Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Last day of Kindergarten!


Caiden has officially completed Kindergarten!  His last day was spent at the Aquatic Center.  All of Knolls Vista and 2 other schools were there for the day, and oh my, talk about craziness.  1500 kids at the pool!  I just had to get a picture of Caiden with Mrs. Nash (along with his new friend Jacob - can you tell the excitement was running high that day?  I could hardly get them to sit still long enough to snap the picture).  I can't brag enough about his teacher.  She is THE best teacher ever.  How many kids want to invite their teachers to their birthday parties?  Seriously, Caiden (whose birthday isn't for another 5 months) has already asked me if Mrs. Nash can come.  So cute.  I am just so grateful Caiden got such a good teacher.  He learned so much!  So naturally, I was a bit disappointed when I found out she's moving to 5th grade.  What?!  Who will teach Paige?!  I already feel stressed over it!

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Lake Powell


We took our first ever trip to Lake Powell!  My brother often vacations there with his boat and toy hauler and invited us to camp out with them all week.  Camping in a 5th wheel with a bathroom and kitchen and bed and nearby showers is my kind of camping.  Camping in a tent with no showers and never being free of dirt or sand - not so much.  So we jumped at the opportunity and with the cold windy weather we have been having in Moses Lake, I welcomed the 106 degrees heat with open arms.



We spent most of the time out on the boat and we found out quickly just how much colder the water is in Lake Powell than here in Moses Lake.  Brrr!  But then again, it was 106 degrees, so it felt heavenly.  And the rocks and canyons are just so pretty!  So much exploring to do and cliff jumping!



With much convincing, Caiden jumped off the rock, but I was too slow and only got the aftersplash.  I couldn't convince him to do it again :(

Casey and his skills.....gotta love the look on his face in the wipe out shot.  That's gotta hurt...I don't know how he does it.



This is the extent of my skills...although I'm certain that one time I caught air.  It may not have been visible to the human eye, but I'm certain that for a split second of a split second I was airborne.....And gotta love the look on my dad's face - now, that's some concentration!


And this is what Paige does best - SNACK!  She kills me.  Completely kills me.  It makes me so crazy that she thinks she needs to snack every second of every day.  Did I mention it kills me? But she did do some major rockin out to the music and that was pretty funny....
Tanner found a lizard that became the kids' pet for a while.  They kept it in an empty water bottle and it rode around on the boat with us. 
And Caiden and Lauren were inseparable the whole time.  They had a blast!  Kids never get bored with water and sand around!  Now the sand was pretty dang hot so they took it upon themselves to "water" all of the sand so it wouldn't burn our feet.  Quite a job!  And so funny!  And speaking of funny, on the way home it was evident just how hard he played all week when he slept for over 16 hours.  My boy was tired!

And on the very last day Caiden kneeboarded.  We so tried all week to get him to wakeboard, but to no avail.  But he did kneeboard/bellyboard and I was a super proud mom.

Here's to Lake Powell!  I hope someday we make it back again!

Saturday, June 5, 2010

F.O.U.R.

My little girl is FOUR!  Oh my!  We celebrated Paige's birthday a few days early since we would be in Lake Powell on the day of her birthday (that post is yet to come:).  We just had a small party with Grandma and Grandpa Gubler and Aunt Kimmy was here visiting too.  With all the craziness going on, there just wasn't much time for a party, but....I still came through with decorating the house with streamers and balloons and what not and I sort of had this crazy idea to actually attempt to make a cake - not just plain ole cake in a plain ole cake pan - but a REALLY cool cake, like in the shape of something.  My sister thought I was crazy, but I started to google around and found a cake that I thought I could manage - and HOLY COW!!!!  I AM AMAZING!!  Check out my Paige's super awesome butterfly cake!! 


Seriously, people do you see that?!?!?  Can you believe I actually did that?????  (Now, for all you fabulous and talented cake decorators who might be reading this please don't rain on my parade.  In fact, I prefer not to hear your comments all together :)  And the best part was when I was making it and Caiden and Paige were my audience and Caiden kept saying "Wow, Mom! That is the best cake ever!"  "Oh my gosh, Mom!  You are the best cake maker ever!"  "That cake is so cool mom!"  I know!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Except now, Caiden has big plans for his birthday cake, and I'm a little nervous).

