March

Now onto March...

Mar 1

The Coopilardos had us over for a birthday dinner for Christopher!  Thank you Rhonda and Cooper!

Mar 2

Making some homemade pizza

Mar 3

The only picture taken this day was of another picture...it's pretty awesome!

Mar 4

Having a fun day at the library!

Mar 5

He must have been super tired because he fell asleep mid-drawing

Mar 6

Nathan showing off a dollar that he made.  I can't remember how he made it...

Mar 7

This picture is actually from the 6th, but the other picture that I have from the 7th is just some of our shelves before I stained them and I forgot to take an after picture!  Nathan was playing in this water and I wasn't exactly sure if it was safe to play in!

Mar 8

It was a big day that we had been waiting for for a long time!  Nathan submitted a story to The Story Pirates and they accepted his story to act out.  We went down to Culver City for the play and had a great time.  It was so much fun to see Nathan's story acted out.  Nathan even got on stage and wasn't being shy at all!

Mar 9

We went to the zoo to surprise the boys with a chance to see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  It almost seemed like they were more excited to see Peter Rabbit.

Mar 1O

Today was a big exciting day!  We started the demolition of our kitchen.

and then...There will be a new post!

February Part 2

Feb 18

We went to the zoo and of course we had to see our favorite elephant Billy.  Almost every night Christopher and I tell stories to the boys and there is usually one story about Billy the Elephant and Reggie the Alligator who are best friends in the zoo.  Whenever we go to the zoo we have to stop and see Reggie and Billy!

Feb 19

Just making silly faces at dinner

Feb 2O

We have been going to the Kids Club at the local mall.  The boys enjoy their time there.  Nathan has been obsessed with trying to win the raffle :]

Feb 21

We went to a local-ish park that has been newly remodeled.  The boys had a lot of fun, but outside of the park was this guy that was doing crazy upper body strength stuff (he's in the background].

Feb 22

Nathan showing off a cashew.  

Feb 23

Anderson drawing.  He loves to draw and so does Nathan.

Feb 24

Climbing the fig tree in our backyard

Feb 25

We got to go see a friend's puppy that was absolutely adorable!

Feb 26

Christopher's 41st Birthday!!!!!  We spent the evening with his sister Sandra and her boyfriend Shawn.  I also made a homemade light cheesecake that was pretty delicious!  Christopher made Chili for his own birthday :].  The boys wanted to make sure that they helped Christopher blow out his candles!

Feb 27

We joined a new homeschool group (one that I wish I had joined much earlier].  Since rain was forecasted the leader of the group decided that we would have a fun day of learning at a bowling alley.  She put together this whole lesson of the physics of bowling that was great for kids!  After the lesson the kids got to bowl.  We really love this group, but unfortunately we made the decision to move so we won't be able to continue with them :(

Feb 28

I didn't take a picture :(

And that is the end of February!

March will be up later this week!

-Heather

February

I have a good excuse why March is not updated, but I really should have updated February on time!  Since it is now April and my memory is not the best, I hope that these pictures will jog something!  I also hope that I took a picture a day (I'm sure I missed a few].

Feb 1

We got invited to a "Tortoise and the Hare" themed birthday party complete with tortoises and hares!  The boys had a great time!

Feb 2

Our friends Indira and Timi came over for a playdate!  We ate some wonderful crepes and all of us made our own pizzas!

Feb 3

We were still getting a ton of tomatoes from a plant we planted last summer.  We also got some eggs from our chickens!  Urban Homesteading!

Feb 4

Darn, I forgot to take a picture!

Feb 5

Christopher was reading to the boys and Gracie!  It was really cute!

Feb 6

I almost forgot to take a picture, but I remembered at dinner time.  This is also a good picture of what our kitchen looked like before we had it remodeled in March.

Feb 7

We had guests coming and I had to wash the sheets.  The boys found this an opportune time to jump on the bed!

Feb 8

I forgot to take a picture this day too :(

Feb 9

We had talked to a realtor about selling our home and she suggested that we get rid of the popcorn ceilings.  We read lots of tutorials and decided that we could probably get rid of the ceilings ourselves.  We decided that we would test it out in our "library," the least used room. Christopher was doing the work!  

Feb 1O

Since we were doing stuff to the house Nathan wanted to help too.  We figured that painting a wall with primer was a good job for him!  He decided after a little bit that it wasn't fun and he wanted to go and play!

Feb 11

The boys somehow always end up naked!

Feb 12

We've been in the beginning stages of potty training Anderson.  He isn't very good at letting us know when he has to go pee when we are out and about.  He went pee at the park and didn't let me know until I saw that this pants looked like this and then he said, "oh, I peed awhile ago."  Of course I did not bring a change of clothes :(

Feb 13

No picture for this date either :(

Feb 14

Happy Valentine's Day!

and

Aunt Karen & Glenn were staying with us and they brought back a book from the San Diego Zoo that the boys were enjoying!

Feb 15

Anderson with his long and messy hair

Feb 16

Aunt Karen decided to give Anderson a hair cut

We decided that we didn't like the bangs, so we just shaved his head

Feb 17

We went to our favorite dessert place, Get Shaved, for some shaved ice with ice-cream!  Yummy!  Luckily, we live in So. California where it is good enough weather in the winter to get a cold dessert and eat it outside!

I think that I have reached my limit for this blog because Nathan is insistent with playing with my computer and it's too hard to blog...Later tonight I will try and finish February!

-Heather

January Part 3

To continue on with the picture a day for January!

January 26th:

Today I spent a lot of time cleaning.  I cleaned the chicken coop (that's where Nathan got the stuff on his head].  I started the cleaning process of Christopher's car, which was super messy which is understandable since we were in the car for so long with two little kids!  Christopher also made shields for the boys to go with their swords.

