Keeping Cool in KC!

All the kids insist on wearing these, I'm lovin' what they're doing to Ry's ears, hope they don't stay that way!!!


It has been a really hot summer so far. We had over a week of 90 plus temps here, I guess it's not considered a heat wave if it's not 95 or higher for 4 days in a row. It only registered about 92-93 but the humidity was unreal so the "feels like" was in the 100's, but it's not a heat-wave folks. Good to know!!! We've been spending a lot of time at the pool. Sissy is finally potty-trained so a lot of our time is spent running up and down the stairs taking her to the restroom. I don't know why I was so worried about her getting trained, once she decided she was a big girl, that was it, potty trained. No accidents!


We all got together the day after Father's Day to celebrate. My dad's birthday was on June 24th and my sister's was on June 19th so we all celebrated in one gathering. My dad got a new chair for his birthday, perfect for evenings when he gets home from work! It's always a fight to get Sae in the pool but Uncle Eric was able to get it done. He had him jumping in by the end of the afternoon, it was so funny though because he was dragging him around the pool and all of the other kids decided to pile on, he got a workout for sure.


The rest of my time this summer has been spent planning for Fall, getting the curriculum picked out and ready. I've pretty much made all decisions, now it's time to organize. I'll be posting about all of that sometime after the holiday.

What a week!!!!

We have had such a busy week. The boys have been in karate camp all week, so I have been running back and forth playing chauffeur and dealing with a Sissy that does not understand why her brothers are leaving her. Thursday night we left Karate and went up to Maxwell's which was hosting an Autism Awareness fundraiser, one of my cousins has a young son on the spectrum. Mom wanted me to take some photos for our restaurant website, these are some of the fun ones.Tanyn loved this particular clown, "A princess clown, Mom," she said. It was too cute. The gentleman clown's "brief case" was just too funny for words.



Friday was my baby sister's 33rd birthday, so we all got together after the restaurant's closed to celebrate. Basically, I sit back and watch everyone else drink. I don't particularly have anything against alcohol, I just don't care for the taste of any of it. So I had Diet Coke on the rocks and keep 'em coming. Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!!!!


We'll be celebrating Father's Day on Monday, everyone has to work, it's no fun trying to fit in a celebration so we always try to push it to another day. It works for us!!!

Promotion, FOTZ, Being Silly

The older boys had their promotion the other day. They were awesome, their grandparents were able to attend and were totally impressed with the boys obvious dedication. Ry and Sissy had to tie new belts for them so I could take the picture, Dad is still training and working late.





The boys were being goofy the other day, they were reading books to Sissy, Ry and Sophie(guinea pig#1). Sophie just had to get in on the action, a rare Guineasaurus Rex.



Last night was the FOTZ Annual Picnic (Friends of the Zoo). We've never gone before even though we've been friends for several years. We had such a great time, CJ got to go with us, which was great for him and the kids, as he almost never gets to go with us. The picnic was very fun, we got to ride every form of transportation that the zoo offers for free. We were able to do the trams, boat, paddle boats and train. We enjoyed several special keeper chats and some animal behavior that we don't usually see because it was so late in the evening. The boys reconnected with a friend from their public school days, we had lost touch about a year ago due to us changing from house phones to only cell phones. His family is a bit nomadic, so they're a little difficult to keep up with. Anywho, his mom brought him by this weekend to see if we still lived in the same place, it was great, the boys have been friends for about 6yrs now and hated having no contact with him. Kevin is the extra child you see in the picture of all the kids.

Ry and Sissy promotion

My babies had their Taekwondo promotion the other day. They were totally awesome, I'll post a couple of pictures. I would post video, but I can't seem to figure out how. It just sits there and spins and spins, never seems to be complete, blogger or me? Oh well, trust me, they were great vids. Their big brothers had to tie on their belts as Daddy couldn't make it, he's starting to train for a new route at work.

What do you do??

I hit someones dog today. It was horrible, I had all 4 kids in the car, the dog ran right into the street and I just couldn't avoid it. I stopped in the middle of the street and waited with the dog until it's owner came out, it was traumatic for all of us, the dog died right in front of me. It wasn't even my dog and I was bawling. I don't even know what I was supposed to do, this dog runs the neighborhood at large, we have leash laws, I know it's not my fault but I feel so bad.

