the mineral section and the bugs the best. She was even brave enough to hold a live Madagascar cockroach. Yuck!

The girls had fun splashing in their grandmas' backyard pools. This is just one of those times.

This is Noelle's "I'm dead" face.

We ventured to Island Park with some good friends and had a fantastic time away from the heat and noise of day to day life. It was so beautiful up there. Jenny always spoils us with good food and lots of Play-doh time.

Sydney and Cal at Johnny Sack's cabin at Big Springs.

Noelle didn't want to go so she just sat on the log pretending she couldn't hear me talking to her. She must have been contemplating the things of the world.

When we got back from Idaho we went to Cherry Hill with Grammy and the cousins. Noelle had so much fun and even went down the big dragon slide and wasn't afraid. She told Boo that we were cheerleaders all the way down.

A zen moment for Noelle. This was all her.

Later in our travels we visited This is the Place Monument. The sky couldn't decide if it should rain or shine, so it did both on and off. First it would pour then sun, then pour again. We just made sure when we heard thunder that we were at a house with a porch.

Grandma and Grandpa bought old fashioned candy from one of the stores and Sydney thought it was the best thing ever.

Noelle and Sydney with Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Ted

As we were leaving we spotted this cute old wagon that needed its picture taken. So we plopped the girls on there and the end result was pretty cute. These two sure love each other.

In celebration for Pioneer Day we ran a 10k that winds through Salt Lake. Each of us has run it several times throughout our lives, but this was the first time we'd all run it together. We all did pretty well too. For doing so well I awarded all of us with a bagel medal. It was pretty funny.

On our trip home we missed the first turn toward our destination, so we ended up going up through Brian Head and stopped at Cedar Breaks to take a look. That's a really nice drive for anyone looking to take a little road trip. Reggie didn't like the winding road up the canyon and ended up barfing all over his kennel and the car, but it was worth the views.

And that's the end. Stay tuned for Fall 2010, which might be my next post at the rate I'm going.

Utah

We don't usually travel to Utah this time of year, ie. winter. But it was nice to see the mountains all covered in snow and to play in it for a day or two. Sure glad we were able to see all of our families and a few friends while we were at it.Uncle Riley's farewell

Noelle with Frank the cat

Playing dress-ups with some cousins

Sydney and Cassie being cuties together

Noelle enjoying snow! Good thing I bought her some snow pants two years ago and they finally fit and we found a use for them.