Hey....is this thing on?

Sooooooo, I overheard a friend at church say, "Yes, I still blog and yes, I still love it."  At first I thought to myself, "I haven't blogged since London's first day of kindergarten and I am not about to start up again."  Why you ask?  Because I have this other really efficient method of documenting our lives.  I take pictures all year. I then spend all of winter break figuring out which ones I really like, how many of each photo I need to order for each kid and spend like a million dollars ordering them. THEN once I get them, I organize them into nice little chronological piles which takes another few weeks and eventually put them into cute little books for each kid where I add stickers and colorfully marked comments.  This all sounds so marvelous right? Or do I mean to say ridiculous?  But it really is how I've been doing it and it's gotten crappier and crappier each year.  For example London's first 2 or 3 albums really look like how I just described. They are cute.  Then along came more babies and Roman's and the rest of London's went to just pictures and stickers, then just pictures, then Von came along and now if I ever get around to downloading the pictures and ordering them, they just stay in that nice orange box they are mailed to me in and make me feel super guilty each time I walk by the cluttered table they set on. I even bought this cute little keepsake book for London's baptism.  The pictures are printed and sorted and sitting next to the book, but when life gets busy, and it HAS, it's just not a priority.  We all know that once free time comes as an adult we want to do mindless and kidless things like watch a television show that doesn't have a single song in it. If I ever did find some magical time to complete the book, I have a really strong feeling Roman's wouldn't even come close to getting done and once again I would have this cool thing for her and it would be completely obvious I ran out of gas for my boys.
I asked my sister who has six kids what she does.  She said she quit doing books ages ago and just makes a book on Winkflash for each vacation or family holiday.  If that works for her, great. But once I heard that friend at church say she loved blogging, I realized my method was total garbage...great in theory, garbage in practice. Instead I can upload a few pictures once a week, write up a little summary and then print it out for each of my kids one day.  MUCH EASIER!    So without further delay.....

Grandma and Grandpa Hunsaker and Jen and Adam and the kids all ended up being in Vegas this weekend so we took the opportunity to have a pre-birthday pinata for Roman.  It was so great having family and especially little cousins here.

We spent our Spring Break in Idaho.  It was fun playing with the Idaho cousins and doing lots of Easter things, but I had the flu the whole time so it pains me a little bit to look at these pictures.

We were supposed to go to Disneyland for Spring Break, but Tim's 94 year old grandpa passed away.  Since I ended up getting the flu I was very happy to be able to lay around at my sister's house instead of waiting in long lines at Disney.  There's always another time and it was so wonderful to get to go back to Idaho and celebrate his life. Grandma passed away 6 years ago so they are finally together again.  They left a great legacy and I think they were mostly all there.  All 190 of them!

School Time!!

Our little girl started Kindergarten this year and she was so excited!!!  She has such a great teacher and that made it easier for me to send her off into the unknown.  She has been in pre-school for 2 years now, but it has always been at the house of one of my friends so I knew exactly what was going on. This has been a little different, but I can already tell it's going to be really good for her.  Funny thing is, her pre-school was only 3 days a week, but it was for 3 hours.  Kindergarten is only 2 1/2 hours and she's out by 10:30 a.m.!  So when everyone asks now if I miss her, I tell them I don't have time to miss her!  But Roman and I do get a little one on one time which has been fun.

Here she is.  She loves to pose with one foot up.  I think it's so funny

Here's the backpack she chose.  She loves this kid.  So funny.  I think I've discovered that some of his biggest admirers are ages 4 and 5!

 Little Roman had to get something too on the school clothes shopping trip! Don't you love how he smiles for the camera? :)

This was taken the week before school started and I was still looking for anything possible to entertain the kids with.  Krispy Kreme is always a good time.  Cool hats and watching doughnuts get fried and frosted!! 

Graduation and Disneyland

 London has to tell us DAILY that Ariel is her favorite princess. 

