The Sumida's recording studio

This is what I walked in on after being out of the room for a while. Don't you just love kids imaginations?

Ain't he handsome?!

I just got back from taking Justin to get his picture taken at Sear's. I'm always so pleased with the job they do. Today was no exception. Justin gave us his true smile and the photographer did exactly what I wanted. She took them a bit further back, so we had room to zoom in to what I really wanted when we sat down to do the ordering, which is what I did. For his 8x10 that we hang over the fireplace I chose the first picture, but zoomed in further than it shows here. Sorry to brag, but this boy should be a model in my book!

Yum!

Just wanted to share this simple and obvious idea. Obvious to most people, but if you're me...not so obvious. Yesterday, on the last day of Safety Town, the parents were invited to come for a nutrition mini-seminar while the kids learned self defense. During this short presentation the woman gave a great idea called the nibbler tray. The idea is to have this out all day and let them graze when they want with lots of good, nutritious things. The above tray is what I put together this morning. It was a hit right away, but I'll have to be sure to switch the choices up a lot to keep them from being bored. Thought I'd pass along this good idea. By the way, in case you're wondering, that bottom right slot is peanut butter for dipping the apples and carrots.

Safety Town

Earlier this month I enrolled the kids into an interactive safety course that was offered through the city. My good friend, Natalie took the kids for me most of the week since it's harder for me to leave during the day. Thank you Natalie!!! If it weren't for you they couldn't have gone. It was every day from 9:30-11:30 and they learned about fire, gun, water, animal and bike safety, nutrition, 'my body is mine' and what do do when someone abuses that and self defense. It was all done in a fun way and they really enjoyed themselves. They even had a little graduation today to celebrate all they learned. It also included a kit with their fingerprints and ID cards and a disk all about them so if they ever went missing (heaven forbid!) we have something right at our fingertips to give to the police. Above is a picture of them with Sam Benedict. Our city certainly has some neat things offered to families. I still need to catch the free movies in the park that's each Friday night. Yeah, maybe next week. :-)

Justin's 8!

Justin is officially 8. Today he started the day at Safety Town (there will be an entry about that at the end of the week) and then had his friend over for a few hours. After Kirk got home we all went to Mimi's for dinner (he already had his party back in June remember) and then came home for some cake. Justin, we love you so much! You are such a sweet boy with such a kind heart. We are proud of the boy you have become and the young man you are growing into. We are blessed to have you as our son. Happy birthday, sweetie!!!

Big Bear

My cousin Mary got married this weekend in Big Bear and so we decided to make a weekend out of it with my parents. We rented a 2 bedroom cabin and spend a couple of nights up there. We beat my parents there by about 3 hours, so we decided to hit the alpine slides first. They were a hit!

After that we headed back to the cabin and while Devin took a nap I took Justin and Avery to the pool with my parents. Then we went over to the little 'beach' on the property and the kids had a lot of fun playing in the lake while we got to visit with other family members there getting ready for the wedding the next day. It was a fun evening.

Then we headed back to the cabin for some R & R and good company before bed.

The next morning it was back to the lake to do some rock hunting, but it was really hot, so Kirk and I didn't last very long. We decided to talk the kids into going back to the pool so we could cool off too.

Here is our cute cabin. It sure was nice sitting on the porch enjoying the nice breeze.
And here is the whole reason we were there in the first place. This is my sweet cousin Mary and her husband of only one minute at the time on their big day. Aren't they cute?
The reception was directly after the ceremony and it was very nice. The food was wonderful and having all our family around was a lot of fun. Thank you Mary and Nick for such a wonderful time. Here are my cute kids all dressed up. Avery is dancing with my cousin's daughter, Jill. They were so cute out there! Kirk took Devin back to the cabin because he was being Devin times 3. He certainly can be a difficult little one. Thank you Kirk for taking him so I could enjoy my cousin's big day without too much chaos.

All in all it was a good trip. I hate to be negative on here, but I am documenting this to eventually be put in a journal, so I can't lie and sugar coat things too much. Devin has a way of making things not as pleasant as they should or could be and this weekend was no exception. He's in a stage right now of not ever being satisfied. Doesn't matter what it is. He won't be happy with it. So, with that being said, and that aside, the rest was pleasant. The kids had a good time and that's why we do these things in the first place, right? :-)

Kirk is official!

He did it! After much study, preparation and prayer, Kirk passed his electrical licensing test this past Monday. He is now officially a licensed electrician. Good job, Kirby! I'm so proud and happy for you...and us. :-)

Princess Roxy

Well, I did it. I found another kitten. The kids and I spent the last couple of days in Huntington Beach with my parents and we did some extensive kitten searching. My mom is sick to death of the subject and she loves cats! I searched all over the Internet, went to several shelters and found nothing. What I really wanted was a long-haired, soft kitty. Well, I found her, but she's scared to death! I had a cat years ago with this same problem and it was a lot of work to gain her trust. I vowed I'd never do that with a pet again and here I am doing it. Didn't I learn the whole looks don't matter lesson years ago? I just couldn't help it. Isn't she pretty? But if I have to crawl under my stairs with Justin again to retrieve her from hiding, I'm not sure if this will work out. Did I mention she's Persian?

