School Picture Day

Hayden had his official school pictures yesterday. I wasn't too excited about boring, old Lifetouch doing them, so I took a few at our house before he got to school. I may end up being pleasantly surprised by Lifetouch, but if I'm not, at least I know I love these!

Ten on Wednesday

1. Yes, I know this is technically not the way it should happen. But I'm breaking the rules!

2. Rich has been TDY for 2 nights, so Tuesday was a little hectic. That's my excuse ;-)

3. That was only the 3rd time he's been away from home without us since Ben was born. We've been really lucky! With his new job, he'll unfortunately be away a bit more often.

4. So, with Rich gone, you'd think I'd take the easy route and do super simple suppers. Let's just say I've learned my lesson. I had bought all the ingredients to make this yummy mac & cheese from the Sept issue of Cooking Light magazine. I was going to make it Sunday then we could have it for leftovers on Monday. Well, that never happened so I decided to go for it on Monday night when I was solo with the kids. While it was very tasty, there were lots of steps and lots of dishes involved. After having kid bath and bed time duty and kitchen clean-up duty, I'm definitely going to do "simple" from here on out!

5. I'm feeling like a teenager again, and not in a good way! My skin is not taking to the California weather very well and I just cannot stop breaking out. In fact, it's worse than when I was teenager. I've been trying lots of different products and I'm just hoping that as the stress of moving wears away, my skin will improve too!

6. We're mostly settled into the new house, but we just can't seem to tame the clutter. It's always driven me crazy and I vowed that once we moved in here, I would immediately find a place for everything. Well, there's not a good place for everything! Why do we have so much random stuff that we can't part with but that needs a home? I'm also terrible about "out of sight, out of mind," so if I have something that needs attention at some point (like bills to pay, a restaurant coupon I want to use, article about a museum exhibit I want to see, list of school supplies, playdate schedule, etc, etc, etc) and I don't leave it out to see, I'll end up forgetting about it. Anybody have a good system to beat this monster?

7. Are you watching The Sing Off? If not, you should be! I'm just in awe of the talent. Highly entertaining and uplifting. Check it out on Monday night!

8. We had the pleasure of connecting with old friends last night! Delaney was born just a few months before Hayden and the two were part of our Book Club gang of kiddos (I think among 9 women, we had 13 kids in the course of our time in Colorado Springs!). This is some of the group in July 2007:

And this was last night, now including Delaney's twin 3-year-old brothers and Hayden's little brother:

We met up for some playing and a picnic on the beach. It was close to 7 before we got down there and the fog had rolled in. We got food in the kids and before we knew it was dark. Really dark. I was hoping I'd get a few nice pictures of the kiddos, but ended up snapping one with my flash just to document them together again. We'll have to save the photo shoot for next time!

9. I'm running the Manhattan Beach 10K this Saturday and I'm so excited to get back to racing! I registered for the Rock-n-Roll LA Half Marathon on October 30th, too. And I've got my sights on the LA Marathon next March. We'll see how this half goes next month before I officially commit to 26.2, but I'm definitely itching to get back to marathons. I haven't done a full marathon since Ben was born!

10. I'm still working on getting my business all legally set up here in California. I keep going round and round trying to figure out the most cost-effective way to do it. And every time I head to the internet for advice, I just keep wishing I had someone who I could talk to. Erin reminded me that I could call PPA (the Professional Photographers of America) and the base legal office. Aha! My conversation with PPA was helpful, but ended up raising more questions for me. Small world, though, as we neared the end of our 40 minute conversation and discovered that the woman I was speaking to used to live in Fraser, Colorado, right around the corner from where our condo is!

I finally found the person I've been praying existed at the base legal office. After my initial appointment with a friendly young Captain led to more questions, he popped his head into their tax guru's office and then sent me in. There, I met Judy Gilmer. The answer to my prayers! She's a tax expert, knows the ins-and-outs of moving with the military (and the tax and state residency rules that come with it), she has some photographers as clients, is a certified Quickbooks Pro advisor, and was just all around awesome.

While this move hasn't been easy, I do feel like God is watching out for us. Every time I start to get discouraged or down about something, He has sent someone into our life with the answer. We've had lots of blessings in the last 6 weeks!

A park day afternoon

Finally sifting back to the archives and found this stash of pictures from an early May trip to the neighborhood park. It's bittersweet going back through all these months-old photos. . . we've started to settle in here in California, and overall, we like it. But seeing these images takes me right back to the day that I took them. And I miss the mountains, our neighborhood, the park, our friends, Hayden's best friend, and all the fun we had. It also hits me how quickly the kids change. These were taken just less than 5 months ago, but I can't get over how much both boys have changed!

One afternoon, like many, we headed over to the park. Hayden and Hank held hands the whole way there. These two are the bestest of buddies. . .

They did a little swinging, and of course the little brother wanted nothing more than to desperately keep up with the big boys!

Picnic lunch on the blanket before heading home for Ben's nap.

I love that I get to be home with them to do this kind of thing, whether we're in Montana or California. And whenever I feel down about saying goodbye to Bozeman, I just have to remember that I do have so much to be thankful for!

"I'm a great dancer. . ."

Yesterday, we had gotten a flyer about a place that teaches music and dance for kids. They have a preschool piano class that I thought might be up Hayden's alley. At dinner, I asked Hayden if he wanted to take piano lessons. He said he wants to play the guitar. And he went on to tell us that there are different types of guitars, "regular guitars, violin guitars, piano guitars."

