just some highlights

These are all photos from the past two weeks at our house. Some things pictured: The girls' jog-a-thon's at school. They have to run around the field and see how many laps they can do before passing out.... almost literally, Todd and Claire taking in an Oakland A's game, and Caulder licking the bowl clean of ice cream.... the only food item he does this with!

Some other highlights not pictured: A massive stomach bug that invaded our house beginning with Caulder and spinning it's way through each and every one of us leaving mom and dad with lots of laundry and hand holding. I think the worst is behind us. Caulder also earned his first black eye of childhood this past week when he fell off our stage in the playroom. He must have hit the edge just right, because his eye turned so black we had to nickname him spot!

Check out my Slide Show!

Conversations with my Claire

This is my picture of the week. Man, I love these babies...

I have to relay a funny conversation I had with Claire this morning so that I have it written down and don't forget it. So many times we recieve very funny insights into her mind by the things she says, and I don't write them down and later wish I had.... So here goes... I'm in the kitchen doing dishes and she is finishing watching a Dora television showwhen she says...

Claire: "Mom, I'd be lucky if I had 17 fingers."

Me: Why do you wish you had 17 fingers?

Claire: Then I could have each finger do something different and I could do 17 things all at the same time.

Me: Sounds good. But why do you need to do 17 things all at one time?"

Claire: Because it's better than 10 things.

Case closed. She's right! I just wonder where she comes up with this stuff out of the blue? Do you think my endless multitasking is rubbing off on her? My quirky Claire. We just have to love her!

Pools, haircuts, cinco de mayo parties, etc.

The past two weeks can be talked about best with pictures (plus I love looking at other people's pictures and hope you like looking at ours, too!)
Caulder got his first taste of our california summers in one of our new additions (this one just for him) in our backyard. He LOVES the water, and you can kinda see his new teeth (4 now) in this picture.
Claire- What can I say? She's our diva! That's a black umbrella she's holding up there. You can't see it in this picture, but she is also sporting a new soft cast on her left wrist. She fell while going across the monkey bars and fractured her wrist. She gets to wear it for another week or so.
Caulder was all about trying to get into the Garcia- Youngs new pool/blow up slide just so he could shoot the water guns. We enjoyed great friends, fun and mexican food for a pre-cinco de mayo block party in the cul de sac last night.
The girls stayed entertained with some water balloon tossing, and later water balloon fighting at the cinco de mayo party. Thanks for inviting us! We should make it a yearly tradition!

Caulder with Annie's mp3 player. This one should be in an ad.
Savannah approached me last sunday morning and asked me to cut her hair like her cousin Aislyn's. I kept asking her if she was sure, and finally took the scissors to it. Kids are pretty cool that way. They don't debate about big decisions like this the way adults do, they just do it. This picture was before the cut-
This one was during-
This one was after. She likes it and I have still not heard any complaining about her missing her hair.
The girls are enjoying our 80 degree whether with our latest eye sore to be added to the backyard. Todd promised me that this 15 foot pool was the largest we would get before opting for an in-ground pool. The girls are in Heaven!

As for other interesting things to mention that weren't photographed, Todd spent last weekend at a Camporee in charge of the orienteering merit badge. I heard so many compliments from other leaders about what a great job he did, and he was all smiles... camping is one of his favorite things in the whole world. I spent the saturday with Caulder in sacramento at my friend Sarah's baby shower where I got to see a lot of Curran's old nurses from the hospital. It was a little surreal and at times awkward, but overall worth it. Caulder flirted his way into each of the women's hearts.

I also spent this evening making 45 sombrero cookie's for the girls classes tomorrow for the Mexican independance day. As I sat cutting out the cookie dough, Claire kept me entertained with christmas carols as she said that today reminded her of christmas. I guess I need to make sugar cookies more often :)

I was tagged by Mara tonight, but I'll update that later... my brain is fried, and Keslie, I have another load of Laundry to do :)

Life in California

In the past two weeks we are lucky enough to have had quite a few highlights.

Caulder found and LOVES the dishwasher!







He also LOVES his sisters! Whether it's pulling Annie's nose or












"looking up to" Claire as she does her hair.










They dish it out right back when they make him dress up as their prince!











We have had family staying with us which has been great! First it was Grandma Shirley (always willing to clean our house and be a captive audience for one of the girls many "shows")out for
Savannah's birthday















then Grandpa Con and Grandma Gloria (the girls can't get enough of her bedtime stories!) joined in on the fun and to top it off












we had Aunt Tami, Baby V, Aunt Debbie and cousin Aislyn (three peas in a pod when you add Aislyn to the mix of our girls) in for the Savannah's baptism. The girls and Caulder were on cloud nine while entertaining the group.










Savannah's baptism was wonderful with so many family and friends there. We are so proud of her! Afterwards she chose to host a fantastic barbecue with all her friends and their families. She was the center of attention, as it should be, and loved every minute of it!











This last photo was taken of Caulder staring out the window as daddy left for a church meeting... He adores his dad!

The girls, Grandpa and Todd played hookie from school and work to spend their monday in Monterey, which was fun although quite a bit of driving for an afternoon in the sand. And yes, gas is two cents more expensive for all of you because we are still blowing through it despite record prices!

Caulder is working on his fourth tooth in two weeks, and has earned a new nickname- "Turbo." He crawls from room to room before you can blink!

Claire recently dropped off the monkey bars onto her stomach and arm, and fractured her wrist. Puts her in a gel cast for 3 weeks! She was excited to show it off to her friends at school, but was pretty disappointed when she found out she couldn't go to gymnastics! She is still as sweet as ever and so is her cereal. This morning she poured herself some rice chex and then asked if she could have sugar on it. I told her she could have 1 spoonful. She proceeded to go to the untensil drawer and pull out one of my large serving spoons! Can't pull anything past that one!!

Savannah is a very big and mature 8 year old. She has been a big help in the mornings with Caulder when he wakes up before mom or dad, by taking him from his crib and bringing him in to me in bed. What service! I couldn't ask for a better deal!

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Savannah is eight!

We celebrated Savannah's 8th birthday by starting with a favorite lucky charms breakfast in bed, followed by Grandma Shirley flying in for a visit and then we braved Club Libby Lu for Sharpay(HSM)Pooch Parlor Makeovers. I say braved, because there is no experience quite like entering a store that has picked far too small of a location for so many teeny boppers (I think there were about a hundred or so in about 1,000 sq ft plus merchandise) all wishing they were Hannah Montana, and coming out singing either jonas brothers or hannah montana because the same songs were playing over and over. Savannah, Claire and Hanna thought it was the best! Home for cake and ice cream and a few more neighborhood friends who surprised Savannah (she is still talking about it.) She scored some great presents and is very excited about her upcoming baptism and family visits this coming weekend...