Cadynce's Birthday Festivities

This year we celebrated both Caca's birthday and Great Grandpa Ben's. Cadynce was happy to share her party & so was grandpa. I love these pictures from them blowing out their candles... the look on Gramps face as we were all singing and how he watched Cadynce blow out her candles... just melts my heart.

 

And these lovely cupcakes (why yes, I made them, thank you for asking) were dessert along with some frilly pink ones for Cadynce's "friend" party. We had an outdoor movie/pajama night at Napa. Complete with movie ticket invitations, popcorn, ice cream, candy and popcorn container party favors. We watched Tangled, when it finally got dark!

This was our activity station and saving grace when it didn't get dark as soon as we thought it would! This was a lot of fun & pretty easy all in all, hopefully we can celebrate like this again sometime.

Yikes, it's the middle of October!

And my last post was in June. June 24th, the last day of school I believe, and the day before my baby girl's 6th birthday. Wow!
Rest assured, we are still alive and kicking.. I'm just majorly slacking in the blog department.

We had a busy summer filled with camping, a trip to the ocean, camping, eating s'mores, camping and lots of fun. Cadynce has been back to school for over a month now and she is really enjoying first grade. I think a lot of it has to do with her teacher. Cadynce started cheer leading in September also - competitive cheer at that. Another excited chapter for us, and a big first for this family. Pike jump what? Before you ask, no, Camden still isn't potty trained. He's a tough cookie to break. He is talking up a storm and his sense of humor is starting to come out! Both kids must have hit some sort of growth spurt and it's making me wish I would have started a wall with their measurements. Guess it's not too late to start now right? We're painting the inside of our house. (oh, by we I mean I pick out the paint colors and Colby paints) Slowly, we're trying to fix up this place... not sure if the moving to a dream house will ever happen so we gotta make the best of what we got, right?

Nap time is over. I'll do my best to write again soon. Post some pictures even.

just cadynce.

This is all for you girl. Back in September, your first day of school, your face was more round, you had long hair, and all your teeth.

Since then you have:

• learned to read
• mastered all your Kindergarten skills
• gained a lot of friends
• lost 3 teeth
• played in the sun, rain, & snow
• been named student of the month twice
• gone camping
• been to lo-lopez
• dressed like tinkerbell, a princess and a pirate
• played with chalk and bugs
• become quite the little artist
• began writing letters and journals
• cut off all your hair to donate it to locks of love

You have a lot of attitude these days, Sissy, and I lose patience with you more often than I can seem to keep it. School is out for the summer & now you're a big 1st grader. Time is flying by. Your birthday is tomorrow. I love you to the moon and back little girl.

kid pictures.

Here are some pics of the kids, we have gotten, maybe 2 days of sunshine. Okay, maybe a few more, but it feels like 2.

Grandma Cleone spent a few days at the hospital, and then at Regency Care facility while she was getting her strength back. They held a fundraiser for Relay one Saturday, so Grandma got a walk, and Sis got her face all done up.

<3

Um, can you sit like this?

Memorial Day weekend at G-ma Cleone's. (Her b-day celebration and Carson's grad party.) Cam found an anthill. Kept him busy for hours. Well, that and basketball.

The kids love jumping on the trampoline with the Klein kids. :)

details, details...

Okay, I did forget a few things...

I might have gotten a wild hair and brought home a new lab pup. His name is Remi (Remington) and he is horrible. LOL. It has been a long time since we had a pup around here. Ugh. 



This was taken just today. Colby is gone for the weekend and the damn dog keeps finding everything he shouldn't have and is dragging it up to the porch. I have to go wrestle it away.

Who's idea was this puppy again?

it's been a minute...

...or ten, since I've been on here. I guess, really the last goings on - were that I was bummed out and missing Rhonda. My phone broke, so I got an iPhone (that I can mobile blog from and I just haven't) and so much stuff has happened. Well, gee, Tisha, it's only been what? 2 months.

