Celebrating with Carlie

We had dinner with some special friends on Saturday night to celebrate Carlie's 4th birthday!! Their family mirrors ours in a lot of ways (except Carlie's their youngest - they need one more to match up with Caleb! :) ) so we have a good time when we're all together!

See the blur at the bottom of this picture? It's Alli running across trying NOT to get in the picture :)

Callie watching Carlie blow out her candles. She chose a cookie cake - yum!!

(So annoying that my flash is apparently broken!)

Then we walked down to their own private beach! Their neighborhood has a lake with a little beachfront to it - it's so fun! David & I actually looked at houses in this neighborhood before we moved here. We almost could have been neighbors! :)

The kids had a ball. I miss living near the beach - so this was a fun little taste of it - and within walking distance from their house? That's AWESOME! :)

It's just so relaxing to me - sitting in a chair, chatting with a friend, kids playing at my feet in the sand - aaahhhh. Makes me look forward to some beach trips this summer!

Carlie and Callie are two of a kind. Both the 3rd child. Both spunky little girls that are pretty tough cookies but have LOTS of diva inside of them :)

Josiah, Jacob, and Cooper were on a mission to kill the ants! They found a little hill apparently and were on a mission to drown them all out. (and they were very serious about it!)

And this one? Just happy anywhere there is a ball!

The daddies look pretty relaxed too, don't they? We had a great time together! Happy Birthday Carlie - we are SO glad we got to celebrate with you!

Name that Tune!

Go Cyber Rays!!!

It was picture day today for all the kids' soccer teams, so we had an early start to our morning! Callie's team picture was the first of the morning, so we had to leave the house at 7:15 AM - ugh! I brought donuts for her team to reward them for having to get up SO early - and they were very appreciative! :) They had a GREAT game - no tears this week from Callie and she was a scoring machine! We enjoyed our "opening day" at our pool when we got home - the water was cool, but refreshing and we enjoyed ourselves! They had ice cream social on the pool deck and then we headed home for naps (and blogging for me! Aaahhh - love Saturdays like this! :)

New Belts!

We've been talking about this night for several months now - the boys' next rank test for karate! They've been working so hard and have been so excited about it...and a bit nervous too! As they progress along, the tests get harder and harder so they really do have to work for it! This morning when I went to get them up for school, I found them already awake and practicing for their test! :)

Josiah wanted to make sure that he had lots of healthy food in his lunch so he'd be sure to have plenty of energy for his test (like I normally send him junk or something!). They even decided to stay inside and rest after school instead of playing outside! :) Are they serious or what!?

The first part of their test is a physical test. The PT part is to continue to develop their cardio strength and stamina and I love seeing them have to push through this stuff! The first thing they have to be able to do is run a mile in 12 minutes...

...which they both did! Then they come inside and do some more PT drills - like pushups for 2 minutes, jumprope for 3 minutes, front snap kicks for 3 minutes, punches for 3 minutes, etc. When they get to the black belt test, they'll have to be able to do crazy numbers of these exercises within those timeframes (like 200 pushups in 2 minutes, etc)

I was able to get both boys in the same shot. This is still during the PT part of the test - doing punches. Jacob's in the back of the picture with his yellow belt and white uniform - Josiah's in front with his black uniform.

Callie got a hold of the camera for a few minutes and took this lovely picture of herself! :) It's not the easiest thing in the world to keep the two of them entertained in a VERY Crowded dojo for 3 hours...and past bedtime for both!

Jacob - after he successfully passed all of his PT tests, self-defense moves, combintations, and kata!!

Danielle - one of the junior instructors - taking off Jacob's yellow belt....

...and Sensei tying his newly-earned orange belt!

SO very proud of you Jacob! You worked SO very hard for this and I was so excited to see you pass tonight!! Always remember that things mean more to you when you have to work hard for them! You did a GREAT job!

Josiah doing his kata

Josiah is really incredible at karate. The focus, self-discipline, control, and attention to detail that it requires is RIGHT up his alley. He does well at other sports too(he's really doing great at soccer right now), but this is totally him. He has to work very hard at coordination and things like football, basketball, etc - but it's like he was made for karate. I love watching him excel in this and having it come naturally for him - and seeing him enjoy that!

I was in a terrible spot for Josiah's ceremony - but this picture is Sensei tying Josiah's new belt...

...and Sensei bowing and shaking Josiah's hand afterwards.

SO proud of you Josiah! I know you were very nervous about this test, but I KNEW you would do great! You have practiced over and over (even though you knew it long ago) and I knew you were ready! I loved watching you help Jacob practice - you are a great teacher! Your focus and attention to the details is part of what makes you so great at karate! I was so proud of you tonight - congratulations Josiah!