 Little London graduated from preschool.  We are so proud of her.  Now just another 13 years and she can graduate again. 

 This is a picture of our way cool dude

Spring!

Who knew it wasn't February anymore? I guess I didn't because that's how long it's been since I posted last and I didn't realize it had been so long. Like most everyone with child/children, spring goes pretty fast because it is loaded with activities. Here's a few of ours. My sister came to visit with just two of her six children, so we could afford a Build-A-Bear trip.

Then it was off to Neilson's. Yummmmm.

Easter Morning!!

Roman's 2nd!!

Every present was Elmo related and Roman couldn't have been happier. He sure does love that furry red monster!

And last, but not least, the 51's games. We try to take advantage of all sporting events in the area since we don't have too many around here. It's fun for all. They have this big grassy area, so when the kids get a little tired of the game you can just walk on over and watch from the grass while the kids play.

Valentines and More

My mom always gave me some cute things for Valentine's Day so I like to keep that tradition going.


Here's the presents ready to be found. Tim is our soccer guy in the house so he got the soccer heart box full of goodies.



Roman found his EARLY!


Then when this good sleeper woke up, she got hers.


There are some Valentine haters out there (you know who you are) but I just think it's a great excuse to make all your food pink! :)


London all ready for her Valentine party at school.


Where she made this...it's Love Bugs. It's a caterpillar magnet holding on to a lady bug plate. Cute!


MMMM...SUGAR


Gotta love your kitchen help!


I was cleaning one day when I heard giggling coming from somewhere. I walked around and around and couldn't tell where exactly he was, then I saw a little finger poking through this cupboard. I think he was after the DDP!


This kid is Elmo crazed!! He doesn't have many words, but Elmo is loud and clear. He about had a heart attack at the store when he saw these shoes and jammies so I just had to. I put them on him and he ran right to the place where I always take London's pictures(it's because it's the only place not cluttered with toys, I actually really hate the way the wall is painted, just have never taken the time to change it). Guess he wanted it on print!


London got her ears pierced!!! I think I was more excited than her!! We took a video of it and it's kind of sad and kind of funny at the same time. I will have to post it later. Her delayed reaction is priceless!


I have no words for this other than, yes, that is where I do most of the cooking.

Mother Goose Olympics

I think pre-school teachers need a lot more recognition than they get. The ones I've dealt with and the ones I see on other people's blogs are all so talented at what they do! There is no end to their creativity and you can't tell me it's easy to get a class of 3-4 year olds to write their names, count to 100, and know the name and sound of each letter. Amazing! Here's one of the creatively fun things London did last week at pre-school. It was called Mother Goose Olympics. There was Bah Bah Black Sheep Black Garbage Bag Races, Simple Simon Met a Pie Man Pie Hat Races, Diddle Diddle Dumpling My Son Jon Sock Contests, and then here's our gal in Jack Be Nimble Jack Be Quick Candle Hopping. Tim, who did hurdles in high school and college, was so darn proud of this one!



They also made these little Humpty Dumpty men out of crushed and painted egg shells. Crafts are another thing I appreciate about pre-school teachers because I'm just not the type of mom that says, "Hey kids, let's make a huge mess by doing crafts all day." Just not me. But I knows kids like to do them so I'm glad there's a place for that. :)



I guess they spent the whole week making this Dinosaur Egg Pinata and then on the last day of the week they got to crack it open and out came lots of little tiny toy dinosaurs..and candy of course!



And here she is because she made the 100's club, meaning she counted to 100 for the whole class. They get 100 M&M's in a little box. She is also in her pajamas here because it was pajama day for "P" week.



I've heard pre-school also referred to as "lazy parenting" but I really and truly disagree. If you have kids like mine, which most of you do, they are going to do things better for other people than for you. It's just how it works and I don't know why. Plus, being social is just as important as learning. But I will stop here before my soap box gets too big and offensive. :)