This Saturday it was just me and Jacob at home. So we went to the farmer's market. I'm a big fan of farmers' markets and so are my children, but they always seem to find the only non-fruit & vegetable offerings in the market. Jacob wanted to get kettle corn, which he got. But then he decided that it was only for the "children to share"; which incidently worked out great for him, because he was the only child there! So he spent the rest of the day upset at me for trying to take taste's of his kettle corn!! I tried to get him to pose for a picture next to the flowers, but he wasn't having a bit of it.

Farmer's Market

Mom and Dad and Other Stuff

Well this has been quite an eventful week. It’s hard to know where to begin. Last Thursday my Mom and Dad came down from Utah to pick up Sarah. We had such a blast visiting with them and getting to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa! We got to go to church in the ward I grew up in and say Hi to everyone we hadn’t seen for years. Even though it was very sad to say goodbye to Sarah. For the next few days Jacob kept walking around looking at the ceiling and saying “Sarah, I said COME BACK!” It was very cute, he insisted that Sarah could hear him on the airplane!

After my Mom and Dad left we had one day to get ready for school! So we went supply shopping and got our two big school girls new pencils and backpacks and stuff like that. We had a bit of drama when we went to register the girls at their school. We have them transferred to a different school district, and we received their transfer approvals at the beginning of the summer, but when we went to register them they only had Anarosa on their list not Alana. So we turned in all the paperwork and did everything we could to get Alana in. It came down to the day before school started and we finally got a slot for Alana! Talk about stress!
Well the first day of school came and we got up extra early and got our school girls fed. Then we packed everybody up and got them off to school. I took the morning off so that I could come too! Anarosa walked right into second grade. She is a pro at this by now. We dropped off Alana at her first day of kindergarten and said goodbye. Then Mark and Jacob and I went out to breakfast together.
Alana gets out at 11:40 for the first week, so Mark went to pick her up. Apparently the first day did NOT go well for her. The head kindergarten teacher was waiting for him when Mark arrived. Alana had gotten in trouble three times and had been sent to the principal’s office on THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN! (we are still not exactly sure what she actually got in trouble for – the head teacher wasn’t actually in the classroom) But, by the time Mark got there, she was quite upset. And the school was actually talking about expelling her (which they can do very easily because she is a transfer) The head teacher actually asked Mark if we tolerate this kind of behavior at our house!! (Yes, of course we do, we give all of our children lots of candy whenever they have a tantrum) But then again, we also don’t expel them from the family the first time they have a hard time. At any rate, her next two days and kindergarten went by without a hitch. So we’re chalking this up to first day jitters! (admittedly a rather extreme case!).
So we managed to survive the first week of school. On Thursday however, Jacob managed to be standing behind the sliding door of our minivan when Anarosa swung it open. He has a nice long bruise right between his eyes.
Our other excitement was on Saturday night when Mark and I were going to bed. We heard a noise outside and upon further investigation found that half of the ancient pine tree in the front yard had fallen onto the fence! It hadn’t broken clean off but was also leaning over the car ports of the apartments so Mark and I spent about two hours taking off as much weight as we could. So that it wouldn’t snap completely off. That was fun! For those of you who have not recently deconstructed a pine tree they are full of spiderwebs and sap!


Well those are the highlights this week!

I've been tagged!!

a close up of the plastic frogs.....

(cause every kitchen sink should have plastic frogs!!)

The Kitchen Sink....

What the kids are doing right now....

Okay this one I cheated on, but only because what the kids are really doing right now is running around the house naked because they just got out of the pool (and nobody wants a picture of that!) But this is what they were doing right before on the way home from picking me up from work!

My Favorite Room is my new Kitchen

(because it actually has room to cook in, AND cabinets!!!)

My Favorite Shoes!

The Bathroom.

My Closet

(those are all Mark's Clothes by the way, mine have to live in a little tiny cabitnet)





My Refrigerator....

Quotes of the Day

Jacob: "If you're the world's greatest mom, how come you can't juggle???
(hmm... good point)


Mom: "So Anarosa, why do you think they call it a Canary Melon?"
Anarosa: "I think its cause the Canadians make them."


Mom: "Jacob it is definately time to change your diaper!"
Jacob: "No, no, no!"
Mom: "Do you want to just hop in the bathtub, I think that would be easier"
Jacob: "No, I want you to squirt my bottom with the Aquaman Squirting Submarine!"
Mom: "I don't think that will work."
Jacob: "How do you know?"

My Day

Well, my day started off well enough for a Monday. I got to sleep in because Sarah is back from girl’s camp, which means that Mark can drive me to work without me having to get all three kidlets up and dressed. Work went as well as could be expected. I came home for lunch as usual, and I was heading off to Oakland for a work meeting after lunch. I of course was late getting on my way to Oakland, but I had my trusty yahoo driving directions in hand. Of course I got lost. I followed the directions implicitly only to discover that I had typed in 100 Broadway instead of 1000 Broadway. But you can’t fool me for long. I figured out that the county health department was probably not housed in the Barnes and Nobles at Jack London Square, so off I go to find the real county health department. I eventually found the right building, and the parking garage, and the correct elevator, apparently I took the back elevator first, and had to go all the way around to find the public elevator. By that time I was twenty minutes late, and I had to leave the meeting a half hour early in order to get back on time for Mark to leave for work!! But, not to worry I got lost finding the freeway on the way back too! The happy thing about this story is I did eventually find my way back home. A fact that I found rather encouraging at the time….

