Friday Foto Fun

Ty and I played around with my camera this afternoon. My favorite shot is the one Ty took of Austin and myself. I think I'll hire him more often.

Hopefully Nicolette won't be too upset...

I am attempting to do something that no man with half a brain would do...I'm hacking into my wife's blog without her permission! She is probably going to kill me, so I'll be including my Last Will and Testament at the end of this message.

Today is Nicolette's birthday. She is a smart, motivated, beautiful 26 year old and I'm extremely lucky to be able to call her mine. Seriously, I can't imagine how things would work around my house without such a great wife. There are so many things that I appreciate about her, but here's a short list of the little things that I love and appreciate.

1. I love her laugh. Her laugh changes depending upon what we are doing. If I'm going to buy her Taco Bell, she has a laugh for that; kind of giddy and excited. She has various laughs...I love them all.

2. I love the squirrel noise she can make. Seriously, she can make this crazy squirrel noise and I can't figure out how she does it. Its amazing.

3. She might get mad at me for this one, but she has the ability to look and act like a dinosaur that's on Jurassic Park. It's one of the little creepy ones on the first show. No, she doesn't look creepy when she does it. :) It's cute and funny. She will never do it for anyone in public so you'll have to take my word for it.

4. I love her ability to dance. Many of you know that she is a great dancer, but only I have seen her bust a move to practically any and all songs playing on TV or the radio. She has a lot of dance styles. She busts a different one out every day. The kids love it!

5. I love her inventions. I swear she has a new idea everyday that would probably sell. She really should make a list of all of these things.

6. I love the noise she can make with her nose. I won't elaborate, but she has a way of itching her nose and it makes a sound that actually bothers me, but I can't imagine her not here doing right next to me. :)

Okay, so I'll stop here, but I just wanted my wife to know that there are SOOOOOOO many things that I love about her. I am blessed to have you in my life. You are a great mother, a fantastic wife, and my best friend. Have a great day and HAPPY B-DAY!!!

*** Final Will and Testament***

...coming soon...jk

Rumor Had It

About two weeks ago Eric told me he was laying on the couch watching the TV while Austin was crawling on the floor. All of a sudden Austin's head popped up in front of Eric's face... he had pulled himself up. I had yet to see the magic that day until I went into his room after he woke up from his nap, and this is what I found.

I guess it's time to lower the mattress down before he falls out.

Austin cracks me up. If you haven't seen him in the last 5 or so weeks, he is completely mobile. Crawling everywhere is no problem for him, in fact he is often scooting around the corner and down the hall to find his brothers so fast, you don't even realize he's gone. He loves to climb on top of things too, like the fire place, the box of wipes (he doesn't actually sit on them, but he tries) and yesterday he climbed on top of an old DVD player we had on the ground. He gets so proud of himself when he does that. When he made it on top of the DVD player he turned around and grinned his huge toothless grin at Eric and started bouncing up and down. And now, yes, he's pulling himself up on everything he can get his hands on. The problem is he forgets to hold on sometimes once he's up and it's a much farther fall when you are standing vs. crawling on all fours. Oh well, I guess anything is better than falling 4 feet off a doctor's exam table. I still need to post about that, one day soon.

Fun Roller

Can you have too much family fun. I don't think so. Check us all out trying the boys new spring time toy they got last Christmas but we just finally busted out.

They boys had a great time going back and forth across the yard, but I had to see what Eric looked like doing it. Then he made me take my turn. I was so scared I was going to fall out. Fun times.


TYLER


TANNER


ANYA AND SHTIYA


ERIC


NICOLETTE

Spontaneous

Our family plans for the evening started out as visiting the Strawberry Festival here in town. After a whole 5 minutes of being there, we asked for our money back and left. I didn't even see one strawberry except the balloon flying solo at the entrance. They apparently need a new event planner for the strawberry festival.

We then stood outside with disappointed kids and a few hours to kill before bed. Eric and I decided an impromptu game of mini-golf was just the cure for a evening like this, so off we went.

I know Ty has done mini-golf a few times, but Tanner has only been once or twice. Austin was as always a trooper and never once made a sound, just watched all the sights. I obviously had some fun with my camera, (fair warning... lots of family pictures to follow). Ty was really good. He would square up, hold the club right, and almost always get the ball in under 6 strokes, sometimes in just a few. Tanner could really care less about the over all point of the game, but he sure liked to whack the ball when it was his turn. We ended the perfect evening with some ice cream for the boys.

I love having family time, and it's an added plus when everyone behaves and has a great time. It makes me actually want to do it again. Even though it turned out to be a later evening than planned, I would so do this day again. Thanks strawberry festival for being so lame so we could have a BLAST at mini-golf.

Dee and Venita

This weekend my sister was home to walk to stage at Sierra College for her AA. I missed it because I over planned and the graduation went way faster than it should have. Good for the people there, bad for me who was trying to get there. Anyway, apparently she had fun but we went out with her and my family today to brunch to celebrate.

I am so proud of her and her schooling. She is now at CSUN majoring in Deaf Studies and kicking butt at it. She had done very well and I'm sure will continue to excel in her line of work. Congrats Dee.

Lunch was really good. We ate at Ventia Rhea's in Rocklin and it was yummy. The boys were so well behaved. At the end of lunch when we were taking all the pictures Ty got really excited about his corn dog, and all of a sudden it had to be in every picture. The best is the one with my Mom and Dee. Right before I took the picture Ty lunged in and put his corn dog right in the middle of the picture. It was too funny.

After lunch they gave the boys some balloons and out side the restaurant they had these really cool benches. If it hadn't been so late I would have gotten some better snaps of the boys, but I took a few really quick. I might have to head back up there to take some more pictures someday or make a backdrop like this of my own.

It was a really nice afternoon all in all. Thanks Dee for giving us a good reason to get together :)

Thank you

Thank you to all that voted. It means the world to me. Check out the spot on the news.

http://news.cnnbcvideo.com/?nid=jgnpfNw1UX7bV4M_DQLOmTY1MDEwNQ--&referred_by=15870508-mfgksox&p=moveon

Thanks again.

Chevy's

My dad went on a Chevy's kick a couple of weeks ago and we went as a family to eat there two Tuesday's in a row. I had the buy one meal get the second for 4 bucks, so who could say no. Chevy's is one of my favorite restaurants. All you can eat chips and salsa is a meal on it's own for me, then I take the food I've ordered home and it's a meal for the next day. 2 for 1, whoo-hoo! But when we went with my parents, we got this awesome corner booth with so much room, windows on both sides and room for Austin and his car seat too. It was so nice. My dad really had a great time with the boys too.

So Pop, when do we go back?

Snails and Smiles

Snakes and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails,

That's what boys are made of.
With dirt on his nose,
and scrapes on his knees,
the throwing or rocks,
and the climbing of trees,
with pockets of frogs,
and jars full of bugs
makes a sweet little boy
full of kisses and hugs!

Sticky fingers, dirty face,
Rugs and pillows out of place,

Cars and tractors here and there,
Blocks and boats everywhere,

Gold and silver have I none,
But worth a million are my Sons.