Meet Jagger

I caved. I was going to wait until next spring to bring in a couple of new kittens, but who was I trying to fool? Anyone that knows me knows I'm a cat lover and I just miss Autumn too much to wait that long. I found this darling little guy from the animal shelter at the adopt a pet place held at Petco. There were many kittens and I didn't have a black, semi-shorthaired kitten in mind, but he was very friendly and loving. I left him behind only to keep thinking about him. I talked it over with Kirk and off the kids and I went to pick him up. I haven't been disappointed. So far he's a great little guy. He loves the kids and has a great purr box (which all of us cat lovers know is important - ha). Now we're on the hunt for a friend for him. I'm sure there will be another entry very soon about the next one. Until then...

Fourth of July!

Happy 4th to everyone! Our day was pretty low key this year. We spent the first part of the day doing a few errands. In the afternoon I made homemade salsa (yum!) and frosted the rest of the cupcakes for dessert at night. Our eventful evening started out with dinner. The kids love the Fourth of July because they get to have chips with dinner, which is unheard of at our house. It's the simple things, isn't it?

We then moved outside and did a few poppers followed by the red, white and blue cupcakes. Fun for the tongue!

The above picture of the kids at the fence is almost a nightly or daily occurrence. They play with the little boy next door this way all the time. That's Hunter in the middle.

We then did some sparklers and some very noisy and illegal fireworks in the backyard on a make shift table. We cut the fireworks short because they were way too noisy and we were afraid we'd get the police sicked on us from unhappy neighbors.

Some more sparklers (Devin had gone inside because the fireworks scared him) and then we went out front to watch the city's fireworks show. We couldn't see them all, but we could see the higher ones. It wasn't our most exciting 4th of July ever, but hopefully we made some memories and the kids had fun. All in all it was a good day.

I am so grateful to be one of the priviledged to live in America and enjoy all our freedoms and all the small things we take for granted so much. I love our country and am proud to call myself an American. I'm thankful for all those who are out there serving our country proudly and I pray that they will return safely to their families. Happy birthday, America!

Welcome!

We have a new addition to our family. We are excited to get to know her. Although our last member served us well and brought us many great memories, she died and we decided to move on and increase the size. Yes, our old one was large. It just seems large is the way to go these days. We enjoyed our old one for nearly 8 years. She only had 2 other bouts of trouble along the way, but yesterday seemed too much and she just gave up. So, after reading my last entry do you think I'm talking about a cat? Nope! Here is our new addition.Isn't she beautiful? Our last tv blew up for a third and final time (don't ever buy a Panasonic) and we decided it was time to give in and buy a new one. One friend said it happened on a good weekend because of all the sales. I guess that's one way to look at it, but with our oven going on the blink about 3 weeks ago and coughing up a nice amount of money to have that fixed, our cat getting blood work and labs done two weeks ago and then her vet bill yesterday I can't quite agree. BUT....I must say it IS nice and I AM loving it. Never thought I'd say that about such a huge tv.

Goodbye Autumn

Yesterday was a sad day in our house. Our cat, Autumn, had to be put down. She had been part of our family for 7 years this month. She was having bowel issues and when it comes to something like that, well, enough is enough. Only two weeks ago we spent a nice chunk of change on her to see if anything was wrong. Everything came back fine. They did do one procedure that we all hoped would clear it up, but no such luck. So, yesterday we made the big decision to take her in. We will miss her fiesty personality. She honestly thought she was a watch dog, so she was no one's friend except ours. The kids are comforted to know that she is in heaven with her friend Chloe and they are probably having a happy reunion.

The movies

No picture for this entry, but I still wanted to tell about it. I know, I say this a lot lately (which is not a good thing really), but Devin's session got canceled this afternoon, so we hurried, popped some microwave popcorn and headed over to the cheap theater to see "Horton Hears a Who". Oh my gosh, it was great! I had reservations about taking Devin, but looked it up and it was just shy of 1.5 hours, so I figured the worse that would happen is I'd have to stand with him for a bit. Nope! He LOVED it! He sat on my lap and ate popcorn and watched the whole thing up until 10 minutes until is was over and even then he was fine. He just wanted to go across the aisle and play with the seats. Avery's the one that got bored. She really doesn't like to go the movies, but I figured this one would be short enough. Not so, but she survived. And Justin liked it a lot too. We just sat and ate our popcorn and enjoyed the A/C and entertainment. Fun times!