Fun Weekend

I truly love my weekends.  This weekend was an exceptional one, as always.  I say as always because I would love just sitting around doing absolutely nothing--I'm easy to please when it comes to some free time. 

Saturday was jam packed--field hockey practice in the morning.  It was fun to see all my field hockey girls again.  It was also good because it prevented me from lounging around all morning in my pjs.  After practice, I came home and got ready for the day.  Our plan was to go to the Encinitas Street Fair.  We got ready and loaded up to go.  The loading up part didn't go so smoothly because Bailey was really tired and super-duper grumpy.  She was so bad that she had to do several time-outs and ended up having to sit in her bed in her dark room for a while.  I think she really enjoyed the bed/dark room part and would have fallen asleep, but I was determined to get out and going.

Once we got Bailey, Doby, and the new wagon (purchased at the baby swap meet last weekend for a steal) in the car, we were off...only to drive around for an hour and a half to get there and look for parking.  Up side--Bailey slept for about 45 minutes.  Down side--we had to drive around for 1 1/2 hours to go to a street fair that was like any other street fair.  I had just about given up hope, when we made one last loop and found a family leaving.  It took them a long time to pack up so we made a major traffic jam, complete with cars honking and people getting out of their cars.  Our parking spot secured, we got out and loaded up the wagon. 

I knew that the wagon filled with Bailey, Doby, and my bag was going to be cute, but I  didn't know that it would cause stress.  Bailey didn't want to share the wagon space with Doby, so she kept trying to push him away.  At one point, she didn't even want his tail hair touching her leg--geesh!  It gave me  a slight glimpse of life with more than one kid.  Doby didn't really want to sit in the wagon at all.  He tried to escape any time that we slowed our pace.  Then, of course, my big, fat bag took up a lot of space so Doby had to lay on top of my bag.  Our whole entourage was so big, that we also took up a majority of the walking space which also stressed me out.  Now I love a good street fair, but this was a little bit too much for me to handle.  It got even better when Bailey was eating and Doby was staring her down with her corn dog.  She kept yelling, "NO, no Doby!"  just because he was staring at her.

After about an hour when Bailey was sitting on Brian's shoulders and I was walking Doby, I decided that we had had enough street fair for one day.  The funny thing was, was that I know I really shouldn't have stressed out about anything because it's just a street fair.  As we were leaving, a random old guy asked if he could take a picture of our loaded wagon.  I said sure, but afterwards kept rethinking my answer.  Brian and I decided that he was a famous photographer and Bailey's pic will show up on the cover of Time magazine--yeah right.  So after weirdo took his pictures, I decided to break out my camera too.  I snapped a couple of shots and called it a day.

Here's our motley crew!

After a very brief nap, we went to our friends Becky and Ammon's house for a housewarming BBQ.  It was lots of fun and yummy food.  Bailey loved just being around all of the other kids--even though she's kind of a bully when it comes to sharing the big car.

Today was a great Sunday because Bailey actually took a nap.  The past two Sundays she has been napless before church and she's been a monster!  It was a great day at church and then mi familia came over for dinner.  We had a fiesta and then delicioso dessert.  We found a way for Bailey to eat strawberries--cover them in chocolate and the girl will eat them for days.

Bailey has been having more of an opinion about everything these days.  One thing that she likes to do is get dressed and sometimes this is what she wants to wear:

This is her tutu shirt, hockey shorts is what she calls them, her rain boots, and an extra pair of shoes ready to go at any moment.   So far we haven't had to go out in public like this; I can still control what she wears each day, but when we play in her room she gets to pick.

This is Bailey pretending to be sad in a time out; she's quite the drama queen.  I got a new camera, so I like to take pictures all the time.  I try to be real good and creative. I think they all turn out awesome, but that's because the camera is amazing not my picture taking skills.   I like them all! 

Bliss and I met up one day at the Wild Animal Park.  We went to see millions of butterflies, but the highlight ended up being the rhino statue on the way out.

P.S.  My sister Keri's engagement pics are in!  Take a look here to see a bunch of their pictures.  My sister Sam's brother-in-law, Cortney, is a photographer and takes amazing pictures.  Don't Keri and CJ look so cute?

Reason #1 and #2...

...why I love being a teacher--Spring Break week 1 and Spring Break week 2!

At the beginning of the year, I always think, "Why do we have two weeks spring break?  Just keep it at one and get out a week earlier."  It isn't until Spring Break arrives that I realize the true beauty of a two week vacation from school--it's absolutely fabulous.  Last week was our first week back to the real world, but the memories of my break still linger in my mind to remind me that I can make it throught to summer time.

My spring break was a time to reflect needs vs wants.  I needed to clean my house, organized my life, seriously clean my car, plan what I'm going to teach my students, organize my classroom, clean my garage, etc...  Instead here are some pictures of the things that I wanted to do and did.

We went to a Easter Egg Hunt with some moms from church.  We each had to bring ten eggs so each kid would end of with ten.  By the looks of Bailey's basket, she made out with about three eggs.  She would open the egg, put the candy in her basket, and then throw the egg on the ground.  Why take the plastic, when all you want is the candy inside?

It was Brody's birthday party our first Friday of the break, so we went to help celebrate at Chuck E Cheese.  It was Bailey's first time, so I wasn't sure what expect.  I think her favorite part, besides seeing all of the Wilson Family, was hanging out on the stage with Chuck E Cheese.  She just wanted to stand up there and hold his hand.  Some kids think he's creepy, but I think Bailey has a crush on him.  I'm pretty sure she would have sat for hours on this ride with Kali; it moved around and jiggled a lot but she mostly loved sitting with Kali.

I went and got pedicures with my sistas!  I haven't had my toes painted in a really long time so it was nice to take a little time out from our day to hang out and do some girl stuff.

