Day 149 (5/29/11) - Birthdays!!

Yet another traditional birthday dinner. This one for Brent, Scotty and Nick (see earlier picture of presents). We love any chance to get together. The kids played Kinect for hours and we played with the twinnies.

Graham and Simone are starting to walk and feeling pretty proud of themselves. Any other kid would be overwhelmed by all the attention at these parties, but these kids kept us entertained for hours.

Day 148 (5/28/11) - Grandma Stevenson

This is a picture of my Grandma holding my dad. My grandma passed away today. She was just a month shy of turning 102. I have many memories of spending the night at her house and swimming at her pool. I am so happy that she can be with my grandpa again, but sad to see her go from this earthly life.

Day 147 (5/27/11) - Chronic Taco

Maelen has been travelling down to San Clemente this week for training in her new job at Chronic Taco. The restaurant will open in Bella Terra in about a week.

Day 146 (5/26/11) - Nick's Mission Call

Here's cute Nick holding on to his mission call waiting to open it. He was called to serve in Tallahassee, Florida. Vicki was worried he would feel bad about a stateside mission since his brothers went foreign. Nick could not have been more thrilled.

Here is Nick with his brothers minus Brent. So cute to have them together.

Day 145 (5/25/11) - Court of Honor

Jared looks thrilled that I'm taking his picture. Actually, maybe the issue was that me, Matt and my dad stood up to take pictures at the same time. Jared received his Life and three merit badges! Only one more merit badge and and project away from Eagle!

Day 144 (5/24/11) - Swan

Must this greet me every time I come into the garage? I must admit, it just kind of creeps me out. Matt would like to float it in the pool, however, I have a feeling it would disintegrate into a million tiny pieces.

Day 143 (5/23/11) - Rare Moments

When these rare moments arise, I must take a picture as proof that they really happen. Funniest part of this moment is that Kendall is off somewhere crying because they kicked her out of the picture. Rule #1: Only get along with one sibling at a time.

Day 142 (5/22/11) - Pistachios

Another super blurry picture. I think my camera doesn't like food pictures. At any rate, WONDERFUL. That says it all. Pistachios are the best. Funnies part of this is that after I took the picture, I noticed Matt also took a picture of this bag and put it on his picture a day quest.

Day 141 (5/21/11) - Goth phase

So am I going through a goth phase if I want to paint all my furniture black? I guess I really would like to be a grown up and have my furniture go together. P.S. painting furniture a dark color is a total pain!

Day 140 (5/20/11) - Mango Salsa

Super blurry picture of a heavenly treat. Maelen found this recipe and made it for one of her ward functions. I LOVED it and so made some for us. I think mango would be good in just about anything.

Day 139 (5/19/11) - Ewwww

This is NOT a healthy color for the bottom of the pool or for the chlorine. Yuck. Pool guy to the rescue.

Day 138 (5/18/11) - May Birthdays

Brent, Scotty & Nick all have May birthdays and we generally celebrate them all together. I generally get them some sort of gift card, which seems so boring, so this year I got some root beer and decorated the box and then attached a gift card. After all, Jared tells me root beer tastes better out of a glass bottle.

Day 137 (5/17/11) - Rain in May!

This winter we have more rain than I have ever seen any other season! Here we are in the middle of May and still getting rain.

Day 136 (5/16/11) - Love Notes

I woke up this morning to this in the kitchen. Maelen wrote all kinds of memories and funny sayings on post-it notes and put them all over the cupboard. I have to say, it really made my day.

And just when I thought it was over, I went to take Kendall to school and there were notes that said "I Love You" in the car!

Day 135 (5/15/11) - Curly Hair

Kendall is our girlie girl. She loves to have curly hair and her hair actually holds a curl now.

I thought we should take a picture of this now because tomorrow we are going to get her hair cut. It is such a pain to take care of...especially during the summer when she is in the pool non-stop.

Day 134 (5/14/11) - Ward Service Project

Our poor Bishop....he had to put on a ward service project in conjunction with our ward conference just two weeks after Mormon Helping Hands. It's easy enough to put together, just a little more difficult to get people to participate. We went to the beach today to pick up trash. The beach was surprisingly clean and did not require tons of work. The biggest problem was that it was freezing, windy and sprinkling. It always ends up being fun though. Jared played football with Colin later, but it's the little kids of the ward that tackled him down to the ground. They just love Jared.

Oh, and I'm just adding this one for fun. Maelen and her friend Greg made homemade tortilla chips at our house for Seacliff's linger longer tomorrow. They were making them for hours and after a while, this is how they ended up cooking them. So funny. They also made some fantastic mango salsa. Yum.

Day 133 (5/13/11) - Lucky Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th is not always unlucky. Jared posted a message on TK Burger's wall that said, "Hey, do you guys wanna give me a free cheeseburger, thanks". Well TK responded by saying he was a forward thinker and really going places. They told him to come in an get a free meal. As embarrassing as it was to be the parents of a beggar, we took him there. Although we realized TK was actually brilliant because even though they gave out a free meal, we bought four more for the rest of the family.

Day 132 (5/12/11) - Creepy

Every time we leave the garage or return to the garage, this is what greets us. This is probably Matt's favorite find when he cleaned out his parent's attic. Of course my favorite was the 300 rolls of toilet paper that was purchased back in the day when it was still different colors. (Can't wait to tp someone's house.) Anyway, this swan probably dated back to the good old rose prom days. He wants to float it in our pool. I'm afraid it will disintegrate into a million little pieces.

