A Little Awesomeness From Novalee

Novalee's preschool had a Bike Parade.

Since Christmas when Santa brought Novalee a new (bigger) bicycle she has been using her training wheels again.  

A week and a half before the parade I thought it was time for Novalee to give biking without her training wheels another shot. 

Boy did she throw a huge stink about it.  She claimed she was still too little, the bike too big and that she was not READY!!!  

But I refused to give in and took them off anyways.  

When she finally got on the bike after a few embarrassing moments of her chewing me out in the driveway, she quickly realized that she was ready. 

 In fact I don't think she fell down and got hurt once.  (Another time when I used the situation to my advantage and said, "See Novalee.  You just have to TRUST Mommy." To which she reluctantly apologized and agreed that I was right).

The bike parade went great!  She did amazing at staying up and I'm sure she felt very proud of herself!

They are so cute!

This last Saturday was Parent's Day at the place where Novalee does her gymnastics. 

Novalee got there right when it was about to start (thanks to her Awesome mom).  ;)  And for some reason she was the first one to go show off her stuff.

Here is a video of her going around the obstacle course.

 http://youtu.be/yfdsXWC6OHc

She was fantastic!  This is actually a video of her on her third run but she just went out there, busted out her moves and stood up proud and waved to the crowd.  It was really great to see!

And she got a trophy.  (All the participants did).  But she doesn't know that.  :)

Good job Novalee!

Rotate Clockwise

I can't remember now how long we've had our "new" camera.  It might be getting close to a year.  All I know is that my computer doesn't rotate vertical pictures automatically and it drives me crazy to have to "rotate clockwise" every single one of them, I'm sure there is a way.  (So if any of you tech savvy friends or family of mine want to share how to make my computer automatically turn my vertical pictures from the horizontal view, that would be GREAT!)

Anyways here some things that have been going on here during the last couple of weeks.

I got bigger.

36 weeks, 3 days pregnant with Kinsley.

Novalee graduated from Preschool Level 1 gymnastics and moved on to Preschool Level 2.

 She also got creative with outside playthings and mud.  :)

(Wes wonders sometimes if she will end up being his hunting/fishing buddy since she loves the outdoors so much.) 

I finally got a decent picture of my little ones AND they are all looking at the camera!

Sadie learned to brave the slide on her own.

She loves to say "Weeeee" all the way down. :) It's pretty adorable.  

Jared started baseball. 

I kind of love this picture of Novalee and so I must share.  :)

Warmer weather brings flowers, sun, blue skies and scuffed knees. :(

She was very brave and still walked all the way to pick up Jared from school even though it hurt so bad.

(I discovered it's kind of impossible to be SO pregnant and carry a 19 month old and a 5 year old.)

Novalee showing off more of her creative talent.  If she doesn't use her creativity for something when she is older I will be surprised.

The library here celebrated "El Nino" and each of the kids got to have their face painted among other great activities. 

Jared didn't want to smile because dragons are fierce!

Sadie sat super still for her face painting and then almost immediately wiped it with her hand.  :)

At some point at the beginning of the year, we were couchless for over a month and then we finally bought some.  

The whole point was to have more room to sit...

 The other night Wesley went in to check on Jared before going to bed himself.  He started laughing and came and got me to come see what he discovered. 

Our brave little warrior fell asleep with his wrestling mask on.  We thought we had better take it off but also for a moment chuckled and thought it would have been funny if he got up in the middle of the night half asleep, went to the bathroom, clicked on the light and looked in the mirror.  Haha! 

We love him.  :) 

 We also discovered that our couch produces large amounts of static and is great entertainment for the girls!  :)

 Wesley's mom just sent this to us for Kinsley the other day.  

She made it!  I love it!  Wes said it smelt like home. :) 

Sadie being beautiful.  She reminds me of my sister in this picture.

 What pretty girlies I have.

 38 weeks, 3 days pregnant with Kinsley.

39 weeks pregnant with Sadie.

And that is life now.  It's sure to get crazy in a couple of weeks, I'm just trying to be grateful for everyday it's calm now.  

In case you didn't know, 

I love my family!

