parkday find: a prickly caterpillar

kik shares his find.

strawberry shortcake

jojo made us dessert tonight.

science experiment: bubbles

sy got bubbles for his birthday, but the boys decided to do some science making their own - even though i knew sy would share so i bought a gallon. they were trying to make designs on the black paper.

ky rides a 2-wheeler!

a couple weeks ago, ky tried out the little green bike with no training wheels and no pedals. she had fun and rode it again the next day.

suddenly, today, she hopped on the bigger bike and just pedaled away. sure she ran into the house, my car and a few other things, but then... we rode over to the local high school and she could freely ride around. she went fast. she went over little "jumps" (bumps). before bed tonight she said, "I'm getting to be a big girl. I can read, I can ride a bike, and I have a loose tooth!" love her!

science experiment: ky has a hypothesis & letters to great-grandma

ky has been watching us do experiments and was eager to try her own. she made it up and wanted to test it out. in which glass will the ice melt faster. ky thought the one with ice packs would melt faster. turns out the ice packs had no effect. they melted equally.

our language arts curriculum, first language lessons, suggested writing letters to family members to practice proper capitalization, punctuation, etc. i always enjoy this suggestion, then intend to write regularly, then forget. today, we painted pictures for great-grandma in washington. we also wrote thank you notes for the birthday gifts she has sent.

we love great-grandma and miss her since she lives so far away. it's been almost a year since we've seen her! (not quite true if you count skype, but you can't get a hug through skype!) :( hopefully our mail will warm her heart as her letters always do ours.

hiking el dorado

we made a trip to the local nature center and enjoyed the 2-mile hike. the kids found lots of things to look at and wanted to take lots of pictures, but the best camera moment was sitting for a good 10 minutes watching a turtle in the middle of the lake trying to climb on a log. he would make it just to the top then it would roll over and he'd go head first back into the water... he never did get balanced on the top for more than 10 seconds!

science experiment - desert plants

desert plants have a thick waxy coating to their leaves and hold water better than flat leaves with a large surface area exposed to the sun.

happy 3rd birthday sy!

my baby is 3!

one fine day

yesterday was such a fun day!

i headed to the gym first thing in the morning and came home to blueberry pancakes and omelette that my dear husband made!

next we went to the boys' soccer game. beautiful weather and a tough, competitive team made for a fun soccer saturday. following the game, we went out for a nice lunch at chili's. yummy food and well behaved children made for a nice afternoon meal.

upon arriving home, it was still sunny and since the cars were dirty, kik & ky wanted to wash them. so they did mine first, then daddy's, then grandma's. the neighbor pulled up and jokingly asked them to wash hers too, but didn't take them up on their offer to do so. :)

finally we made the ice cream and while waiting for it to freeze, did cake and presents for sy's birthday.

what a wonderful day!

ice cream making

every time i ask my boys which skill they'd like to work on in their contenders books, they both choose "ice cream making". every time! so i finally thought of checking craigslist for a machine and bought one that was just down the street. we picked up some salt and a mix (for our first time) and yesterday we set to making some chocolate ice cream. grandma & grandpa were in town and were happy to help.

twister

the kids built a twister mat on the floor with daddy tonight. the fun they have when mommy's away - daddy is so creative!

we had moved out all the furniture because we were cleaning the carpets.

hiking bolsa chica and fabulous fords forever

today, soccer was done, lunch was eaten and we all were sitting around so we thought we'd take a little hike at bolsa chica wetlands. it's not super "out in nature", but it's only 15minutes away and we feel like we get to see a little more of God's creation. today we saw a bunch of egrets, ducks, and willets. we saw a great blue heron and a jogger stopped to show us the nest it had flown from. we saw lizards and bunnies and stink bugs. we were near enough to the beach that we could hear the waves and smell the ocean air. we had a splendid time!

annual event: fabulous fords forever - every april we go check out the broncos - and take a family photo. the first year there were only 3 of us! and now...