The Fun Continues...

I feel really blessed lately. Rich is taking life more seriously by making and achieving new diet, exercise and financial goals. I love goals.... and love even more that he's initiating it. The boys are healthy and at a stage where we can do fun things with them. They are both so animated and make every activity fun. This week they became "secret agent cleaners" as we completed several "dangerous" cleaning tasks. Even Jack got into it by manning the duster, while David took on  the spiderwebs. They utilized about half a bottle of Windex cleaning our many windows.. there seemed to be much more spraying than wiping going on, but who can blame them? Windex is fun stuff. Then during our backyard picnic later that day, they decided to put on a TV show for me by running indoors and smudging dirty hands and faces all over the inside windows again... but what a show! I tried to change the channel to a program that didn't involve dirty windows but apparently that's all they were showing. David's favorite job is potty scrubbing... don't ask me why, but I'm more than happy to relinquish that job to him. Jack assisted with door and cupboard shutting as well as TP shredding... what role that played in completing our mission I don't know but the boys were convinced it was essential. The mission was followed by candy eating and subsequently sugar-induced crib jumping.

Jack has begun a very serious phase where he insists on only wearing red colored apparel with either Spiderman, Superman, Lightning McQueen or Thomas the Train on it. This has left us with little choice but to dress him in David's shirts. He also refuses to wear his own shoes. It seems that David's oversized sneakers increase Jack's jumping ability, which seems to be the focus of his efforts as of late. This has led  to an appropriate new nickname: Jumping Jack. When he's not jumping, he's shooting spiderwebs or simulating superhero flights around the living room. Funny kid. His new favorite phrase is "Open the door." This applies to anything he wants opened: food wrappers or toy boxes but usually refers to the fridge.

David has been encouraging Jack's behavior and has been more than happy to train him in the ways of the Superhero. He has even taught Jack to hum the Spiderman song, which he now does at every pertinent opportunity.

Also, Zumba is going well. I've had lots of opportunities lately to sub classes and will have the chance to teach a regular weekly class in April. Woohoo! 

The best part about Zumba has been the new friends I've been making. A couple weeks ago, some of the other instructors and some friends from class met up for a Salsa Dinner & Dance charity event. It's great to have found a group of friends that love to dance! I'm hoping this turns into a regular thing. 

As usual, I was mostly excited about the food. In California, latin dancing means Mexican food. Yea for tortillas wrapped over stuff!!

Top o' the Mornin' to ya!

I didn't want to forget about our St. Pattie's Day this year. Like most memorable events, this one was centered around food and exercise, my two favorite things. Rick and Pam joined us at the Caper Acres Park, where we chased the kids around the playground trying to get them to eat the delectable dish of corned beef they brought to share with us. It was delicious. The day was complete with David getting into a bark brawl with some kids and a not so humored dad. They were all wearing green so I'm not sure what the problem was. We had the luck of the Irish though and no one was severely hurt... and I got to eat most of the food!! Ha!

Some Serious Ketchup

Ok... that got your attention. Actually I meant "catch-up" and I think a woman can open anything. We just pretend like we need our husbands to open the jars so they feel needed with something that's not important enough for them to screw up... just unscrew. Ha! Pun intended.

So I haven't blogged in ages, so I'm going to cram everything into one (hopefully) brief entry. I don't expect anyone to make it to the end. This is for ME. And it's going to be in the form of a rhyme.

JANUARY:
Rich went "back to school, back to school to prove to Daddy he's not a fool." (Billy Madison)
Soon he'll be prez of the world I bet, but for now he'll score us a school loan to help pay our debt.

Transformer preschool is well underway.
They're transforming into readers and learning polite play.
We got word that David was accepted in the spanish school today.
 In August, he will become an estudiante.

David's been taking gymnastics. Jack tries to join in.
It will be nice for Jack to have some mommy time when David starts Kindergarten.

BEFORE JANUARY:

Rob hooked us up with a night in SF at the Hotel Carlton.

We ate Scoma's seafood and enjoyed time alone thanks to babysitters Lacie and Morton.

Jack's eating and climbing skills have had us intrigued.
Oh yeah... and last summer we joined a bowling league.

We celebrated the births of our friends Jeni and Tim
by making them a cake resembling Tabletop Mountain.

There were colds, flu and ear infections too.
But I'm going to avoid posting pics of that Wouldn't you?

FEBRUARY:
We joined Tim and Jeni for a few awesome days in Tahoe.
We switched off snowboarding and watching the kids in the condo.

Then we headed to Utah for Kayla & Tony's wedding.
With ice-skating and mountains of glorious food, it was the best reception anyone's been to I'm betting.

Then Rob, Brad, Corey and Angie (still waiting for pics...) joined us for some family snowboarding.
We couldn't get enough and hit a mountain again the next morning.

My mom joined us at "the Beav" for some snowboarding runs
while Aunt Karen watched the kids who had just as much fun.
Then they took the kids sledding and were so proud of Dave,
soon he was sledding alone. He's never been so brave.

These car trips to Utah are just too long.
The kids look happy at first... but a few hours in things always go wrong.

Rich had a birthday and I made the best meal. Since I'm not much of a cook it was a really big deal.
Rich's mom and bro made it later that night. Family and food made his birthday just right.

Oh yeah.. silly me.
Somewhere in there we also had our 6th anniversary.

MARCH:
The next week I finally taught my first paid Zumba class.
My dad and family came to visit us at last.
The boys hit it off like no time had passed.
It was fun having Kathy there for my class.
Our day together just went by too fast.

I forgot to take pics of their visit. Nothing new. 

So I stole this from their Facebook page, like most of the pics above. Yeah, that's what I do. 

And now my ketchup rhyme is through.