I love the Dump!

Let me just start off by saying that I love our dump. There is a store next to the dump called Last Chance Mercantile. You can donate pretty much anything there. So they sell pretty much everything you can think of. Yes, a lot of it is junk, but every once in a while you find a steal!

I was dropping off a box of some old shoes and clothes and randoms, when I noticed out of the corner of my eye a big, beautiful mirror. I asked if it was for sale, because it was off to the side in a big pile of plastic bins. I was told to ask the manager who told me that he just hadn't put it out in the store yet. So he went to get it for me and the whole time I was thinking, hmmmm, I wonder what price it will be? Hopefull under $20, that would be awesome. Well when he brought the mirror over he showed me that the glass had a crack. Nooooo! So I contemplated over that, picture texted it to Akoni and he said get it if I have to have it (which I did) and if it doesn't work, we're only out $4! Awesome, I love him!

So here is my $4 amazing find. People don't believe me when I tell them how much I get things for at this store, so here is a picture of the price tag. And see the crack isn't too bad. I'm just going to vinyl over it and hopefully no one will know!

And I will post pictures once it's cleaned up and on my wall, I can't wait!

Gotta love Crazy Hair day at school!

Today is crazy hair and sock day at school. I love that it's close to halloween because then I just had to pull out the hair dye spray from last year and voila! Crazy hair! Kenyon wanted to shave his head into a mohawk, but pictures are on tuesday, so I vetoed that idea! Sorry kid...

Really Really Tired!!

First Soccer Games

The kids had their first soccer games this weekend. Adriann's team didn't have their banner finished so we had to meet early and get it done. 13 girls and lots of glitter, it was quite a mess, but they had so much fun doing it. I'm glad we didn't do it for them.

A dad of one of the girls drew the mustang on the poster and then each girl decorated their own horseshoe to go around it. I think it turned out pretty good.

Kenyon getting all warmed up for his game.

Running around on the field. He showed lots of improvement from last year.

Since Adriann is on an all girls team, they play the other all girls teams in the district. The only problem was that the other teams just started a few days ago, so we didn't have a team to play. So a bunch a girls from the co-ed teams played against our team. They had so much fun and Adriann did really good. I think this is going to be such a great season.

San Fran!

We went up to San Fran for the day last week. We went to Golden Gate Park and they have this really cool slide that you sit on cardboard and slide down. It was a huge hit with the boys. By the end Kamden didn't even need any help. He would pick up his piece of cardboard and hike up the stairs and slide down all by himself. Adriann did it a few times, but she was wearing white pants and didn't want to get them all dirty!

Here we are with 3 of Akoni's cousins that we visited while we were there. It was fun to meet them and hang out for a few hours. We went to dinner at a yummy chinese place and had ice cream at a create your own type of place. Huge hit with the kids!

Soccer Opening Day Ceremonies!

Soccer time is upon us once again. This year we have two kids in the league and it's gonna be a CRAZY season! Kenyon is in the U8 division this year and so he is one of the youngest on his team. Adriann decided that she wanted to play this year. They made a U10 all girls team and she is loving it! Since she hasn't played for 2 years we were kind of worried that she would be really shy on the field, but with it being all girls she is having a blast. Her coach is amazing also. He is the CSUMB girls Basketball coach and so he has them running drills and running around the field during practice. She comes home from practice exhausted! It's going to be a great season!

First Day of School!!

Yesterday was the kids first day of school!! Yes, I know we start early, but honestly I could not have done another month of summer......and the kids were sooooo ready to go back. Adriann had her backpack packed about 3 weeks ago and the day before school she woke up super early and started packing her lunch. I had to tell her that she had to wait or her sandwich would be soggy!

We put both kids in our local elementary this year and it's only 1 mile away, so we are walking everyday that we can. Which means as long as it's not raining, we will walk! It's been nice for 2 days so far. We have a friend that we meet on the corner and walk with her and her two kids. There are a few more moms that live around us that we are trying to convince to walk with us, but it's not looking too promising. I even got new shoes since my podiatrist said that my shoes were horrible and not helping my foot problems. So after my 3rd cortisone shot today I got some new shoes and 4 miles later my foot is numb and feeling good!!

Here are the annual first day of school by the door with the backpack pictures.

Fun thing for the Kids!

WELCOME FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

*Receive a presidential congratulations card addressed to your new infant with official signature from the President!

Send your baby's name, address, and birthdate to:

White House Greetings Office

Room 39

Washington, DC 20500

This is tons of fun, we have done this for all of our kids!

Never a "dull" moment!

This is what I did to Adriann's hand by total accident on Saturday night. I was cutting up some potatoes and she was unloading the dishwasher. I turned to the left and she turned to the right and we bumped into eachother. She grabbed her hand and started freaking out. I had no clue what happened. Then I looked at her hand saw a bit of blood and said "Did I just cut you?" I felt so bad because I didn't even know it had happened.

And of course it happened when Akoni was gone with Kamden. I had Kenyon and the baby at home. I also had dinner and dessert both in the oven. I thought Adriann would need stitches, so I needed to somehow get over to the Dr.s on Duty by our house. I called two people that didn't have little kids at home to see if they could come and stay with Kenyon and Monica and get my dinner out of the oven when it was done, and they weren't home. So as a last resort I called my friend Kelly who was moving into her new house, but it is right up the road from us. She said she would be there in 5 minutes. 3 minutes later my other friend Heather showed up. She had just gotten to Kelly's house after I called and said she would come over. I was so greatful. So I got Adriann into the car and drove to the doctor office. They were closed! So Akoni met me there and took Adriann to the Emergency Room. They ended up just gluing it shut and telling her to not use her hand for 5 days! Yeah right! They said if that didn't work then she would need to get stitches. I wish they had just stitched her up because try telling Adriann to not use her hand for 5 days! It will probably have to get stitched up. We keep wrapping it up so she won't use it, but I think that because it doesn't hurt she forgets. Well we will just have to see what happens in the next few days.....

