Celebrating Our Mothers

Mother's Day was nice and low-key this year. We went to the early service at church and then came back to our house for brunch with Grammy, Sarah and the Armstrongs. I made a quiche-thing (that didn't totally set... fail), monkey bread (with whole wheat flour... fail), and fruit salad (hard to mess up... score!). Bethany provided tater-tots and professionally turned the sausages for equal brownness. Grammy entertained the big kids and the dads manned (literally) the babies. It was a great success, ignoring a few food issues. :)

How We Get Around

$49 at WalMart and totally worth it!

No One Loves Garbage Like A Toddler: DWR Visit

On the sixth, our impressively organized Bethany arranged a trip to the Davis Waste Removal facility. If you haven't noticed, almost every kid you'll ever meet has a curious penchant for garbage trucks. Garbage men have caught onto this and cheerfully wave while small eyes ogle and giggle and wave and squeal as they maneuver the truck's garbage-can-grabbing arms into position and lift up-up-up...DUMP. Insert more squeals. Every Wednesday is a "Grammy Day" around here and Grammy faithfully rushes the Armstrong cousins and Siena out the door to witness the wonder that is the garbage truck. So then imagine how much more awesome a whole warehouse FULL of garbage and trucks and conveyor belts and classical music and loudness and heat and odors can be! Here are a few highlights from the trip:

Friends

Tour guide packed with knowledge

BRIGHT orange safety vests

Loudness

 Grime. From the hand rails.

1800 lbs of happy camper

Mountain of paper recycling

Truck in action

New Hobby: Jammin'

Lately I ran out of jam. Peanut butter is no good without jam, so I went to the store to buy some. After reading In Defense of Food, you can imagine my dismay when I discovered that almost ALL the jars of jam contained high fructose corn syrup. gasp. I was left with no choice but to try making jam on my own, and conveniently, Bethany had organized a trip for local mommies to visit the organic u-pick strawberry patch.

 My last attempt at making jam was with Poppy, and I have to admit that he did most of the work. I picked apricots and chopped them into bits. The next morning I returned to Seine Avenue and Poppy had filled jars and jars with tasty jam. Then he gave me too much credit. He was like that.

 (The food processor I was using was too loud for Siena's taste.)

Anyway, this time I endeavored to make jam, enlisting only the help of my ever-ready Siena. She picked many berries, ate most, and left a few in my bucket with which to make jam. In my first attempt, I didn't take the advice to "use a LARGE pot." Oops.

 

The next time through, the Ganyos joined us!

And voila. We're looking forward to more fruit picking and jam making, so let us know if you have fruit trees with an overabundance of fruit. We'll take it off your hands! Also, my sister found a lemonade/jam stand for Siena to set up on our street! $2.50/jar. Organic. Tasty. Picked, tasted, and sold by a cutie. Come by! :)

Molly Rogge: Playing Hard to Get

The Rogges are some of our newest friends, thanks to a hook up from the Hollemans, and they have sweet always-smiling baby Molly. Somehow my scary black box chased most of her smiles away last week, but we got what we could...and I don't think it turned out half bad!

April Shower (of pictures)

In my last post I mentioned trying to finish my blog catch-up tomorrow. By tomorrow, I really meant next week, I hope. So here we are! This post is probably longer than it should be, even after I forced myself to choose only a few of the good pictures from each event recorded. Note to self: take fewer pictures. Or at least learn to pare down.

April 4: Got in a little photography fun with the Hollemans and their new ball of squishy cuteness (Elliott Gray). For more from this endeavor, visit my photography blog. Siena kept trying to be one of the Hollemans.

Oliver and Siena are good buddies. They enjoyed hiding under the blanket more than they enjoyed posing for the camera.

April 8: My parents and sister came up to celebrate Katie's birthday (the big 3-0!) a day or two late. I made a beehive-shaped honey cake but it didn't preclude us from visiting "Yellow" Berry as well.

April 9: Emma's birthday party was really fun! It was fishy-themed. We love our Jarvi and miss having them in Davis, but visiting them in Folsom isn't too hard. There were a lot of fun things going on...

...sand table...

...friends...

...bubbles with cupcake-maker Jenny...

...eating cupcakes...

...watching Mary do tricks...

...schmoozing...and much, much more. :)

April 15: Bethany organized a trip to watch parachuters! See more pictures here.

Kids played on parachutes.

They chased bubbles.

They watched planes take off carrying people high into the sky...

...only to come floating down again.

