FairyTale town with cousins

A few weeks back we met my Mom Patti, Sisters Shannon and Danielle, and my two nephews Eli and Jackson at Fairytale Town in Sacramento. Here are a LOT of pictures from our day:
Left to Right- Jackson, Eli, Kiersten, and Bradley. It was really hard to get all of them to look at the camera at the same time.Jackson and Kiersten looking at the goats together. They were pretty good buddies that day.



Grandma Patti and the twins riding riding a teeter totter type ride.
Eli and the twins pulling Grandma and Jackson on the Cinderella coach.


It was really hard to get Jackson in the pictures so here are the three grand kids on the throne. Running around a TeePee.



At the end of Fairytale town we had a picnic lunch and then fed the ducks and geese at the pond. We had a very fun day!

Oh and Jackson and Kiersten enjoyed chasing all the squirrels up the trees. I have several pictures of both Kiersten and Jackson chasing squirrels but not in the same picture.

Bike riding and evil geese.

Since Bradley has been getting in trouble at the gym daycare, I thought it was time to break out the old bike and trailer and go for a ride! Do my workout with out a gym. For the most part they enjoyed themselves. They of course hated the helmets but soon forgot them and left them alone. The first day we rode down town to the college to bring Adam something he forgot at home. Then the three of us went and played at the Children's Park downtown to let them stretch their legs. After a little while I heard some thunder from clouds that were passed but it still made me nervous so we went home.
A few days later we braved the duck pond that I had been wanting to go to for a long time now. The previous times I had been there I remembered extremely pushy geese that hissed if you didn't feed them fast enough. Adam's finals were finished so the four of us went off to the pond. The geese were as viscous as ever and we had to stomp at a few of them to leave us alone but the kids really enjoyed seeing so many ducks, geese, goslings, and pigeons.Here is Bradley at the end of our ride with some serious helmet hair!

Garden a month in.

A lot has changed in my tiny garden!!
It has suffered through an army of angry attack snails, two toddler with sticks that poke at it, and sometimes my small shovel, a frost in APRIL, and a crazy windy day!
Rosemary never bloomed, daisies and carrots disappeared, daffodils never recovered, and my tomato snapped right of with the wind.
So what am I left with?
15 potatoes plants! 9 zucchini sprouts! a watermelon showing up almost TWO MONTHS after it was planted, a holey jalapeno, a new batch of carrot sprouts, and a strawberry topsy turvey who keeps losing leaves left and right!

I bought a cantaloupe plant to take the place of my watermelon seeds that never sprouted and it died right away! When we came home from a weekend away a watermelon popped up right next to the dead cantaloupe so I guess its a good thing it didn't last.
Yesterday I was noticing in my garden what gets sun and what doesn't throughout the whole day and my potatoes only get sun through the cracks of my fence. This is good because the bag says to protect it from heat and make sure they stay cool.
I finally determined the daffodils to be dead and took them out and spaced my zucchinis out a little. While poking around i discovered ANOTHER zucchini sprouting- holy cow! Anyone want a zucchini plant?? If not I am going to have to make a HUGE batch of zucchini bread!!

So what do I do with the bulbs from the daffodils? Can I save them for next year? Do I dry them out?

Easter Fun!

I know Easter passed a few weeks ago but better late than never!! We had a great Easter weekend. We stayed up in Chico instead of going down to Modesto to see family. We had THREE hunts and the kids loved every second of them!
The first was in Durham on Saturday and we met our twins club there. Kiersten realized there was candy inside the eggs so she started popping open all of the eggs and trying to eat them while Bradley hoarded every egg he could!
Later that day I put Easter eggs that looked like soccer, football, basket balls, and baseballs out on the hill next to our apartment. Kiersten was a little bummed that there wasn't chocolate inside but still loved to find them. She's a chocoholic just like her mom! Bradley did the classic steal eggs out of another kids basket when Kiersten wasn't watching.
When they came inside the Easter bunny had visited them and left goody baskets for all of us. The Bunny was nice and gave me Zumba sticks instead of a solid chocolate bunny : ) We decided to have the Easter Bunny visit on Saturday so we could think of our Savior on Sunday morning.
We had dinner with the Doughman's that evening and had another hunt. We let the twins go first before the bigger kids but the twins had become pros from the first two so we let the other 6 kids come out and they definitely held their own!
After the last hunt I opened all the kids eggs and pawned them off on the big kids so we didnt have a ton of candy and jelly beans left to bring home!

