A few random photos

Lunch with friends. McDonald's is such a nasty dirty place, but the kids like it, so that's where we sometimes go.

My boys definitely have some interesting sleeping positions.

Legos should definitely take presidence over one's own comfort. Brandon recently acquired a whole huge tupperware full of Star Wars legos from his cousins and boy is he in HEAVEN! Thanks Blaike and Kamron. So nice of you to share with Brandon. He is having so much fun with them.

Had an impromptu park day with these two kids and their momma! The weather was perfect and the company was superb. Couldn't have been a more relaxing and nice morning! Gonna miss these cuties!

These boys love LightSabers

Laurels of Honor

Not only was I slow in my photo snapping skills this night and missed lots of photo ops, I also got a lot of blurry pictures too.

But I got to go to the "Laurel's of Honor" dinner on Saturday night and it was such a nice evening. The stake really went all out to make it memorable for the girls graduating. Three of my Laurels are graduating this next month and while I am sad to see them leave and head off to college, I'm excited for them for their futures and the great things I know they will do. All three girls earned their Young Women Medallion. Two of them are going to BYU-Provo and one to BYU-Idaho. Such fun times to look ahead to.

Callie with Jenny Fogg, our Stake Young Women's President. Presenting her as a graduating Senior.

Christie. Just love her dress. She looks stunning.

I don't know all of these girls, but the second, fifth and sixth are my three girls. These are all of the girls in the Stake that earned their YW medallions this year.

Callie with her Dad 

Me and my girl 

Christiane and her Dad

Mother Daughter Activity Night

Once a year the Stake puts on a really nice evening for all of the Activity Day girls and their moms. I got lucky this year and got to go with BOTH my girls now that Leah is 8. The theme was "Love one Another" but it seemed more like it was on Manners, Etiquette and Personal Safety. But whatever…it was still lots of fun. We had ice cream sundaes with brownies and a Cop in our Stake came and talked to the girls about how to be safe. My girls walked away a bit scared (and are currently sleeping in the same room together), but I don't feel like he said anything I haven't already talked to them about. Maybe coming from a Cop made it seem more real. I don't know. Or maybe I haven't talked about safety enough. Either way, I thought it was great and something we all needed to be reminded of. He did give us all some reassurance that we live in probably the safest area of LA and that overall, this is a great area to be for families. That made me happy. 

Afterward, the girls got to make cards to anyone they wanted to tell that they loved and appreciated. I know a lot of time and hard work went into preparing this night so I'm grateful for the loving service of all the leaders involved. 

Tina's got this photo bombing down to an art.

From left to right…Leah, Ashlyn, Darby, Ashlynn and Ryan. Mint Canyon Ward definitely represented well this evening. I think all of the Activity Day girls were there. This is only about half of them. Yahoo! 

Me with my sweet girls! I sure am grateful to have these wonderful girls to love and raise. I hope they always know that I'm there for them and want to be involved in their lives (probably a little too much). But I am lucky to have gotten TWO little cuties to have as my own. It's been so fun to see them grow and develop into their own little people. I'm excited to see what the future holds. I'm really proud of them.

Universal Studios

The three older kids all got to go to Paul's work for the annual "Take your kid to work day" so I figured I might as well take advantage of the "free" day with less time commitments and go to Universal. Of course it was one of the hottest days of the year so far, but hey..whatever..we still went and we still had fun. We just didn't last as long as I would have liked to. Luckily it's not too far of a drive and we still got to see a couple of good shows and go on a few rides. Plus Carter got to play in the newly opened water park area so it was a good day.

Carter fell asleep in the stroller on the walk back to the car and then transferred to the car still asleep and then inside the house still asleep. So me and Callie put on a Jane Austen movie (Emma) and lounged around and had a fun afternoon of unusual quiet and calm. I'm sure Paul can't say the same for his afternoon, but since it only happens once a year, I didn't feel too bad. Actually he said the kids were all really good at his work. He just didn't get a ton of work done. 

Here's a shot of the kids at work with Daddy. Dragons 2 theme this year. They even got to see 20 minutes of the new movie coming out this summer plus some clips from other movies still in the works. 

If you don't know who this character is, or how much I LOVE her…than I'm not sure we are really true friends. LOL. Just kidding. But honestly I grew up watching reruns of "I Love Lucy". I'm quite sure I've seen every episode at least a few times each. 

Callie on the other hand, has probably never seen a single full episode. She has missed much in life. I will have to try and remedy that. But she took a picture with her anyway.

The minions ride is now a favorite of Carters. First ride of the day.

I don't know what this ride is called, but it's a "Dumbo" type ride and is right outside of the Minions ride, so we couldn't pass it up.

There were LOTS of characters all over the park. I'm not sure how these people wear those costumes. They have to be sweating buckets in there. But Curious George was so cute. He saw that Carter was kind of timid but wanted to come up to him, so he got down to his level and interacted with him so sweetly. Carter loved it.

And then we spent a good deal of time at the water play area. Luckily I brought his swim suit and a towel. Not luckily I forgot his flip flops. And they have a rule that you HAVE to have shoes on at all times. So he walked around with wet tennis shoes the rest of the day. Crazy enough, he didn't seem to care one bit. Maybe they helped keep him cool.

This little boy just latched right on to Carter and went everywhere he did. It was cute. I'm thinking I'll bring the kids here in the summer JUST to play in this water area. It'll be like a mini Hurricane Harbor  that I don't have to pay extra for. yahoo!

