Father and Son Campout

This weekend was Brent's first father and Son camp out. In past years Eric has put a hat on Taylor and had her 'pose' as a boy and taken her to the father and son. Eric couldn't miss the opportunity to go camping with the boys. But this year was Brent's turn, being the old age of two Eric thought he was old enough. I still worried.... we have mountain lions out here!!! They had lots of fun.... they had turtle dinners, smores, and Eric made breakfast the next morning with the other YM leaders. (Eric is the Varsity Scout coach, and I'm teaching CTR 5's in our ward here)
Earlier this week we had FHE to prepare for the camp out. We put up the tent in the living room, roasted smores and had a lesson on Heavenly Father's creations. The kids had so much fun with the tent, they slept in it Monday night. And then napped in it on Tues. :)
Brent had lots of fun camping, but is used to waking up to mom, so he was calling for me, but super dad did a great job of distracting and entertaining him. They bonded and shared the famous Henry Weinhardt root beer, so it was an official boy trip. I love my cute boys!
Taylor and I had a fun girls night. We went to Disneyland just the two of us and had a ball riding roller coaster and watching the Fantasmic show.

A Mother's Day Tea

In Taylor's kindergarten they have a special tradition of hosting a Mother's Day Tea every year. It was so special and they planned and prepared for weeks. As we walked into the classroom each child took their mother by the arm and escorted her to her place setting. Taylor took me by the arm and said, "Welcome to the Mother's Day Tea," she was so proper. They had made personalized place mats, programs, books for each of us, and a hand print that was glazed in a kiln. My favorite was the description she did of me, my favorite color- green, my favorite food- lasagna, my height- 7 ft, my weight- 4 lbs. :) I loved it! She knew what I wanted to hear.
The dads helped serve a lunch, that the kids brought to our tables. It was so special. Taylor was so excited all week for the big day. She kept saying, Mom, this is this your favorite day?" Of course it was! They sang mother's day songs and then they had a slide show of each of the kids with their painting that matched the line of the song What a wonderful world, by Louis Armstrong. They played the music as they played the slide show. ... I see skies of blue, red roses too... It was a tear jerker. It was a wonderful morning. I am so blessed to be a mother to the two cutest kids in the world. ok I know I biased, but it's my right as a mother. It is such a privilege to be their mom, I am so grateful that I've been entrusted with these two special spirits.

Our going away party in the desert

On April 11th we headed back to the desert for a 'little' going away party. Or so we thought... (the 'little' part)




The thought of going back to the desert was my saving grace through the move. I kept thinking, I don't have to say goodbye because we are coming back to see all our friends. Becky Jones, Lori Jackman and Christine Jones were the orchestrators of the shin dig and I should have known they wouldn't have settled for a simple get together. It was a big bash. We were so spoiled and frankley I feel like I don't need a funeral after that amazing party. We walked up to Becky and Rhiem's home and there was this great sign hanging on their garage. Becky designed this great graphic of our family, it's so adorable. She depicted everyone perfectly. Especially me in my bikini. :)



The party was so fun, it had great food that everyone was so great to help bring. And it was yummy food... bruchetta, procutto wrapped asperagus, gourmet brownies, cookies, dips, drinks. There was so much great food, we didn't even cut into the beautiful cake, that of course had the 'theme' of the party on it.
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All I can say is Martha Stewart can't even hold a candle to Becky Jones. That girl knows how to throw a party. Every thing she does is 200%, and the party wasn't any different. Becky gave us stationary with the theme on it. Lori made us a tray table with pictures of my young women, and some of the activities I was in charge of. And Christine made an amazing shutterfly book where each page has a picture of our friends with a letter to us from that family. I just cried when I opened it up and read them. I stayed up till 1 in the morning crying as I read the book. I can only imagine how many hours Christine spent on the book. I know that working on computers doesn't come easy for her. ( I usually make their ebay purchases for her) So this was truly a labor of love.







We played a mad libs game and another game that Roxanne Risenmay so creatively tweaked so it was personalized for us. We had such a great time visiting with everyone and hanging out. We love our friends in the desert and hold them near and dear to our hearts. We are grateful we are only a couple of hours away so we can visit often. And we hope that everyone takes us up on our offer to come and visit us. I have to include the adorable personalized napkins that Becky had done, and the AMAZING take home. It's a gigantic Hersey's candy bar that she designed a new wrapper for with a picture frame of us and a surf board key chain. I am still amazed and taken back by everything. Thank you Becky, Lori and Christine. And everyone else who helped prepare and bring goodies. We are so blessed to have such great friends.

Dinosaur Park

I joined a group of moms and we took our kids to the Dinosaur Park. It's a community park in Laguna Hills that has a great Dinosuar theme. One of the moms buried 'dinosaur eggs' aka easter eggs and the kids brought their sand buckets and shovels and dug them up for fun dinosaur prizes. We had a picnic lunch and I tried my hardest learning names of other moms. Brent is so used to me introducing myself and the kids that we were in the bathroom at the park and a random lady walked in. And Brent looked at her, and said, "name?" "Me, Bent... I two.... he points to Taylor, and says " Tay... five...." It was halarious!

