Happy Sweet Seventh Birthday!!

I can't believe Nicole is really seven years old. When she was a newborn Mom was at my house and we were watching the BYU choir sing the song "Turn Around" and I starting crying. Now that she is seven I'm crying even more just reading the lyrics!! I don't want her to grow up anymore!! She has been such a sweet, loving, special addition to our family. I'm amazed everyday at what a wonderful, happy, kind, loving, thoughtful, sweetheart she is.

Where are you going my little one, little one
Where are you going my baby, my own?
Where are you going my little one, little one
Where are you going my baby, my own
Turn around, and you're two,
Turn around, and you're four
Turn around and you're a young girl,
going out of the door.
Where are you going my little one, little one
Where are you going my baby, my own?
Little dirndls and petticoats, where have you gone?
Where have you gone?
Turn around, and you're tiny,
Turn around, and you're grown,
Turn around, and you're a young wife,
with babes of your own.

Nicole wanted an American Girl Birthday party, she even drew me a picture of what she wanted the cake to look like--a star (I added the American girls, nice touch eh?) and we did our best to accommodate. A banner with American girls, pictures of them decorating the walls, and between two sets of Grandparents and her own parents she got five sets of books--four of which were American Girl books. (Just in case you are not familiar with them they are GREAT Historical Fiction books for young girls.) We even managed to get her a doll--don't worry we found it used on Craigslist and didn't take out a loan to get her a new one. She also got her own set of legos, so now Isaac can have the ones back he got for Christmas. :) The boys made her quite a few homemade bookmarks--she's been know to use funny things for bookmarks and needed a few real ones--and we very excited to give them to her. When the "party" was over Isaac said "I want to give Nicole some more presents!!" He's been excited for her party for quite some time, knew about all of her presents and even managed to keep them a secret!! We had fun celebrating our favorite Nicole's birthday!!








I tried this marshmallow fondant recipe and it was so fun!! The birthday cake possibilities are endless!!

Evidence

Ryan looks so much like his Daddy, we've wondered if there is any of me in him. He's always had a hankering for popcorn though, and he pretty much ate most of this bag. PROOF!! He has at least a few of my tastebuds!! WOO HOO!!

Good Form . . .

Another Stanford Family Outing--Bowling, Pizza, and Popcorn on the house--the kids loved their first bowling experience. It was great entertainment to see them hefting bowling balls and doing their best to get it to roll down the lane. I was sure they were going to brake a hole through the floor a few times as their bowling ball was dropped straight down . . . I'm just glad it missed their toes!

Año Nuevo Weather Miracle

Año Nuevo is a point along the coast where the Elephant seals come every year from about December to March to rest, have their babies from the last year and mate again. The rest of the year you can walk around this beach and all the fun trails whenever you please, but during this time you can only go out there if you buy tickets and have a guide take you out to see the Elephant seals for safety reasons etc. The tickets get sold pretty fast, so you have to buy them ahead of time, and then hope for good weather because there are no refunds unless they cancel a tour. This only happens if there is a severe storm, and thunder or a tsunami or something. Well all during the week it rained, and Friday the forecast was for rain also--even a possible thunderstorm. We decided to drive out there anyway and take our chances since we already forked out the money. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day!! The sun was shining--it did rain once but only for five minutes, then the sun was out again--we took off our coats. It was beautiful!! Then that afternoon (Friday) it poured and has been pouring nonstop since. I'm telling you it was a miracle!
----Just a warning--LOTS of pictures----


Curt, Isaac and the old man in the sea
The kids would plop down and play in the sand dunes whenever the guide stopped to talk to us.
In the picture below, you can see the elephant seals were scattered throughout the sand dunes where we were walking. We got pretty close to some smaller ones.







Any resemblance?

I felt like we were in the middle of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom--does anyone remember those shows? I can sing the song for you if it would help you remember. The younger baby ones have darker coats.

They made the weirdest sounds . . . when the males would do this (below) it sounded like a slow deep motor of some really loud old motorcycle or something. The baby ones made noises that sounded like crazy monkeys. Or some tropical jungle bird or something. We had a few guys in our tour group making lots of "comments" you'll hear in the video below, but you can also hear the guide talking. This is kind of a cool video because one male moves in on another territory and the other ones comes over and chases him away . . . sort of. The guide was saying that dominance had already been decided) probably earlier in the season with a fight or something, so all the one had to do was snort and show his nose and the other one high tailed it.





I got in trouble for this picture below--I stopped to try and get this picture (I eventually suceeded) but it took a couple of tries with a two year old--and we got too far behind the guide. He yeld at us to keep up. It was worth it!
Aren't the views beautiful?! This was so great to be out hiking around in the fresh sea air--(I'm sure I feel the same way about mountain hiking--it's just been a while) with the beautiful views, I couldn't get enough. It makes me happy.
Nicole examining Elephant seal specimens--I think that is some elephant seal hide


Nicole and Isaac hiked the whole way (3+ miles round trip) and did great! Ryan probably could have done the whole thing too, but he couldn't keep up with the group, so he got carried for some of it.

No brown sugar, no problem!!

I left Nicole and Ryan downstairs reading and went upstairs to take a shower. I came downstairs to find Nicole still reading, and Ryan in the corner of the kitchen with the sugar. The brown sugar had recently been moved to a higher shelf. I should have realized he would go for this next!! This very same day we were out on the playground, and I didn't see Ryan for a minute. When I found him he was inside, had locked himself in my room with 5 mini boxes of nerds and was trying to pry them open with his teeth!! I guess it was my fault for leaving them on the counter, but they were inside a target bag, and I didn't think he knew they were there. Stay tuned . . . who knows what he will find next!

Half Moon Bay

Just trying to see how many trips to the beach we can fit in between now and August. The kids were super excited to go with their friends Anna, Adam and Haley. Later in the day, Isaac asked Curt--did you go to the beach with us? He must have been having too much fun with Adam--although in Curt's defense, he dug a huge hole, found sand crabs, and climbed the rocks with them!!

Happy MLK Day!

We celebrated with a playdate with lots of friends at a park, and ice cream cones afterwards. I was itching to go to the beach, but no friends would have been involved, so the kids won.