Swimming Lessons

Next came swimming lessons. Every year my kids look forward to taking swimming lessons at the Oregon City Pool. They did so well this year and both were extremely excited that they passed their classes and get to move on. The only thing that motivated Redden to pass is that the next class up (level 4) gets to use the diving boards. Austin was just excited to not have to use the tot docks anymore. They did very well and we celebrated with icecream later that night.

Boy if the above picture doesn't show their true personalities I don't know what does!!!

Spray Park

After school was out I took my kids to the spray park with my friends and had a picnic dinner while all of our husbands went out and played golf. They love this place. It started to cool down as you can tell from the look on Redden's face.

My baby on 2 wheels instead of 4

When we returned from Vegas we taught Austin to ride his bike without training wheels. He's loving it! Rich and I feel like pro's and have down the perfect system for teaching kids this. It's the grass! If you teach them on flat short grass they're not as afraid to try because they know it wont hurt if they fall. Once they do the grass 2 or 3 times they all of a sudden develop a confidence in themselves that makes them think they're ready to go. Then we move on to smooth ground that's long as in the track at the high school behind our house. This is where we were in the movie and boy does our method work. Redden picked up starting on his own better than Austin did. Right now we've taught Austin to curb start and then get up on the sidewalk. It's so fun to watch him. Because he's so little, it's hilarious to see this tiny little thing riding on 2 wheels out of control. He gets lots of smiles and people cheering him on in the neighborhood. For those of you who don't see Austin in person or on a regular basis. I'll give you an idea of how small he is. His 5th birthday is in October and we're still trying to get him to weigh more than 36 lbs to get him out of his 5 point harness carseat. In the state of Oregon your kid has to be 40 lbs to move to a booster with the regular seatbelt. Poor kid...we weighed him yesterday and he was up to 37 lbs. Yahoo!!!! He's such a little runt. Cute though. I think if he doesn't weigh 40 lbs by the time he starts kindergarten we'll move him out of it just as a courtesy to him....hahaha.

Busy Busy Busy

Life seems to be extremely busy right now and I have a lot of things on my brain not to mention all these things that need to be done are a little more difficult when you're 6 months pregnant. Anyhow...we'll see what I can inform you all of in a proper timeline. This is a very very sexy picture of me before we went to Vegas. I had been working in the yard so my face and hair are seriously like hollywood quality, but atleast you can see my little bump.

Vacation, Babies & Vacation!

We're back and it was so much fun. I love getting together with my family. We ate good, played good, stayed up way too late (like 4:30 am late), walked miles and miles, won some, lost some, saw good shows, layed at the pool drinking pina coladas, and giggled and laughed till our eyes would water. Vegas was fun and a much needed girls trip for me. I left on Friday and came home on Tuesday. As most of you now know, I was waiting to show up in Vegas with a big surprise for my family. I showed up 5 months pregnant hoping there would be no question as to wether or not I've just gained weight or was actually pregnant. It took them a while to say something or for someone else to just blurt it out but eventually everyone did. We found out right before we left that it's a GIRL!! We're very excited and feel so blessed to be able to experience the girlier side of life ( I think :) ) Here are some pictures.


This is in front of Ceasars Palace
We were haning from the back of the bus...not really we just thought it looked funny

Some new "Bling" I found at a shop on the strip
This is at the Tournament of Kings Midevil Show and Dinner

My Self Reliant Masterpiece

Okay not really because some of it is store bought but it was just fun to say. I just wanted to show how proud I was of myself today as I prepared dinner. I thought to myself- Wow, I'm good. I cut spinach and leaf lettuce from my garden this morning, soaked dry black beans and pulled down a jar of my home canned salsa and started preparing our food. This is what we had for dinner. My kids even loved it...although, I don't have picky eaters, thank heavens!

My version of a "Southwestern Chicken Salad".

In layers:

Lettuce/Spinach
Black Beans
Corn
Cubed chedder cheese
Salsa
Ranch
Crushed Tortilla Chips
Southwestern seasoned chicken (optional) this made it super good. It was chicken breasts topped with southwestern seasoning and then baked.