A quick trip down to Universal Studios

Carter's been wanting to go down to Universal Studios, so we snuck a trip down for the morning while the other kids were in school. 

There aren't a ton of rides for kids Carter's height, but we still got on a few fun ones and saw the "Waterworld" show. Not bad for a morning outing.

This kid makes the craziest faces when I ask him to smile. I don't know why he looks scared here. He wasn't. Silly boy!

Weekly Highlights

Just a normal week around here. But here are a few photos from some things we have been up to.

Ashlyn is reading….and reading…and reading. Just loves it and is already at almost 200% of her AR goal with a month and a half left in this AR period. 

Carter had a preschool field trip to CPK. They got a cool (literally cool…this is them inside the freezer) tour of the kitchen and back area. They got to make their own pizzas, which Carter chose to not put ANYTHING on his…just the bread for him. Shocking. Afterward they fed the ducks and went to the park to play. Good times!

I got to do to dinner with these adorable twins to celebrate their birthday this past week. I love how cute they are with each other. Seriously two halves of a whole and I'm so lucky to be friends with them. Had a blast and ate yummy food!

In other, non photo'd news, I had Leah's annual IEP for her speech therapy. She's making good progress, but still working on that darn "r" sound. So they're gonna keep having her go to speech every week during school. 

I've been going to storytime at the library on Wednesday mornings and hallelujah, they have the cutest funnest lady doing it now. She is so bubbly and fun with the kids and it makes such a difference. Plus Carter just loves going to the library and picking out books.

Other than that, it's life as normal. Grocery shopping. Laundry. Chores around the house. Did some visiting teaching this week. Hung out with some friends. Got a pedicure. Even took Carter with me to get my pedicure and it wasn't a total disaster. In fact, he was really good and sat right by me the whole time and played with his lego guys. I was really impressed. 

Tonight the kids have a primary activity at the McCoy's. They're watching a movie in the backyard with popcorn and treats. That'll be really fun. Tomorrow is Brandon's first soccer game and we're really excited to go see him play. Photo's to follow. Paul and I are going on a date. Maybe a movie, if we can find a good one to go see. Then there's the General Women's Broadcast with my girls tomorrow night. 

Saturday family fun

Oh my goodness…what a difference a week makes with the weather around here. Last Saturday was like death it was so hot. Today was so beautiful, we couldn't pass up the chance to be outside and enjoy it. We had a nice casual morning at home. Slept in some, cleaned up a little, and then had plans to head out to a carnival the city was having at Newhall Park. Well, the carnival ended up being a total bust. Basically was just booth after booth of advertisements. Some had games for the kids to play and little prizes they could win, but they were advertisment type prizes. Magnets with company names on them, pens with company names on them. Shoot Carter even got a toothbrush and toothpaste from a dental company. So after about 20 minutes, we left. We decided ice cream and some mini golfing sounded much more fun. And it definitely was. 

Brandon and his funny faces. That kid!

Carter basically sweeps his ball into the hole, but he sure has fun doing it. Paul tried to give him some pointers, but he would have NONE of that. He's a big boy and can do it all on his own. Wouldn't even use the smaller club. He had to have the same size one as his siblings, even though it was almost as tall as him.

Ashlyn tried really hard and did quite well. It's fun to see them get older and be able to do more things.

Afterward, I did a little shopping with Ashlyn and Leah, then went over my lesson for tomorrow. The girls ended the night with a birthday party for a girl in their Activity Day group and the boys hung out with Daddy and played some plants vs. zombies.  That meant no time for a date night for me and Paul, but we are already making plans for one next week. 

Why I need a husband

Specifically Paul of course.

 So I get home from church Sunday, make the kids lunch, and then sit down to relax for a bit. A while later I get up to start dishes. 

You know how if the disposal needs to be turned on, the water in the sink just keeps rising. Well, that was my sink. So I took all the dishes out of it, felt around in the water to make sure I didn't miss any silverware and turned on the disposal. Immediately I hear a crunch crunch crunch. I think….dang it…I missed a spoon or something. So I turn off the disposal. The water in the sink has not all gone down, so I feel in the disposal for the silverware. Nothing….so I wait for the water to drain and pull the disposal guard out. There was no silverware in the drain. There was GLASS….lots and lots of tiny pieces of crunched up glass. One of my little glass prep bowls had fallen down into the disposal and I missed it. I stood there thinking how the heck am I going to get all this out without ruining my disposal. So I start trying to pick the pieces out with my hands. I wasn't getting very far and I was afraid I was going to cut myself. Meanwhile, Paul gets home from church. I tell him what happened and how I didn't know how I was going to get it all out. He says, why don't you just get the hose attachment of the handheld vacuum and suck it all out. Uhhhh……...DUH!!! Why didn't I think of that? It worked like a charm and in minutes my disposal was totally clear of all that glass.

