Flip Flops and Hiking

What did we do for President's Day?  I'm so glad you asked!  We've spent a lot of time at home lately, unpacking and all, so we decided to venture out a little bit and explore one of the hiking trails close by.  I loved that we didn't have to get up early to go and that it wasn't an all day thing.  We waited until Isaac woke up from his nap and drove about 10 minutes away from our house and boom, we were there!

The warning sign about the rattlesnakes made some of us (KP) a little nervous, but after reassuring that it was still too cold for snakes we were able to move on.  There were a lot of cacti (plural, right?) and rocks around.  We were even close enough to see the Tram on the mountain moving up and down.

This was Isaac's first time in the backpack and I had forgotten how much hair is fun to play with.  Most of the time we were hiking he was pulling my hair and I was trying to keep it out of his hands!

We had to stop more than a few times to empty rocks out of shoes, check out the terrain, have a sword fight with a granola bar, and enjoy the view.  Caleb got a little worried when Brandon told him that there were wild animals out there that would eat him alive. 

We also found an arroyo that the kids had fun in climbing over the rocks.  Caleb filled his pockets with rocks while Kelsie and Brandon raced up and down and all around.  I am so curious to see what it's going to look like around here when things start to turn green less brown.  We're looking forward to more hikes and possibly even a backpacking trip this summer.  We may have to rethink that one since Isaac likes to pull hair and Kelsie almost had a breakdown when we talked about it, but it might happen!

 

It has been so nice here that we've finally had to break out the flip flops and turn off the heat during the day.  I have been opening windows as well!  I can't remember the last time I did that in February! 

*pictures by Kelsie

Smile

V-Day 2011 from Ronni Paxton on Vimeo.

Just A Few *Gems*

I find it  ironic that the shortest month of the year has actually turned out to be pretty long. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the weather and being cooped up inside or that I'm just really anxious for spring to come. We've had a lot going on around here between a birthday, a holiday, the Olympics, and the beginning of many doctor appointments. It's also been a month of little gems from our kids. Gems that are too good to for me to forget!

1. Since watching the Olympics, big names like Apolo Ohno, Lindsey Vonn, Shaun White, and many more have become a part of our daily conversations. Each of our kids has decided what he or she would do if they were to be a part of the games. Brandon has taken up speed skating across the wood floors when he's not watching the events while Kelsie is often seen twirling and spinning just like a figure skater. She also really liked the downhill skiing and can't decide which one would be better. Caleb is convinced that the bobsleds are just giant race cars and that it would be so fun to go so fast! It's been a lot of fun watching the Olympics together and they have been on almost non stop since the opening ceremonies two weeks ago.

2. We have a ward talent show coming up and Kelsie and a friend have decided to do a hula hoop routine to this song. As great as their dance is (and I really can't wait to see the actual performance!) you can really only take hearing that song so many times. Which is a little unfortunate since I heard it nonstop for about 4 hours straight during their practice/playdate this weekend.

3. Caleb has recently been introduced into the wonderful world of Reader Rabbit computer games. I told him that he couldn't play his game until his room was clean, so he decided to do something about it. He gave the best effort only a three year old can give. He picked everything up off the floor and put it on his bed. As long as the floor is clean, it counts, right?!

4. Brandon has been exploring his feelings lately and the night of Caleb's birthday party, he saw the lighter we used to light the candles next to me on the floor. All of the sudden he said, "Mom, will you move that because I feel like I really want to play with it!" At least he thinks before he acts (for now)!

5. Brandon also said: "I wish we had Apolo Ohno's phone number so we could call him and congratulation him!"

6. We walked home from school with a friend who lives only a few houses away.  I asked Kelsie and Brandon to walk her all the way home so she wouldn't have to go alone to which they agreed (almost) wholeheartedly.  When they got home, they told me that a stranger almost followed them.  Upon further investigation, I found out that Brandon convinced Kelsie that they needed to hide behind a tree.  When I asked where the stranger was, they told me he was across the street and that he almost looked at them.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm glad that they made it home safe and we had a talk about how it's better to come straight home than hide behind a tree.  I am glad, however, that they weren't too intimidated by the stranger that almost looked at them!

Valentine's Day Recap

I realize that Valentine's Day has come and gone and I have a habit of not posting anything if it gets too far away, so I figured now's as good of time as any.

I could go on and on about how fun our Valentine's weekend was and describe in great detail all the things that happened around here, but I don't want to bore you with all the particulars.