January 27th:

We said goodbye to my cousin Stephanie.  She came down to LA to watch our animals for us while we were gone, which was so very nice of her!

January 28th:

We got home and our carpet smelled like pee, yuck!  We decided to get the carpets cleaned and have them use their special pee odor elimination stuff.  The boys enjoyed having the carpet cleaners here.  We also were playing with the parachute with them and I was trying to get a picture of the static from Anderson's hair, but I wasn't doing a great job catching it!

January 29th:

We had frozen yogurt because the boys were both behaving well and we had a gift card to go there.  Plus, it has been nice and warm where we live!

January 30th:

The boys and I went out with some friends for dinner.  The kids were acting goofy!

January 31st:

The boys and I went to the library.  The boys LOVE playing on the computer, which is no surprise!  After the computers we spent a lot of time reading many books!  It is also Chinese New Year (the year of the Horse], so I decided that it would be fun to go out for Chinese for dinner.

Happy New Year!  February is up next!

-Heather

Colorado Trip

So, this is an extension to January's photo a day, but I figured that I would go into more details on our Colorado trip that we took.

Since Christopher is looking for new employment we decided that right now would be the best time to move. Colorado has been high on our lists, but I've never been there and before we decide to move there I wanted to check out the place.  We decided to take a road-trip there and check it out.

January 17th:

We started off our journey in the morning and were in four states: CA, NV, AZ, & UT.  We ended our trip in Beaver, UT.  The boys did awesome, like usual!

Taking a break from the car

We stopped in a little town called Beaver for our first night.  We decided to go have dinner at a diner.  When we got there they gave us some water and I commented on how this water tasted really good.  Well, as we were waiting for our food I decided to Google Beaver and found out that  "In 2006, Beaver won a contest for best rural water taste in the United States.^[5] In 2010, Beaver took top honors in world for best tasting water."   Their water is really good and I think that I must be a water connoisseur!  The boys were also BEYOND thrilled to be staying in a motel.

Across the street from the diner was a liquor store.  It was closed and therefore Christopher was not able to see if they had shirts of their store :]!

January 18th:

We continued on the long haul of our road-trip from Beaver, UT to Longmont, CO.  It was a L-O-N-G drive!  The boys did great and we also relented and let them watch movies in the car.  They're usually good about being movie free, but we all needed a mindless break!  

The drive on I-70 has to be one of the most beautiful drives I have ever been on!  The scenery is so gorgeous and breathtaking.  I'm glad that we did this road-trip so that I was able to enjoy this beauty!  So much open land with nothing, but mountains!

These pictures don't do any justice to what you see with your naked eye.

January 19th:

Christopher got hooked up with a realtor and he showed us some houses in the areas that we were looking at moving too.  An interesting thing about Colorado is that every house has a basement.  Being from California this is a new concept.  One of the towns that we really liked was Erie, CO.  It is a relatively "new" town with lots of new construction and an influx of people moving there so everything is just being built up.  It isn't too far from Boulder, if Christopher got a job there.  Their park and recreation center were beyond amazing!  Colorado also has lots of open space for biking, running, & hiking, which was really nice!

Here is a view of the rec center and the library

The beautiful mountains in the background!

The boys only cared about the snow and wanted to play here forever!

The rec center had a crazy indoor pool area.  It's hard to see from the glare, but it was very cool!

We also visited the Red Rock Amphitheater on the way to Christopher's cousin Beth Ann's house.  I got vertigo a little bit being that high and looking down :].  So beautiful again!

January 20th:

We went to Boulder on this day.  Christopher had some people that he was going to meet with that could hopefully hook him up with a job or get him some other contacts.  The boys and I went to Golden & Broomfield, CO to check out those towns to see if we liked them.

Nathan was enjoying being a horse at Beth Ann's house

January 21st:

We got together with Dave the Realtor again so that he could show us some more houses in other neighborhoods.  We LOVED Dave and if we move in an area he serves we will definitely be using him!  Before we left the boys played in some snow at Beth Ann's house. That evening we headed up to Fort Collins and stayed with my friends Melissa, Anthony, and their three kids.

January 22nd:

The boys were beyond excited to be playing with kids their own age and with lots of toys.  We also really enjoyed Melissa and Anthony's company.  That evening we went and visited my friend Heidi, who I haven't seen since elementary school, and her family.  We stopped at her husband's office.  He founded Begin Again Toys and they were setting up their displays getting ready for the big Toy Show Expo in New York.  It was pretty cool!  We then went and had a beer at the O'Dell's Brewery.

January 23rd:

We said goodbye to Fort Collins and headed back to Boulder for some more meetings that Christopher had.  It had snowed the night before and everything was covered with a few inches of snow and it looked very beautiful!  We also decided to divide our driving up into three days so that we didn't have two days that were super long.  We ended up leaving Boulder in the afternoon and drove to Grand Junction, CO.

January 24th:

We drove from Grand Junction, CO to Jean, NV.  We were going to drive to Vegas, but everything was a little expensive and The Gold Strike in Jean was cheap and got us a little closer to home.  The hotel was okay, but the casino was the saddest casino we have ever been to!

Another funny story is that when we went to our first motel the boys pulled open all of the drawers and they saw the bible.  They thought that it was some book that was left there and were curious about it.  Every time we went to another motel they would pull the drawers open and exclaim, "There's the magic book!  Look the book is here too!"  It cracked us up how they thought this book was magically appearing at all of the places we stayed at!

January 25th:

We got home and were happy to be back and out of the car!  The trip was a good one overall and I think that Christopher is sold on moving there.  I'm really appreciating Southern California, the greenery, trees, and the nice weather so we will see what the future holds!

Oh, I also forgot to take a picture this day :(!