Later that day, I was sitting on the couch trying to think of a gift I wanted to get for someone. I was wracking my brain. I just couldn't think of anything good. Paul was sitting by me and offers up a few good options. I looked at him, smiling, and said, "well aren't you just so very helpful today"?! He responds by saying, "You sound like you are actually being sincere in that statement". HAHAHA…..of course I was. But apparently I am usually sarcastic if he didn't know whether to believe me or not. 

So that, my friends, is why I need a husband. To think for me. Because apparently I'm not very good at it on my own.

Back to a schedule

School is back in full swing. Homework, chores, and activities are taking up our afternoons once again. Brandon started soccer (yay), Leah's baton class is continuing on, the girls are still taking piano lessons (with LOTS of whining by Leah about practicing), and band practice should be starting back up in the next few weeks or so. Ashlyn's big "girl" on campus and gets to go on two field trips every 6 weeks. One walking one and one bus one. They just had their first bus field trip and she had so much fun. Nothing's more exciting than getting to leave school campus from time to time. Carter's in preschool twice a week and I'm back to having one morning to myself and the other to go volunteer at school. This past Thursday was my first volunteer day. I went to both Brandon's and Leah's class and really like both of their teachers so far. I'm doing dolch word testing (sight words) for Brandon's class and was really impressed with how many words these freshly new 1st graders know. It is such a huge difference from when I did dolch testing with Ashlyn's first grade class. I'm not sure if it's because kindergarten is full day now, or if there is just a stronger emphasis on reading, but I was really amazed. 

Here's my favorite day time Menchies buddy. He basically only eats the frozen yogurt to get to the M&M's but he still asks me to take him just about every other day. We don't go that often of course. Although I kind of wish I could. Yum yum! 

Another perk to being the only kid home during the day is extra pool time with mom. I love having a neighborhood pool and I love that there is hardly ever anyone there. I just need to plan a little more in advance when we go, so that maybe some friends could come too. I'm a pretty last minute pool person. 

Oh well….Carter and I had lots of fun together. 

And we found this really cool preying mantis. It was a big one and we loved watching it walk across the lounge chair. But seriously those things kind of freak me out. It was totally looking at me while I was taking it's picture. Not many bugs actually look at you when you're looking at them. I don't know, but that makes it weird. haha…

Then this morning we decided we needed to get the kids out for a hike. We stuck close to home and went to Placerita. There are still plenty of trails we haven't gone on with them. We should have gotten off a bit earlier in the morning because it was quite warm today. A lot of the trail was shaded, but the boys still only lasted less than a mile. Paul turned around with them and went to hang out in the nature center, while I made the girls trek on with me for a three mile round trip hike. Suffice it to say that they were NOT too happy with me by mile 2. It was a good opportunity to talk to them about the pioneers and how we can do hard things. I know…they were probably rolling their eyes at me. 

This is the sweetest picture ever! I love that my kids love each other. Even though they sometimes fight or get on each others nerves, they still enjoy being with each other and show affection to each other. 

It makes me happy!

And it helps me get through the times when they spend a great deal whining at me….eh hem…LEAH!!! 

Labor Day

Last Labor Day we were too burnt out from the beach to go, but since we didn't spend tons of time there this summer, we were all really excited to spend the day there. Paul's best friend from High School was out visiting from Iowa, so we got to meet up with him and his family too. So combine them along with some other awesome friends from church and I'd say it was a pretty great day. The weather was perfect for the beach and even though the waves were CRAZY big, the kids still splashed around at the edge and pretended to be surfing. Paul helped the kids build a big ole trench and sand castle. Mostly it was a trench, but that's pretty much what is usually ends up being. I was impressed they actually built any part of the sand castle at all. 

I got brave and went out in the water to swim. I know…shocking, but I do that from time to time. Lol. It was so fun once you got past all the waves. The water was really deep and I couldn't touch after just a few minutes of swimming. It was definitely a work out, but it was kind of relaxing and peaceful in a strange short of way. Getting back to shore was another story. Like I said the waves were huge and there were lots of rocks at the shoreline from all the sand being turned up. So I pretty much got pelted into the rocks trying to get back. It wasn't the greatest way to end my nice swim in the ocean, but oh well. A little trip to the showers to rinse off all the sand and to get my hair back to semi normal looking and I was as good as new!

Don't let the sticking out of her tongue at me fool you. That is a true sign of love from her! 

Paul and Zane. They probably haven't seen each other since their 10 year high school reunion, and since we are only a couple of years from our 20 year reunion (how the heck that happened I DO NOT KNOW), you know it's been a long time. But the great thing about friends like this, is that they picked up right where they left off. Zane isn't LDS, but from what Paul tells me, Zane went with him to all the church sports events, church dances and activities. So he knows all about Mormons. When he sat down, he was like, I'm assuming all these friends of yours are Mormon too. YUP….you got it right Zane. We travel in packs. 

Make shift surfing in the sand! Love these kids. They're the greatest. And nevermind that one random girl in the back. She just wished she was part of such a cool group, so she kept coming over to play. It was pretty cute.

Until next time Zuma Beach. We may not be back for a while. It's been a fun summer. Now to move on to FALL! Yay.