This and that

My first random pics come from my August project...Seth's room. This was a PROJECT. Between leveling, marking, painting, taping, re-painting....caulking, the chair rail...and then kids walking in, leaning their backs against wet paint....it might be awhile before I attack Jaq's room.

This is a fun hair-do, I was so proud of. I stole it from my super cute neighbor friends, but then had to snap a pic cause who knows if Jaq will ever let me do this again. :)

We love our humming bird friends. We fill up our 4 humming bird feeders 1-2 times a week. We've had up to 5 birds out there at once....they are such cool creatures. They fight and are very territorial, its such a fun part of our summers.

Okay, this may not look as big as it was....but try opening your door and having this stare you in the face...its leg to leg span was like 3 inches! Seriously the biggest spider I've seen around here in a long time. And then to make it weirder, I found 2 of them in the same day. Gross, I hate spiders.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SETH!!!

Handsome Birthday BOY!!!

Of course Jaq wasnt a big fan of all the attention going to Seth, so I snapped this one of her and it was cute, so I thought, eh I'll post it.

Birthday hug! Sometimes they can be sweet.

So on August 15 it was Seth's birthday!! It was a Sunday so our plans were a little limited, provided we wanted to keep the sabbath day holy :). But we gave him some new Sunday clothes that he was able to open before church....and doesnt he look handsome? He desperately needed a new white shirt, and new dark socks...and the poor kid with his birthday in August is bound to get school clothes for the rest of his educational life.When Cordelle was able to to come home with us after church (he has meetings all morning long), we opened the rest of his presents which included more school clothes, a remote control car and a nerf gun. Cordelle was completely against more toys, repeatedly telling me how many toys the kids have, but you cant have a 4 year old's birthday and not give him toys! (So I compromised and gave him clothes AND toys!) So we spent the afternoon playing with those, finished off the day with a family bike ride and overall had a pretty chill, nice day.The big excitement came when I completely lost my marbles and decided to invite 12 kids all under the age of 5 to a birthday party at the park. THIS WAS BONKERS! I had short quick games planned, but even those games kept their attention spans for probaby 2-3 minutes, if that. Luckily, we were at a park so they could run, I had our good friend Ryan tie balloons, and cake and icecream took a long time. And check out this cake that my friend Patrice made....its so perfect! She's starting a cake blog...so I told her I'd put her link. Check it out. cakesbypatrice.blogspot.com I did however do a big treasure hunt that led to their party bags which was a huge hit, and probably the only time in the 90 minutes I had their complete attention. I think parents are wise in waiting till their kids are just a little older to do birthday parties. Ah, well. I guess you live and learn. But I'll tell you, I was frazzled. Especially because half way through Seth was running on the pavillion concrete and slid and whacked his head so hard that it left him with this shiner!Can you believe the size of this thing? So for about 25 minutes I was trying to convince a crying 4 year old that he didnt want to go home from his own birthday party. HA! I think overall it was fun, and the kids were cute...but man....okay enough complaining on my part, I think aside from the bump on the head, Seth had a good birthday. (...bump on the head....wasnt that like a birthday gift tradition when we were little?....random, but fitting.)

"Im growin up mom"

This has been quite the week for Seth, I cant even believe the milestones he's hoppin to. First he had his first soccer game! (which his parents were ectactic about for obvious reasons). But in retrospect I'm beginning to think it was more for us, than for him with all this soccer buisness this early. Let me explain. Seth missed the soccer deadline age by 2 weeks. So they told us, if we agreed to coach, that they would let him play. So of course we're like, pishaw, of course we'll coach. Well Seth LOVES soccer. Cordelle made him some pvc pipe goals and they go out and practice and he's got a great kick and he's actually quite accurate.....so we're thinking yea, he's gonna be some protege' soccer kid....starting him out early he's gonna school all these older boys.....then we had our first game. Now Seth by nature is shy, but this game was crazy! He spent the entire time looking back and forth, making sure he didnt get hit, or nudged, or even tapped by anyone around him. Anytime the ball would come near him, he would BACK AWAY....matter of fact once it came to him when no one was around and he immediately looked over both shoulders to see where the rest of the team, and the other team, was running from and then got out of their way. But he loves being part of the game and the team and he still is actually quite good playing one on one or solo, so I'm convincing Cordelle to just stay positive but give him a couple years to grow into it. He is pretty much an entire year younger....maybe it was a little early.....Ah you live and learn i guess. So this year its a "being a part of a team, who has to pull all your weight" year. But as long as he still likes it maybe he'll grow out of being afraid of others taking the ball from him.I know...it certainly won't be hard to find which team is his on the field. (and yes, I made him stand in a dark room, just to see if the uniforms were glow in the dark....they're not.)

Moving on....2 days before he turned 4....a momentous event happened. For weeks we took on and off the training wheels with lots of frustration. Then one day after watching some neighborhood boys he had me take them off again, but this time I wasnt allowed to touch him. So I coached him on how to kick off and try to balance but his balance usually lasted 2-3 seconds. So needless to say after about 2 weeks of this, when our friends came over and he told them he wanted to show them how he could ride his bike, this is all I thought he would be doing. Then out of nowhere he jumps on and just starts riding!!! It was such a proud moment for me and it was over a bike! Within 2 days he was going off curbs, standing up, going down driveways...he's so good and its so fun to go on bike rides with him. Anyways way to go Sethers!

Then of course Seth turned 4 (which I'll have a whole post about). And then lastly just today Seth came running frantically into my bathroom while I was getting ready shouting that he had written his own name, and sure enough there it was "Seth!" We've been tracing letters for weeks but he's never done it on his own....once again the mommy-pride-o-meter went skyrocket high and I just thought it was so remarkable. I dont know maybe most kids his age can write their name, but it was pretty cool for me to see. Anyways so he sure is growing up and so hillarious. He definitely is catching on to Cordelle's paranoia though, as he reminds me when we're biking to, "slow down on the hills so we dont crash and crack our heads open," and "slow down (while driving) so we dont get a ticket" and he NEVER forgets to remind me when I am not wearing my seat-belt. Its good to have a little conscience I suppose. I guess its better then having his big conscience of a father reminding me of all the safety precautions I should be taking. Gotta love it.

Vain photography

So as previously mentioned Seth is always leaving me surprises on my camera. Most are pictures of my house or of Jaquelle, but occasionally I get some of these gems. Turn the photo on yourself and go to town type of pics. So I thought I'd mesh some of the good ones and collage them for you. No wonder my camera is always out of battery when I go to use it.

CAUGHT on camera!

Okay let me set the stage here. So Cordelle noticed this dent in my laptop and we just couldn't figure out where it came from cause we are really careful with it and the kids never play with it at all (or so we thought).....
At the same time Seth is obsessed with my camera lately and is always taking random pictures usually of half his face or his feet....well tonight when I plugged in my camera card to get a picture off of my camera I found these series of pictures....in this order....








...so Im pretty sure in that of Jaq removing the computer from the night stand to the couch is how my laptop got dented. And normally once again I would get after Seth for playing with my camera, but I'd have to say he documented this mystery quite well.

Seth's new room

Whala! It took me a week but I finished Seth's room. Between measuring, taping, painting, changing numerous out-fits of Seth cause he cant stop rubbing up against the wet paint, repainting, touch ups, cutting and gluing chair rails, caulking....it was a PROJECT. But I think it looks better than the plain jane it was before. Now onto Jaquelle's room....any cute ideas for a girls room?