Fun Crayon Project

I love when school is about to start. All the art supplies are super cheap and I stock up. I usually just throw away all my old crayons and start fresh, I love a fresh box of crayons! But I found this fun thing to do with all your old crayons and so I put the kids to work and it was a lot of fun!

The tedious part is peeling all the crayons. I ended up taking a razor blade and slicing along the crayon and then the kids could easily remove the paper. It was a lot faster then peeling the crayons and trying to rip the paper. And you got less crayon under your finger nails!

We then put them in my car cupcake pan. This is what the lady did and that's why I wanted to do it because I happened to have the same pan! It kind of ruined my pan, but I hated cleaning it when I made cupcakes, so I think it has now become a crafting pan! You have to make sure that you spray your pans really good, otherwise you will have a tough time getting the crayons out. Then you bake them at 200 degrees for about 40 minutes. I just kept watching them to see if they were done melting. Also, the crayons as they melt shrink down in the pan, so it would have been nice to add more crayons as they melted, but we didn't have anymore and I didn't think about it till after.

And this is what they came out looking like! Aren't they cute? I don't know if you can tell, but we didn't really get any wheels on the cars because of when the crayons melted they ended up not filling the whole mold. I did however make the mistake of letting the kids take them to church and Kamden thought they were cars and was rubbing them all over the backs of the benches! Yikes, had to put them away after that, we kind of got crayon all over. And then he did the same thing on our wall. So they are not allowed to be used when he is around! One of them looks like Mater, so he loves that one. I thought these would be a cute present to give, or even a party favor if we ever did a car themed birthday.

Awesome!

Can't believe it!

THIS IS WHAT HE GOT, BECAUSE...........

HE'S POTTY TRAINED!!!

It still blows my mind that he is potty trained. He will be 2 1/2 next month and we started this at the beginning of the month. Of course it was a few days after I bought a costco box of diapers for him and had barely used part of one pack. So I now have 5 packs of diapers sitting in my closet, I guess being saved for Monica? Oh well, I am still putting them on him at night, but he has woken up every morning dry! Compared to the other two, he was a breeze training. He had 2 days of tons of accidents, but I refused to put a diaper back on him and on day 3, no more accidents. Well except for a few times when he couldn't get his pants off in time, but now he pulls them down in the hall and runs to the bathroom! It's hilarious!

My Bone Spur

This is why my foot hurts sooooo bad! Under the spur is a huge bursa sack that gets poked every time I step on my heel. I have to do three rounds of cortisone shots, very painful, and see what happens from there.

Fun walk with the kids

Our kids are going to go to the local elementary school this next year, and it's only 1 mile away so I wanted to walk up there with the kids to see how long it would take us to walk so I could figure out when to leave in the mornings. Well it only took us 21 minutes! So I am really excited about walking them to school. It will be 4 miles every day for me and 2 for the kids, great exercise for everyone!!

Just a cute picture of Monica! She's starting to show lots of happy expressions, I love it!

At the elementary school they have this cool map of the United States. So I had the kids sit on their state that they were born in. It was really bright and windy out, so that's why none of them are really smiling!

Then I had them all sit on California, where we are now!

I was Featured!!

Check out www.spearmintbaby.com I was featured on Friday July 8th!

Happy 4th of July!!!

We had a really fun 4th this year. We waited until today to buy any fireworks for the kids and it was the best idea every! They had to work real hard all week and all morning today to get money to buy them. Definitely doing this next year again!

So we started the day cleaning and getting all our fun food ready for a BBQ we were going to. I made these cute cupcakes for all the kids, there were 11 so it was really smart to make these because they all loved them! I also made a yummy jello poke cake and forgot to take a picture, but it was delicious.

After the BBQ we went home and had dinner and waited for it to get dark so we could do our fireworks. Our neighbor usually does a ton, but not this year (bummer), so we just did the few that we bought and I felt like it was plenty. Kamden was freaked out and hid behind the bench almost the whole time. But it was still fun and really cold, so I'm glad we weren't out there long.


It looks like Kamden is sleeping, but he's not. He was behind the bench and Akoni lit a firework that scared him and he hit his head on the bench and had been crying, so I think he is pouting in this picture. And Kenyon took the picture, so that's why my head is cut off.

These were the fireworks that scared Kamden. We didn't know what they did and Akoni lit 4 of them together and they make a really loud pop and spark, so he lit one at a time after that!

Our supply of fireworks. It was a fun cold night, but we are thankful for the freedoms that we have and to be able to live in such an awesome country.

Hiking in Big Sur

Akoni had the day off and so we went hiking out at Big Sur. We had never been there and it was a really foggy day so we decided to head south and hope it was sunnier. Well it was, it was BEAUTIFUL!

We did a small hike to a little waterfall. The kids had so much fun, but there was Poison Oak all over the place. Thank goodness that Akoni was with us because he kept pointing it out to us. Luckily no one got it on themselves!