Of course once I got home, I knew I would have to take the kids swimming in the big pool. Anarosa and Alana had earned dollar store inner tubes on Sunday by sitting through Sacrament Meeting and staying in Primary the whole time (I know, but apparently I am not above bribery, and Jacob hasn’t been to primary in five weeks!! So I’m getting desperate) Jacob didn’t quite make it for the whole time so he is going to try again next Sunday. Well, the girls have been beside themselves waiting a whole 24 hours since they got the swimming inner tubes! And we have been repeatedly warning them not to be too rough with them or they will pop! Of course as soon as I get home they are ready to suit up and get to the pool. Once I say we can get ready everybody changes into their suits and in the excitement Anarosa “accidentally jumps” on her inner tube and it pops. Literally, not a small hole, an 8 inch whole on the inside of the tube! She immediately falls into hysterics so we hunt up the duct tape, and do the best we can to repair it.
Once we get that done, we head to the pool.

As soon as we get there, Jacob realizes that he is the only one who doesn’t have a tube, and he immediately falls apart. I know, I know, but I really need him to want a tube bad enough to go to Primary and to keep the yelling to a minimum in Sacrament meeting… So I am not going to give in, the girls can share with him if they want to, but you guessed it nobody wants to. So he is miserable and lets me know it. Next, Anarosa’s inner tube deflates in the water, the duct tape just wasn’t able to do it. And she immediately falls back into hysterics. Now my Anarosa has always been the sensitive one, which can be a very endearing quality. This however, is a full blown tantrum. And no I cannot make Alana give her, her inner tube just because Anarosa’s broke. And yes, I do know that I have ruined her life, and we spend the next 20 minutes with Anarosa throwing a fit! (Jacob also still upset) Next, comes Alana who declares she cannot swim with all this crying and yelling (I’m sure the entire apartment complex agrees with her by now). And you guessed it she starts crying too. Yep, it is definitely time to go home now! Besides it’s like 65 degrees outside and overcast and it looks like it’s going to start raining any time now! So I pack them all up, howling and crying and drag them all home. Jacob unfortunately had to sit in time out as soon as we got home, because the whole time we were walking back to the house, he kept calling me a Dufus, and after the third time I had told him to use his nice words, he went from saying under his breath to yelling it as loud as his rebellious three year old lungs could do it. By this time, Sarah is the only on who I haven’t made cry (although I offered to try if she felt left out).
So we finally get them home, and changed, and fed and put to bed. And yes, I am still the worst mommy in the WHOLE WORLD! Especially since at 8:00 I MADE THEM GO TO BED!
But the really great news is that once I finish with all that I still get to go clean the bathroom of one of the recently vacated apartments!! Well at least tomorrow already has something going for it……it isn’t today!

Fourth of July and Other Stuff

We, packed up and drove to Hollister for the long weekend. They called us a few days before to tell us that some of their kids were sick, but that they were pretty much over their little flus. We were going to spend three days and two nights at our friend's house (they have four kids all five and under, so they're the same kind of wonderful crazy that we are!) We got there on Friday afternoon and the kids had a great time running around and playing in the backyard. About every five minutes they asked if it was time to set off the fireworks. Finally, around seven thirty it was time. So we sat them all down on the front lawn and started to set off the fireworks in the culdesac. The kids abosolutly LOVED it! They jumped and screamed and laughed. Finally, a bunch of neighbors came out with their kids to see what our kids were doing, and we ended up with an impromptu block party! We didn't get to bed until waaaaay after bedtime.

This was definatley the kid's favorite fourth of July. That night our hosts got sick with the flu though, so we had to cut our weekend a little short.

The next night Sarah came down with the flu. And then on Tuesday Jacob woke us up at 2 am by coming into our bedroom and throwing up on our bed. But so far, no one else has gotten sick (knock on wood). For me it's kind of like watching the dominos fall and wonder who will go next. But it's been three days and no one else has gotten sick, so maybe we're done!

Mark had an interesting incident in the park. I won't go into detail, since I'm sure he'll end up testifying in court about this one, but he ended up stopping some people in the park, getting a weird vibe from them, calling in their license plate number to the police department and finding out that the car they were in had been carjacked! It's never boring for him....

This week has just been hot! Today was the first non-miserable day for me. Although the kids are loving it, because I finally broke down and bought them new bathing suits (the only box we lost in our move was the "summer" box that had all the pool toys and bathing suits in it) and a new inflatable swimming pool that is shaped like an alligator. They love their new little pool! Although I think it probably has a leak in it by now, apparently cheap inflatable swimming pools do not hold up well to three rambunctious kids who have been couped up in a hot house for a week. But I also got brave and took them to the big pool in our apartment complex. We usually go a lot during the summer, but this year was more difficult since we are now the full time managers. I hate going to the pool, because we are also the pool police and have to deal with everone who sends their kids to the pool unsupervised (really people!). But, our kids are little water babies and they love playing in the big pool. Our big excitement is that Alana has grown and can now stand up by herself in the 3 feet area!!!

Well I know this rambled a bit, but I think those are the major updates.

playing in the water

Father's Day