Okay, moving on. In April, we had Camden's 3rd birthday (and NO he's still not potty trained!) Cadynce was student of the month - AGAIN! We went to a fun pirate birthday party for our friend, Kelan.

This is my favorite picture from the party of us, because it's just so us.

Colby was gone right before Easter, so Papa came over and dyed Easter eggs with me and the kids. We went to the city of Arlington's Easter Egg Hunt, and the kids had a blast. Papa even brought Great Grandpa Ben to come and watch. We celebrated Camden's birthday on Easter at Grandma Cleone's house with the family, an Easter Egg Hunt, and cupcakes.

The day before Easter we had a fundraiser for Relay For Life and raised just over $500.00! We had a good time, but definitely learned some things we will do different for next year. During the weekend of paint the town purple (relay fundraising weekend in May) Cadynce needed a haircut. I picked her up from school and she said, "mom, tomorrow when i get my haircut, I'm really going to get it cut. I'm ready, and somebody else needs my hair." Kid, in one moment you make me so proud and thankful that I have you.

And just like that, 11 inches of my baby girl's hair was gone. Debby even reluctantly agreed to a picture with sis. Debby has been cutting the kid's hair forever & her son passed away a few years back from cancer...

In May, Colby and I had a quick weekend trip to L.A. for Carson's big graduation from UCLA Law. Everyone is so proud of Carson. (I did tell him, he has used up his allotted graduations though.) We enjoyed our quick break from the kids and were thankful to have great friends step in and watch them for us.

We got to do a lot in our short little weekend, including taking in a Dodgers Game! (I was going to put a link here to an older post about Colby and me wanting to eventually visit every ball park, but evidently I never wrote about that...so I guess it's a "note to self" to write about that. duh!)

That pretty much sums up May. The first weekend in June was Relay. What's that you say? How was it? Ah-maz-ing of course! It's always hard for me, thinking of Rhonda (or anyone else affected by cancer for that matter) but, a  great weekend all the same. I think we raised over $290,000!! Pretty good stuff right there.

Just a test..

Well, I joined the cool kids and got an iPhone. I'm really just getting to know it ... So this is my quick first attempt at posting on the blog with an app. Hopefully it works. Ha ha.

missing her

Lately, I have found myself missing Rhonda. This isn't uncommon for me, or any of us; random things will remind us of her and then the ball just seems to roll. I'm not sure what has triggered it, it could be a lot of things; accomplishments at school for Cadynce, my kids growing, birthdays, new babies, stress at work, baseball season.
What I do know, is that missing her makes me remember why it was/is so hard for me. My mom and I aren't close. Never have been, probably never will be. We dont' have that mother-daughter bond. Growing up, I can remember seeing my girlfriends with their moms and how close they were, wondering what it would be like, wondering how it would feel to want your mom to go prom dress shopping with you and to be there when you got ready, rather than feeling the extreme opposite. I got used to it, and it was never really a big deal. Until now. Now, I have a little girl, and find that I worry that I wont have that bond with her because I was never raised that way... is something missing? Will I figure it out?

I know this is why I never wanted a girl. (not that I don't love her to pieces.) I don't want our lives to be that way. I want to have an open and loving relationship. I want (need) her to want me with her when she goes dress shopping and to value my opinion. Even though I dread taking her, I still want to be wanted.

Anyhoo, I guess Rhonda just made me feel like I had that mom, for a while anyways...

house vs. home

Recently, I have been really unhappy in our house, home, whatever you want to call it. Funny thing is that's part of the problem. Right now, it's just a house; and it has been, for over 5 years. The problem started with when we bought it. It was a stepping stone, the next step for us in whatever plan we thought we had. The first house we bought was just a rinky dink little house, and by rinky dink I mean not even 1000 square feet. Soon after we had Cadynce (and lets not forget the 100 lb lab) we knew it wouldn't last long. So, we set out to find the "next step." We looked and looked with our house on the market and I quickly gave up thinking we'd never find the right house for the right price. Selling a house in that market (about 5 and a 1/2 years ago) was great, buying one was a little different story. Anyways, Colby was diligent about looking at more and more houses and convinced me to come look at this house, so I did, and we bought it. It has nice yard, fenced, play set, more than twice the size of our old house, had 3 bedrooms (room to grow yeah!) and 2 bathrooms (even bigger yeahh!!) and so I was sold. We were looking at a bigger mortgage, but knew it was worth it and we only planned to be here 5 years or so anyways. Ha, yeah, where has time gone?