The Big Move

I know it's pathetic that I don't have pictures of the move, kind of sad, I know. The movers came in like gang-busters on Tuesday and packed our entire house in a day. They were amazing. The house was stacked with boxes. The kitchen wall going into the family room looked like it had a new built in made of cardboard boxes. It's amazing that it would have taken me weeks to do what 8 people did in a days work. I guess that's why they are professionals. The next day, Wedesday another crew came to load everything. It took two 25 foot trucks to haul our stuff away. (Where did we accumulate all of this??) And how will we move in a year by ourselves?? Even more motivation to buy the house we are now renting. One, because we love it and two because we wouldn't have to move. :) So then on Thursday, they unloaded at our house here in Dove Canyon. We really love it here. They day after we moved in the neighbors down the street came to meet us, they have a sweet little gir Taylor's age and they have been playing ever since. In the first week, we had the beehive class bring us cookies and introduce themselves as potential babysitters. Then the Relief Society presidency, the Elder's Quorum Pres. came to visit and then the Bishopric. Wow, we were impressed. They know how to roll out the welcome wagon.
We have been cold... our thin desert blood is getting used to the colder nights and mornings. We live near Rancho Santa Margarita Lake, and after we take Taylor to kindergarten in the morning Brent and I go walking around the lake. It's so pretty, they have ducks that Brent likes to feed and it's amoungst the prettiest backdrop of mountains. The hard part is convincing Brent to wait until I've had some sort of a workout before we stop to feed the ducks. We took Taylor after school last week so she could see what Brent and I do in the mornings.
Taylor has adjusted well to her new school. She came home from the first day and said, "Mom, my whole class are my friends! " I love the sweet accepting nature of kindergarteners. I am so grateful she loves it.
We do miss our friends in the desert and miss our house. ... it's still for sale by the way if anyone wants a great house. We are grateful Marriott bought it from us when they did, because the price is still dropping.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! We had a great Easter Sunday. By the time Sunday came around, the kids had already done a few hunts already and we had a huge stash of candy piled in the kitchen. How does that work? I buy lots of candy to fill eggs for school/ friend easter egg hunts and then Taylor and Brent collect the eggs, and we still end up with three times as much candy. ?? I guess the kids are expert hunters.
We enjoyed our last Sunday in the La Quinta Ward, so sad... and then drove to Hemet to spend Easter with the Jones family. They have a great tradition that the Easter bunny delivers the goodies to the dad's who go out in to the yard and hide everyone's presents/ candy/ and eggs. Meanwhile the kids have to stay inside behind closed doors and shutters. When everything is hidden and skattered outside, the moms hand the kids their "lists." They have all their goodies on the sheet of paper that they have to find to put into their basket. It's kind of like a mini- Christmas. But hey, there wouldn't be Christmas if there wasn't an Easter... right. So the kids run around and find their books/ movies/ and candy hanging in trees, behind bushes and even floating on kick boards in the middle of the pool. It's lots of fun and the kids love it.

Taylor's New Do

It was time for some haircuts around here. Taylor's was long and beautiful but hard to brush especially when it was tangled. And it always turned into a frustrating experience for the both of us. So after one of those times when she's screamed at me for pulling her hair while I was brushing it, I threatened that we should just cut it off since she doesn't like brushing it. She surprisingly agreed. wow... I wasn't sure what to think... I've loved her hair long but thought I should follow through. And the more we talked about it the more she really wanted it cut.. so we did it today. And it's adorable! She keeps running her fingers through it and admiring her new do. Brent go a haircut too, but we'll have to post his later because he's napping and this is the only time I have to add this to the blog.

Fun/ Sick in Newport Beach....

Last week we spent Wednesday through Sunday in Newport Beach. We scheduled the trip to go house hunting and enjoy the Newport Coast Villas. As luck would have it, Eric caught the office bug that was going around and was so sick. It's like he had a cold plus flu mixed with migraines. poor guy... he was miserable. And the kids and I were so excited to be at Newport, we were ready to jump in the pool and go to the beach, go down to Triton's cove (the kids activity zone at the resort, and search for bunnies- the kids personal favorite). So we did and left dad in the Villa for some peace and quite and a little ESPN when he felt like it. Well the whole reason for our trip was to find a house so I left Eric and the kids and went with our realtor to see the list of houses we had narrowed the search down to. Some of you might think I'm a horrible wife for leaving my sicker than a dog husband alone with the two kids, but we had no choice. We had to find a house. So I went to the store and got mini apple juices, smuckers frozen PB&Js, fruit, apple chips, and treats and put them all on counter top level so Taylor could reach them. I changed Brent's diaper before I left hoping he save his daily 'treat' for me when I got home --7 hours later. -yeah right. Taylor was in charge(which she loved) and Blue's Clues and Disney channels were on two of the TVs. So I left for the day with my cell phone very accessible. Surprisingly they did very well. The kids were stir crazy when I got home, Eric wasn't feeling any better, but he was trying to be a good sport. Anyways, we found a house, yeah. And we went to our new ward, The Live Oak Canyon Ward in the Santa Margarita Stake. The ward was great, there are 100 youth! wow.. Tay loved primary and overall it was great. This move is so bitter- sweet. Sad to leave our great friends here, but exciting for our new adventure.
Eric was feeling a little better by Saturday and we found the greatest little restaurant on the beach to have breakfast. It's on Crystal Cove Beach and it's called the BeachComber. The kids played in the sand while we waited for our table and Taylor built a mermaid. The breakfast was DIVINE! We are food lovers what can I say, we are definitely going back. It's a tiny restaurant along the beach with lots of other little houses. It's actually where they filmed part of the movie BEACHES, with Bet Midler. It was a great ending to our little get away. And we are glad that Dad is now feeling better.

We found our home!!

So it is official, we have gotten our house in Orange County and found the perfect one for us! It is located in the community of Dove Canyon that sits in Rancho Santa Margarita. It is right off the 241 in South County. And yes, it has a guest room and bath for all of our friends that live in the Desert heat during the summer!!!