Lots -o- pictures

We have a pear, golden delicious, red delicious and peach tree in our back yard. Unfortunately no one treated them for worms in the spring, so most of our crop has gone to the birds and worms. The boys and I did however manage to fill a truckload's worth of golden delicious. They are small, but oh so tasty!!

Isaac's first day of preschool was actually two weeks ago, but these pictures were stuck on the camera (I had forgotten the card again) until tonight.

1 month old Heidi

Tarzan--er--Ryan on rope swing Daddy made

Isaac waiting his turn for a rope swing . . .

Nicole on the other rope swing

This was cute. Ryan has a hard time falling asleep once Issac has, and often we hear a little noise and look over to see Ryan playing with toys etc, but trying to be quiet. We then ask him to get back in bed etc. This happens several times a night. So this night we must not have heard him and I get up to go to bed and there he is on the floor fast asleep.

Liz made some of these cute fabric balls in CA for a baby shower--then Cassie made some for Heidi--they looked so fun I had to give it a try too--yes they were gifted to a baby as well. The pattern is for just the ball, and I added some tags to suck on and hold, and a jingle bell inside. So fun!! I'm also happy I finished something. I haven't gotten to do that for a while!!

All Isaac--Happy Birthday!

Our Sweet 5 year old!!

There was supposed to be a rocket ship on that cake, but instead I made cupcakes for his preschool class and this is what he got instead. Thanks to a cute platter and some polka dot sprinkles we happened to have on hand, it wasn't too big of a flop. :)


Yeah!! Now we can make our own aliens!!

This is what he REALLY wanted, can you tell?

Thankfully the huge thunder/rain storm had subsided enough that we could take the truck out in the culdesac for a drive. (For my CA friends, this is our house from the front)

Isaac got a fighter jet/helicopter/airplane Lego set from his Grandma Peterson when she was here helping with the baby. He put this together all by himself!! The few times he asked for my help it was to help him find a certain piece or to ask if he'd put something on right. He sat there at the table with the little instruction booklet, counting the dimples in Lego pieces and building away!!

He also had his first soccer game of the season this week. Curt's helping coach. I love the size XL shirt they give the five year olds. Maybe I'll borrow it since nothing of mine fits right now.
His pink powerade mustache completes the look!!

I can't believe he is five years old!!

We love you Isaac!!

Our new pet!!! (You might want to have a paper bag handy in case you need to . . .well . . .you'll see)

Isaac said "MOOOOOOOOOOOOM come look!!!" On my way there I hear Ryan say "IT'S HUGE-MUNGUS (how he says humongous) "No," I say . . . that looks fake, I think it's a toy" then I remember that I have never bought a seven inch long HUGE Centipede with shiny/pointy leggs and a red head!! So I poke it with a plastic baseball bat and it moves a little (you still have your paper bag?) SO THEN I scream, because WOW, this is DISGUSTING and Curt comes running to see what all the fun is about. And this is what we find, only 2 ft away from our sliding door!!! I am usually not very squeamish when it comes to bugs and creepy crawly things, in fact, Curt jokes that he's the one that jumps on the couch and screams when he sees a spider and I'm the one that defeats most 8 or 6 legged creatures. But this was TOO much. IT IS SOOOOOOOOOOO GROSS, I really get shivers every time I even think about it. I let Curt catch this one, although it would have looked good on my creepy crawly thing resume . . . but I'm not sure I could have I was SO grossed out!! If we EVER find ANYTHING this big IN our house. WE are SO TOTALLY MOVING!! So the whole rest of the day all these questions have been going through my head . . .
Why was it right by our door?
Is it safe to let the kids play outside?
Our old house was just across a big street and down the hill, and we NEVER saw anything there, why are we finding all these gross things here? (see the bottom of the post--oh yes, there is much more fun that has been had at our house within the last few weeks)
Are there more of these monsters in our yard?
Am I a lier for telling the kids there are no such things as monsters?