I could tell you all about our 3rd Annual Valentine's Dance held in our basement. I could tell you how Kelsie played a major part in the play list this year which subsequently meant lots of HSM songs and how Brandon would only dance to the "boy" songs. I could also tell you how Caleb hung out at the dessert table and filled and refilled his cup with M&M's until he single-handedly ate them all. I could also tell you the new favorite song of the night was the Chicken Dance and that it was played more than once while everyone danced their best impressions of a chicken. I could also mention how fun it is to watch me dance the Chicken Dance heading into my 3rd trimester (and BIG belly), but I won't do that. It might be too much information.

I also could tell you all of the hard work that was put into Kelsie's Mad Lib Valentine's for her classmates and that they were the big hit of the day. You might also be interested in knowing that cutting out Valentine's printed off the computer proved to be a little too much for Brandon to do, so instead, after I gathered all the supplies and got everything ready, all he had to do was tape on a joke (which also proved to be a little too much for my non-crafty son). I could also mention how cute Caleb's paper airplane Valentine's he made for the family was, but that might be taking it a little too far.

I could also tell you how Brandon couldn't wait to open his Valentine's from everyone else, but didn’t bother to hand out any of his own. While Kelsie, on the other hand, worked very hard on her Valentine for him and was quite offended that he couldn't quote it back to her the next day. I could also tell you all about the scavenger hunt held throughout the house for the 2nd annual "Tub of Love" and how the candy was consumed in record breaking time, but again, I won’t do that to you.

I could also tell you how great our homemade egg rolls turned out to go along with our Vietnamese Salad for dinner and that we were even able to convince the kids that anything fried is almost guaranteed to appease their taste buds.

But I won't tell you about all that. It could be TMI.

What I will tell you is that we had a great day and that we made some great memories. Spending time together as a family ranks up high on our list of priorities and we had a great time together. And, there was something big that happened. Valentine’s Day was the last day that Caleb wore a pull-up. He has worn underwear ever since (except at night, but he actually has stayed dry at night too for the last week). He finally earned the Diego underwear that he’s been eyeing at the store! He’s such a big boy now and even locks us out of the bathroom to take care of business all by himself (I keep a screwdriver handy so I can get in quick if he needs a little help in the wiping area). It feels so good to be diaper free again—at least for the time being!

**I apologize for no pictures, but the computer is having some technical difficulties and I will try to post some in the next couple of days!**

MIA

Whew!  These last few weeks have gone by so fast here that I have barely had enough time to catch my breath, let alone blog.  Here’s a quick report of what has been going on here in our little corner of the world.

We officially have a “tween” living with us now.  We celebrated Kelsie’s birthday with a small family party this year.  And it rained most of the day.  Bummer.  She loves being another year older and got (almost) everything she wanted.

Wally spent a week away from us in Europe and had a fabulous time.  He enjoyed the time he had to play tourist in Amsterdam and Maastricht, but in the end decided that there really is no place like home.

The day after Wally got home from Europe, his brother and his family came for a visit from Iowa.  We had so much fun hanging out and playing with them.  It’s always fun to have cousins around and Caleb couldn’t get enough of his new favorite cousin, Caroline.  I also just have to mention how much more fun Chicago is in the summertime.  So.much.fun.

Since strawberry picking is on our list of things to do this summer, and since it is such a short season, we decided to drive up to Wisconsin just before the 4th of July and picked 12 quarts of strawberries.  Caleb ate the berries faster than we could pick them and everyone ended up with juice stains all over their shorts, but we had a great time and had lots of fun together.  We were even excited to get a $0.49 ice cream cone at McDonald’s before we headed home.

 

Then came the 4th of July.  It is one of my most favorite holidays, so we went to just about everything we could.  The parade was fun, even in the rain, and the fireworks on the beach were great (it stopped raining by then).  The kids had fun with sparklers, glow sticks, friends, and fireworks at the end of the day. 

 

A few days later, Wally’s parents came out to visit and watch our kids while we went down into Chicago for a couple of nights to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.  We had a great time together, without any kids and they had tons of fun without the parents.  They were able to eat as much chocolate, donuts, and chips as they wanted and play as much video and computer games to their hearts content.  Just the way it should be when Grandma and Grandpa are in charge!  I have tons of pictures from our little jaunt into the city—I’ll have to post those later.

In between all of this we have also been doing a little bit of:

reading:

crafting:

taking care of bumps, bruises, and boils:

and getting as much play time in as we can!

Happy Father’s Day!

We miss you!

just another one to make you smile!

