Spring Has Sprung

The weather lately has been absolutely BEAUTIFUL. In the Upper 70s the last few days. I love when the weather is like this because I can go outside and enjoy it without getting too hot. It also means that it is shorts weather. I have been wearing shorts lately but I will not be posting pictures of that because the glowing whiteness of my legs is a little frightening. Maybe I will have a few pictures involving myself in a few weeks if I can get a little tan.

I have been taking little Walter outside every day. He totally loves it. He is still going around the yard picking up any rocks he can find and throwing them in to the pond. Unfortunately, he sometimes throws rocks that he shouldn't throw (like the rocks that build the sides of the waterfall) but I fish them out and we are good again. He has also taken to throwing leaves, sticks, dirt and the occasional stuffed animal in the pond. That would be why his teddy bear is currently in the washing machine.













The other thing I love about spring is the flowers. I tend to have what you might call a black thumb. I can't make a plant grow but I can kill just about anything for you. Since we have had our house I have gone through hundreds of dollars worth of plants. I plant them, they grow for a while and then they take a nose-dive. So, I thought I might try bulbs this year. They seem a little heartier. I planted tulips and two other things. I can't remember what the other things are, but I planted them. I have been checking on them every day in hopes that they might actually grow. I had set a goal for myself that if 10% of the bulbs would come out of the ground I would feel like I succeeded. Well, today I reached my goal. 9 out of 86 bulbs have come up. Granted, they are only little pointy green things sticking about 1/2 inch out of the ground, but they at least came up a little bit. I can not tell you how excited I am. I included a couple of pictures of my bulbs(the first pic and the one below) and the last picture is of my blue potato bush flowers. We have had this bush since shortly after we moved into our house over three years ago. I have butchered this thing so many times. It only grows on the left side of the plant and some of the branches might look a little droopy, but it can still grow flowers.










Oh, and in case you doubt my plant growing abilities. Here is a picture of "The Great Tomato Harvest" of 2006. This is all I got before the plant died.

Especially for You

By "you" I mean Cameron and Kelsie. Kels has been bugging me for weeks about getting a video of the boy talking. Since he loves the viewing window on the camera this task has been tough. He just wants to see himself. Well, today I gave it another shot. I was hoping to get more talking out of him but he, well, distracted me. When you get to the end of the video you will see why I couldn't get any further.

Cameron and Kelsie, try not to take his actions personally. I am sure he thinks higher of you than this. : )

New Games

As little Walter gets older he gets more creative. It has made my life easier since he can now find his own toys to play with and can use his own imagination.

I have always heard parents say that the best toys are the random things around your house that you don't buy for the kids. Well, this just goes to prove this point. Our favorite new toy............. the box from the garbage bags.

** In case you didn't notice, the second picture is actually the boy falling over his 4-wheeler. That is what happens when you try to walk with a box on your head.

Cough, Hack, Whine, Puke, Poop- not necessarily in that order

I just wanted to let you know that there has been a little sickness going around our house. I started it all. Yeah me. I am sure I wasn't actually the first to ever get this horrible, hacking, phlegm-filled junk but I was the first in my house, unfortunately. I have been sick since Monday night, little Walter and big Walter were sick by Wednesday with different ailments. Little Walter get what I have and is still suffering. Big Walter had some stomach thing that tortured him for a few days but is now gone.

I am still waiting for this cough to leave me alone. I am just thankful that my friendly neighborhood pharmacist was kind enough to deliver some cough syrup with codeine. Magic, pure magic.

The worst part of all of this was last night when there was an incident involving a certain 18-month-old, a bath tub, some poop (not mine) and a lot of freaking out (mine). I will not go into details for your sake and mine but I will leave you with a warning. For those of you who don't have kids or haven't had a sick kid yet, you need to know that administering regular doses of Tylenol and Motrin can cause a few, um, bottom problems. It won't always, but it can. This is just a warning; do with it as you please. Well, I am now going to go have codeine-induced nightmares about last night.

Oh, and trust me, you don't want pics in this post.

Halloween to Now

Um, Hi! So I have gotten reports from some of you that you are displeased with my frequency in updating the blog. I would like to promise, as I have in the past, that I will be better at this. But, let’s get real here. I am terrible at this timely updating. I will give it my best effort but will not promise you anything as I don’t really want to get your hopes up. Then I would feel just terrible when I neglect to update for a while and you are all heart-broken. I know, that would be likely to happen.





