Gifts from a far...

So after spending a very long year in Afghanistan my mom has made it safely back to the states. She spent the last twelve months living in a plywood hut and talking to us over the internet.  We are so very happy to have her back stateside and the kids are even happier to have gifts from her. The kids each got a stuffed animal in camo with their names on the hats, which stayed dressed for all of about ten minutes. So thanks for the super cute outfits mom, they were cool while they lasted. The animals had beautiful handmade bracelets on them that Carolina hoarded almost as soon as the other two weren't looking. As you can see from the pictures there were even a few unexpected "gifts" in the box too. Ben got a really cool antique lock that looks like one of the dolphin fish from his submarine pin and I got handmade ruby earrings and a matching pendent. Everything was beautiful, thank you mom we loved it all and welcome home!!!! 

Mom also send each of the kids some handmade bracelets. 

Carolina believes that you can make an outfit out of just about anything, including the bag that one of the gifts came in...

For some reason the paper towel was a huge hit. The paper towel that one of the gifts was wrapped in... Weird kids!

Its been a while...

Okay, so I have been wondering all day if this story is to private to share on here. But as I'm sure most of you are thinking right now "What something to private for Mandi to share! Is there such a thing???" Here it is:

Carolina is reading these days, alot. So when she sees a word that she recognized she lets you know right away. So this morning she was very excited to let me know that she could read the word love. Actually her exact words were "Mom! It says love on your butt! I can read love on your butt... Mom, why does it say love on your underware?" What can I say... I'm so happy she is learning to read. Okay, most of the time.

Waterpaints are always a big hit around here. Well, I'm guessing they're a big hit in most houses. Each of our kids have their own approach to it. Carolina is the budding artist in our home so she doesnt mess around to much when its arts and crafts time around here. George is a bit of a mess when it comes to artwork. I dont know if he even really likes doing the stuff, he's much more into cars. Where Lina could spend all day with a marker and a pad of paper, George could spend all day moving matchbox cars around the floor. So painting for him usually ends with him spilling his water, getting paint all over his clothes and then moving on. All in the span of about 15 minutes. Laney is just getting into the whole creative thing. She really just does what everyone else does, but everything ends up in Laney's month though. If you ask her if she put (whatever it was) in her mouth she will deny deny deny! 

Valentine's Day (give or take a week or two)

So for Valentines Day this year Ben bought us tickets to the Brad Paisley concert in Tacoma. We had to wait a couple of weeks to celebrate since it wasnt until the 28th. We had so much fun. First we had a really nice dinner and then we parked really far away from the Tacoma Dome. We really didnt have much of a choice in the matter. People were already parking when we drove by at 5pm and the show didnt start till 7:30pm. The good news was that we couldnt find the number on our parking space, so parking was free! (dont judge us! nobody could figure it out! lol) Ben got us good seats, but we were still pretty far away. I went down at one point to see if I could get a picture of Dierks Bentley and found it so easy to get down there I hung out for a couple of songs. Then I went back to tell Ben how easy it was to get down there and so when Brad came on we both went down there and watched the whole performance from the second row! It was so awesome! I felt kinda bad at first for sneaking up there, but then Ben told me that the tickets were almost the same price (ours were pretty pricey), there just werent any left. So it was a great night and I got some pretty good pictures. No great pictures, for some reason my camera was not corperating that night. I didnt even get a go picture of the two of us... It was so awesome to be so close to the stage!

A boxhead and a new point of view!

Okay so these first pictures are of Laney and a box that she decided was a hat on Sunday. It was really funny, until we tried to take it off and it got stuck on her ears! She was so not happy about trying to pull it off and I thought we were going to have to tear it open. We finally got it off and she walked away like everything was fine. She left the kitchen and went around the corner to the hallway and dont you know she came back two seconds later with that box on her head again! She is such a little entertainer and I guess some times you have to hurt for your art...

Okay so in an attempt to keep bad things from happening Ben and I can sometimes be a bit controlling about what we will and wont let the kids do. Its all because we usually can picture the end result and would rather just avoid it all together. Well after reading a great blog that my friend Renee posted about letting her boys take pictures with her camera (which I will mention has been broken before) I decided to ease up on the reins a bit and let George take some pictures. It was really neat to see pictures from Renee's kids point of view and I dicided that I would like to have some also. So here they are! Our little budding photographers first pics. I will say that I was totally against posting this picture of me on here, but George would not let it go! So here is what I really look like on Sunday mornings (okay most mornings)! I'm sure this wont be the last you will see of George's take on things as he is already asking me when he can take some more. 

Not Me Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

So today I did not ignore the fact that I had just gone to the doctor last Thursday with tendinitis and go on a two mile walk with some mom friends from preschool. I totally felt so great afterwards, so its not like I can feel that my foot is going to be so very sore by tonight. 

