The Fun Jar

My Mom had this great idea. Its called The Fun Jar. I cut out a bunch of circles out of colored paper and put different ideas of fun things for the kids to do when they are need of some mommy time. There are simple things like blowing bubbles and playing hide and seek or there are more involved things like crafts and going to the park. Then I painted a jar to make it look like a fun jar. It took awhile to get enough ideas to put in but finally I got some in there and we were able to try it out.

Our first Fun Jar activity was painting rocks. We found some nice size rocks in the backyard and got out some washable paint and went crazy.

The kids really liked it and Elena had paint everywhere by the end but Patrick actually had some nice looking rocks by the end of it. I'm excited to see how the fun jar works on those crazy days.

Elena keeps going out in the backyard some days and says "Paint rocks, paint rocks"

Our big 4 year old

Patrick turned 4 today. It feels so strange to have a 4 year old. It still feels like to me that he should be 2 maybe rather than 4. We wanted to celebrate his birthday with a small family party and one friend. He of course chose Caleb so when I told him that Caleb would be coming because he was family than his next choice was obviously Roegan Cola. So we invited the Colas to join us. That morning we had planned to go to the temple for our friends Larissa and Mikey Taylors sealing and then come home for Patricks party. Jesús and I had a wonderful time at the temple, I got to wear one of my new dresses.Then we waited after the sealing for Larissa and Mikey to come out

They looked amazing and happy
Jesús and I headed back to Bakersfield and stopped on the way to eat at an Italian restaurant called Buca di Beppo. It had great food and a fun atmosphere. After lunch we quickly made it home to get ready for the party.
Patrick was the happiest little boy opening up all his presents, he kept yelling Thank you!! And I have always wanted one those.
The boys loved playing with Patricks new presents.
Patrick got this really cool police officer costume and he hasn't taken it off since except for church. Maybe someday he will be like Matt Gates! I bet he would love to see him in his uniform.
Saturday night I went and got Patrick a birthday balloon so he would have it Sunday morning when he woke up. The first thing he told me was "Mom! Thank you for my superheros balloon!"
After church I wanted to get a picture of the kids in their Sunday clothes for Patricks birthday.

A few things

Here are a couple things I wanted to post about Elena's birthday.

Here she is showing off her new shoes.

Here are the kids being cute for pictures

I curled Elena's hair for her birthday.

We were getting ready to go one day and Elena needed help with her shoes so Patrick offered to help.

The kids always do better with a bag of popcorn and an Icee at Target, this is how happy it makes them.

I wanted to get a picture of how curly Elenas hair is after her baths. I love it. I wish I had her curl.

She loves to play with her kitchen that she got for her birthday. She made sure she had on her pearls too.

Elena wanted to get all her fun princess stuff. She got her pearl necklace on and jewel bracelet and I helped her put her tutu on and she put on her new Princess shoes from Trish. We walked around like this for a while.

Before the day is done

I need to tell you about this sweetheart.

Today my baby is two years old. Today 2 years ago she came into this world and was immediately showered with love. My arms ached to hold her and I couldn't wait until the next chance I was able to go see her in the NICU. Today she is still showered with love and my arms ache to hold her whenever I'm not with her. She made that day bearable. Even though I had lost so much, I had gained even more. This beautiful daughter. And she's mine forever.

Some special things about her are:
She is good little mommy to her baby dolls.
She loves to cuddle.
She does this funny thing and grabs your face and talks to you very seriously about 2 inches away.
She loves animals but is kind of afraid of them at the same time.
She loves to do exactly what her big brother does.
She loves to sing songs and then applaud herself when she is done and say "hooray"
She can say a ton of words but sometimes she is hard to understand by other people but that doesn't matter because I understand her.
She loves to dance to Beyonce.
She loves to get dirty in mud and dirt but then loves to play in the bath to get clean again.
She doesn't eat very much but she will try a bunch of different foods.
She loves to look at bugs and when she knows they are dead she will be sure to say "he's dead"
When she gets her dress on Sunday mornings for church, she has to go show Daddy how pretty she is.
She is still taking one nap a day which is very nice since her brother has sworn off napping.
She is a wonderful sleeper and almost always will go down immediately even without rocking with Mommy.
Sometimes Mommy rocks her anyway.
She makes the best fake sad face, you can't help but laugh but then tickle her to make her smile again.
She has the best laugh when she is being tickled.
She likes to tell people "Bye" even strangers.
She brings so much joy to my life that I can't imagine my life without her.

Look what I got!!

I found these on Craigs list and I have been looking for chairs like these for a while. Mom bought them for me for an early birthday present. We made a day of it and drove to Porterville to pick them up. The kids weren't loving the trip but it was worth it.
I'm going to paint them so stay tuned!

We've been doing a little painting

This is what the front room looked like when we moved in. It was a nice color but a little too dark for such a small space.

The brick was a little lighter than the walls but it still was a little too dark.

So we painted the walls and it lightened up the room. But I still wanted to paint the brick and ceilings. I'm not a fan of painted brick but in our case it was already painted. Jesús didnt want to paint the brick.

So we painted the dining area ceiling the other night and we really like the way it looked and when we got to the brick I started painting it a little

Jesús saw that I had painted the brick and he kept on painting. It was a big difference. While we painted we noticed the part that wasn't painted white it looked kinda shadowy. You can see the difference in the color at the bottom of the brick. Much brighter.

Then we finished the rest of the ceiling. Doesn't it look so much brighter?? It makes the room feel much bigger.

This has been our typical summer

Popsicles at Grandmas (and swimming but I dont have pictures of that since I'm usually in the pool)

Looking at bugs in the backyard

Patrick keeps finding either my phone or camera and takes hundreds of pictures each time. And yes he took this one of himself while I was napping.

Watching movies downstairs

Swimming in the pool or running in the sprinklers

Drinking out of the hose

Eating ice cream.

I hope every summer is just like this.