Girl after my own heart

My girl loves shoes! She brings me shoes all day long and cries until I put them on her feet. I have a bin under her crib that has a bunch of shoes in it and she plays with that more than any of her toys. We got back from vacation on Friday and her bedroom door was closed to keep the dog out while we were gone. She stood in front of her door and squeaked until I opened it for her and she ran in and went right to the shoe box and pulled it out and started giggling and pulling out shoes.
One time when we were moving way back before kids.... Our friends
The Coffeys were helping us load the moving truck. Nathan tried to pick up a huge box almost bigger than him and it had "shoes" written across the box. He and Val couldn't believe I could own that many pairs of shoes and never let me live down the human size box full of shoes. I'm happy to say I think Elsie has inherited my love!

A day in the life...

Emma made me pancakes for breakfast and insisted on giving me breakfast in bed. She cut it into a heart shape and smothered it withy favorite strawberry jam.

She can be such a sweetie. A few mi tues after retreating to my bed to enjoy my pancakes (I'd already been up an hour) I went out to find someone else who enjoyed pancakes she found left on the table...

Spring Break

We took a fun little trip over to Arizona to visit my grandparents for Spring Break. They live in the middle- of- nowhere, Arizona close to Prescott, AZ. We love to go there and get away from the crowded- iness of Southern California and enjoy the country life. And we love to visit G&G! Dave is in the middle of tax session so it was just the kids and me. We got to drive over in our brand new van so it made the ride much nicer! Elsie was okay on the drive over but coming home I decided to drive in the evening so she would sleep. It worked out much better as she did sleep most of the time on the way home and everyone else fell asleep too! Except me of course.

Highlights for the kids - packs of gum from grandpa, searching for Arrowheads with Uncle Duane, fishing at the lake (although I think more rock throwing in the water was done than fishing), and going to the zoo and museum. And the #1 fun activity for the kids - driving grandpa's tractor. He drove them around for awhile and then they pestered him so much he let them drive. It was the first thing Emma wanted to do the minute she woke up every morning. I think we used up all of his gas and drained the battery.

Jacob giving us a ride.

Searching for arrowheads and Indian Pottery with Uncle Duane. He has an awesome piece of land that has a train bridge and river bed on it. He went there ahead of time and planted the arrowheads and pottery. The kids didn't know of course and thought it was awesome. Jacob slept with his bag of arrowheads and pottery each night.

Thank you G&G. We love you!

Awesomeness

I just found the blogger app on my phone! I can even add a picture. Like this one just for cuteness! Now that posting to my blog is as easy as a Facebook update... Expect to hear from more often!

The end

It is with great sadness that I announce the end of 2TRDMOMS blog. It's been a good run and I've so enjoyed blogging with Annie and reading all your comments. See, Annie and I got in this huge fight over the background color on 2TRDMOMS and we just decided we can't work together anymore because of our artistic differences. Okay, that's totally a joke. If you'll notice our blog background has been white for a long long time and both of us have more important things to worry about. You can catch me on my new blog at:

http://erardfam.blogspot.com/

Please join me there, change you blogroll links for me, and you can catch Annie on Facebook.

Milestones

Emma has hit some big milestones this year that I keep meaning to write about. She is so excited about them. She has learned to blow a bubble with bubble gum, tie her own shoes (I'll admit this is the first year I've bought her shoes with laces, that's called lazy parenting), whistle, and is almost riding a bike. Most of the time she is challenged at doing them by her little brothers so I know she could have done many of them earlier since they are doing them but that's what she gets for being the oldest :). She'll be riding a bike at six and Ben will be riding one at 3 I can guarantee it. Anyway, it is so fun to see kids hit milestones and celebrate along with them as they feel so accomplished.

I had a fabulous weekend in San Fransisco with a old high school girlfriend. We hung around the city all day shopping and reminiscing (SF used to be my old stomping grounds in high school, it was the nearest big city to me and we used to go there all the time) and then we finished up the night with a night at the theatre and saw Wicked which was a fabulous play. I couldn't even believe the nice break it was to be away from the kids for a couple of days. I love my job of being a full time mom but whew is it tiring :). Just sitting on the airplane for an hour by myself was a luxury. I had so much time to sit and think and relax. Every time I have a night away I remember that I need to do it more often but don't seem to get around to it.

I have summer on my mind and can't get it off. I feel like it's Christmas Eve. Yesterday Emma's teacher sent out and email saying there was no more homework for the rest of the year. Emma started dancing a jig and yip-eeing all over the living room and I felt like jumping up and joining her. With all of our summer plans I can already tell that it's going to fly by though and I'll be sitting her next year at this same time before I know it looking forward to summer again. Awww, the circle of life.

Looks like another Friday...

This was our only Easter picture this year!

I got the garden started. So far we have tomatoes, beans, sunflowers and lots of strawberries. I still have a long way to go but I'm so excited for my summer harvest again. It was so wonderful eating fresh veggies last summer.

Last night was bliss...I took dinner over to a friend and on the way home around 6:00 both boys fell asleep in the car. Jacob woke up when we got home and then fell asleep on the couch so I put him in bed. Ben I had put in bed and then he got up and came and laid on me on the couch and we both fell asleep. Poor Emma was stuck watching T.V. all night (I'm sure she was just heartbroken) until dad got home at 9:00. He put Ben back into his bed, covered me on the couch and I slept the rest of the night! Of course Dave got up at 5:00 to go to work so it was an early morning but I got a really good nights sleep!

Ben decided my bedroom carpet needed watering this week so he stood at my sliding glass door with the hose on and the door open. I'm not sure how long he was there before I found him but my floor was sopping wet! I'm sure my entire neighborhood heard me scream "NOOOOOOO" when I caught him doing it. Luckily I had my MIL carpet clean and I spent a good hour sucking up water! That kid is going to be the death of me. Once day I'll walk in and have a heart attack when I see what he's doing I'm sure of it.

Painting birdhouses for grandma for Mother's day.

Jacob had a mother's day tea at his school this week. His class reenacted the story of Moses and then fed us lemonade with muffins. I can't believe he'll be in kindergarten next year! He's so ready for it though. He's already starting to read a little bit and our summer goal is for him to be reading by the time he starts kindergarten. Anybody know a good website for teaching? I'm looking for the site words so I can make flash cards.

Jacob and mom at Mother's Day Tea

Tball season is coming to a close on Saturday. Jacob loved every moment of it. I foresee many future Saturdays of mine sitting in a folding chair on the sidelines.

There is a little bird at the top of my chimney right now chirping and it's so melodic it doesn't even sound real. I wish you all could hear it. They sit on my chimney and chirp and you can hear it in my living room. What a great way to start the weekend. Although it seems our weekends are so packed lately they don't feel much like weekends. Summer is just around the corner! We had a water balloon fight yesterday and then swam in the pool and next week we are starting up with swim lessons again. Can't wait!