When we moved in, we were so excited and had so many plans and our "to-do" list was pretty long. We had a 5 month old baby, hunting season, holidays, then baseball and it started all over again. The to-do list never got done and the house remains the way it was when we bought it. And now we're practically outgrowing it again. In my eyes anyways, because there is not office/craft space or even room for a guest. Ugh. Okay, it's not exactly the same, we did paint the spare bathroom and tear down the border that seemed to be in every room. Aaack! The kids' rooms got painted  (although Cadynce's room has a hole in the wall that's strategically hidden because that to-do never got done) our bathroom got painted, we hung a few pictures and shelves...and then we come to a screaaaaaaching halt.

Our yard is a never ending mess. It's like a jungle out there. Each spring, we get all geared up and work really hard for a week or two, only to let it go back by the following spring. When will we ever learn? I know part of the problem is having enough hours in the day, and enough ambition to do it. I'll admit it, I hate yard work and I suck at it. The yard is really becoming a problem now because the kids can't even get down to the play set and that is so frustrating because they both want to.

Last week Colby and I started talking about all of this and made a big list, room by room, of all the things we need to do. The things we never did, or that now have been added to the list due to wear and tear of 2 small children, one large dog and plain old neglect. Now that our list is bigger than ever and even more daunting, we're trying to work on it.

The other part of this is that I realized I've never made this house our home. Sad, I know. I've never put my own touches on it really, except my cherry stuff in the kitchen. I look at my friends houses (or pictures of) and practically turn green with envy (like pinkalicious only from envy not cupcakes - someone does know what I'm talking about right?) not that our house needs to be just like theirs, but that they've actually done it, or something to make it their own.

...so here I sit, writing a blog about it, instead of getting up and doing something about it.

mr. cam-man

Camden is turning into the most amazing little man. He's really starting to talk, he's caring, loving and just a sweet boy (most of the time). When I leave for work, or to go anywhere really, he walks me to the door and his last thing to say is, "I love you mom." He has this deep little boy voice and it just melts my heart.

These are from my cell phone, so sorry about the quality of the pictures, but, this day, Camden was hammering away on those pegs. He'd stop every couple seconds and say, "I can't help you mom." After a lot of questions and me trying to help him about a million times and him getting mad at me, I realized, he was trying to say, he didn't need help. He could do it.

Eating sammiches at the table, he turned around. Colby and I couldn't figure out why, until...

We walked around to see he was pulling his sammich apart and didn't want us to see it. How cute is that?!

Lopez Pictures

Our attempt at a family picture, they never turn out quite right. Oh well, guess they just show our true colors right? Do you see how fat Summer Dog is?! She had so much fun on the island though, she had lots of energy and ran around a lot. Pretty sure she slept the whole week after we got home though.

Camden took about a 5 gallon bucket worth -o-water back from the beach everyday in his boot. Colby is trying not to get wet. :)

Oh sister.

Me and dad.

Our last walk on the beach, Cadynce had a fever but wasn't willing to give up another walk on the beach.

Beach walks 2011.

Jan. Feb. Highlights

January:

• My birthday month! We enjoyed family dinner at The Stanwood Grill! And I got some really great birthday presents. (At this moment I'm thinking about how this is my last year in my twenties. Yikes!)
• Cadynce was student of the month and she had a whole entourage there to see her.
• Ha, uh, my car broke down. Or blew up rather. Had to get a new engine put in that puppy.

...I feel like there should be more, but I got nothing. I think we really spent a lot of January just trying to get our feet back underneath us...