I haven't ignored the fact the the dog really needs a bath and to have her nails trimmed just because I dont feel like doing it. Because if that were the case I also wouldn't be to proud to ask my husband to do it for me. So as far as y'all are concerned Bella does not smell like stinky dog!

I am not as we speak spending my kids naptime updating out blog instead of reading the three chapters I have to read for class this week or not cleaning the kitchen up from lunch. Obviously because my kitchen was cleaned up the moment that the kids got up from the table, by the kids of course and I have a perfectly daily schedule that assures everything gets done on time. ;) Speaking of getting everything done, I am not sitting here putting off doing laundry for the simple reason that all the laundry baskets are full of folded clothes that I never mind putting away! 

I am also not going to tell you that my husband and I stuck our kids in the car for three hours this weekend just so we could visit the town of Forks, WA. Nope I'm certainly not going to mention that it actually took us three hours to get over there and three hours to get back and that we only spent 30 minutes at the beach. I never even considered embellishing the the story to make it sound like we were there to go hiking or that we even spent more time at the the beach. 

Here are some pictures to enjoy!

This is my new favorite picture of Laney (the next one down).

This seems to be as close as we get to a family picture these days.

The kids really enjoyed throwing all the 'perfect' skipping stones out into the ocean.

We really do need to get the kids a sandbox. I know that they would love love love having one. I just cant get past the idea of sand being all over the house.

THE SUN IS OUT!!!!

Okay so we usually come straight home from preschool, have lunch and then its right off to naptime. Well today was just to nice to be inside. Its February and the sun is out that's just not the way it works around here. So instead of going right in I decided to let the kids soak up some much needed vitamin D and run some excess energy off. I am naturally fair skinned, so I have never had any problem staying out of the sun. Me and to much sunshine just don't agree. But living up here I have come to crave being in the sun. Don't get me wrong I am the queen of sunscreen and my kids have never had a sunburn, but some days I will just sit in my car at the preschool with my car facing the sun just so I can feel the warm. So when we have days like these (especially in Feb) you throw all schedules out the window and enjoy it for as long as you can. Because it could seriously be weeks before it happens again. Please cross your fingers that we can have at least a couple more days of this because the "spring" rain will be starting soon! 

The kids were having a blast playing with a bunch of empty boxes today. George was building a fort with all the old soy milk boxes and Carolina kept walking around with lifting this one up over her head. No wonder the kids missing teeth, right...

I'm not really sure why she wanted to wear this helmet. But I do know that she ALWAYS has those two fingers in her mouth. My other two are hardcore thumb suckers, leave it to Laney to have to be different.

I thought y'all might like to see a picture of Bella (or Miss Peebody as she should be named since she pees everywhere. I keep telling Ben she is getting better about it, but I'm not so sure she is)

Here is my handsome Georgie (he actually really loves being called that!) He is so in need of a haircut.

George informed me that this was Buzz Lightyear and that I had to take of picture of him to show to Daddy.

She tried to warn me...

Okay so I don't have a picture to post about this, because well that would be gross. But I did want to tell y'all about. I should have known something wasn't right when I got up this morning. When I went into Carolina's room she was still sleeping and that never ever happens. I have no idea what time that girl actually wakes up, but I'm sure its somewhere close to sunrise. Because she is always awake before everyone else. Thankfully she (almost) always stays in her room until I go and get her up. Anyways, she got up and didn't really say anything except that she got hot last night and took all her clothes off. Then we went downstairs for breakfast and she said she didn't want to eat. (still no bells going off, good job mom!) The kids had a field trip to the fire station (pictures of that are on the way... one of the other moms is going to email me some, again way to be on top of things Mandi) and I had volunteered to drive so I didn't want us to be late. Well we got the school and made it to the firehouse. But the longer we were there the more fussy Carolina got. She didn't want to be a part of anything, but I thought she was just having a bad day. I left her at school after the field trip so I could run to Costco. The kids were going outside to play at school and I thought a little fresh air would be good for Carolina. Well when I got back she was completely laid out on the bench on the playground. She told me yet again that she just really wasn't feeling that good and I being the wonderful and very attentive mother that I am told her "Lina you'll be fine, just get in the car." Lots of love there people...

So we all loaded up in the car and on the way home I was talking to Ben (who was about to leave San Diego) letting him know that we were planning on driving over to the airport to pick him up. When right at that moment Carolina starts yelling that she is going to be sick. We were literally pulling onto the road to our house. I all but hung up on Ben and then I tried to get to the house. Well, we didn't make it... She puked and then puked some more all over the backseat. So much so that I thought for a second that George was going to puke. Thankfully all she had really had that day was water, so it wasn't unbearably gross. So I got everyone out of the car and laid down for nap and then I spent the next two hours cleaning out the inside of my car. 

Lesson learned: When Carolina complains that she doesn't feel good... listen. Oh and don't go anywhere!