Jacob turns 7!

Jacob turned 7 on Friday. We started off the day with his requested breakfast of pancakes with a face. Cole made fun of my first pancake for Jacob,saying that he had to eat a "girl" pancake. Oh the horror! I shortened the hair the next time.
Then it was off to school. Jacob's class celebrates all September birthdays on the last friday of the month, so I went in during lunch (lugging a baby carseat and all) and brought him a birthday cupcake. Jacob suddenly became the most popular boy in his class and everyone wanted to sit by him and his special guests. After school we had a small party with 4 of his friends. I had some games ready to go, but they really just wanted to play. They ran around the house and had a great time. Jacob wanted a lego cake. I was going to make one that looked like a lego, but he kept saying "mom, do whatever you want." So I took the easy route. And honestly this cake could be submitted to that website for the worst cakes ever made. It was supposed to be a chocolate mousse layer cake and ended up as a chocolate volcano of some sort. Makes me laugh just looking at it, but it was dang delicious! And that's the most important part.

Jacob had a great time. I can't believe how fast he is growing up. He's such a sweet boy, except when he's tormenting his little brother. But according to other mom's, that's his job?? His teacher had everyone in his class write him a birthday card and they all said such sweet things. It was such a boost for him since this school year has been a little difficult so far. So i'm thankful to his teacher for that.

That same day Brent and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. I woke up to a nice note and a new pair of slippers. Saturday my mom and dad came up and we hit the town Ditto style. That involved dinner at an italian restaurant, a few new clothes at the mall and yes, grocery shopping. I know, we are party animals. (We consider our cruise last spring our 10 year gift.) It was just so nice to be alone with no kids, and not in a rush to get back. It was a nice, relaxing evening. I am happy to say that we are still madly in love and I couldn't wish for a better man to be married too.

A day at the Kroc center.

Yesterday we had the honor of attending Dr. McDonalds patient appreciation day at the new Kroc center. The Kroc center is a new community center they just finished in Salem. It has swimming pools, a rock wall, fitness area, gym, theater, and many classes offered. It's kind of like an upgraded YMCA. It officially opens next week, so if you have spent a pretty penny at Dr. McDonalds (like we have) then you were invited to attend this event. The kids were really excited to swim. Remember when you went swimming as a kid. You could pretty much do anything except for running on the cement and holding your friends head under water for too long. Well, rules have changed. We found out that 1. kids are not allowed to wear there life jackets in the lazy river, or in the large pool area. I guess they would rather have those kids drown than wear their life jackets?? 2. You can only lay down on the slide, no sitting up. Because some genius built a metal support bar that you may hit your head on if sitting. Malia was too scared to lay down, so no slide for us. 3. None of my kids were allowed to get in the hot tub. 4. You are not allowed to toss your 2 yr old up into the air, no matter how many excited squeals are coming from her little mouth. 5. You cannot wear your goggles on the slide, they may injure your eyes. But you may put them around your wrist and slide down. We were only in the pool for about 40 minutes and had the whistle blown on our little family at least 4 times. Toward the end of the 40 minutes we were all huddled in the one area of the pool that did allow life jackets, looking at each other like "well, what CAN we do?" Seriously can't they just post a sign that says "swim at your own risk" and let us actually enjoy ourselves? And what's this new rule about NOT allowing kids to wear life jackets. When we questioned the pool manager about this she said kids are not allowed to wear life jackets in the lazy river because they might get caught in the current. Well I would rather have them caught in the current with their life jacket, then without. People are so stinking scared of getting sued these days that no one is allowed to have any fun.
Needless to say we won't be getting a membership. I do have to say that the center does offer tons of classes that I think the kids will love, and luckily the cost is the same whether your a member or not, but I don't think we'll be doing much swimming.
And since i'm already venting I have to add another short story. A while back I was leaving the gym and a Mary Kay representative was doing a drawing for free products. Well, I actually won. Yay! $10 in free products. So she called today and then the truth comes out. The $10 in free products is only good if you have her come to your house to do her 30-60 minute shpeel. Well I've heard the schpeel and I don't want to hear it again. If I don't do the schpeel it's $10 off $30 or more. Sounds like some false advertisement to me. I just wanted my free products, but since I wasn't willing to listen to the whole rundown and do a self-applied facial and have a "glamour" makeover, I get nothing. Lame....okay enough venting from me, I'll try to be more positive on the next post.

The frazzled housewife-yep that's me!

This week has been hard, really hard. But I can't complain because i've gotten myself into this mess. "This mess" consists of watching a 6 mo old for 9 hours a day, for three weeks. I'm sure you're asking yourself "what were you thinking?" I've been asking myself this question myself lately. I was thinking that babies sleep a lot, I was thinking it was the nice thing to do, I was also thinking of the $$. (Which by the way, is not much) well, it's NOT WORTH IT! This baby does not sleep a lot. He's a 20 minutes sleeper, but The hardest part of the situation is Claire, who is experiencing some baby jealousy. In the past two days, Claire has unraveled rolls of toilet paper, saturated her hair with hand soap, smeared doo-doo on her bedroom wall (maybe I shouldn't be potty training right now?), spilled dish detergent all over the floor, opened a bottle of nail polish and painted her hands, Cut up one of my library books and lastly, CUT THE BABIES HAIR! The sad thing is that I am almost ALWAYS in the same room as the baby, I ran upstairs to put away some laundry...was up there about 10 minutes and that's when it must have happened. I didn't even notice at the time, the baby's mom pointed it out to me and she was not too happy...and I felt like the worlds biggest shlup. I still do. I'm surprised that she's bringing him back tommorrow. So basically, I'm exhausted and I vow to never (unless you are my family and I love you dearly) watch another child under 1 for a long, long time. This is reaffirming my decision to stop at 4~

Back to school!

