Clearly I have a lot to say...

Jerika started 1st grade and she is gone from me all day long. I miss her, she seems so tired when she gets home from school and does not want to play with me. She says she has three recesses and even had PE yesterday so she is just too tired from schooling and recessing to have fun with her mom. She just wants to sit around watching I-Carly after school instead of being my buddy. Ugh, I don't want her growing up anymore. I miss my baby girl.

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I had such a fun time on my birthday weekend slash Party with my friends.

We did a "progressive restaurant dinner party" since we had so much fun the last time we did it for Joes Birthday.
We started out at 5 o-clock. We did not get home until 10 or somewhere around there. Five hours of party slash restaurant hopping was so fun.

Our first eating establishment was La Hala, a Lebanese restaurant where we at to die for humus and pitas, that are warm an puffed up balls right out of the oven. It was delicious.

Then we headed off to a Vietnamese place called Pho Thein and had the yummiest, biggest full of shrimp and chicken and mint Salad Rolls. It is in a very tacky pink building but hey if the food is tasty, I am happy.


Then we went over to a German Restaurant "The Rienlander" and had Fondue. It was the yummiest ever. I love Fondue!!!! We we so busy eating we did not even take a picture, which is sad because it has great ambiance.

My husband is always comparing any Pad Thai we eat to one that is perfection according to him so we headed of for Thai food at Chabba Thai. And we all agreed it was the best Pad Thai we had ever eaten. We always order one serving and split it at each restaurant. Well after we ate this pad Thai the guys wanted to order themselves a whole plate, that was how good it was. Well we did not let them, after all we had more places to go.

Then we went to a place on Hawthorne that boasts of the "Best Fish and Chips in Portland." They were good but clearly we would not have given them that title.

Then we headed to JaCiva's a chocolateering place that does amazing deserts. We had a chocolate and strawberry moose inside of a chocolate tulip.


After that we headed over to a Mexican restaurant called El Indio and had fried Ice Cream. They make you wear a Mexican sombrero if it your birthday, which I thought was pretty cool. The guys wanted to break the rule of sharing one dish and so we let them get their own fried Ice cream. Dawn and I were so full that we shared one but didn't finish it all.


It was such a fun night with friends on my birthday. We only started taking pictures of the food when we got to dessert. Next time we will take them earlier in the meal. We ate so many different cuisines from around the world that it felt like a whirlwind world culinary adventure.

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We took the kids to Oaks park on Saturday and it was so much fun. Trenton was scared of the rides but wanted to go on every one and squealed with delight when they were over.


Jennedy did not want to be on an animal on the Carousel because she was too scared. I sat with her on the bench.







We also went skating there and it was so cute to watch Jerika try so hard to be a great skater. Jennedy mostly complained and fell a lot. Jacqueline fell a ton too, but did not want us to hold her hand much, she was just so determined to do it on her own. Trenton has such cool skates that he never fell and actually skated better than any of the kids. Since he is only two I am thinking that it had to be the skates.

Photoshopping.

So yesterday I was learning some new tutorials for photoshop and my kids wanted me to play with some pictures of them to practice what I was learning.
Here are some before and after shots of what we did. We were laughing so hard. Jerika was all about having pink eyes and hair. We changes their dress colors and put on lipstick, eyeshadow and blush. I also did some work with beauty editing.






Super fun.

Trenton is 2

My baby is 2. I can't believe it has been two years, it seems like a short time, but it seems like so much has happened during that time too.
We had a fun family birthday on Sunday and I made a blue and brown cake with a race track on top. Trenton loved the cars racing around the cake.
I love my little guy. Happy birthday Trenton!!!!

Trenton Prays.

Holy Cow I am sick. I am thinking it is Giardia. (Giardiasis is an infection of the small intestine caused by a microscopic organism (protozoa).
I am a bit over dramatic right.
Can we say Hypochondria.
Well I called the Doctor this morning and am waiting for a call back. I have had this for 4 days now and am dehydrated so we will see if I am right on my diagnosis.


Now onto something super cute....
Trenton

That is a picture of Trenton when we are saying family prayer. I had to take a picture because the way he folds his arms cracks me up. So precious. I am sure that he will shortly figure out how to do it and I had to document in picture this adorable way he prays. I never want to forget it. They grow up way to fast.

Happy Birthday.

Today is my birthday. My kids think I am 28, so hey, we will go with that.

For my birthday my sweet husband got me something that I have been clamoring for since I started doing digital scrap-booking. A bigger monitor. I use so many screens and tools that I was wishing for a screen that would fit more. And I got one. Here it is, 24 inches!!!!. Thanks hubby.

It is fixed.

So I went to the Salon and after 70 dollars, my hair is fixed. I even got a new hair cut. So here it is. Now I am off to shop for my birthday which is on Monday. Bye.

Crafts Crafts everywhere

Like all children, my kids love to do craft projects. Apparently today they are making their dream houses. I hear them behind me in the laundry room where all the craft supplies are, they are singing and talking and enjoying the mess they are making.

Here is the conversation...
Jerika- You have to think about it, like your back yard. I am gonna have a tent, and a castle, here is where you go up the stairs and slide down the bumpy slide, there is a canoe there too and you can go canoeing.
Jacqueline- mine has a zip line that goes down to a couch, and if you bounce on it, it makes the TV go on.
Jerika- Trenton, you cant have all the glue sticks, only one.
Jacqeuline- (singing) I like to look at rainbows, whenever there is rain, and promise of a something, I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain.
Jerika- (yelling) TRENTONNNNNNNN (apparently trenton took extra glue sticks)
Then Jerika tells Jacqueline she is singing the song wrong and they both join in singing it just as wrong.

