Cutie boy!

Got Nate's Pre-school picture today. Of course this was his first bad hair day ever - you cant imagine how much product (pomade, gel and spray) I had to put in his hair to get it to look halfway decent.

Recycled Fashion

So I heard Flipside was doing a fashion show where all the items were going to be made out of recycled stuff and household products and I knew I wanted to make a skirt out of ties - don't know why I've just wanted too for a long time. 1 thing I learned is that a whole bunch of mismatched ties are ugly! But thanks to my friend Becky and Travis at the Closet I had 92 ties donated to pick from! I sorted them into colors and blue was the biggest pile so I made my skirt from the big ends and the little ends of the ties and it was easier than I thought it would be! But then I decided I wanted it to be an outfit and since adding more ties would make the colors ugly again, all I could use was the leftover middles which wasnt alot of fabric so I made a hootchie backless top (but dont worry I'll wear a shirt under it for the show) Here's the top:

and here's the skirt:

and I decided after I made it that it needed shoes but the shoes needed 2 matching ties so I did purchase these Halloween mummy ties at the Dollar Tree:

(I know my toes look crazy in this photo - the shoes are old and dont really fit me well)

I also made a skirt for McKenna and we will be walking the show together :) Hers is way more cute cuz I bought a couple more Halloween ties for hers:

So cute!

If you love my outfit and must have it, it will be up for silent auction after the show on Saturday.

Halloweenie

This year both boys wanted to be Wolverine for Halloween - I apologize now for sucky Halloween photos, dont know what my problem was this year.

Thursday before Halloween we had a fun Momtourage hangout that the boys loved! Paul took all the kids pictures and printed them on the spot - sweet!

The boys loved playing games, making crafts anf being with the cousins!

Here we are at Flipside's Trunk or Treat

With Grams & Gramps and a whole bunch o cousins!

KOA is the way to go!

One year from our 1st trip in our tent trailer, we headed back to the same campground... San Deigo Metro KOA - our favorite place to camp!You would think after 10 trips here I would take less photos of the same things but I love to chronicle the growth of my kids on these toys: the purple dinothe holes in the former "stinky cement slide of death" now just "the stinky tunnels"the swirly slideThis was their Fall Festival weekend, we took the hay rideto the Pumpkin Patch!All the kids got a free pumpkin to carve

This is Nate showing me the scary face he wanted to carveMessy!

The best part is that the KOA cleaned up all the mess!

Finished products:Getting ready for the costume parade (N8 was at a car show w/the guys)Zach found another Darth Vader to fight (a girl with black go-go boots!)Official portraits: Heading out to Trick or Treat from camper to camperHavin fun with Nana's decorNate's teacher Mrs Neise was also camping there!Craft time (pirates, superheros and ninja turtles)Ahhh.. brothers! This was the first time the boys slept on the same bed camping - cute, until Zach stole Nate's blanket at 4:30am! The second night we put their suitcases between them

A Cloudy Day

Last Wednesday I got to help out in Nate's class at his school Clouds. It's so fun to see him interact with the other kids and act like a little man there. At recess he likes to ride bikesand play in the sandMmm snack timeAnd a sticker at the end of the day for being a good kid

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

I love these muffins at Starbucks so I found some copy-cat recipes online and merged them into this recipe that I'm taking to the Flipside Recipe Exchange today. Enjoy!

She flies through the air with the greatest of ease...

Saturday was an awesome day! I got to help celebrate Jessica's 30th Birthday at Trapeze High in Escondido. I wish I took more pictures of the place cuz it was... interesting. Here's 1 I did get of Erin showing off some of the cool ambiance:
Picture alot of broken down camper shells and couches outside. But whatever, the trapeze looked safe (really what do I know though) Here's 1 of the guys who taught us what to do - he later left angry because he was super crabby, good riddance Grouchy Man!Jessica workin on her form: Nice form Erin:

"Always look at your hands!"Oh yeah, that's me way up there!And on my way down :)After a few "swing and drops" (no that's not the technical term) We learned to get our knees over the bar and reach back to grab the guy on the other barHere's Alisha gettin ready for a giant wipeout - she was tough and took the hardest falls yet she still got up and tried again!

Me and the birthday girl "Welcome to your 30's Jes, now watch everything on your body go to crap!"
This is supposed to be a shot of me and Erin and Alisha in our sweet stripy tights but apparently Courtney didn't get that message when I handed her the camera and said "Take a picture of us in our tights!"