Our tiny Garden

I planted a garden almost a month ago now. We have a patch of dirt that is 3 feet by 10 feet on our patio, It took me hours to clean out all the filth that was in that patch! Glass, nails, bottle lids, a LOT of rocks, toys, etc! And you know what? Gardening pays! So far, mine has paid me 3 pennies haha.
I planted daffodils (which are now dying because of the very cold night a few nights ago), shasta daisies around the daffodils, carrots, zucchini, watermelon, jalapeno, rosemary,
and two topsy turvey planters with one tomato and one strawberries.
I didn't know how well the garden was going to grow because we don't get direct sunlight because the fence is to high. I think I over compensated with too many things that I planted. Oh, and I plan to do potatoes too but haven't cut them up and dried them yet.

I am a very impatient person and have been working on it for a while. I made little signs saying what was planted where and put the expected day of when I should see something pop up. I put the higher end of the estimate down to help with patience. That day came and passed 4 days ago...still nothing.....I thought I would make them funny so here's Mr. Potato Head and Super Carrot Man!

Then yesterday I was bent down looking at the garden and I noticed my carrots sprouted!! I did a little happy dance because the garden wasn't a failure!! Today I took the kids out there again and noticed that my Shasta Daisies have sprouted now too! HOORAY! Still waiting on those zucchinis.....
The kids LOVE playing outside. Its hard to have more than one out there at a time because one always grabs my tiny shovel or rake and tries to mimick what I do and they dig up the dirt. AHh! My seeds!

On a different subject- for those who don't follow my weight loss blog, I have now lost 25.5 pounds!! If you are interested in following it the link is KatiesWarWithChocolate.blogspot.com

Our first pet!

I am going crazy living in an apartment and not being able to have a pet! Since the kids loved seeing the giant fish tank at Bass Pro, I decided to buy 5 feeder fish and put them in a tank I found at the thrift store for $3. I named them Wilson, Bruster, Koko, Thomas, and Percy- all train names from either Thomas the train or from Chuggington (their new favorite show).
So the tank keeps getting nasty so everyday I have to clean their darn tank! I call Petco to see what I am doing wrong- the guy laughed at me! Goldfish are really nasty fish and make a lot of waste- I guess five fish in a tiny tank was a bad idea sooo Thomas and Percy had to go bye bye. I bought five so I would have a bigger chance of at least one of them living.

Anyways, Bradley and Kiersten LOVE the fish! They drag chairs over there so they can climb up and talk to the fish. The first few days they wanted to see the fish every five minutes- it was so hard to keep their concentration on anything else. They grab the fish food cans and try to feed them all the time. We've only had one accident of the lid coming off but the food went on the floor and not in the tank. The tank is far back enough on the counter so they can't reach in there and pet them.
Kiersten calls the fish bop bops- I tried to teach her- what do the fish say? Bloop Bloop! You know- like little bubbles coming to the surface?
And Bradley just signs please and points. That is his new thing. He signs please and thinks he can get anything he wants. He will sign please to Kiersten and then steal her toys or whatever she has in her hands or get in to anything he wants. He will know he is not suppose to do something so he will sign please and then do it. His favorite thing is he will sign and then stand next the door and try to open it, I don't know why.

First Hair Cuts

Bradley got his hair cut over a month ago before we left for Maryland. Kiersten FINALLY got her bangs cut last night at dinner with the Doughman's by Grandma Stacy. I was afraid to cut it myself because if I didn't like it I would most likely go shorter, then shorter...

Bradley had his hair cut by cool kids cutz and he sat in Thomas the train and watched a train movie. He had a lot of fun and said choo choo the entire time.