We chuckled and then I started to tell Rich about finding the place that does music and dance lessons. Without missing a beat, Hayden pipes up and says,"I wanna take dance lessons! I'm a great dancer, but I want to learn how!"

Tonight, he was showing off his great moves. . .

(I apologize if the quality is poor or if it's sideways. I shot this with my iphone, but just needed a quick way to post it here!"

Mmmmm smores

Flashback to mid-June. I'm finally getting around to the backlog of photos I haven't touched in months! We had grilled for dinner and the boys had been clamoring for smores. Never one to turn down warm marshmallows and chocolate, I gladly obliged. And Rich picked up the camera to actually capture some photos with me in them!

Apparently, Ben is happiest with just a gooey marshmallow! Me, however, I love the combination of all 3 ingredients best. But, I will let you in on my little secret. . . you have to lightly melt the chocolate bar. There's nothing worse than putting warm, gooey marshmallow goodness right next to a cold hunk of chocolate. On the grill, the chocolate melting is simple. I just put down some foil on the top rack, lay down a graham cracker, put the chocolate on top and let it soften for a few minutes.

Around a campfire, I usually try to balance my chocolate on top of my marshmallow for a few minutes. This requires quite a bit of practice to perfect and I'll share another little hint. . . it's easier if you sandwich your chocolate between 2 marshmallows on the stick. But, since we weren't camping, we had it easy this night!

Mmmmmm. . . now isn't that delicious!

The Fabulous Baker Boys

Yesterday, Hayden asked to make "oreos." I figured whoopie pies were a good substitute, so I pulled up a recipe and we got to work. The boys love to help in the kitchen, but mostly I think it's just so they can lick the spoons when we're done mixing. . .

And they had to keep a close eye on the cookies while they were cooling. . .

I noticed Ben giving them a good inspection so I reminded him not to touch anything, promising him a taste once we were all done. He assured me that he was just smelling them. . .

Stinker! That "smell" looked more like a "kiss" to me. We now have a small collection of completed pies that are just for Benjamin (any that he "smelled").

I did make good on my promise, though, and they loved the "oreos!"

I did too!

My little writer

In the past few weeks, Hayden has been showing a much greater interest in writing and drawing. He's always been a pretty smart kid (yes, I am his mother so that definitely makes me biased), but he knew the alphabet and could recognize all the written letters before he was 2. He's been making rhymes and telling me what letters words start with (just based on sound) since he was 3. Put a crayon or marker in his hand, though, and it all pretty much looks like scribbles. Or "roller coasters," his favorite thing to draw.

Lately, he's really been surprising me about what ends up on the paper, or white board as it may be. We put up a bulletin board/white board wall in the kitchen and both boys have loved going to town on the white board.

The other day, after drawing some circles, I looked over and Hayden said he made a bird.

Then, a little later (probably inspired by the happy face on his arm that was the site of a recent test for TB -- the nurse drew the eyes and smile, the test is the "nose")

I looked over and caught him writing on himself. When it was time for bath, I got a better look at what he had drawn and had to document it. He drew 3 cars -- the black one on the right looks about like the cars I always draw for him when he requests them, the orange one is upside down in this picture but since he was looking down at his belly to draw it was actually right-side-up for him, and third green one wrapped around his side.

To go from the scribbles and curves of roller coasters he was drawing just a month ago to these things he's drawing now just amazes me. It truly was an overnight change. He's starting to actually read some words, too. After school yesterday I was asking him who was in his class. He told me one boy was Noah and said that he could read his nametag. He went over to the whiteboard to actually write Noah's name. He sounded it out and go the N and O before mistaking the "ah" sound for an R. Still, I was impressed.

I always just figured my dear boy would be a reader or a speaker (boy does he love to talk!), but perhaps he'll turn out to be a writer after all!

First Day of Pre-K

Today was Hayden's first day of school! He has one more year of preschool before heading off to Kindergarten next year. He's going 3 days a week in the afternoons, from noon to 3. The schedule seemed a little weird at first, but by the time I got him registered that was the only class they had openings for. I think it actually will work out great. . . he's a sleepy head (I had to wake him at 9:00 a.m. today!) so it's nice that we don't have to rush to get out the door to school, his class is smaller than the morning class (13 kids vs. 23), we'll be able to do fun things in the mornings with all 3 of us (especially nice since this is his last year before starting full time school), and I actually get 2 1/2 hours of guilt-free quiet time because Ben goes down for a nap as soon as I drop Hayden off. Oh, and the school is 2 blocks from our house. It's perfect!

Anyhow, we were all ready to get back into a routine, so the whole family was super eager about this day. Hayden was so proud, he even agreed to pose for some pictures for me on our front porch (in the tiny sliver of shade I could find!).

Rich came home for lunch so he could go along, too, so we all set off down the street together.

Hayden was so excited he actually ran most of the way there!

I got a quick photo outside his classroom. . .

then he settled in on the rug to look at books and wait for class to start.

When I picked him up at 3, he ran over and gave me a big hug with a huge smile on his face. He proudly says, "Mommy, some kids weren't good listeners and they got in trouble, but I was a good listener." Nice.

Overall, it was a great first day!