Day 131 (5/11/11) - Morro Bay, Day 2

While Matt was at his parole hearing, I had a chance to enjoy my day. I went antique shopping which was quite interesting since many stores are only open on the weekends. Apparently it is pretty slow there during the week. I also had time to sit out on the deck and read. Matt's hearing went longer than expected and we were cutting it close to check out time, but he made it with just minutes to spare.

Day 130 (5/10/11) - Morro Bay and the 80's

Matt had a parole hearing come up in the San Luis Obispo area so I decided to jump on board. On a recommendation, he reserved a hotel room in Morro Bay. The hotel room was a flashback to 1980's overkill. My favorite was the sprinkler sticking out of the canopy, but a close second was a window into the bathroom. So funny. The view was beautiful and Morro Bay is fun place to visit. We walked down to the bay for a yummy seafood dinner with a great view. Later, while Matt cat-napped, I enjoyed the jacuzzi tub. I told him if I had one at our house, I might be a nicer person. It was so nice to just get away.

Day 129 (5/9/11) - Best Wedding Gift Ever

I love this quilt! The colors are just beautiful. I love getting together with my mom and Vicki to pick out fabrics. Vicki then takes it all home and magically cuts it out and sews it together in no time at all. Then we get to get back together again to quilt it. It's great bonding time and I also think it makes a pretty great gift.

Day 128 (5/8/11) - Mother's Day

It's now the tradition. Every year the young men's president orders these leis and the boys sell them as a fundraiser. It works out well because they buy them for about $4 and sell them for $20.

Every year we also go to Vicki's house for Mother's Day dinner. Even the future mom's get gifts. At one point, Maelen fell asleep on the couch and since there was no where else to sit, Todd sat right in front of her. I love that kid.

Day 127 (5/7/11) - Family Fun Run

Today was Seacliff's Family Fun Run. The kids were part of a marathon kids program throughout several months of the school year and had to run/walk the equivalent of a marathon over that time. The program ended with the Family Fun Run at Central Park where everybody ran/walked two miles. After that, they had game booths, face painting, balloon animals, fruit/veggie stand courtesy of our favorite, Bruce's Produce, among other things. It was a great program to keep kids active and help them learn to eat healthy foods.

Day 126 (5/6/11) - Yard Work

Heh, heh. Kids think their parents know nothing. We do know this though. If you let your kids use the hedger or any other electric tool, they no longer complain about yard work. Well at least for now while it's still a novelty.

Day 125 (5/5/11) - Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo is a great excuse for us to make one of our favorites: carne asada tacos. BTW...Sprouts has some really good carne asada in their deli section and it happened to be on sale for $3.99/lb. Not bad. I also made my cousin's black bean dip which we L-O-V-E. I didn't think, however, of how a chopping intensive dinner was going to be on a day when I was making dessert for all of the Stake RS presidencies for our leadership meeting. Ah well.

Day 124 (5/4/11) - Weird Science

Oh, yippee. A science experiment in our very own home. I am sure the reason behind this was that it is quite messy. Jared had to fill a jar with equal layers of honey, syrup, dishwashing liquid, vegetable oil, water (with food coloring), rubbing alcohol (with food coloring) and somehow manage to do it carefully so the layers stay in tact. Carefully? Apparently the science teacher never had a 13-year-old boy. I guess it all worked out fine. In the end he had to drop two objects in the mess. The screw obviously sunk to the bottom and the rubber band ended up somewhere between the dish soap and syrup. I'm still not sure what WE learned from this.

Day 123 (5/3/11) - The Weirdness That is Jared

Now how do you take a kid seriously that comes into a room looking like this? I mean really. This is Jared.

Day 122 (5/2/11) - Summer Weather

Well it's only early May and we are starting to get some summer weather. It's long overdue since we didn't get any last summer. The kids look forward to swimming in the pool. It may be expensive to keep up, but they have enjoyed every minute.

Day 121 (5/1/11) - Sunday Hair

Unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture until after church when her hair was messy, but here is a new style we tried. Kendall is not really picky about how her hair looks, but for church I like it to look a little nicer than a pony tail. We braided some hair behind her hair and made it into a headband. Then we twisted the sides to cover us bobby pins, etc. I thought it looked pretty cute on her. The highest compliment was paid when Maelen asked me to do her hair like that the next day.

Day 120 (4/30/11) - Mormon Helping Hands

Today was the widespread Mormon Helping Hands Day. Every ward in our Stake took on a different task. Our ward went to Dwyer Middle School and cleaned out the old locker room/basement, cleaned out what used to be a shower room, and painted the walls. It was a lot of work but we had a huge turnout and were able to accomplish much more than they expected. Maelen was at her ward's service project, Jared was at a Scout campout and Matt was at choir practice for OCMCO so it was just me and Kendall representing our family. Kendall is a really hard little worker!!

Day 119 (4/29/11) - Pool Cover

Could it be?? Is it really getting warm enough to finally put on the pool cover? It has been such a cold winter, we are looking forward to getting a little sun and having a warm pool to swim in.

Day 118 (4/28/11) - Shh! It's a surprise!

We have a surprise in store for Father's Day! I worked on it with the kids today. More to come later.....

Day 117 (4/27/11) - Oh yea, did I mention we got a new car?

We traded in our gas guzzling mini-van for a smaller car. Gas prices are through the roof so I am looking forward to the savings in gas. The Honda dealership was really looking forward to getting their hands on our van and actually gave us quite a bit for it. The thing that never fails to amuse me when buying a car is how they tell you they have gone as low as they can and they are actually no longer making money on the deal. Really? Then how do they manage to still have a dealership when they are giving away cars? Very amusing.