Sam and Tera (above) and Keri and Toni (below).

One day, my mom and I took Bailey on a tour of most of the parks in Vista.  We found, what we think, is the best one.  I think it's called the Optomist Park off of Lupine Hills.  It has good swings, two play areas, and a huge grass field.  When the twins came down, we took them to our new favorite park.

Bailey and Owen just swinging and making funny faces.

When Bailey had to share the swings, I took her on the big kid swings.  I thought it was fun to swing with her, but she just wanted to go back to the baby swings; she has a very one-track mind these days.

This is Bailey's happy place--the swings.

Keri made the girls' flower wreaths for their hair.  I think she was brainstorming ideas for her wedding--haha!

I love Kate's little tilt the head pose and Owen's crazy face!

I went to the Wild Animal Park with my friend Julie and her two kids one day.  We intended to see the butterflies, but the 90 minute line did not seem worth it.  Instead, Bailey tried to climb on the poor deer like it was a horse.

Their favorite part of the day was watching all of the birds and ducks eat.  Will showed Bailey how to stand up on the fence and I think her life was changed forever.  She now trieds to climb all fences to get a better look.

We also tried to feed the little birds, but they didn't want to eat much.  Instead Bailey just walked around holding the bird food and smiling.

One of the best parts of my break, was that it was sunny enough to go to the beach two days!  Bailey is a beach baby and we stayed five hours each day!  She loves the sand and this year she loves the water too.  Isn't her little bathing suit adorable?

It was so much fun to be a mom and have park dates and play dates and just hang out with Bailey.  We really did go the park almost every day. I also tried to catch up on Bailey's scrapbook--don't worry I'm only about a year behind.  I did make progress though and I'm almost done putting her first year of life into an album--I mean three albums.  It's a little out of control, but she's the first and she has an entire album of just her time in the hospital.  When all I could do was take pictures of her for two months while she was in there, I took a lot of pictures to fill the time.  One day I'll get it all done along with everything else on my To do list.  At the end of my two weeks of bliss, I decided that it is a lot more fun to do what you want to do instead of what you need to do.  Cleaning my house from top to bottom will eventually happen, but I won't always  be able to go to the beach with Bailey for five hours without a care in the world.  Goodbye Spring Break and hurry up summer!

Hoppy Easter!

Easter was a lot of fun this year! Bailey is old enough that she understood the concept of finding eggs and especially eating the candy. I put Bailey's Easter basket in her room the night before so she would see it when she woke up. We woke up to this, "What is that? Look, look!" It made me wake up with a smile.

Here's Bailey with her basket right after she woke up. She was thrilled that the easter bunny had come to deliver it. I think it was an awesome basket--books, crayons, coloring books, sidewalk chalk, a cute outfit, fun little toys, but Bailey's favorite part was the eggs with candy. Luckily, I only put these fruit nugget things in her eggs so she didn't start off the day eating a bunch of candy.Later in the afternoon, the rest of the family came down and we had our easter egg hunt and yummy food. Grandma and Grandpa Mosher gave all the kids cute easter bunnies. We tried to get a picture with all three of them smiling, but these are about as good as it gets with two three year olds and one two year old. I'm so glad that Grandma and Grandpa were able to see the kids because they're growing up so quickly. The kids love finding the eggs and wanted to continue finding eggs for the rest of the afternoon. Here are some pictures of all of them during the hunt:

Here they are ready to go find some eggs!

Pretty Kate with her stash of eggs.

Bailey was taking a moment to pose for a picture and try to eat some candy. (I know it looks like she's pooping, but she's not). And below she found one of the tricky hiding spots for the kids' eggs.

Here's cute Owen with his fully loaded basket.

Some funny pictures of Kate and Owen--obviously they had started eating their candy at this point in the day!

Bailey was too busy looking for her candy to even look up for a picture.

My family has a tradition of hiding a golden egg filled with money each year. It is the biggest honor and prize of the day to find the golden egg. My little cousin Eric has been finding it the past few years, but Ty brought the honor back to the family by discovering the golden egg this year. Kyle craftily hid the egg insdie a tangerine peel and then placed it in an orange tree. You had to have keen eyes and be up to date on your horticulture to know that a tangerine does not belong on an orange tree. Way to go Ty!
After all of the eggs were found, we had a family basketball tournament. While everyone was shooting hoops, the kids were jumping on the trampoline. I strip Bailey down to a diaper because she always gets so dirty while she's jumping. But despite the lack of clothes and abundance of dirt, they had a blast! And it turned Bailey's luscious locks of hair into a really crazy hairdo. It's so fun to watch the three of them play. I know they're going to be such good friends!

After jumping and consuming more candy than she had in her entire life, Bailey was ready to snuggle up in a blanky and just lick one piece of candy. She found the blanket and laid down while everyone was playing. She held on to the one piece of candy and ate it one lick at a time. That one piece of candy lasted for about 30 minutes!Earlier in the day, the kids went on a hunt of a different kind--a lizard hunt! Kyle caught a lizard and the kids were all fascinated with it. Owen and Bailey were brave enough to touch it and let it sit on their shirts.

Brian says that Bailey has a look of terror on her face, but I say she has a look of bravery. Way to go Bailey! Be brave! Defeat your fear of the lizard!

I didn't get a picture of Owen wearing the lizard, but he did an awesome job too!

Here are some cute pictures from the day:

By the end of the day, the kids were in desparate need of a bath.
The grand finale of our Easter Sunday was that CJ proposed to Keri! We knew he had the ring when they went to the beach, so we figured it was going to happen. When they came back we were ready to celebrate! Congrats to Keri and CJ!!

The big day is July 24th!