February:

• We went to Lo-Lopez! I'll post an entry with some of my favorite pictures.
• I got my car back, to the tune of $3800, bye bye tax return.
• Cousin Kayci turned 21, so we got to have a fun night out at the casino. Have I mentioned that I can't stand cigarette smoke. Kayci, so funny, says, "So, is this all people do, is sit in a bar and drink?"
• Baseball Preparations begin.
• Valentine's day. <3
• We came home from Lopez with a sick Cadynce, which led to a sick Camden . . . (all leading up to barf fest 2011)

Some kid highlights:
Cadynce is learning so much these days. She has jumped from knowing a lot of numbers and words, to knowing what feels like them all. She can rote count up past 100, is through her complete set of sight words and is on to a second list, knows greater than and smaller than for numbers 1 - 10 and can identify and write her numbers up through 31. We're still struggling with rights and wrongs since she's been in school and how to stay true to yourself, but I think these are things we're going to struggle with until she's fully aware of who she really is and what she stands for. How do you help your children know it's OK to be who they are and not someone else?

Camden is speaking in big long sentences now! Everyday more and more words are there. He is so caring and compassionate as well. The other day, Colby and I were having a "discussion" (OK, it was a loud discussion) over T-ball for Cadynce, and when Colby walked out Camden came running in and said to me, "Mommy, I need to hold you." "Are you okay mommy, whatsa matto mommy" *sighs* He is such a sweet little boy. I could tell you cute sayings and stories for hours about him; he is just in such a fun stage right now.

Barf Fest 2011

First off, let me start by saying I feel like it's been forever since I've posted...but really, it's only been a little over a week. I think the problem is that I was working so hard to get you caught up on 2010, that I really haven't been able to blog about 2011. I have a little piece of paper next to the computer that I've been jotting things down on that I want to share with you, eventually I'll get there. Right?

Okay, so, barf fest 2011.
Last week, I took off on Wednesday afternoon to go to Spokane to watch the state B basketball tourney, Alexa was playing. I got to stay with Lanette and Blair, and it was a lot of fun, and a much needed break from life. Colby really had to shuffle the kids a lot because it was the first "real" week of baseball and I am so thankful for his dad. We had some late nights in Spokane, but I came home (to Lanette's) fairly early on Friday night so I could get up and get going early Saturday morning so I could take the little girl to a tea party birthday party.
I got on the road headed home a little before 7 am... ugh, so early...but I did it. Ten minutes into my drive, I get a text from Colby. "dad just called, cam has been puking all night." FML. I hate barf. Like, really really really really hate barf. More than anything. If my kid barfed in a a store and I could get away with running away and leaving them there, I would. Yep, I definitely win the worst mother of the year award when it comes to kids and barf. Nope, anyone and barf, not just kids. Even myself. I'll do anything possible not to barf.
By the time I got home, Colby had picked up Cam and they had been hanging out. Cam had kept down a banana and some Gatorade...we were thinking maybe he just ate too much at Papa's house. Good thought. Cadynce and I made it through the tea party birthday with me asking her probably every five minutes, are you OK? does your tummy hurt?
Things were going good, we were thinking we're in the clear. Then Tuesday night Colby is staying at Grandpa's house... yeah, not so much.... he calls home at midnight, "I'm sick." FML. Again!! Wednesday morning I get up and get the kids to daycare and I go to work feeling shaky, because even the thought of barf makes me shaky. Yeah, at about 3:30 we got the phone call - Cadynce was now sick too. I made Colby go get them from daycare. Ha!
Cadynce stayed holed up in her room on some blankets with a puke bucket (she only had to use it twice after she got home) and Colby was in and out since he'd already had it. We're 4 days later and I still havn't gotten it. KNOCK ON WOOD! Fingers crossed, pray, whatever you do....I'm not gonna get it! Kids are so resilient though its amazing - she got up Friday morning and walked out of her room saying, "I'm going to school today." So she did. Wow. Daycare was closed Thursday because poor Tina got it, and some friends of ours whole family practically got it.. such a nasty bug wiping out families like that!
Funny side note:
I went in to put Cadynce's hair up better so she didn't get puke on it.
First thing she says, "Oh mom, I threw up twice in my bucked and dad poured it in the toilet and washed it out for me."
Me, "ewww, Cadynce, Mommy  does NOT like throw up."
Cadynce, "Mom, everybody does it, it's OK."
Me, " not so much."