We were on our way home from the kid's Taekwondo promotions, at which they did great, but we were all sort of deflated. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow of promotion.

Photo Hunter: Theme-Advertisement

I loved these signs at Disneyland.

Thrift Store Finds

I'm not a garage saler, I hate people watching me shop. So, I do the next best thing, thrift store shopping. I wander aimlessly until something catches my eye. Today it was Sissy clothes, 5 shirts and 4 skorts, all for a grand total of $7 dollars. It was a good day, tater!

Flying in the pool!

The splash is the view we continually have of Tanyn. She climbs out of the pool, wipes her face for some odd reason, and then will jump back in. Over and over.

Everytime Chris gets to swim, the kids will beg to be thrown. It doesn't matter that Dad's back hurts, to the kids or to Dad. He will always oblige, they love it. We got to have a post Memorial Day party, we all really enjoyed the weather, the pool and spending time together. My parents are the most awesome grandparents, they really only get to swim a dozen or so times a year but they maintain their pool for their grandkids and their kids. Don't get me wrong, they swim, but the kids and I are at their pool 2-3 times a week, sometimes more. We're at their house more than they are some weeks; the joys of owning your own businesses. Oh well, we all got most of the day off and were able to have some fun together.

Swimming at Last!

We went to the zoo earlier this week and saw something new. I'm telling you my kids and I could go to the zoo everyday and see something new every time. Two rhinos were out and they were not happy to be sharing the space, usually there is only one on display. The kangas in Australia have free rein, I don't know how they keep them contained, but they are allowed to wander. This kanga was down right next to the trail, a little scary but cool. Interesting frog we saw off the bridge, we're trying to figure out what kind it is.

Our entire Memorial Day weekend was rainy and chilly. Yesterday wasn't too bad, cloudy though. But today we finally got sunshine and the forecast is for a beautiful weekend. The kids decided that today was the day for them to break in the pool. It took Sissy and I about 2 seconds to inspect and then we were out. Brrrrrr!!!! The boys loved it and played for quite awhile. Sissy decided to swim about the time that it was time to leave. Contrary, as always. We're having our family Memorial day pool party this weekend. Better late than never, I guess.

Rainy day blues!

I'd like to say that we spent all day at Grandma and Grandpa's house swimming and barbecuing, but I'd be lying. Grandpa spent all week getting the pool filled, chemicalized and ready to swim; only to have it rain on our only day off. We closed all three restaurants for Monday and planned to have a family gathering. Since that fell through, Chris and I took all of the kids to see "Night at the Museum."

We all had a really good time, spent way too much money, but had a good time just the same. Sissy is still a little heartbroken that we didn't swim, she's been asking nearly every day since last summer, "Can we go swimming today?" Depending on the day the answer would be, no: it's snowing, sleeting, lightning, pouring, insert appropriate weather event. She didn't care, all that she wanted was to swim. We're all hoping that sometime this week the weather will moderate and we'll be able to throw the little water baby in, maybe she'll stop begging and whining for awhile.

Wordless Wednesday

Lunch at Maxwell's

I can't even begin to say how happy I am that Mother's Day is over. If you work in the food industry or the flower industry you develop a deep dislike of this holiday. My family owns 3 restaurants in our area, the third just opened on the Monday before Mother's Day. Let me just tell y'all that if a restaurant opens in your area, give them a few weeks to work out the kinks before ya start in with the complaints. It was our worst opening yet, but every day gets better. If my family doesn't kill one another I think it will be a success. Some of our other family made it out to Maxwell's for lunch yesterday and the kids and I joined in. We had such a great time, Greatpa, Aunt Cher, and Cousin Angela enjoyed lunch and the kids interacted great with everybody.
The guy above in the Chef jacket is my brother and the skinny minny in yellow is my baby sister.

I just walked into the kids room to see what all the noise was, this is what I found. Underwear Pirates!!!! I have no clue where they get their ideas other then Pirabbean (Pirates of the Caribbean to those not in the "know") is one of their favorite movies. They are using their stuffed animals as cannonballs. Pretty cute, even with a diaper and underwear on their heads.

