Friday, March 24, 2017

Laney Friend Party--- Beauty and The Beast

This is my favorite kind of friend party...out of the house, entertainment provided, bottomless popcorn and cute little girls excited to go see Beauty and the Beast.


We stopped at McDonalds on the way home for fudge sundaes and presents.


Everly got her MCADD approved slushie.


All eyes are on the birthday girl!


Wolf pillow! This girl has friends (probably mother's of her friends) that really get her.


Thursday, March 23, 2017

Everly Preschool

Sometimes, you just need to plan a fieldtrip instead of teaching for three hours at your house. Because, you know what? Everybody is feeling pretty done with this!


Friday, March 17, 2017

Pomona Lake - Spring Break 2017

For spring break we made plans to drive out to Pomona Lake and camp with our good friends, the Guenthers. Sure, we were having a super awesome time staying home and fighting over screen time and how many seconds so-and-so went over his allotted turn playing Minecraft or Breath of the Wild.....

But still. 

We all needed some fresh air and some perspective. So I packed up the kids, both dogs, and jam packed the van with every conceivable item that we could fit. Mark had to work, so if there wasn't a spot for it underneath somebody's legs, we weren't bringing it. 

Ethan managed to sneak his guitar in at the last minute, but if I had my way, I would have swapped it our for an air mattress.  In a heartbeat.


Daphne questioned my judgment.


Luckily, we arrived at our campsite about an hour before the Guenthers. That gave us just enough time for the boys to have a fight over the proper assembly of the tents, Everly to scream for a quarter of an hour because the wind was blowing her hair into her face, Ethan to take a long walk and calm himself down, and attract every last fly in the vicinity with our sloppy joes. Now, the Guenthers are our friends and I'm sure they have a good sense of our particular brand of crazy, but there are limits.


Once we were all set up and we had cooked our dinner, we got down to the business of hanging out and throwing as many rocks as possible into the lake.


I was so glad we brought the dogs with us. They had fun running around and smelling all the smells.


Aaron and Everly having a chat


The kids relishing their freedom. They were all shockingly unsupervised!


Mathew did not actually jump in the water. Which was good because Daphne did and her hips didn't work for the rest of the weekend. Chilly!


Ever wonder what cocoa and Hi-C taste like together? Mathew says it tastes like a tootsie pop. Which makes perfect sense to me.


Tootsie had a nice time. It worked nicely with her daily routine:

Beg...


And nap in someone else's chair...


I made way too many campfire cherry pies. So yummy!!


Anna found the daffodils that were blooming on the trail to the bathrooms. I almost scolded her...but then I figured...eh. They'll be dead next week anyway. Might as well enjoy them.


Megan immersed herself in a good book.


I even got a turn on the hammock!


 I had to bat off a few kids first. But I took a chilly nap there before I was joined by two squirmy girls.


Friday, afternoon Mark arrived and brought me the air mattress I left behind. I was so relieved. Next time I will do a better job of clearing our tent area of sticks and rocks. Lesson learned.

We took a final walk down to the water and built an Ebeneezer. That's a fancy word for "stack of rocks".


Four girls and an Ebeneezer.


Wednesday, March 15, 2017

The full Everly treatment

I would sit here ALL DAY let this girl brush pretend colors on my face. It's so relaxing! And I love how she keeps track of all the different colors in her mind so she can make me into a tiger or a panda or a pee-tot (peacock). 





Tuesday, March 14, 2017

A very Laney Birthday....9 years!

Oh Laney! I love how much you love a massive donut.


Its a "friend year", but we can't forgo having a favorite meal and cake for the birthday girl. Chocolate cake, whipped white frosting and chocolate shavings....wise choice, young one.



Her choice for supper: chicken and rice (a family staple), cut mangoes and strawberries and buttery corn.

Birthday candle glow **


Ingredients for a successful Laney party: parrot and pokemon....


Tons of markers...


And a wolf hat.


Happy Birthday, Laneybug!

Sunday, March 5, 2017

Sink Redesign


It's like they see nail polish and then they black out. Still....pretty precise vandalism, I'd say. The perpetrator may have a future in interior design.

Friday, March 3, 2017

It's a boy!

Sarah and Tom adopted Simon! He is the missing piece of their family and so we all got together to celebrate and dance the night away!







And we got bonus quality time with Grandma Jean and Grandpa Joe.


Cooking with Grandma helps grow happy pups.


Thursday, March 2, 2017

4:30

Mark works out at 4:30 AM....AYE EM......that doesn't even qualify for morning...that time is merely a carry over from the night before. 

Which explains so much about this group of loonies.


Jess Youmans, Mark, Nathan Carlson, Dan Smith and Kenyon Thornburg...other's come and go....


But these guys are bound by lack of sleep and the ability to do whatever they want because nobody is there to argue with them.