A Great Memorial Day

This past Memorial Day just happened to be my Grandfather’s 89th birthday.  A few months ago, our family was planning a big surprise party for him.  Our plans were put on hold, however, after he was hit by a car eight weeks ago.  From the outside, his body is healing.  The inside is a whole different story.  These last few weeks he has gone through some pretty rough patches sprinkled with a few good times.  We decided to go ahead and celebrate his birthday, even if it meant we were going to all cram all of us into his small hospital room to sing to him.  And there are a lot of us.

I flew out the Saturday before Memorial Day.  It was a long flight and after having to switch planes due to some electrical problems, I finally made it a little over an hour later than planned.  I was able to see most of my sisters and their families who came for the special occasion, and my parents.  It was so good to see everyone, especially since I don’t get to see them very often.

When I went in to see my grandpa for the first time, it was hard.  Before his accident, he was totally independent and healthy.  I have never seen him like this before.  I brought in pictures that my family drew for him and told him that I loved him.  He was pretty nonresponsive that first day.  I did get a little smile and a small squeeze while I was holding his hand to let me know that he heard me and knew who I was. 

My sisters and I came in to decorate his hospital room with a birthday banner and flag (he is a veteran who fought in WWII) the morning of Memorial Day.  He was in another room having some treatment done, so we each took our turn to wish him a happy birthday and told him we would be back later in the day. 

We all (19 of us, I think) came back, as promised later that afternoon and sang Happy Birthday.  He was so happy we were all there and was the most responsive he had been in a while.  He opened his eyes and gave us some priceless smiles.  He was even able to mutter an “I love you” to all of us before drifting off to sleep again.

I don’t think I am going to see my grandpa again in this life, but I do know that I will see him again in the next life.  Families have a very powerful  impact in our lives.  Living far away from both of our families has helped us to understand and appreciate this better.  As unfortunate as this was for my grandpa, it has given me hope and faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ and His Plan of Salvation.

In honor of him, we’re going to head out to the golf course (one his favorite things to do).  It’ll have to be miniature golf for us though, since we can’t hit the ball near the hole no matter how hard we try! 

 

I love you, Grandpa.

St. Patrick's Day

We went all out this year to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Here's a picture of the trap that Kelsie and Brandon made to try and catch the pesky little leprechaun we had hanging around our house! We all wore green of course. Brandon had to be convinced to wear it and also coached that it is "pinch" not "punch" someone if they're not wearing green. (Which was quickly followed by not really pinching anyone at all.) The leprechauns put green sprinkles in our chocolate-chip pancakes for breakfast and then left us alone for most of the day.

We had corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes for dinner, along with Irish soda bread and freshly squeezed limeade. It turned out pretty good, except for the soggy cabbage. Everyone liked the corned beef, even though none of us really knew what it was! We ended the day eating green cupcakes with green frosting and sprinkles and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Next year I think we'll skip the corned beef and instead have a dinner that is all green. Hmmm. Makes me hungry just thinking about it!

Oh, and we set the leprechaun trap out before we went to bed in our last attempt to catch our friend. There was a note and 5 lucky bucks the next morning telling us better luck next year!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Celebrating Irish Style

We were so excited this year to go down to the city to be part of the St. Patrick's Day celebrations! We rode the train down, which is always a big hit for the kids. We first went to the Chicago River to watch the river turn a bright green. We found a great spot on the bridge across from State Street where we were sure to be able to see. We waited a little longer than we wanted to, and lucky for us there was a group of kayakers on the river entertaining the crowds. Finally, after almost an hour later, the boat zoomed by with the green dye and the crowds cheered! We hung around for the dye to spread out through the river and tried to get some good pictures to share.

We also tried to get down to the parade, but there were so many people downtown, that we decided to head home after lunch. We had a fun time down in the city and it sure got us ready to celebrate on the 17th!

Tricky

Strange things have been happening around here lately. We have had a little visitor at our house the last few days. And I'm not talking about the small furry kind we had a few months ago. We think we've got a leprechaun on our hands. We first noticed it last week when somehow the lunchboxes were switched in backpacks. It's a good thing we always double check we have everything before we go to school in the morning. The next day, we came home from school and all the chairs around the table had been knocked over and upside down. Then, last night, a couple drawers in the kitchen were switched and the utensils were all messed up (we needed spoons for dessert, that's when we noticed). When we got out the milk and Lucky Charms yesterday morning for breakfast, it happened again. The milk was green. And it was still fresh. He must have been thirsty or something. Then, tonight, we went to the computer to turn on the family night song, and the monitor was tinted green.