Happy Mother's Day

Mom, I love you!!! I am blessed to have you as a mother and a grandmother to my children. We are all thankful for all you do for us. Happy Mother's day!!!

Not getting it all done!

I feel like a failure lately, the only thing we're consistently getting done in our homeschool is math and a few independent readings. This year has seemed to be less than successful, I probably shouldn't have changed plans mid-stream, but I was so unhappy with the work they had been doing or not doing as the case may be. The boys had been doing Switched on Schoolhouse, an all computer program, I had the sudden realization in November that I wasn't involved at all. I also wasn't altogether convinced that they were learning anything, they seemed to be working at a frenetic pace just to say that they were done for the day. I have to admit that I haven't done a great job stepping into the hole that I left by discontinuing that curriculum.

I have alot of plans, ideas more like; but I have been very lax in implementing them. I have decided that we're going to push through May with what readings and math that we can and then just call it a school year. I had planned to push all the way through the summer and school year round, but other than a few readings I think I'm going to give them a couple months off. I'm going to spend those two months organizing my thoughts, finding the books, printing off the readings, writing out weekly plans and in general get ready for Fall. I also have a Kindergartner to plan for and a pre-K to organize for. I think Sissy will probably learn along with Ry so that will help, but this will be the first time for teaching reading. I'm scared, Algebra doesn't scare me as much as teaching Ry and Sissy to read.

This is such a rambling post that I'm certain that y'all stopped reading by this point, but if you could I wish someone could just pray for peace for me in how I'm raising my kids. I've been working on my consistency, patience and temper. I've been working on not expecting more from my kids around the house than is reasonable. I've been working on being a better wife and mother. I've been working, I've realized that all the work in the world won't get it done if I don't first go to God with my concerns and let Him work on me. I need to let Him guide my actions and my plans, if y'all could just pray that I allow Him to reign supreme in my life.

The Geese Gang

We spent Sunday after church celebrating a third birthday with some friends of ours. My sister is helping a friend of hers raise his nephews, so we all joined together to celebrate. Star Wars was the theme and can I say the hit of the party was the birthday card that played Star Wars themed music. He was swaying and bopping along with a card, too funny. He got this great storm trooper helm that he immediately had to try out, totally hilarious. Koty was very obliging in dying anytime a light sabre was swung his way.


Yesterday we went to the zoo again, they have opened a new area, "The Tropics". It was pretty cool, they had this great wall mural that was a search and find of tropical animals. We found them all, Ry and Sissy especially enjoyed the search.

The Canada geese sort of take over the zoo sometimes, seeming to guard the trails. My kids call them the Geese Gang and make up stories about what they are saying when they're honking at us. Usually the stories involve us paying a bribe to cross the trail. It's kind of funny in a disturbed way.

The kids love this bridge that connects two parts of our zoo, it's a suspension bridge that sways if enough people are on it. It kind of makes you sick to your stomach, but they don't mind, they'll run across it at full speed.

Still putting together curriculum for next year. I have math, bible and science together. Still deciding the best way to work with language, grammar, reading and history. I personally learned the most by just reading,......a lot. I loved to read, I retained so much history that it still jumps to mind whenever I'm trying to make a point with the boys. The reason I know that it's from my personal reading and not my history classes, is that usually I'll get a storyline in mind too, from whatever historical novel that bit of history is from. Sad, but true, I learned the most from historical romance than from any history class I ever took. We're trying to implement a lot of the Ambleside curriculum, some of the Old Fashioned Education, really I'm just piece mealing it all together. I have to categorize all of it though because Hunter will be a high-schooler and we'll have to keep a transcript for him. Scary!!!!

Photo Hunter: Theme-Walking

I have been looking forward to this photo hunt as I have some great photos, or at least I think they rock. The first one is my youngest son and his Beagle named Skittles. The second one is my baby girl walking back up the hill that she had just rolled down through the leaves.

This final one is my mom and daughter, I don't know why but I absolutely love it. My kids are so lucky to have the grandparents that they do. Both my parents and my husbands parents make time to interact with their grandkids. Mine especially will call to suggest that I bring their babies to them, sort of a command performance.