Posin' on the practice barCheck out those cool custom embroidered shirts they say "Gettin High on Jessica's 30th" Contact Erin's mom for all your custom embroidery needs!
Here's the videos. See you get 3 chances to make the catch to the guy on the other bar. I made it the 2nd time but alas, my camera's memory card decided to become full right before I did it :( so here I am missing the catch...

But that's no fun! Here's Jessica making it!

And here's Erin makin it!

So as I sit her 3 days later; my little toe and half my right foot is purple, I have bruises on the back of both my knees, I have scabs on my knuckles from "net burns," my shoulder/armpit area is super sore and hurts whenever I lift my arms, I have to ask myself would I do it again... I think I would :)

All About Nate

I thought I posted this last week but I guess not.
We had fun making this poster for school.
I dont think Nate's favorite food is really celery or that he really wants to be a police man but I just went with his first answers.

Three posts for the price of one!

Here's a few things I forgot to blog:
Last month Ryan took just Nate on an overnight campout. They camped right on the beach at Pt Mugu.Zach was crushed when they packed up and left with out him:( Luckily I had a few unopened toys from his birthday to bring out.
There were no hookups and the beach was rocky but they had a good time.
Played some "chess"
We got this "hitch-hiker" bike that attaches to the back of Ryan's for him to take Nate out on longer rides.
Gotta roast those mallows!


Another fun thing was the 25th Anniversary celebration of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie last month (what you didn't celebrate?)
Our Taekwondo class had a pizza party (of course) and all the kids got dressed up to watch the movie then work on some moves. Nate wore a full turtle costume and was constantly attacked by the little kids there.
Seth was very serious about his karate and his moves - he's a natural!
Not to be left out, here's little brother gettin some moves on, the boys learning head blocks & Nate dissing Miss Gordon on the high five.

Last weekend we went bowling with the Lassiters after church!
The big brothers:
The little brothers:
Bowling with the ball slide:Feel the excitement...
Wyatt was a little sleepy.

Back to school, back to school

Today was Nate's first day of his second year of pre-school at Clouds. He was super excited to go today, not one bit of whining even though we had to get him up at 6:45am.

If the shoe fits

I got Nate some new shoes for school and when I got home I noticed that my 4 1/2 year olds shoes are about as long as MY foot! Jeesh!

Catch of the day

Caught this thing in my backyard today. It's about a inch and a half all spead out. Yikes!

He-yah!

This week Nate started a summer session of Tae Kwon Do. Here he is at his first class checkin it out (black shirt - before we got his uniform)

He still has to "earn" his belt but he was super stoked to put on the uniform and show us some moves.

Ahh... such a gentle boy :)

He here is not paying attention in class (happens alot)

He's lucky to already have 3 freinds in his class: Travis, Nathan & Noelle

Carp (Thats what all the cool people call it)

We were lucky enough to have completely beautiful weather for this year's Carp trip.
First thing the kids want to do when we get unloaded: ride bikes. This is a MAJOR pastime, I joke that we must go around the loop at least 100 times a visit.Even the little guys are totally into it.Our site, we flipped the trailer backwards so we could face my folks and have a larger common area between us.Peeking thru Nana's trailer windowWe brought the kayaks again. Here's Nate ready to go out w/daddy, does this thing look too tight? :)out:Little boys + sand + bucket of water = hours of fun.Even the little guys went out this year with their daddiesand caught some wave action on the way inNate sticks real close to shore and loves to jump over the waves

Peeps found some crazy bugs that lived on the seaweed and looked like leaves

Emma chasing ZachDiggin a hole with EthanOne thing about Carpinteria... the train runs RIGHT by the edge of the campground. We were on the back row this year so this was the view out my trailer window!Another thing about Carpinteria... coons! They come into your campsite at night looking for food, they don't even wait until you're inside. We had 3 in this same tree later that night!Gotta have smore timeThis is how Zach likes to roll... with Momo and Emma :)Nate picked me some flowers on our bike ride to the Bucks.Chillin, watchin the bikes go by

This guy wanted a closer look at our beautiful tablescape and got stuck! Sadly he did not make it out, but the kids had a good time getting close up looks at him.Lovin the beach:

Our trailer has a shower/toilet but no tub so we wash the boy every night in this bucket. Someday we'll look back at this and laugh (well I laugh now too, it's funny)We had a super big group this year, here's some of us the morning we left (yes I look horrid, glad this is a low res copy I stole from Gina)I really like side-by-sides so here's a few with 2008 on the left and 2009 on the right:

Scarred for life

Once I had Nate I knew I wanted a tattoo with my kids' names, I just had to wait until I had the other one to find out the other name. This is actually my 2008 Mother's Day gift I was supposed to get last year but never got my design finalized until just now. I actually printed it out and wore it around for a week to make sure I liked it and had to tweak it a bit - I found out the skin on your wrist moves really weird. I'm really happy with how it came out, now if I can just stop bumping it everywhere!