Kids are funny.

Orange?!?!? Really?!?

So months ago when I died my gray hairs (yes I am young and going gray.) I did a dark color and my dark haired girls stated that I looked like them. Well my little Blondie informed me that the next time I died my gray hairs I should go blond like her. So guess what?!? We purchased a home hair dye kit (first mistake) and tried to bleach it blond.

That did not go so well, my pre-dyed hair went dark orange and the untouched roots went yellow. Like the color of an egg yolk. Now I am not a vain person and actually don't care what color my hair is, but this looked awfully silly. so....

I called my husband and we discussed options, we decided that he would get a frosting kit at the store and we would put some highlights in my hair and see if that helped (second mistake.) So he came home, laughed at my hair and we proceeded to try and pull hair through a cap on my head. My husband did not do so well and could not get hair to come through. After some time I gave up and decided to get some tin foil and do my own weave (third mistake.) I tired, and failed and eventually just started rubbing bleach product in my hair.

After washing it out, it looked a bit better, the ends were at least a little closer to the roots.
I then realized that I had forgotten to put one of the three bottles of mixture to make the bleaching solution in the mix. Duh!! (well in my defense there are usually only two bottles to mix.) So I had left over solution so I decided to add some of the forgotten bottle and bleach a few more strands of hair (fourth Mistake.)
I smeared that on my hair, my husband joined me and we debated putting on the rest of the unused bottle of unmixed solution onto my hair. We decided it could not get any worse than what it was now so we put it on (fifth mistake.) The pungent, make you pass out, smell should have given me some warning on what was about to happen to my head. It began to burn, like so much that I was afraid I would have to go the hospital with third or fourth degree burns on my head.

I started to freak out and my husband said I was just being over dramatic and that I should wait 10 min for the solution to do some bleaching. Well, I didn't. Heck it was burning my head, what would you do. Yep I jumped in the shower and rinsed it out.

So here is what it looks like. Pretty wild huh. I would say strawberry blond.... No I guess it is orange hair.

Guess what though. My Blondie loves it, she says I look so pretty with yellow hair. My other girls have had nothing but nice kind things to say all morning. So my kids think I am lovely no matter what color my hair is.

I am not sure what the next step will be... I don't think I can dye it for seven days or it may just burn right off and I would be bald. I don't want that. I can deal with orange hair, I am not sure I could be bald right now.

So much crying

I must admit that on occasion I get tired of all the crying, whining and overall crankiness that comes with kids. Don't get me wrong the good far out weighs the bad but some days I just would like to hear a little less crying, screaming and whining.

I try to keep a sense of humor about it all, like today, I had two crying kids and instead of getting too stressed and annoyed I decided to take pictures of them. To capture the moment and blog about it.

Truthfully blogging about life's struggles is very therapeutic and makes things bearable and sometimes even easier. I think that just getting it off your chest and out into the universe, feeling understood all helps with easing the burdens.

And maybe, just maybe when my kids read this blog when they are older they will see the torment they put me through and be good teenagers. Is that to much to wish for? Yeah I thought so.

Pesto Pasta Please

On my mission to Italy I fell in love with pesto, that delicious basil delight that you put on pasta.
We ate it regularly on my mission, try most every day at lunch over angel hair pasta.

Well several years ago my neighbor dropped by our house with a basketful of Basil and asked if we would take a bunch of it. We did, and my obsession with Pesto resumed. Every year since that summer I have planted a garden full of basil. We harvest it periodically throughout the summer and I make huge batches of Pesto. I then save some for dinner and freeze the rest in ice cube trays that then go in a big zip lock bag to use all winter long.

Well you might have guessed but if you ask my kids what they want for dinner, most days they yell "Pesto Pasta Please" So we have delicious pesto pasta all winter long.

Well it is that time of year again when I am making and freezing Pesto. My kids love to help me pick the leaves off the Basil and look forward to dipping pita's into the pesto that is left in the food processor after it is over. I even hand Trenton the spatula which he licks with delight. You would think It was a cake batter and not Pesto. But they love it, I love it and really it is one of my favorite parts of summer, to store up yummy food for winter.

Here are the kids picking basil leaves off the stems.

I'm BACK

Well my summer hiatus is over and I have to say I have really missed my endless hours on the computer. But have found the break did me and my family a world of good.

We played, we exercised, we loved each others guts out. It was fun. It also made me less addicted to the computer. I think I can be much more moderate now. Thank goodness for self discipline.

Well on to what you missed.
This post may be long but I will make sure and put it a Ton of pictures so it is more entertaining for those of you who are not big readers. ( you know who you are)

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Disney World

We had an incredible time! Nuf said!
We also took over 700 pictures, so here are just a few.

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Next swim lessons.
The kids really loved the water and had such fun swimming every day for hours.

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We went to family reunion at the Thelin Homestead
We camped, rode four wheelers, swam, played in the sand, had campfires every night, played in bouncy structures, and spent a fantastic time with family.




Jerika is allergic to mosquitos and one bit her eye, so it is all swollen in this picture.