I'm pretty sure there was another funny thing to share, but right now I can't remember it, when I do, I'll be sure to add it because I'm sure you all love hearing about barf. :) Ha!

Kiki creates - i love you because give-away

Okay, honest truth - I'm posting this for another entry into the drawing, I don't really want you to enter. haha. Sorry, truth hurts! But I know you'll follow this link and fall in love with the "i love you because..." prints just as fast as I did.... so go on, go ahead and start your entering...

And you better hurry because the drawing ends tonight at 9pm.

Holiday Performance

So, I was having some issues with my camera at this little Holiday performance, but you get the "grist" right? Cadynce was so excited when she saw her mob of fans! The songs were cute, all in all, they did good. (We totally left right after she was done.)

Some of my favorite Christmastime pictures...

Okay, so this picture (left) really isn't an amazing picture, BUT there is something amazing about it. That same little rocking chair that Cadynce is sitting in, I also sat in as a little girl, and got pictures taken at Christmas in it. The chair belongs to the VanDePutte Family, of Lopez Island, some great family friends. Maybe I'll get around to scanning the picture of me in it...

Yeah, this was our attempt at a picture of the kids on Christmas morning in their Christmas jammies. Never works. ( I just spent ten minutes looking through old blog posts trying to put a link in to a past attempt at this same picture - can't find one. hmm)

This is my favorite series of Christmas pictures. And this is only 4 of the 7. Oh gosh. We were trying to get a picture of all of the kids. Well, and Kayci and Sophia too. Anyways, it was hilarious. Sandie was standing in front of them, so my pictures are a little off, but hilarious none the less. For your viewing enjoyment I present to you: 6 kids and 2 cameras...

p.s. the last one is my most favorite!

a hunting we will go

...for a Christmas tree that is.
This is a second attempt at this post, because I had already finished it, and hit publish post and for some reason, it didn't! UGH!
Anyways, this will now be the short and UN-witty version. We went to Fish Creek Tree Farm again this year for our tree because they have so many trees to choose from.
Once we got Camden to walk, or run, we couldn't hardly get him to hold still for any pictures, that's why there's only one of him with Colby and Sissy. Let's see, it's hard enough trying to remember what I wrote just a few minutes ago, let alone the months ago that this actually was!
Oh, we thought we had found the perfect tree (before the one below) so Colby really got a kick out of making Cadynce stand by the tree while we kept looking. Evidently, Rhonda did this to him and Ryan every year, multiple times in the hunt for the "perfect tree."

Sissy and I.

Daddy and the kiddos.

I really love this picture, it's so perfect. And just so you know, after this, Colby made me help carry the tree out. I got covered in tree sap, and smelled like a tree for the rest of the day.


Oh well, I guess there's worse things to smell like, right?

Lights of Christmas. 2010

Last year, we finally got to go to the Lights of Christmas at Warm Beach. I've been wanting to go since I moved to Arlington, and we've just never made it. For one thing, it's pretty expensive so justifying the money was part of the problem. After going though, it's totally worth it. Not to mention I had a coupon, and the guy gave us the discount for all 4 of us. How nice was he?!
I had been told about the mini donuts. Oh.Em.Gee. Honestly, these are probably some of the best donuts I have EVER had. They make them in a little tent right there so you can watch, that's pretty cool all in itself, but then they cinnamon and sugar them and put them in a little baggie. Num. Num. They practically melt in your mouth.
It was really cold of course the night we decided to go, the kids got kind of crabby, and hungry. We broke down and tried to buy them something to eat, for Cadynce that was fine, but Camden is stubborn...
The kids loved watching the little train go round and round. There are so many different little things to see, I know we didn't even come close to seeing all of it, and we still had a good time.

I definitely need to work on my night-time lights picture taking though. Yowza.