Bump be gone!

Tuesday was Nate's plastic surgery to remove his "bump" as we called it. Here he is what his bumped looked like at his consultation on 6/19 3 weeks after the bump appeared.We decided for the removal because the Dr. said it could never go away, it had been growing like crazy, and if he scratched it it would bleed for 20 minutes. We scheduled a surgery for 7/16 but I called them 3 days later to try and get in sooner cuz it had grown to the size of a pencil eraser tip. Then it went from bright red to black and kinda shriveled flat - yuck! Here it is just before Nate scratched the whole thing off in his sleep the night before surgery:They gave me a special gel to put on 2 hours before the surgery. Nate and I left camping in San Clemente early to get him there. We picked up some McDonald toys on the way which helped entertain him in the waiting room.Nate is so loved not only did my mom and dad show up to wait with us, but Jen, Ethan, Kenna, Seth and Chase showed up too! And they all had presents for Nate so he was pretty happy at that time.
Here we are wearing our doctor "costumes"Nate was such a trooper. He slightly pulled away when they injected him but other than that he just laid there wrapped up in his burrito blanket :)

The surgery lasted about 10 minutes, they covered his eyes, I held his hands the whole time and sung Weezer songs to him and only had to remind him a few times not to move his mouth (cuz his cheek was all numb he kept trying to move it). He got 3 stitches that will dissolve:The worst part for him was after they were all done they had a sticky monitor pad on his leg that they had to pull off and that really hurt him. I had told him when the surgery started that I had a special Transformer for him if he could stay still like a statue the whole time so we whipped that out while they took off the pad.All better!

It is super strange watching someone cut a hole in your child's face but I was glad that I got to be with Nate the whole time.On our way to the Schnitz for some corndogs!Nate hasn't complained about his face hurting once, got no swelling and no bruising. Now I just have to keep him out of water for a week and protect it from infections (we are going to spend 5 days camping at the beach next week!)

Campin with the Oregonians

Ryan has a bunch of family living in Oregon and they all came down to celebrate Grandma & Grandpa's 60th wedding Anniversary. His family has a tradition of camping at San Clemente State Beach so we spent 3 days there. The views were BEAUTIFUL, the campground... meh.
Here is the giant hill you have to walk down to get to the beach.Walking back up the hill after you've been at the beach for a few hours sucks!
The train goes right along the shore.Nate and Tristan liked being buried in the sand.Zach is just a good lookin kid!This is Nate's sand goatee.Back at the campground, the kids loved to climb the tree in our site.And hang out in the back of our car watching videos and playing with toys.4 years ago Nate and Tristan were both 6 moths old (they are 1 week apart) and we drove out to see the family for the day and took this picture of them:Here they are together again:Here's some more beach fun (it was cloudy on/off the second day)Zachy really like to play with cousin LindseyHere is everyone who came to the beach, some just for the day. Tricia got sick so her and Dan stayed home but everyone else made it!Some super cute boys in front of the sunset for your enjoyment:

It's gettin kinda wacky!

It was a medieval theme this year at wacky week, Nate was totally into all the knights!Of course he had to test out the princesses too!Each day the kids made pieces of the armour of God, Nate liked to play drums on his breastplate of righteousness with SophiaWorship time was Nate's favorite, he loved jumping up and down to the Happy Song.Of course he loved all the extra time with his best bud Seth...bouncing in the jumper...and more Seth!We were super excited that some friends from his preschool class came too!And the cherry on top, the waterside on the last day! Thanks Paul and Angie and everyone who helped out, it was super wacky and super awesome!

Callin all Angels

For Father's Day this year us kids took my folks to an Angel game. We all had a blast! It was free kid's jersey night but they were all XL so Nate swims in his and Zach could use his as a sleeping bagWho needs 1 seat per person? Not Zach and Chase!Nate was having so much fun with everyone he was sad when I tried to get him to sit by me and RyanRerynolds fam + Nate - Seth who is hiding behind Ethan

Who'da thunk it?

Both my boys like black licorice.