Little bit of catch up

The school year is coming to an end and I must say I am quite excited as I have started planning summer fun for my little family. We aren't going on any major trips (maybe one to Utah in August), so I thought it would be good to try and sign my kids up for some activities through the park and rec program. They're cheap and fun and will keep the kids busy and entertained. And of course we will have our trips to the beach and Santa Barbara Zoo and all the little things we do every summer, but this summer I'm concentrating on having fun close to home.

With all that said, we have been having some fun around here lately as we wrap up the school year. Hoping I can make it through May with school projects and church stuff, etc…

We had a fun Sunday afternoon Encino Friends dinner at Brooke's house a few weeks back. It's probably the first time we've all been together (hubbies and kids included) in a VERY long time. Like I'm not sure I can remember the last time we were. Might have been a few years ago. It was super fun and casual and so nice that the kids are all getting bigger but still play well together and get along.

Carter and Leah love the McCoy's dog Rusty and hung around him a lot.

Cute Jackie and Beth. Love these two ladies.

A few of the girls. I'm kicking myself that we didn't get a group shot of all 19 kids. 

Brandon's tooth got loose that night and he insisted on keeping a napkin in his mouth. It was gross but he wouldn't take it out until he fell asleep that night. The tooth finally fell out at school two days later. Yay!

Cole and Carter. Two of the "babies".

Ashlyn had her Spring Concert for Band. Seems like she's had lots of concerts this year. But I love going to every one of them and love love love listening to her play and am SO incredibly proud of her for how dedicated she is to her flute. For $70.00 I was able to sign her up for a Summer Jam Band. She'll go twice a week for two hours each time and then they'll have a concert at the end of July. Don't think I could beat that price if I tried. Can't wait to hear the new songs she learns.

Teacher Appreciation was last week. I'm the room mom for Brandon's class, but all the kindergarten teachers were off campus M-W for teacher training (common core) so I wasn't going to do a door sign for her or anything. But then I figured, why not! At least she got to enjoy it for a couple of days. I kept it pretty simple and included Patty Clark's kids names on it also because her and Brandon's teacher share a door to their divided room (plus she's Gracie's mom and a good friend of mine). So it was win-win. I think they appreciated the gesture so I'm glad I took the few hours out of my day to make it.

 I'm not gonna lie and say my kids always get along as much as it appears in this photo. They definitely have their moments of fighting, but I prefer to capture the nice moments instead. I thought this one was pretty cute!

 Cute little Emberlynn turned 3 last Friday and we got to help her celebrate at Chuck E. Cheese. She was so excited. It was SO cute to watch her enjoy her day! I'm really glad we got to be there. 

And I'm not going to talk about the fact that this family is moving away in just one short month from now and how incredibly sad it is….I'm in denial!

Hard to tell, but they have matching shirts on…just in different colors. Guess it's fitting for two Ashlyn(n)'s. 

Then the next day Leah had another birthday party to go to. Gracie's. Her BFF! It was at Paint a Dream in the mall and she was SUPER excited! I brought Ashlyn along with me since the boys were heading to a different birthday party at about the same time. I figured I'd drop Leah off and then walk around the mall with Ashlyn for a couple of hours. But when we got there, Gracie's mom (Patty) had told me there was one girl who couldn't come last minute and would Ashlyn like to stay in her place. She did, so that left me by myself at the mall the day before Mother's Day! It took me a minute to figure out where I wanted to go, but soon landed myself at "The Buckle" and treated myself to a few "gifts". Turned out to be a fun surprise!

Conversations with the kids

 Ashlyn never ever wants to buy lunch. Leah and Brandon both buy lunch once a week. Usually on Wednesday's because it's "cookie" day. But once a month, usually the first Tuesday of the month, they serve brownie bites at the school cafeteria. So when "brownie" day rolls around, I usually let Leah and Brandon buy lunch that day instead of on Wednesday. Yesterday was "brownie" day. A very exciting day. After school I asked the kids how their day was and if they enjoyed their brownies at lunch. Turns out the cafeteria ran out of brownies (sad) so the kids didn't get any. But the conversation that followed, is what really cracked me up.

Me: Sorry they didn't have brownies today. I can make you brownies at home.

Brandon: I don't like your brownies. I like the school's brownies.

Leah: I like your brownies and the school's brownies.

Ashlyn: I only like your brownies Mom.

Then Carter decides he gets to join the conversation also.

Carter: Well I don't like ANY brownies!

Hahahah…..we all had a good laugh about that. And yes, it's very true. He doesn't like any brownies….or any fruit….or any vegetables….or any meat…or anything pretty much, besides carbs and milk….OH and M&M's. He does love M&M's. 

Mommy daughter(s) date

Each year I like to make sure I take the girls to at least one play at the Glendale Center Theater. Last year we went to see "Snow White". This year it was "Rapunzel". They're such great little shows geared for a young audience and the girls just had a great time. I'm so glad we were able to go and that some fun friends could come with us too. 

A little bit of photo bombing may have happened too. All in the name of fun of course. Really Tina and I just decided to recreate the faces our sons usually make in pictures. Eh hem...Brandon and Elijah. 

 Afterward, we walked down to Islands for a nice lunch. It's so fun to create these little traditions with my girls. I had a wonderful day with them (and Callie too. Always glad when she wants to come along. Even if the show, or activity, is a little young for her.)