Fred Meyer Vs. Walmart:The Shopping Preferences of the Overly Large Pregnant Lady

While I may have paid a little more today in groceries at Fred Meyer, it may have been worth it.  The entire 35 minutes I walked around the store not a single person commented on my belly, except to ask me if I was expecting a boy or a girl (using the word "expecting" is entirely appropriate to me as opposed to "Whatch ya havin?" or "You pregnant?" ugh!)  Fred Meyer obviously must have an entirely different class of people frequenting it.

I didn't hear, "Look out! It's must be in the water!," followed, of course, by snickers from various people that could overhear the obnoxiously loud person  or "You look like you are about ready to pop!" which the people that work or shop at Walmart feel like is not only kind to say to a pregnant person but appropriate conversation to have with a complete stranger.

In fact now that I think about it, the ONLY place I have had a stranger put their hand on my belly was at Walmart!  And when I asked the lady to remove her hand from my belly she actually had the nerve to act like the one offended.  Freaking Walmart!

If only I had tons of money to spend on food, all my shopping trips for the next 3+ weeks would be at Fred Meyer.

But since that isn't reality I will just have to endure.

Perhaps I should just make a game of it and see if anyone will top the crappy, I mean crazy, I mean well intended comments above.

And for your viewing pleasure...http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/photos/

Sunshine, Oh Precious Sunshine!

Spring has taken it's good ol' time to get here this year.

 Wesley was just starting get SUPER tired of the rain.  Poor Arizona. :(

He would check outside everyday and comment on how he really could use a little sun right about then.

Thankfully for him and for our children that were suffering from intense cabin fever, the sun has been showing itself on and off lately.

The first day the weather turned we filled the water table up outside.  We played for about 30 minutes and then came inside just in time for it to start raining.  Seriously.

And not related at all but just because I know you wanted to see it.  My matching kids, inspired by Novalee. 

Yes, Novalee's zipper is down...

Two Saturday's ago, something AMAZING happened!  Wesley who has been working EVERY Saturday since the beginning of the year, only had a half day of work AND it was nice outside!  

So we decided to go fishing at the Hagg.  

I'm not sure the purpose of fishing Hagg.  I don't recall EVER catching anything and I've only heard of someone catching a turtle on their hook.   But people must catch things because faithfully there are boats and fisherman out there every time I've been.  That or it's the only lake near Hickville and so people just flock to it.  

Needless to say, we didn't catch anything or even get a nibble...it doesn't help that Jared kept reeling his line in, I changed my lures three times in the first 15 minutes and that this is actually just flooded grassland AND if we went out today, you could walk where we tried to fish.  

Sadie "helping" Daddy with his pole. Haha, I'm glad it wasn't mine...

Wesley thought it would be appropriate to document, for Novalee's posterity and hopefully to embarrass away any future wanna be boyfriends, her current dilemma of not being able to keep up her pants.  :)

Wes once said when referring to Novalee's drooping drawers, that he's seen enough crack that he could be a dealer.  HAHA!  Oh, so true, so true. :)

May there be many, MANY more fun/sun filled days ahead!

Pretty Petals

Last fall I planted tulip bulbs. I admittedly have never planted flowers before (that survived) and was curious to see how bulbs would stay in the ground all winter long, survive and then know to bloom in the spring.

 The crazy thing is, THEY DO!

 And so I've been taking a few too many pictures of my flowers. But I love them and must have a record of my success!

Aren't they so cute? (Yes, I'm actually talking about my kids). I love Sadie's little watering can!

Sadie is making sure my flowers get lots of water.  

(Do you see those sour cream containers---they might actually have tomato sprouts in them).

And I'm afraid from here on out, the rest of the post are just bragging pictures of my pretty flowers. :)

So these orange and white ones aren't actually MY planted bulbs.  But they were a lovely addition AND I was wondering when I planted mine, what the worm eaten bulbs I kept digging up would look like.  I'm glad I missed a few.  

It helps that my husband keeps telling me how nice my flowers look.  I kind of love him. :) 

One Little White Dress

I made Kinsley's baby blessing dress today.

And I love it.





One less thing on my list before baby comes. :)