You may be wondering how we know it's a leprechaun. Each time these strange things happened, we noticed some green glitter left behind. Yep, that's right. The mark of a leprechaun. We've never had problems with leprechauns before and we clearly don't have any gold. So we're not exactly sure why we're getting these unexpected visits.

We decided that we have had enough. Kelsie and Brandon spent all Sunday morning first researching and then building the most clever trap for our little friend. Hopefully, we won't have any more incidents...but we've heard that they can be pretty tricky!

Wish us luck!

2009!

Happy New Year! We had fun ringing in the new year with some friends and lots of games! We watched the ball drop in Times Square, toasting with yummy cherry 7up. We were a little disappointed that Penn State lost their bowl game, but since it was the only game we watched all season, it was still exciting. I am from California, though, so I didn't mind too much that they lost!

So far, 2009 has brought me a sinus and double ear infection. I hope your new year has started off on a much happier note. I've got to go take some medicine....


Happy 2009!

Wonderland Express

Just before Christmas, our family drove to The Botanic Gardens to see the Wonderland Express exhibit. It had snowed all day so it was truly a winter wonderland throughout the gardens. We had such a fun time looking at all the different trains and seeing all the different Chicago landmarks. Caleb, who is especially fond of trains right now, was completely beside himself as to what to look at first. He got so excited each time a train came running by he would shriek real loud, point, and run towards it as fast as he could! We had a really great time and will definitely go again next year!

Gingerbread House

Thanks to Wally's sister's recipe, we were able to make and amazingly easy gingerbread house from scratch this year. We had lots of fun putting it together and eating all the candy. Caleb thought all the candy was for him, and only him. Once we showed him how to put it on the house, though, he decided that was alright too. Kelsie and Brandon enjoyed decorating it and piping the frosting all over the place for the candy. We've been able to have it out for all of us to enjoy, some a little more than others, but it sure was lots of fun making it! I love all these fun traditions this time of year!

They are so proud of their work!

Caleb's favorite part of our gingerbread fun!

No house is complete without a candy cane shooter on top of it, compliments of Brandon!

Christmas Tunes 2008

Here are a couple Christmas songs that made it onto our CD this year that we thought would put you in the holiday spirit. Enjoy!

That Holiday Feelin'

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we drove out to Larson's Farm to choose and cut down our Christmas tree. Our front room has pretty high ceilings, so Wally was especially excited to get a tall tree. We looked, looked, and looked some more until we found the perfect tree. It was tall, it was beautiful, it was all we wanted. So, we cut down the tree, put it on top of the car, drove home and decorated. We didn't think about a tall tree being very (very) full at the bottom, so now it takes up about a quarter of our front room, but it sure is beautiful! We are revved up and ready for the holiday season!

Thanksgiving: Part 1

Our Thanksgiving was perfect! There really is no other word to describe it. We had a total of 17 people (including us) stay at our house with only one bathroom, that's right, ONE. I wasn't sure how it was all going to work with so many people, and that our plumbing would hold out for the duration of the week, but we couldn't have been more pleased with how things turned out. We were also really excited to use our kitchen table to its full potential. We bought our table from an Amish carpenter before we left Pennsylvania and when it is open as big as it can get it fits 10 people around it. Probably not that exciting for you, but it sure was for us!

We spent a couple of our days down in the city. The first time down, we did a little sight seeing. We went to Millennium Park and saw the Cloud Gate sculpture, which Brandon affectionately calls the big jelly bean. The kids and I had a great time ice skating on the outside rink near the park. We got some hot chocolate to warm up and then walked by the animated holiday windows at Macy's (which were very cool). Then we headed over to the Lego Store where we saw a gigantic Darth Vader and R2D2 made out of legos. We walked along Michigan Avenue and saw some beautiful buildings, had a little dinner and then called it a day. Our second trip down, we saw the jelly bean again, and also went to The American Girl store where we all ooh'd and ahhh'd at all there was to see! We also went to the 94th floor of the John Hancock Building to see the city from a bird's eye view and had a fun audio tour, complete with our own touch screen games! We were also able to sneak a train ride or two in which thrilled some of our younger crowd.

When we weren't down in the city, we were playing together, shopping, had a backyard soccer game, went to the park, and played video games to our hearts content (at least the kids content!). We were so happy that everyone was here and that we had such a good time!

Brandon and I having fun on the ice rink.

Our family portrait next to the jelly bean.

Kelsie, Kristen, and The Bean.

Darth Vader and Darth Brandon

The Macy's windows are so cool!

This is what the little guys looked like while we were walking around the city.

Most of us on top of the John Hancock Building.
A view from the ground.

I want to figure out how to get my face on one of these!