Mommy's Girl

I think Kendra knows her sad face gets me every time!  No matter how fake and contrived, I tend to cave in.  Smart little manipulator she is!  Mommy loves to eat cookie dough off the spatula and so do my girls!

Aw, wouldn't you give in and give it to her too?  She's so happy now!

That's right, lick every bit off your arm, you don't want to waste any.

Kendra, I can't believe what a smart lil thing you are.  Keep flashing those bright baby blues and that fabulous smile and I'll give you the world!  Or just more cookie dough!

Pudding Painting!

I'm trying to find fun things for the girls to do this summer.  We've discovered a few really fun pools, had park play dates with friends, been going to the library for storytime, and some messy, yummy fun!  I let the girls finger paint with pudding and had Mikayla write words and Megan write her letters.  But, for some strange reason, they became so obsessed with eating the art medium, that not a whole lot of letter writing got done!

Mikayla kept it contained to her hands and a little on her face, though loved licking the plate clean.

I didn't take an "after" picture of Megan, but should have.  She was so engrossed in painting her legs, arms, and washing her hands in it creating a lovely brown mess in her wake that I got to spend the next 15 minutes cleaning off my floor.  She was in panties and got to be hosed clean outside!

Can you tell nothing but eating happened here?

Say cheese!  Kendra licked her pan nearly clean with her whole face in the pan just like a puppy.  It was just messy enough that I have no desire to do this again until next summer!

A Little Bit of What We've Been Up To!

 My mom kept the girls for the weekend while we were moving and unpacking and brought them back to us before church on Sunday like this!  New matching outfits, matching hairbows, and looking clean and pretty.  They loved their new dresses and so did we!

 They also brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers with some really cool flower that turns the water pink.  The bouquet stayed nice for 2 1/2 weeks and the water stayed a vibrant pink the whole time. 

 Our first meal in our new home(supplied by Grandma and Grandpa), tri-tip, Parisian salad, garlic bread, and corn on the cob.  De-lish!

 Kendra is totally into babies and carries them around everywhere, sleeps with them, and likes to sit them on the counter to watch her eat her food.

 The kitchen before we unpacked everything.  Overwhelming much?  I actually looked at it, realized every room in the house looked the same, and wanted to cry.  Slowly but surely, it all got unpacked though!

 Somewhere in the craze, Mikayla had a birthday!  She turned 7 years old and got several new outfits, 2 new dolls, a backpack/lunchbox, and tons of doll clothes.  She loved it and I love how well she and Megan have been playing with all the dolls and sharing the clothes.

 I REALLY love that we live in a safe area and our housing development is full of courts, so I can let the girls go on walks together and don't have to worry.  Okay, maybe I worry a little and maybe I often sneak out of the house and peek around the corner to make sure they're doing alright on their walks and bike rides together.  But don't tell them.  I like them to think they have a little independence with boundaries. 

 I love that Mikayla has one baby in a front pack strapped to her chest while pushing another in a stroller!

 We found a city pool that we love!  Huge pool and separate free kiddy pool with plenty of noodles, kickboards, and 2 big water slides.

 There are so few rules that Mikayla enjoyed diving down the slide head first or sliding down together with Megan.  Such fun!  AND, it's only a dollar per person to use the big pool, so Kendra and I go in the 2 ft pool, which is huge, and the big girls go in the big pool and join us off and on.  During lifeguard break they give the kids free popsicles and do a free raffle for school supplies.  We won a pack of markers last week.  So, $2 for us all to get in for the afternoon is absofrickinlutely amazing!

 Another pool we found is in Yuba City, about 20 minutes away.  It has 2 of these awesome rock climbing walls that you climb and then just fall/jump into the water.  I made it 3 pegs from the top--next year I'm conquering that thing!

 There's also a fun kiddy splash area with a couple small slides.

 The girls loved going together!

And this one just makes me laugh.  A huge pool, a smaller kiddy pool, and all 3 girls are fighting over who gets to swim in the ice chest!  Seriously?!

Pioneer Day!

A week before we moved to Gridley, we went to Pioneer Days held by the stake in Gridley.  They had a clown making balloon animals, bouncy houses, live band, snow cones, cotton candy, carnival games, dunk tank, I could go on and on!  It was a fabulous activity--though, I'm not too sure what it had to do with pioneers!

Bridget got to enjoy her first snow cone--yummy!

Kendra loved the corn dogs!

Dad and Kendra did some mini-golfing

Megan thought the warm cotton candy was amazing!  We were amazed at what a great activity they put on and how many people were there.  We look forward to going again next year when we know more people too!

Moving Day...

 Alll our belongings out on the lawn ready to be loaded.

 We had acquired so much stuff in this house(playground equipment, 2 big kid bed sets, extra couch set, extra child, etc.) that it didn't all fit in one 26 ft. U-Haul!  Aaauuughh!  So, we had 17 guys from church helping us load up the truck when we realized--crap, we've gotta get another truck!  So Trent and I drove down and picked up another 26 footer and guess who got to drive that one to Gridley!

 Yeah, little ol' terrified me.  It was not fun to say the least.  It was hard to drive away from our home of 3 years where we built an addition of a bedroom/bathroom, where Kendra was born, where we lived right next door to Josh and Chloe for a year and a half, where we have so many great memories... I'll miss it.

Later on that afternoon, we parked the trucks out front and many people from the new ward came to help us unload the trucks.  Would you believe, both trucks were fully unloaded and ready to return to Sacramento in one hour flat!  Our furniture took quite a beating on this move and I'd be remiss if I didn't say I was more than slightly miffed about that.  i really don't like the 'distressed' look on furniture.  But, you get the help that you pay for and since we paid in donuts and milk on one end and ice cream bars on the other, well, that's the help we got!  We really appreciate all those who came to help us load up the trucks and unload into the new home.  Such a great help and all those helping hands were so very needed!  On to the next chapter of life...

Painting Party!

Chloe, my dad, Trent, and I painted almost every room in the new house.

Living room

Cutting in, going from peach to Gobi Desert tan.

That peach was putrid and I'm glad to be rid of it.

 Upstairs, the walls were mostly flat white, which meant they had smudgy, ugly fingerprints and pencil drawings all over them.  Kendra's room even had binder paper and newspaper articles glued to the walls.  The Gobi Desert gave it a nice facelift to say the least!

 The peach kitchen got a new color as well.  I obviously couldn't decide which bluish-grayish shade I liked.  Mikayla helped me test samples with a few drawings of her own!  So which shade did I choose?  None!  I'll post a pic of the color I did choose later!  stay tuned...

 Kendra's room had red baseboards, blue wall, and yellow chair rail.  It's now pink on top, brown on bottom, and has white chair rail molding and baseboard.  So much niced than the throw-up this resembles!

 Mikayla had shocking Pepto-Bismo on two walls, and rancid asparagus green on the other two.  She chose a light blue/aqua color that is much calmer and cooler.

 Downstairs bathroom, was several shades of brown and two walls of green, now blue.

Quite proud of the paint tower!  This represent a lot of time and a whole lotta money!  But more importantly, a new look for the new house and a fresh start for everyone.  This tower doesn't even include the paint for the doors, trim, and ceiling touch up!  Aaauughh!  That's a whole whack 'o paint!

Uh Oh

When life gives you spilled yogurt, finger paint the kitchen with it!

Left her sitting on the stool eating yogurt to go brush my teeth and returned to nice mess on the cupboards, counter, stool, floor, hair, body, jammies, fridge. Awesome.