Addison's Big Birthday Celebration~

Birthday parties "Tanya Style" are always a big bash! We went to a laser tag place. We had a nice room on the third floor. Tanya made the yummiest Artichoke dip. I loved the chips and Salsa too. She always makes such a great effort to have yummy food and super fun activities and treats for the kids. Celia didn't play laser tag, but loved the arcade games in between and kept saying I won! Emmy was on both teams that won in laser tag. They had a great time!


Aww.. Happy Spencer and Grandpa.


Grandma and Celia dancing. Tanya had a wonderful play list of music for Addison's Party. We had a nice area with a bench and a screen to be with the grandparents, me and Spencer. It was where the party was. I danced with Spencer a lot and my mom too. We made it through the party!


The girls at Addison's Party~



Tanya got a new car! Its a great time to get one, she was able to get everything she wanted including leather seats, a sunroof, and built in blue tooth at a great price! She was able to request a specific color, one she had on her last car, and they even delivered the vehicle to her house! Gotta love it.


The cute Ten year old Addison enjoying blowing out the candles on his super fancy homemade red velvet cupcakes! I loved Happy Birthday song that played while Addison was up there, you know the one from Sixteen Candles the movie hehe.

Cousin Time.

These Kids love playing together~! Whether its computer playing, making sandcastles, shooting videos of themselves, or swordfighting, they have a blast! Addison and kieran got to spend two night straight at Grandmas with our trrop. It was busy, but fun filled!

Lil Joe~

When you're on vacation i've found I actually have a little time to just hang out with each kiddo. This day was Joseph's turn~

Joseph started the vacation as a real helper and sweetheart. He loves time alone with mom. We discovered there were wild rasperries growing behind the porch swing in the back yard. Joseph liked taking pictures and making faces for the camera.~

Visiting the folks~

Cruising in my Dad's Land cruiser. He loves that he can seat eight and drive everyone around. Its like a roller coaster ride hehe, an adventure!



Emmy in her super cute purple hat from Ecuador and Celia hugging her new Dora doll the size of herself!

My Folks came home from South America a day early. Since the kids had already been out of school a week and a half and weather was coming our way, we decided to travel to my parents house a day early too.:) We sure enjoy hanging out at my folks house, enjoying the weather, the cousins, the pool /hot tub, and especially the spoiling from my folks. I love how my Dad cook the meals and mom mom makes everything so beautiful and special. We appreciate all they do to help us have a resort like vacation when we visit them.:)

Exploring Nearby.

Even though it was overcast today, we packed some food (Turkey Sandwiches on buttermilk bread and Capri suns )and went for a quick errand and a picnic. You don't have to go far away to find neat things that don't cost anything, Its great. We found ourselves near Rover park in Roseville. There was barely anyone around which was nice because Spencer didn't know if he liked going to this place to picnic. We had swings, slide, bridge etc.. to ourselves and a cute little table with wooden benches. We had lunch then noticed the little path into was seemed like woods behind the park. We explored a little. The boys were nervous so we sent them back for about two minutes to be on their swings while us girls went a little further. We found a lot of purple flowers, a stream, and a broken house as Celia calls it. I've never seen Spencer so excited to see me when we came back in view after only a couple mins. They swung and played around and Joseph enjoyed sleeving his Magic the Gathering Cards and telling me all about the monsters in that game. Pretty ironic as I couldn't get him to go on a small hike in the city hehe.

After that we went to Auburn and got some drinks drove around seeing neat houses and scenery. Celia said it was beautiful and loved the pink flowers and circles which she called the curvy roads. We ended up at the American River Overlook. It was beautiful and we need to go back there when we have time and can hike around. It so close by and felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, I love it.:)

Celia looked like a little vampire ready to pounce ;)

Emmy was swinging so high, Spencer was looking at her and laughing.

I would have more pictures, but my batteries ran out right after I took these few at the park!

Celia Bear~

Rooster Picnic~

Spencer loves button up shirts these days, and Dad's shirts are even more fun he thinks!


After Celia's session today we packed a picnic and headed out. I wanted to go relax by the river, but realized I need more adults with me and that there was no way the kids were going to stay out of the water and it wasn't quite warm enough for that! We ended up at Fair Oak park. Its a cute little strip of shops with a small park nearby that have chickens and roosters roaming freely. Emmy said it was a good thing we didn't have chicken nuggets because that's what they are made of. Luckily that went over Celia's and Spencer's heads lol. Spencer loved it as you can see.:)





Yes, I brought turkey kielbasa on a picnic lol, Joe assured me peanut butter and jelly sandwiches only wouldn't do, so we had both. It was a fun picnic and Celia made friends with a small for her age little girl named Markal Celia towered over her, but was quite social and talkative, I was happy..~



Joseph was acting like he was really interested in going to swing and slide, but we all knew he was nervous the roosters would peck at him hehe. They were too close for his comfort!

Let's go Fly a kite.

Its a beautiful day, warm and windy. Perfect for flying a kite. the neighbor's had theirs out. Ours however was sooo tangled from previous kite flying and being messed with in the cupboard. The kids had help untangling from Austin our neighbor and eventually we were up and running literally, getting the kite in the air. Emmy even figured out how to fly it on her scooter. The kids spent hours out there enjoying the afternoon.:)




I want the kite up high in the sky!





Celia was alternating kite flying with riding her bike!


Celia has SO much energy, she is loving all this movement!




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Under lock and Key..

We are under lock and key. Especially Spencer. Yesterday when Celia had her tutors over Spencer took the opportunity to take off down the street and around the corner to some other houses to explore. The door wide open is never a good sign around here. Because Celia can't be left alone with the tutor, I said " We have to take a walk." Celia was a bit concerned telling us Spencer was lost, but I was amazed and feeling blessed when two neighbors happened to be leaving to go somewhere at the same time and offered to quickly drive and find him around on nearby streets. Spencer is SO fast and doesn't look back and if he finds somewhere to go inside, he will... Jeremy our neighbor reversed his truck and yelled he found him. We were so relieved. I sprinted to the next street, I'm glad I have been running a small amount lately to even be able to do that.:), and found him at the door step of the two story house that adjoins our fence from the back yard, but is on the next street over. I'm not sure what he is thinking, but I believe he likes to go to houses that are in the same spot on the street as our house, but on a different street.

He is a puzzle and a mystery, and waiting for it to happen again is just not an option. I went and bought a double key sided dead bolt. Yes, I should have waited for my super handy husband to install it. I didn't and I hurt my hand and thrashed the lock a bit, and was completely frustrated. Brian was able to fix the deadbolt and we now have a working lock that is Spencer proof.(for now anyways) We are working on Spencer wearing his ID bracelet a little each day for a minute. As he tolerates that we will increase the time that he wears it. The hope is that we can eventually get him to wear the bracelet. It will be so nice when he does. It was Spencers first day of Tutoring for him in the afternoon too. It went well, which was a relief to me.

It was a hard day, but I feel very blessed to have such great helpful neighbors, a loving & capable husband, and children that stepped up to help with things in the afternoon. We did get to go out too. Emmy, Joseph, Bri, and I went to In-n-out for dinner and went and saw The Lightning Thief. A very cute movie! I would see it again.

I'm still in denial about being a die hard fan:)