Happy Birthday Grandpa John!

Grandpa John's birthday was on the 27th, so we invited him over for dinner Sunday to celebrate with him. The kids were excited because that meant cake! Clara had a friend over to spend the night so the kids were about as excited as they could be.

After dinner we brought out the cake (ice cream cake - YUM!) and sang 'Happy Birthday' to the birthday boy.

Grandpa's first attempt at blowing out the candles...with a little help from Jonathan.


You're never too old for trick candles! After about 5 tries and a lot of help Grandpa John finally got that candle to go out.

Happy Birthday Grandpa John!

9 Months

I took Matthew back to 'The Picture People' today for his 9 month portraits. Once again they did a great job!

See those teeth!

I love this boy!!!!

Up and Around

Since I had the camera out, when we got back from the pool I decided to capture some of Matthew's latest tricks.

Some old tricks never fail, he still likes sticking out that tongue.

Finally, he's starting to sit up. Though I still have yet to really just see him sitting up on his bottom without holding on to anything.

Check out those teeth!

And he's pulling himself up on the couch!

Not to worry, the tongue still works when he's standing!

A moment up on all fours!

Superman!

Pool Time

After yummy berry smoothies, Chris took the older 2 kids over to the pool for some fun. I stayed back with Matthew, since it's not quite warm enough for the little guy in the pool, not to mention our lack of swim diapers for him. After they'd been gone about an hour, Matthew and I decided to walk over and get some pictures of the kids' first swim of the season.

The base here just opened up two new community centers, with pools attached. Those pools are about the size of ones you see in apartments or hotels and have no lifeguards. Each resident on base is given a key card which allows them access until 10pm each night. Each of the new pools also has a decent size baby pool as well, perfect for my kids. It's going to be a great summer!

Clara was having fun 'jumping' in the baby pool

Chris was just getting the kids out of the pool to leave when I showed up, and did not want to get back in. The kids, on the other hand, were excited that I just bought them an extra 15-30 minutes so I could get pictures!

Clara showed me how she could kick across the big pool holding onto the kick board.

Jonathan still prefers to hover on the steps.

Big Splash!

The kids had a blast at the pool and are sleeping good tonight!

Berry Pickin'

Every where you look around us, there's agriculture: Almonds, pecans, walnuts, grapes, citrus, strawberries, corn.... My kids haven't ever had the fun of picking their own fruit. My mom used to do some canning when I was little, so my family would go from time to time, but my kids just haven't had that chance...until today. The original plan was to go picking strawberries, but while it seems there's strawberries on every corner around here, none of the fields are 'you pick'. So we settled for other berries: Blueberries, blackberries and tay berries.

All ready to pick. The kids were excited all morning when we told them what we were doing today. Jonathan kept teaching us, "You got to twist, twist, twist, pull!" I asked him where he learned that, he said TV. I assumed it must've been Sesame Street, but apparently it was 'Special Agent Oso'.

Picking Blueberries

Eating blueberries

This what happens when you tell your husband to pick something!

Picking Blackberries

Picking Tay berries (a hybrid between a black berry and a raspberry - YUM!)

Even Matthew got to do some picking!

Unfortunately, he didn't get to do any eating.

Picture of the giant blueberries on the bush. I'm not even a big fan of blueberries, but these were yummy!

When we got done, we each had a bag about half full of berries, except Jonathan, whose bag was empty because he'd been eating all the ones he picked! At least we all had fun, and we had a yummy smoothie for an afternoon snack!

Dancin' Queen

Clara's taking dance again this year. This time she's taking a ballet/jazz combo. Her recital is on the 12th and they'll be jazz dancing to 'Dancin' Queen' by ABBA. She's really starting to catch on at dance class. Last year her movements were very awkward. This year, she's starting to get the motions, but still needs to take her time and not rush through. Most importantly, she's still having fun and can't wait for her recital. We just received her dance pictures in the mail today.

She looks so grown up!

Her class, Clara's in the front on the left

I can't wait to watch her put it all together in the recital in a couple weeks!

Standing Up

Look what I found when I got Matthew up from his nap today...

He finally figured out how to pull himself up in the Pack 'n' Play!

He's standing!!!! (Check out those teeth too!)

The Ultimate 'Ziggy' picture!