Okay, back to the matter at hand - Paige is four!  My sweet, teeny, tiny, petite little girl is four!  Casey and I bought her her first bike with training wheels - and not just any bike - a BARBIE bike, complete with streamers, a bell, a basket, AND a mini-bike that you're Barbie can ride with you.  I couldn't pass this one up and she LOVED it.  I gave this to her when she woke up (that explains the jammies) and since it was raining outside, she rode it up and down the hallway all day.


Then later that night we opened the rest of her presents.  Caiden was struggling a bit with her getting all these presents. "It's not fair."  And so he convinced Paige to let him "hand" the presents to her and if she couldn't open it he would "help" her.  It basically drove me crazy, but I have to remind myself, he's only 6. 




Paige is big into dress-up right now and just starting to get into Barbies too - so what better than matching dresses for you and you're Barbie?


And then it was time for cake, and to be honest it was a bit hard for me to cut up my masterpiece.


So in honor of Paige, here are some things that describe you at age 4:

* you LOVE, LOVE your baby dolls and are always tucking them in their beds and pushing them around in your stroller
* you also LOVE your big brother and can have just as much fun with legos as with your dolls.  (And sometimes he makes you angry and I see a small little violent streak come out in you :)
* you LOVE the color pink - actually "obsessed" might be a better word
* you are SO, SO shy!  Not at home - in fact, you are very loud at home, but in public and around strangers you are terrifyingly shy.
* you prefer to play with boys than girls - maybe that's just cause there aren't many girls around your age
* you are a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE eater and it makes me so crazy!  All you want to do is snack all day and when it comes to meals, I want to pull my hair out - but I still LOVE you.
* you are very afraid of bugs, but surprisingly not dogs, which makes me wonder how you are related to me.
* you are also afraid of automatic flushing toilets and there aren't too many things that make me laugh harder
than watching you panic that the toilet is going "flush you".  Seriously, so funny.
* all your "l's" come out as "w's".  We love to hear you say "Lauren loves lollipops."  It never gets old.
* you LOVE to watch movies - ALL DAY - and it makes mom a little crazy too.
* you LOVE Max & Ruby, Hello Kitty, Tom & Jerry, & Bolt - yes, you're very random.
* you refuse daddy kisses if he has "whiskers"
* you LOVE to play with daddy's Ipod and it is shocking how good you are at it.
* you are just so FUNNY and SWEET and I never want you to get big!

And one more time, just in case you forgot, I did this......for you Paige.

AMAZING!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

The Marlins


Caiden finished another season of T-Ball with Team Marlins.  ("Like Nemo's dad??")  And he LOVED it.  I don't know if baseball is gonna be his thing, but he sure loved every minute of it and constantly wanted to practice in the backyard, even after an hour long game we'd get home and he'd say "Mom, can we go practice some more?"  So cute.  Some say T-Ball can be a boring sport to watch, but I found it to be quite hilarious at times.  I watched as the coach struggled and struggled to explain things to them and they were completely clueless.  And I watched how at times, it would turn into a football game as they tried to tackle each other to get to the ball.  Most of the kids still had no idea where 1st, 2nd, and 3rd base was and that made things entertaining.  Some of my favorite highlights this season were:

* watching Caiden catch (or pick up off the ground) the ball at first base and instead of touching the base to get the runner out or throwing it to 2nd, or even 3rd, he decided to chase after the runner all the way to 3rd base and personally tag him with the ball.  Classic.

*watching Caiden nearly pee his pants in the middle of a game.  He had to go so bad he was holding himself with his mit and jumping up and down and spinning in circles.  Against his will, I took him out of the game and MADE him go.  He was VERY mad at me and insisted he didn't even have to go.  Yeah, right. But then later that night he said to me "Mom, I was dying in my game"  me- "I know.  Let this be a lesson that mom knows everything."  him- "I know! I know!  That's what they always say in school.  Mom knows best!"  Ha!Ha!

*watching the ball bounce right off his helmet as he ran to first and he hardly noticed.  Also, noticing that he was pretty much the only kid whose head filled up the entire helmet.  What can I say?  He's got big brains!

*and lastly, watching him and another teammate running at full speed towards each other to catch the ball and they completely collided!  Caiden sort of held a grudge against that kid for the rest of the season....




Hmmm....what do I do next?


Goofing around....


Go Marlins!