Preschool has begun!

Jackson started his first year of preschool this month! We're doing the same thing we've done with all the kids - a mom/child co-op style preschool. Each mom will take a turn hosting preschool at their house 2 days for one week.

He's been asking for ages for his turn to go to school. "Mommy? I go Joy School?" Finally it is his turn! The year began at our house with 4 boys and 2 girls. It is going to be a great year. Each one of these kids has a great personality and loves to have fun. We'll focus mostly on playtime with some ABC's thrown in there and hopefully they'll learn to sit still for a few minutes at a time.

Here are some pictures from their first day. Do they look excited or what?! Note Jackson's Googah even made it into the picture. (Hopefully he'll learn to let go of that thing by the end of the school year!)

Living Room Distressing? Art

I began this post almost 5 months ago now. Sometimes it just takes that long for a house project to be complete. Or maybe it was the looming party at our house that motivated me to get it in gear. Whatever the case - it's FINALLY DONE!

We repainted the front living room during Spring Break, hung new curtains, rearranged the large furniture and then needed some new artwork to fill those 17 foot walls.

Here's the room BEFORE we painted it. Light walls, dark curtains, climbing fabric panels for art:

Here's the room AFTER it's been painted - dark walls, light curtains, no artwork yet. (Of course I wait until I'm in the middle of the project to take a picture - sheesh!) Note the 2x4 brace that has been screwed into the studs to hold up this heavy "art piece".

I discovered this lovely piece of wood on the side of our house. And by lovely I mean perfectly aged, distressed and with the perfect patina for our rough and tumble crowd (all of those adjectives translate to Jeremy's eyebrows raising to say, "you want me to put that up in our house?!"). It came in straight from the backyard. No touch ups, washing down, or sanding needed. Hold on to your hats and glasses people - we're not done yet!
The board stayed up like that for about 4 months. So many people have come through the house with all their different opinions of my "art". They've either loved it or disliked it, but everyone had a comment. And if you didn't like it, no worries, I still love it and that's all that matters!

Here's a close up of that lovely patina I was talking about:

The board is just a backdrop to my favorite tree art print and to give it a taller presence on my super tall walls. Tall walls need tall art.


There it is. Final picture. What a cozy feeling it brings to the room. Once again, it's that black + white + new paint color that makes me soooo happy!
One more project done. So many more to go!

Baby Mason's Blessing Day

It has been a great year for both Jeremy's and my side of the family. So many new babies!! My brother Marcos and his wife Melody just had their first baby. Baby Mason. He's a such a sweetie cute boy. I think he looks just like his beautiful mama, but in a more masculine way of course - he'll grow up to be such a handsome boy!

Yesterday, Sunday, September 27th, 2009 was his blessing day. There were so many family members there - it was great to see so many from both Marcos and Melody's sides of the family! Everyone arrived at the church on time (including us! - this was quite shocking in itself) and the meeting was great. The spirit was so strong and beautiful as we watched so many righteous men (I counted 13, but there could've been more) stand in the circle to bless this baby boy. Marcos gave a beautiful blessing; Mason didn't even make a peep! What a special day it was to see my brother use his priesthood power.

Here's our group just after Sacrament Meeting. Can you feel the love of so many family members? There were others there that didn't stay for the whole meeting so you can imagine what that did for the numbers inside the chapel yesterday. That's our crazy Jackson is down in front making a scene of course.


The after-party was so enjoyable also. We had some delicious lunch and good company with both sides of the families. Baby Mason was pooped by the end of it all. What a long day for a brand new baby! Here's a quick snapshot of him just as Marcos and Melody were leaving.


It was a lovely full day. Congrats Marcos and Melody on your bouncing baby boy. He is already so loved by his family and especially his cousins!!

Jackson and the Ficus

Jackson and I walked into the front office at school to pick up Logan. I'm busy signing out Logan at the counter and the lady behind the desk starts snapping her fingers with huge fervent eyes in Jackson's direction. I turn to look at what's causing all this commotion and see Jackson in the corner, pants down to his ankles, bum hanging out, ready to pee right that moment on the FAKE ficus tree! I screeched at him just before he let it fly and saved that office a huge pee pee mess. I whisked him down the hall to the bathroom and came out to see an office full of giggling, chuckling, belly laughing school employees. My how quickly a little story flies! Everyone in that office got a great laugh at Jackson's (and my) expense.

Happy Blessing Day Baby Kathryn

Last weekend was the baby blessing for the newest member of Kristen & Doug's family - Baby Kathryn. She is such a good baby, so sweet, and princessy already! She looked so beautiful in her flowing white dress and super cute bow to match. It was a lovely blessing by Doug.


The day before the blessing we headed down to Newport Beach for hours of the best beach time we've ever had! The sun was out, with a nice warm breeze, (which made it comfortable to hang out in your swimsuit instead of chilly in a sweatshirt), and the best part was the WARM OCEAN WATER! The kids played like they were in the pool for hours without taking a break. After the beach we headed back to Kristen & Doug's pool to rinse off all the sand. It was a day full of family and good times.

The day of the blessing we got to feast on a delicious luncheon - delicious is not a strong enough word to describe it's tastiness. Yummy pulled pork/coleslaw sandwiches, awesome potato salad, fruit, green salad, guacamole and homemade salsa, and desserts like crazy! (We are going to need those recipes Kristen.) We all walked out of there stuffed to the brim!


We were so happy we got to be there to share this special day with them. Kristen, Doug, and his family made us feel so welcome.

kids say the darndest things

This morning Jackson comes running in the back door and yells , "Mommy, I want to get my dress on!"
(Translation: He wants to get dressed.)

We're walking through Lowes and Jackson spots the toilet display. He promptly walks over and says, "Daddy, i go pee on dat" and starts to drop his shorts.

We were getting ready to go out and pick grapes and Lizzie kept saying, "I want to go to the graveyard too!"
(just in case you didn't get it - graveyard = vineyard)

"Take at least 2 pictures per person in your photo".

I've heard that advice several times and would love to put it to good use, but how in the world am I supposed to get my kids to sit still for 12 snaps of the shutter? I'll never know.

We were out of town for Labor Day weekend and tried to get a couple of good family pictures. Please tell me why this is so hard! We've taken a million pictures together - you'd think they'd have figured it out by now. Just look at the camera and SAY CHEESE already!

Here are the best and the worst of our family shots:

This one takes the cake. Seriously?! It must have been perfect timing to catch every one of us at the exact moment we all looked our goofiest at the SAME TIME!

These last 2 are the "best".

If only Trevor had his eyes open - it could've been a Christmas card mailer! (Robb, you wanna help us out with a little photoshop?)

And this last one counts as a "best" because at least everyone is facing the camera - eyes forward. And yes, even Jackson's goo-gah made it into our family picture.

Let's take a vote shall we? Which one would you frame up and put on your wall?