Fixing the house [Katie]

The front of the house struggles and since the association (and our neighbors) is crazy, we had 30 days to fix it.

Here's Uncle Doug sawing away!

Jason getting in on the hammer action

The grass was looking a little long, so Shelly and Jason thought to help out by hammering it down.

Grandpa and Uncle Doug working hard!

Time for a break! Shelly shoots, she scores!!!!!

Shelly and Jason with bugs! [Katie]

K, so there isn't a bug, but it is Jason doing a BIG no-no! That's our neighbor's wall....

Here's the bug! A lady-bug to be exact!

Fun times, fun times!!

Adventures in the life of the Schofields...

Here's some random adventures over the last month or so...

Mark had gone to play basketball in the morning, and I was doing my best to sleep in - that is until I heard a loud crash followed by screaming coming from the kids room... This is what I found when I ran in. Shelly was under the top drawer or two and was able to get out on her own, thankfully, so I left the mess for someone stronger to help clean up. Mark is awesome!!

Here's Shelly enjoying a rare ice cream sandwich. Mom brought some back from somewhere, and Shelly quite enjoyed helping finish them off...

I had been worried this day would come - and that it would be one of my kids fault. Despite my best efforts, the kids love to draw on the window with chalk [this includes banging]. I'm pretty sure they weakened the window quite a bit, and if it hadn't been one of Doug's friends, one of the kids would have done it soon. I figure I actually owe the guy a favor for saving the kids from broken glass falling on top of them... [in case you can't tell, the window shattered, from the inside and all the glass is on the ground outside]

Grandpa to the rescue! He cleaned up all the glass outside and took out the leftover pieces of window. What an awesome guy!

I bought a Santa Potato Head around Christmas, but apparently I forgot about it. I found it the other day and Shelly wanted to show me what Santa says... I had to tape it! It was pretty much required.

Playing with Daddy

Mark came home unexpectedly early last night and was able to see the kids just before bed time. They needed it too! I woke up super tired and it quickly turned into a TV day - all day. [This it not normal - I'm typically against having the kids watch tons of TV, but lately it's been happening more and more. Thankfully, since I've gotten better, I've been able to get back to not quite so much TV again - who knows, maybe I'll even get to none someday! Oh the ideals I had before I had kids!!] I did feel better later, but not better enough to switch the routine - and then it was Jason's nap time and Shelly and I couldn't leave the house to go to the park like I had planned... Oh well. They got some good rough housing in with Daddy in the evening.

Both on Daddy's back for a piggy back ride!

Again!!

Not quite sure how this one started, but everyone was laughing, so it's all good!

Playing in the rain

We had a freak storm (or bunch of storms) hit for almost 3 weeks. It hasn't hardly rained during the day since we moved here 2 years ago - so it was fun to let the kids run and play in the rain. I had fun trying to teach them how water and gravity and floating things can be fun. They didn't quite care about the technical 'how-things-work' lesson, but they did agree that it was fun!

They were finding leaves and throwing them in the running water in the gutter to watch them float down to the drain

They got tired of leaf following and wanted a more hands on approach (or should I say 'feet on')

That jacket was a bit too big. He didn't seem to mind...

At some point, Jason figured out that he can short cut the 'leaves floating down the gutter and into the drain' thing and just throw them down the drain...

Disneyland!

It had been a while since we had gone to Disneyland. I hadn't been feeling good, our passes had expired, Shelly turned 3 and we now needed a ticket for her - I think the last time I took the kids had been sometime in early December. We finally got a chance where Mark, Shelly and I could all go and get our passes renewed at the same time and spend time with family! Turned out to be quite fun. My cousins were there for a funeral (yup - they went to Disneyland while they were visiting for a funeral - aren't they awesome!) and we got to go with them for a few hours in the morning. Doug was also performing with Entertainers. They've gone with an all Disney song package this year, so it was even more fun to see it for the first time at Disneyland! And it was pouring rain all morning. Good times.

Jason staring at a random pole while we waited for Doug's performance to start

Most of the crowd! Seth is sitting on Laurie's lap (all we get to see is her hair), Aunt Grandma, Grammy, Katie, Brea, Spencer (with Conner on his lap) and Shelly standing in the front

There's one shot of the group - Doug is the one whose cummerbund fell off... He seems to have wardrobe malfunctions whenever we watch him - not sure if it's us or him yet :-)

Jason was super into it!

Connor and Brea on the Rockets!

Jason and Katie - Not sure if Katie is excited or scared, but pretty sure Jason is bored. He was way excited to see the thing go 'roun a roun' and make huge circles with his hand. It must have worn him out...

Shelly and Mark - looks like they had fun!

Katie on the phone in the rain in line for Small World (they re-did it and have tons of Disney characters in the ride now - I'll spare you all the photos I took of every one we saw - Katie helped point them out for me)

Apparently Katie started a trend - suddenly everyone wanted to be on the phone in the rain in line for Small World!

Shelly was trying to keep dry and pose for a photo - this was her compromise

In the ride

Wet and excited to not be in the rain - even if it was temporary!

Time to go home - and bribe the kids with cookies!

Painting

I've been avoiding letting the kids paint. I couldn't handle the idea of the set up and clean up that would be involved. It made me tired just thinking about it. I finally broke down and let them do it one day while Mark was home just in case it really was as bad and I was thinking it would be. Thankfully, my horrible nightmares about it were just that. It turned out to be quite fun and we've let them paint a few times since - once or twice by myself even! [It's amazing how much energy the right meds can give you!]

Just getting started

We put some of our old t-shirts on them as 'painting shirts'

We've learned to give them each their own water cup...

On the paper Jason... No wonder his face is a mess!!

It took us a while to figure out why Shelly's paintings were all the same color all over the page... She dips her brush in every color, every time she goes for paint...

And the finished product! Ta-Da!!