Take a look for yourself . . . make sure you have your paper bag ready . . .
Ryan just said "That's NASTY!!" and it really is.

That is Curt's hand and that is a quart sized canning jar!!!!
To top it all off, Curt took it to the bus stop when he went to pick up Nicole and showed it to our neighbor boys. They said they saw one of those in their bathroom . . . on the ceiling. We are starting to check the MLS housing listings again!!! I'm seriously going to have nightmares for months.

Other things we have found since moving here:
1. "Mom, there's a frog!!" says Ryan one morning. The "frog" is right by our kitchen table on the carpet, where everyone walks barefoot all day long. The frog turned out to be an inch and a half long scorpion!! INSIDE! After an extensive internet search, the ones here are pretty harmless, and they said they are comparable to a bee sting. Still a little disconcerting -- every shadow or anything I see on the carpet, I inspect closely in case it might be another one. Ick.
2. Nicole was shaking Claire her 3 year old cousin one morning, telling her to wake up. Sabrina, Claire's mommy asked Nicole to let her keep sleeping etc. Then Nicole says "But there's a centipede on her!!" Fortunately this one was probably only an inch long. We've seen quite a few of those in the house, but they are managable.
3. "MOM!! Ryan touched a spider!!" I start preparing my "we don't touch spiders" monologue when Nicole yells "It's a black widow!!" So now I'm running to where the kids are huddled, and thankfully Ryan looks normal, and o.k. Apparently he had tried to pick it up, then it attached it's web to his hand and was crawling up it again, Ryan shook it off. Here's where I came in--it sure looked like a black widow, so I turn it over with a stick and yes indeed, there was the red hourglass. Nice. My monologue turned into quite a bit more serious discussion!
4. While we had our cousins here the kids were playing outside and someone yells "there's a snake!!" We yell back for them not to touch it, and run outside. The snake is now slithering into some of our bushes. The reason being is that Isaac touched it!!! We do some more internet searching and it is a garter snake thank goodness, but rattlesnakes are not uncommon here! Yet another close call. Sheesh!!
5. Twice we've seen this huge 2 inch long black and shiny green beetles with horns that can fly.
6. Tons of wasps--we put up a wasp catcher trap thing and filled it up--we counted125 or something thereabouts.
7. Ants--they are a whole post all their own--but I came to grips with the ant issue the first time we lived here.
I'll just stop there, I don't want to overwhelm you.

Tree Hugger

Curt misses CA so much he made Palm trees out or our Pine trees!!
He's tying the "rope" aka a really long extension cord to the tree.

Here's his helper at the other end

And here is the complete scene . . .

Missing the Beach

I was laying by Ryan for a minute tonight--listening to a cd of waves that we have, and Ryan asked if we could go to the beach again. I told him it was too far away now, and he said "NO?!!" After explaining it to him, it seemed like he might have understood a little when he sat up and spread his arms out as wide as they would go and told me it was really far away, like that far away (referring to how far his arms were spread.) We all miss the beach. :( Here are a few pictures from our last trip to the beach--the Saturday before we moved. I didn't ever post them will all the pre-move hustle and bustle. I feel like we were able to go a lot, but why on earth didn't we go EVERYDAY!!!!!

Ryan really wanted to see the "whale bones" before we left. These are the bones of a 87 foot female blue whale that washed ashore there the year I was born! Pretty spectacular.

The next two pictures are of some grey whale bones. Still spectacular, but you can see they are a little smaller.

There were several pools of dolphins behind this fence. They were feeding them while we were sneaking a peak.

Nicole and Isaac's sea monster (Daddy helped too)

This sea lion came up on the beach where we were all playing to scratch it's back?!!

Isaac and Ryan playing catch with Dad

Our friend the sand crab--one of the kids favorite things to do at the beach was dig for sand crabs and try to fill a bucket with as many as they could find.

Shovel rides

Hopefully it won't be TOOOO long before we get to go again . . .