Silver Lake

Sam had the whole week off of work, we didn't plan any exciting vacations but have had a great time just hanging out and getting a lot done around the house. Hallelujah for a clean garage (among other things)! One morning we decided to take the kids on a little hike. Because Ruby can now say the word "walk" and prefers toddling behind her brother to being toted by mom and dad we knew we had to pick a short one, so we drove up to Brighton and walked around Silver Lake. "Walked" is probably a generous term for what we did, it was more like take three steps throw a rock into the lake, take another three steps examine a stick, etc., etc.


At some point during our trek Oliver acquired a stick and piece of fishing line so a lot of time was devoted to fishing in the lake. Ollie thought it was the greatest thing ever.

No, Oliver did not catch that fish with his unbaited line, a couple of older men who enjoyed watching Ollie's fishing antics donated their catch to him. It wasn't really anything worth having, the men only kept the fish because they couldn't get them to swim away when they tried to release them. But Ollie was thrilled and so he got his first lesson in gutting and cleaning a fish.

Sam thought it was hilarious to chase after the innocent camera woman.
I even touched the fish myself, only enough to stuff it with butter and lemons and wrap it in tinfoil. Oliver was excited to eat it so I figured I had better do my part.

The Pedal Bike

A few weeks ago I finally caved in to all the begging and took Oliver to the Herriman Skate Park on his balance bike. He did great but he left the park pretty depressed about the fact that his bike didn't have pedals like the other kids. After that he started asking for a pedal bike for his birthday. All he could talk about was taking his pedal bike to the skate park. I explained to him that he would not be able to ride the bike at the skate park because of the training wheels. After a few minutes of thought he came back to me and told me that he didn't want any training wheels. Of course Sam was more than happy to comply so we took the training wheels off before we ever gave it to him.

He has been riding a balance bike for the past year. These are two-wheel bikes that have no pedals so kids propel themselves with their legs and learn how to balance. The idea being that it is easier to learn how to balance first and pedal later. Well, Oliver is a living testimony to that. In under five minutes he had mastered riding his pedal bike with no training wheels. I don't think he ever even crashed.


The bike is still a bit too big for him, so starting and stopping are still difficult, but Sam clocked our block and we figure he rides 2-3 miles everyday just doing loops around that thing.

Happy Birthday to Oliver!

Oliver turned four in August. I can't believe that it was over four years ago that we brought him home from the hospital absolutely clueless as to how a baby will change you (and your life) forever. Oliver is a blessing and I am grateful everyday that I have the privilege of being his mom.
This year Oliver got to have his first ever friend birthday party. I was torn about what kind of a party to do knowing that it would be a pretty good mix of boys and girls until Oliver asked if we could do his party around his favorite book, "The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear." Genius.


These are the invitations that we sent out.



And of course I couldn't resist doing a cake to match!! Everything but the spoon is edible (I ran out of time to make one ; )
At the part we read the book and then played all kinds of strawberry, mouse and bear themed games.

We also had a treasure hunt with picture clues that led to . . .
A red, ripe strawberry pinata!


Here is the birthday party gang (minus the birthday boy). From the left we have, Bailee, Mylee, Levin, Addie, Max, Haegen and Braeden. I guess it wasn't the whole gang because Hadley and Kristen are missing too.
And of course there were presents. Do you want to know Oliver's favorite part? Running in circles with all his friends. Before the party that was all he really wanted to do so in-between games I had them run circles around my empty basement. After it was over and Oliver only remembered the circles I wondered why I went to all that work. Next year it will be a cirlcle party for sure!!

Ruby is my little clothing monger. The other day I was at the store and she was not to happy about being strapped into the cart or even about being at the store in the first place until I walked through the little girl clothing section at which point she started to giggle and smile uncontrollably. Terrifying I know.

She has an especial affinity for shoes and has been known to make me change her shoes several times in a single day. These pink boots are a favorite for sure. She is such a sweetheart though, not to mention absolutely adorable, so she doesn't have much trouble getting us to do what ever she asks.


I just love that I can get her hair into a ponytail now. She is really good to let me do pretty much whatever I want, I wish I knew how to do anything besides pigtails and ponytails. Twelve years of pixie haircuts hasn't really prepared me for that.

Soccer vs. Butterflies

We signed Oliver up to play soccer this year. He was on a team with Kristen and Haegen, some friends from our neighborhood. Oliver was absolutely thrilled with the idea of being on a team, when we got his jersey he would not let me take it off of him for about three days. I am sure he was the only kid who showed up on the first day with a well-worn and stained jersey.



Oliver did really great his first game, staying right on top of the ball and even scoring a goal!

The rest of the games looked more like this, only with no ball in sight. He found that he preferred picking dandelions, doing somersaults and running wide circles around the fields with no concern for the location of the ball or his teammates. In the end I guess he enjoyed his time spent chasing butterflies because he keeps asking when he gets to do it again.

Mother's Day

I don't have any pics of mother's day, it must not have been too memorable. I am pretty certain that I picked up a new blender at Costco and then gave it to Sam to wrap up for me - pretty sure there was never any wrapping involved however. Oliver has a way of making things memorable though. He made a little card for me at preschool that his teacher helped him writein. And I quote, "I love my mom because . . . she lets me watch a movie when I go poo in the potty." Isn't that just so endearing. Maybe I should win mother of the year!

Philosophical Question

So, I am just wondering, if five months pass and you don't blog about it did those five months really pass? I am beginning to think that the answer is no seeing as I can't seem to remember a single thing we did since my last post in April. It is sad really how much I depend on my blog to record our family happenings and yet how undependable I have been of late to update it. Well, I guess it is time to turn over a new leaf. Again.

So, here we go....

In May Oliver graduated from preschool. He had so much fun at school last year and loved his teacher Mrs. Karie. In fact our house was greatly influenced by everything that Mrs. Karie said. He liked to play "Mrs. Karie" at home, I usually had to be "Mrs. Karie" and most of the game was spent explaining to me why I was doing it all wrong. After doing a worksheet at school about his favorite color everything had to be green. He is still totally stuck on the color green

Here he is with his teacher. Because of Oliver's August birthday we have decided to hold him back and start kindergarten when he is six. We didn't want to pay for three years of preschool so we decided to participate in a co-op preschool taught by moms this year and then return to Mrs. Karie's next year. Oliver was pretty devastated to learn that he would not be going back there this year.
The preschool kids did a little program exhibiting all of the songs and poems they had learned throughout the year. Ollie recited the "Chubby Little Snowman" he changed the words so that while it still made sense it didn't quite rhyme anymore!