Our neighbor Noah and Josiah - both new blue belts now! :)

why ELSE would you eat dinner at 4:00 pm??

Yep - we really did eat dinner at 4:00 pm!! We had to leave the house at 4:30 pm in order to get to Baskin Robbins for 31 cent ice cream night before choir practice and AWANA at 6 pm! The kids were fine with it - they're always starving after school anyways, so they thought it was great! We headed off to Baskin Robbins (which is not super close to us) to get our ice cream! :)

It was totally crazy in there - the people working were awfully stressed out and not very organized, so we got our ice cream as quick as possible and got out of there! We decided we'd eat outside and then head back to church. It was very funny seeing what everyone chose. Caleb got cookies & creme (I figured he'd like it and I was right!), Callie picked cotton candy (only because it was purple and pink!!), Jacob picked mint chocolate chip, Josiah got some crazy green apple/purple sherbet with pop rocks candy in it, and I picked Lucky Mint - which was called the "evil twin" of mint chocolate chip. It was a chocolate ice cream with green mint pieces in it - yum! Gotta love getting ice cream for 5 people for $1.50!! We enjoyed our treat and then headed to church! Poor Daddy - missed out on all the fun!

Girlfriends (and Caleb) at the Zoo!

On Wednesday morning, we invited my friend Alli and her daughter Carlie to join us at the zoo! It was nice to have girls in the majority for once! :) We had a BLAST! Callie and Carlie are two peas in a pod - both are the 3rd child and have a little bit of drama in them and a flair for the dramatic. They're totally hilarious together, and so we had a blast doing the zoo with them!

I told Carlie and Callie to give me their best tiger roars - and they did :)

More roaring :)

looking for the cute bunnies...

Time for pony rides!

I made...I mean let....Alli ride the kiddie train with them :)

Comparing Callie and Carlie's hands with the gorillas' hands!

What a blast! Thanks for joining us for a SUPER fun morning Alli & Carlie! We'll do it again (and we'll bring all the other kids next time! Both Alli and I knew that our other kids were going to be mad they missed out! Summer is coming....)

A GREAT Monday, but not what I had expected!

On Monday morning, I headed out for a run - which was awful by the way. totally my own fault for not running last week during spring break. Anyways, I got home and went to jump in the shower. I called out to David - before he left for work - and told him to ask Scott, one of the other pastors, if I could bring lunch in for the staff one day this week. I knew they had all gone above and beyond in preparing for Easter Sunday, and this week was Administrative Professionals Week, so I thought it would be nice to show them that they were appreciated! I get out of the shower and David says "Scott said today or Thursday would work" and heads out the door. Thursday DOESN'T work for me - I have biblestudy that day, so TODAY it is!!! Thankfully, I had most of my ingredients because I knew I'd be cooking for them at some point this week, so I ran out to get one last thing and then set out to cook lunch for 25 people and have it ready in 2 hours! :) If you ever decide to do that, this is what your house will look like afterwards!

Lunch turned out great, and I know they appreciated it! Got home from delivering it, put Caleb down for his nap and then got a text from David about having needing to get together with some friends of ours for dinner one night this week. I texted her a few times and it was suddenly determined that TONIGHT was the only night that would work, so I sprung into action again! :) We had a great time - again, I had most everything I needed to come up with dinner, so I cleaned up the downstairs a bit, put dinner together, and we enjoyed a great evening with friends! So it was a GREAT day - but not at ALL what I THOUGHT my Monday would be like! :)

Time for the Big Boys!

Callie helped David and me hide jelly beans for the big boys. We decided the plastic eggs would be too easy for them to find and so we hid jelly beans all over the first floor of our house. When I told David, he thought I was absolutely nuts - but that's what we ALWAYS did growing up! Once he started hiding them, he said he LOVED it! Because they are smaller, you can do much better hiding places for them! It's one of those things that my family always did growing up and I thought every family did it that way - and then realized when I grew up that NO - it was only my family that did it that way! :) I love it though - and I'm sticking with it! :)

I hid some in the kitchen on top of the cabinet doors and drawers - Callie's drawer was going to be quite the jackpot!

Alright boys - go find them!! (we did hide 12 plastic eggs. They each could find 4 of them, and inside those eggs were marbles for their marble jars - they were excited to find those!)

I love that Noah still has a sword in his shirt from whatever they were playing :)

Josiah found some jellybeans hidden in their marble jars :)

Jacob hit the jackpot in the kitchen!

Josiah hit the jackpot at the piano (this is the jackpot spot that I always remember growing up!)

I even put some in Noah's crocs next to his jibbitz! :)

Good job boys! I think they found them all (otherwise, we'll find some more jellybeans throughout the week!)