Father's Day 2012

We had a very nice Father's Day this year.We started the day off with church. We love our church. We love walking in and watching the kiddos run to the welcome center and say hello to everyone. We love watching Delaney give Brody a hug and a kiss before going off to their separate classes (even though they are right next to each other). We always love the message and yesterday was not any different. After the service, we get the kids (they are so excited to see us) and we pick out our table for breakfast and get comfy. We had some yummy breakfast burritos and enjoyed some nice conversation. Daylen was with us because of Father's Day, so we enjoyed having him with us at church too!


After our bellies were full, we went home, played a little bit and then I attempted to finish a cake that I had started Saturday. The kids went down for their nap and I jumped into cake mode. I really wanted to make a red velvet, strawberry ice cream cake - which is a little difficult. I managed to do it though and here is how it turned out:

I was so happy that it turned out- I didn't even care if it tasted good at this point:)

At about 3:00, Kaylie came over, the littles were up, so we decided to give Eric his gifts. I just happened to be on Somewhat Simple one day and she was giving out a code for a Father's Day book and I jumped on it! The book came in record time and I asked the littles some questions and wrote exactly what they said and I had Kaylie and Daylen answer some questions too. Eric loved it.

Here are a couple pages from it:

The cover

I was feeling crafty- much to the dismay of my step-children. You should have seen Kaylie and Daylen's faces when I told them that I was going to paint their hands. Priceless. My original idea was to go from oldest to youngest, but it turns out, Daylen's hand is WAY bigger than Kaylie's, so we ended up with this:

In addition, Eric is a big fan of candy. I pinned this on Pinterest and had to make it.....( I will find the link)

One last present- Eric had been talking about getting another tattoo (yes, I am serious). He wants Galatians 6:17 on his arm, not too much, so I talked to his tattoo guy and he is up for it! So I typed out the verse and out it in a frame...not too crafty, but I got the point across.

We went to my parent's for swimming and dinner. I think it was 106 degrees yesterday so swimming was a necessity. Brody has recently become a crazy brave little boy and it's quite stressful but I love watching them swim!

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18 Holes of mini fun!

Miniature golfing. Not my strongest sport. Not my favorite past time. However, I have learned to branch out and do things in the name of fun for my family. Eric and I were in the mood to get out of the house and do something different. We decided to try miniature golfing. I know what you are thinking- Brody-golf club- golf ball- smelly water with full potential to fall in- I know, I was thinking the same thing. I had such a de-ja-vu thing goin on when we pulled up. I used to go to Golf N Stuff all the time when I was a kid. It was such a fun place to 'hang out'. So there I was, with my husband and KIDS. Really weird. We made our way through the arcade and through the back doors where the bumper boats were lodging full fledged attacks on each other and I can still remember smacking into all my friends when I was in Jr. High. Ahhh, such memories.

We got all our necessary gear and chose which course to take (much to Delaney's dismay, we chose the one that DID NOT go to the special castle. Oops). It became very apparent, very quickly, that the kids have never really held a 'golf ball hitter' as Brody so lovingly refers to a golf club. I realize that there is good reason why we haven't let him, but this activity kinda forced the situation upon us. So Eric took on the role of teacher and I sat back and watched how different the kid's attitudes toward golfing were. Delaney wanted no help what so ever and Brody wanted help, but only on his terms.

I'm pretty sure she doesn't look 4 years old.

Ha, just excited to not have a ball taken away

The kids and their "golf ball hitters". Look at Brody, he just looks like trouble doesn't he?

Brody would hit the ball (after a few attempts) a yell, "oh oh oh" and literally run down the green until it stopped. Usually he would haphazardly hit the ball a few times until it accidentally fell into the hole or he would just get tired of watching it roll so he would pick it up, set it down right on the edge of the hole and let it fall in. A Tiger Woods, he is not. We're hoping he really like football.

Delaney, on the other hand, would fight Eric off, in spite of holding her "hitter" the wrong way and would let it rip. Once she got the hang of the proper holding procedure, she was really good. She would forget to wait until the ball stopped every once in a while, but all in all, chicks got skills.

When we got to the 18th hole, and the ball does not get returned, there were some tears. We went into the arcade to play a few games to ease the pain- probably not the best lesson, but oh well. The kids LOVE skee (skeet? Ski?) ball. Delaney had some serious sound affects going and would occasionally throw the ball across the lanes and scare the bejezus out of us all. They quickly realized that they could earn tickets and in return get something. We went through $20 rather quickly. After some serious math- they ended up with some army guys, some suckers, a ball and some tootsie rolls for Eric.

Yes, there were tears again when we made our way through the 'secret path' to get to the car, which I know just means they had a ball. It was so cool being with my family at a place I used to go to as a kid. I love our little outings.

Pumpkin Pickin

Our annual trip to pumpkin happened the day before Halloween again this year. It is so funny how empty it is so close to Halloween. We went to Apple Annie's again, although next year we will be taking the trip to Agua Linda. The first thing we did was immediately get on the hay ride to go pick our pumpkins. Brody saw the tractor the second we pulled up and there was no way we were doing anything else first.

Delaney's pose kills me

He loves his Mummy.... hehehe

He was super excited!

So was she!

Once we arrived at the pumpkin patch, Delaney was instantly irritated because she was not allowed to hold the massive cutters that could chop her arm off, so finding the "perfect pumpkins" went a little quicker than usual.

Getting the two of them to look is impossible

She got to at least help Daddy with the cutters

Delaney's pumpkin

Brody helping Daddy

Brody's pumpkin

Apparently we were keeping Brody up...

Back to the cutters again...

I was there too!

When we got back from the hayride, the kids played in the corn kernels for a bit and then we went to eat some food. BUT there was no food to eat! All they had was Kettle Korn and snow cones. We got both:) The bees decided that they loved the snow cones and thus forced us to throw the yummy snow cones into the bee infested trash cans. 

She was freaking out!

Eric decided that he wanted some produce so Delaney and I hung out while the boys did some shopping. Brody helped Eric do it all! Seriously melted my heart. He was so proud of himself.

Another pumpkin picking day in the history books:)