Well, now for that update you have been wanting. Since I haven’t updated since before Halloween I guess I could start there. Walter was the Kool-aid man, little Walter was a monkey and I was “Thing 2” from Dr. Seuss (Renee was “Thing 1” and our shirts were quite cute). My parents came to town and we all attended the ward Halloween party. The party was a huge success and I made my first batch of Galyan dogs. For those of you that don’t know about Galyan dogs, they are the best hot dogs around. With explicit directions from Sister Galyan about preparation I set out on my maiden hot dog voyage. I wouldn’t say that they were quite as wonderful as Sister Galyan makes them but they were pretty good and all 100 were eaten.

Next, we come to November. I am sure it was a lovely month but I can’t remember too much right now. I know we did Thanksgiving in Rialto before Thanksgiving Day and that was a lot of fun. We (Thad, Brittany, Andi, Walter, Little Walter, and myself) all went to “A Day Out With Thomas” where we got to take a short train ride on a replica Thomas the Tank Engine. It was pretty fun. I wouldn’t necessarily say that is was worth the money, nor will I say that I am inclined to do it again, but it was a good experience all in all and I now have pictures of the event. These pictures will be used for years to come so that I can tell my son that we did take him to Thomas once, we love him enough to make that journey, and just because we was too young to remember it is not my fault. He can just look at the pictures when he is older and make up the details.
We also had Thanksgiving in Bakersfield on Thanksgiving Day. I was in charge of the relish tray which turned in to a relish tray, salami filled with cream cheese, devilled eggs and two cheese balls. We already had a ton of food so I don’t think we needed the hors deourvs extravaganza but we did it anyway and I have no regrets about my caloric intake.
Now, on to December. There was a lot of eating. I could almost stop there but I won’t. We had a FHE activity with the young married couples in the ward. It was a potluck and I ate too much. Then we had Walter’s company party where I ate too much Indian food and about killed myself with the spices (They said it was mild. Yeah right). Then there was Christmas Eve dinner with my parents, Christmas breakfast at my grandparents’ (a.k.a. the breakfast meatstravaganza that included a large cookie sheet full of bacon and two types of sausage) and finally the Christmas dinner. Oh, and how could I forget New Years eve when we had Korean food with Alexis. At least Renee and I shared on New Years Eve. I guess that helped a little.

If you haven’t guessed, we went to Napa for Christmas this year. The pictures that you see to the left are the boy running through the grapevines in my parents front yard. It is so pretty there. It was a nice trip and Little Walter was spoiled again. That kid has so many toys. Of course Walter and I didn’t help considering we got him a ride-on Thomas the Tank Engine. He really didn’t need it but we thought it was cool. Not practical, but cool.


Let’s see how much of January I can remember… We put new windows in the house. That was good. Oh and in December we put in extra insulation. Our house is nice and toasty. What else??? Oh, I got the flu. Terrible stuff. The good news for the month is that Little Walter started attending nursery after the start of the year. What an amazing thing nursery is. I love it. I can actually listen during Sunday school now. I am sure other stuff happened in January but I have tired myself out thinking about the other months and now I can’t remember. Hmmm.

February has been lovely so far. I have been working outside in the yard the last couple of days because it has been beautiful here. I made the aforementioned rolls. Kate rolled over for the first time. We knew she could do it and I am pretty sure she has been rolling over for months but just never let us see. She is like that. Little Walter has still been great with Kate. He really loves her and is kind to her, which I love.

So, is that enough of an update? If you made it this far I am very impressed. Ta ta for now.

Still Not an Update

This isn't the post that I have been working on but I was too excited to keep this to myself. Are you ready??? Okay, I made homemade rolls for the first time. I even used my bread maker to mix the dough. It was awesome. I am like a domestic goddess.

I got the bread maker at my wedding and this is only the second time it has been used. Unfortunately, the first time I used it things didn't go so well so it went back in to the cabinet for a few more years.

I think this might be the start of something big. Probably just the making of more rolls, but that is pretty big for me.

Pffft!!!

I had the hardest time signing in to this thing. Anyway, I wanted to put your minds at ease and tell you that I am working on an update. It will be loooooooooooooooooong since I have a lot of time to catch up on. I have Halloween, November and early December accounted for so far.

I know you arae all on the edge of your seat and it should be coming shortly.