We were surrounded by good friends (who didn't mind our crying babies).

We had happy babies (after they were fed).

We had cupcakes provided by Beth to celebrate Hannah's birthday, and handsome cowboy-nephews to smile at us while eating them.

  

We took a group photo and all went home satisfied.

April 16: Picnic Day was beautiful this year! No rain, no blistering heat. We walked in from the Rec Pool parking lot, watched a great parade, and caught some Frisbee-dog action on our way off campus to our BBQ. Plan to repeat next April, so mark your calendars!

Sofia didn't feel like smiling.

Anyone for a game of Ring-Around-the-Rosy while we wait for the parade to start?

Siena showing Oliver how to double-fist the kettle corn. We've been working on "small bites" and "one at a time" but the fruits of my labor are slow in coming.

Luke, the Armstrong sandwich, is already tired out from a long morning on campus with Grammy and Sarah. He was a real trooper!

Hollemans. They keep showing up. :)

Rogges in the house. Er, on the street.

JJ knows how to make an entrance. Here he is carrying Star because Star is afraid of concrete. Wow, going to be a long day... ;)

Another girly picture. I kept having to take a new one when another girl arrived on scene. 

Nat is BACK. She was gone on a really cool trip and we missed her. She came back late the night before and was willing to join us at the parade. Yesss.

Playhouse time!

April 20: My friend, Sam, who is an event coordinator at Raley Field, suggested that I visit "Mommy and Me Day" at the Rivercats' stadium with the girls. It was so much fun!

Siena and Sam right before we headed home for naps.

Sam is kind of a big deal!.

Siena made it to first base, which is where her daddy wants her to stay until college! :) She is wearing what she refers to as her "running" shoes.

Kids usually love bounce houses but Siena only loved looking at the kids inside the bounce house. She got part of the way in, "freaked out" and wiggled her way back down the slope, only to be knocked over by a less timid jumper.

The parachutes were a hit. As if they were magnetic, parents and kids would gravitate toward a handle and start puffing them up for other kids to scramble under and squeal with delight.

Big ball. Also fun.

Bubble time in the dugout. Shortly after this picture was taken we headed up the steps for a potty visit. ;)

Hops! ;)

Potty visit. Documentation. Check.

Posing with Dinger. From really far away.

April 21: Cousin time. While Bethany and Grammy attended the house inspection for their new place right down the street, I got to watch all the kiddos. Sarah helped too, of course.

Can you find Sarah "helping"? :) She was actually a great help as she patted Colson on the back as he fell asleep in Sofia's crib.

I call this her "smart" look. (Note sarcasm.)

Group nap!

And then Kelly and Tannyr came over to join us, so the kids put Kelly right to work!

April 24: Easter. Shiloh sang in the FBC choir on Friday night and Sunday morning, but we still managed to squeeze in a quick trip to Atherton. After our routine visit to The Prolific Oven to visit Sandra, I put the girls down for naps, hung out with my cousin Jen, and Shiloh headed over to Stanford to watch Cody play baseball for UCLA. Back in Davis we attended church, took naps, and feasted at Grammy's (with a few IM sports thrown into the mix.)

Easter dress courtesy of the Ludwicks. Siena was in princess heaven.

All the kids at FBC we instructed to bring a flower to decorate this cross. One "seed" had to be buried in the ground that MANY might bloom as a result!

Can you find Shiloh, singing his heart out? :)

As much as she loves her Daddy, Sofia couldn't stay awake during the service. ;)

 Squish at its finest.

Like she needs more sugar in her system... 

Sharing her chocolate carrot. A rare moment.

Chocolate on the dress. :(

This is what the camera saw.

This is what the kids saw.

 

April 27: Ellis Brown turned 3 and had a fireman party to prove it. Chrissie is an excellent theme creator, which I did not fully grasp in my pictures... but take my word for it.

April 29: Bethany organized another fun trip: riding the Double-Decker Bus! I'm getting tired of this post, so captions will be few.

April 30: And FINALLY, to end April, I fulfilled one of my new year's resolutions! Half Marathon. Check!

Support staff.

 Sofia: "Smile? It's 7:30 a.m. and I'm freezing. I am not smiling."

Sam is amazing. Because of an injury that occurred at mile 7 of training, she took two full weeks off and then slowly worked her way back into the game. Before the race she had only ramped up to a "long" run of 5 miles...!

We're smiling because we're over half-way done!

#1 cheerleader!

Done! Really smiling now!

Tadaaaaa! And April is over...