Curly Sue

Yesterday, the kids were bathed and ready for bed a little early, so I decided it was a great time to introduce Clara to pink foam rollers. She felt so special and important as I rolled her hair and couldn't wait to see the result in the morning.

Striking a sassy pose.

However, a few fell out during the night, so her hair was only about half curly. Still, she thought she looked beautiful going to school today, so that's all that matters. We'll have to try again sometime, and get the 'after' pictures next time too!

T-Ball

Like I said, while I was off running the Mud Run, the kids were playing their last T-ball games. Chris watched the games, then brought them over to the field just in time to see me go through the last mud pit and cross the finish line. It left quite the impression on Jonathan. He was so proud of me, running around the house later that afternoon saying, "Look Mom, I'm doing the mud run!"

At the end of their T-ball games, the kids got their team pictures back and a trophy.

Clara

With her trophy.


Jonathan

I never snapped a picture of Jonathan with his trophy. When I get around to it, I'll post it here. The kids were very excited for their first trophies. It was a great day for everyone!

17th Annual Marine Mud Run

I finally did it! The NAS Lemoore Marine Mud Run, and it was a BLAST! Every summer the Marine's on base set up muddy obstacle course/5 mile run. I've wanted to do it each year, but aside from the fact that I am in no way a runner, Chris has been gone the last 2 summers and last summer I was pregnant on top of it all. So originally I wanted to rope Chris into doing it with me, but yesterday was also Clara and Jonathan's last t-ball games of the season. I gave up on the idea of doing the run, until Friday night my neighbors and I went out for a girls night and by the end of the night I had them talked into doing it as a team with me (we even bought matching purple shirts!) Saturday morning we were all nervous, and cold, and each of us was just waiting for another person to back out so we all could, but no one did, and we're all soooo glad! It was so much fun. Rumor is that it will be the last mud run here in Lemoore because most of the Marine's are leaving the base, which made for a great arguing point when I was trying to talk every one in to doing it. There's some speculation that the reservists that stay behind may carry on the tradition, in which case, Chris will be doing it with me next year! We weren't successful in talking my neighbor, Courtney into doing the run. Instead, she offered to come along and take pics from the side and cheer us on. On race day, we realized, that was every bit as important.

The first COLD mud pit. That's my teammates Carrie and Melissa behind me.


What have I gotten myself into?


My team: Brianna, Izabella, Jose, Carrie, Me, Melissa



Just the girls: Carrie, Melissa, Me


Everyone else had energy to run...I should clarify that what I did was actually more of a 'Mud Walk'

Brianna bowed out gracefully about midway through. Keeping in mind she is only 10 years old, and getting over bronchitis, she did awesome for as long as she hung in there.

The rope obstacle. You were supposed to just pull yourself along on the rope while your body floated behind.

Over the logs. At each obstacle, there were Marine's yelling (in a good natured way) things like, "The faster you get through my water, the faster you'll get over my log!" They helped out if you needed it at all, but since we had a team we helped each other get through the obstacles.

Walking across the ropes

Every mud pit (and there were about 7-10 of them) started with a deep mud pit. Once you were all wet and slippery, you had to climb up a mud hill, which became more difficult each time someone else dripped all their water up the side of it. This particular hill was towards the end and had a slide built in on the downside, leading into another mud pit. I didn't think to straighten my legs at the end of that slide, and went completely under the muddy water. It's a little difficult to wipe mud out of your face when there's no part of you that's clean!

To the Finish line!

One last team pic: Carrie, Izabella (Carrie's 12 year old daughter, did the whole race, but was freezing cold at the end!), me, Jose, Melissa.

We had a blast. Typically by this time of year it's pretty hot already, but it's still been hanging around 65-74 degrees lately. The morning on the mud run started in the lower 5o's. I think it got up to the mid 6o's, but it was still cold. We figured out that if you still had mud caked on your arms when you came out of the pits, it kept you warm as it dried. There were a couple sets of walls to climb over, cement tunnels to climb through, and a rope to swing out into a mud pit from. There were watery mud pits, sticky mud patches and harder dirt to run on. We had our shoes duct taped to our feet so we would not lose them in the mud. I thought it would be fun, but it was even more fun than I thought. Definitely something I look forward to doing again. Maybe next time I'll even run more of it :)