Things have finally settled down at our house. The kids are all in school finally. Malia and Jacob started last week and Cole started yesterday. I thought Cole would be nervous on his first day, but he sat down at his seat and didn't seem to care that I was leaving him. He is so excited to be in school. This past weekend Brent took all of the kids to a rocket launch. Basically it's a big field and people pay a small fee to launch their rockets. It's an all day event with rockets of all different sizes. The kids thought it was awesome and i thought it was awesome to have the whole morning to myself!
I don't think I would be a good mom unless I posted my kids' 1st day of school pics! How cute is this guy, he's so excited!

Jacob on his first day. He's in a 1st/2nd grade blend this year and seems to be doing well. He had a rough few days as most of his good friends went into the charter school (we have a charter program within our school, it's a lottery pick to get in, but I didn't even try, since I have loved the teachers outside of the charter) He only knew a few kids in his class and they were girls. So it's been an adjustment for him. But Brent insists it will make him stronger. :)

Unlike Jacob, Malia has almost all of the same kids in her class as last year. She loves her teacher and is surrrounded by good friends. I've seen a definate improvement in her behavior since school has started. She loves to stay busy.

My Wife the Computer Genius

Yes, Deena can truly do it all. Not only is she a decorator, but she can also solve any computer problem.

A few nights ago Deena was working on the computer when a virus started showing up and locking the computer down. This happened at night just before bed and I didn't have time to fix it, so I thought I'd fix it the next day after work....I never got the chance.

While I was at work the following day, Deena was busy troubleshooting the problem at home. She used our other, much slower, computer to look online at how to fix the problem. Once she found a suitable solution, she got busy implementing it. She found an anti-virus program, downloaded and installed it and killed that nasty virus.

Now our computer is running like new again! Is there anything my wife can't do...or figure out how to do? My next project for her is to change the timing belt on our car. I could get used to this...

Is it time for school already?

I just finished a really long post, clicked post and everything went blank, i'm starting from scratch...so you are getting the condensed verion.

Wow, it's been a long time since i've posted anything. Summer has just flown by. Since I last posted we have been able to do some fun things. We took a trip to the zoo and enchanted forest. Picked lots of berries, swimming, etc, We played a mean game of rook with our friends the Parmenters and finally went up to Spokane for the Harvey Family reunion. We stayed at this great campground called Bear paw campground. Each family had there own little cabin. It was perfect, we were right by the river and had a pool, tennis course, volleyball, horseshoes, Koob, basketball...it was just the perfect place for a family reunion. After the reunion Brent flew home, Jacob went home with his cousins to Yakima, we kept our cousin Alysee, and we hung out in Spokane for 4 days. The kids had a great time playing with their cousins and I had a great time hanging out with the girls. On our way to Yakima to pick up Jacob we stopped at one of the greatest waterparks in Moses lake. (of course No pictures to document this) I was so thanksful that my SIL Blayre came along to help with the four kiddos. We had a fabulous time. If you are ever near Moses Lake it's an amazing waterpark. It's just in the middle of nowhere. I was really proud of Malia, she was brave enough to go off the high dive. Of course there was an ice cream bribe involved. That night we stayed in Yakima. While we were there my SIL took these pics of the kids.






Overall it was a great trip. The week after we got home Brent left for his annual's "All brothers hike." (that's another post in itself) While he was gone I kept myself busy doing some redecorating. And as requested here's some pics.

The after pic: I found this great bed at a garage sale. It was a steal! I painted the nightstands, replaced the curtains and painted the walls "pebble grey." I love how it turned out. Claire's room, my SIL took these pictures of Claire. Did some digital scrapbooking magic to them and had them sent to Costco for me to pick up. Thanks Sara. She did all the work and i get to enjoy them. Just how I like it. :)

Our big project was putting in these new french doors. Before the space was a large dining room/living room area. We hardly ever used the dining room, it was just wasted space. So we decided to turn it into our office.

I did a lot of new vinyl projects. This is one that I think turned out well. It's so fun to be able to change my decor with the vinyl.

We are all ready for school to start. Still another week and a half. I'll have three in school this year, i'm so looking forward to that!

Summer fun

Summer is flying by, I can't believe it's almost August. We've been keeping busy. I'm horrible about remembering to take pictures, but here's a few i've gotten. We went to the beach a few weeks ago with some people from church. It was overcast, but not windy, that's all you can ask for at the Oregon coast.
At the beach we were at there is a huge sand dune that people like to climb up and then run down. It's pretty step (and high). I had to capture Malia doing what she does best, being dramatic. She literally crawled up the hill because it was "too hard" (insert really whiney voice) to walk. Of course she was thrilled once she reached the top. I love this picture. The kids chilling on the trampoline with their cousins. Malia was so sad for these guys to head back to California.

For the 4th of July we had a barbeque and had some friends over. It was a great night. The weather was perfect and we had great food. I had to get a picture of our friend Marty using his blowtorch to light the kids' fireworks. (So Marty-like)

Luckily our friends brought a few exciting fireworks (aka: illegal) so we had a little more variety to our fireworks display.

The rest of our summer has been filled with swimming lessons, tennis lessons, bike rides, and trips to the park. Nothing too exciting. We are looking forward to a fun family reunion in Washington in August. The kids and I are staying an extra week while Brent will return to work.