The countdown is on!

Only 19 days to go!  Three of them are minimum days and one of them I will be gone for Ryan's preschool graduation.  I know you may think this is tedious and dumb...I've never been more ready for a school year to end and so each one of these days are like little milestones that I get to check off and enjoy.

Last week our annual trip to Alcatraz went off beautifully.  We had ideal weather and the kids had the time of their lives!  For the first time ever, I got a thank you card the next morning from a student thanking me for putting the trip together and telling me what a great time he had.  It made everything worth it!  And by everything I mean the sleepless nights leading up to trip, the escalated blood pressure that lasts from 6:00am when the bus takes off to 5:00pm when the bus returns, and the countless time-outs I give myself throughout the day so I don't walk up to one of the chaperones and says something like, "Are you kidding me right now??  Who is the adult here and who is the child!?"  It was all worth it and it is every year and that is why we go back.

Matthew had Pioneer School today.  It is the big third grade field trip that they work diligently preparing for all year.  He woke up this morning this morning and said, "It is finally my day!!!!"  Well, his and 29 others...but who am I to squash him at 7:00am in the morning.  Besides, he totally lucked out because his Aunt Mickie just so happens to be one of the docents at the school and she just so happened to also get my Mom in to help out with the class.  There are no parents allowed at all and so I went around that little rule and let both of them know when his class was going to be there so they could work it and see him.  They had a great time and so did he.  He had to be in full dress, we had to wrap all of his food in wax paper, it was carried in a tin pail, and he could only drink out of a tin cup.  His meal of choice was raisins, beef jerky, carrots, cornbread, and sugar cookies.  The hanky in his pocket he stitched himself. :)

As the end of the school year closes in, I am in full gear getting ready for Open House.  It is next week and I am not even close to being ready.  For the past five or so years I have made a class video as a gift for all my students.  It is a labor of love.  It is pictures from the first day of school until the night before Open House.  I work on it all year and it is something I love giving them.  So you will understand that when my laptop crashed two weeks ago in class, I screamed at first and then almost started crying in front of my entire class.  The kids went nuts with "What happened?", "Are you alright?", "Was she just screaming?"  I couldn't tell them what I had just lost because it is a surprise...well sort of... and I didn't want them to be sad that I may have lost everything and there would be no movie.  I have had this one girl in the class ask me several times in the past month, "So when do we get our video?", and I have just replied..." I have no idea what you are talking about!"  That almost was true.  However, thanks to my MGC ladies...Lynn and Kelly, they graciously lent me their laptop and I am almost caught up.  It was touch and go in the beginning because their laptop is newer and the imovie format was completely different and last Friday night at 10:24pm I finally figured out what I was doing and did a little dance party in my dining room.  I had been cussing up a storm all night and so when I started singing and dancing at 10:25pm, Rich was relieved not only that I had figured it out, but that our neighbors were no longer dealing with "the other side of Heather" they had not met before.

By the way, the countdown to our family vacation is 36 days.  I....can't....wait.

Tahoe fun in April.

Last weekend, we headed back to our "shared" cabin.  We like to "share" it with the actual owners.  Truth be told, our friend who lets us rent it out pretty much whenever we want, is indebted to us for life!  We can't thank her enough and will continue to abuse this privilege as long as she lets us, or sells us the connecting lot that is empty so we can build our own! :) 

We drove up Friday night, after Rich got off work, so we really didn't know how much snow there would be to play in for the kids.  It had been stormy and rainy all week, so we were hopeful there would be some.  Luckily, it was just enough to play around in.  Below is a picture of Rich undoing either Jason or Anthony's work of clearing the deck and salting it for the kids to get down to the yard.  Rich thought it would be a perfect place to construct a "slide" for the kids to go down, instead of us driving around looking for a place to sled.  Truth be told, I think everyone thought it wasn't going to work, but it did and the kids were content with it being small, but fun!

All dressed up and ready for some snowball fights!

I have no words....Okay, two---Ridiculous cute!  Do you think he'll have a complex when he gets older about his pink boots?  Hand-me-downs know no gender I tell you!!!

Kirsten taking a ride.

Colson's turn!! 

The Boy's Club.

This boy is waiting to join....he is just too young to go through initiation yet.

Miss Leah doing snow angels out with Kirsten.

Saturday night we all headed out to dinner.  When we got back, you can see how much of the snow had melted.  The weather was ideal, but it did melt the snow fairly quickly.  However, it did not stop the "boys", Anthony, Rich, and Jason included, from a fierce after dinner snowball fight!

Happy, tired kids, waiting to head to bed...well, except for Kelly. :)

And last, but not least....MGC representing!

Sharks Game and Easter!

I'm a little ready for hockey season to be over.  And it appears one of my fears has come true...both the boys love hockey.  Like...CRAZY LOVE hockey.  They will never play of course, because we live in California and I'm not quite sure there is a huge pulling for the sport in our state, but they love this game regardless.  Especially Ryan.  I consider myself a sports girl, but this is not my favorite sport to watch and quite frankly listening to Rich explain the playoff standing NIGHTLY the past coupke of weeks has been mind numbingly boring.  And he is on to my, "Uh-huh", "Oh really", "Wow, you don't say" replies as he is fully aware that I DON'T CARE WHO HAS HOW MANY POINTS AND WHAT IT MEANS!!!!!  However, I love going to any type of game, so I was down with taking the kids to a Sharks game.  

Saturday night we headed to San Jose for the Sharks last regular season game.  I have been to a hockey game before, but nothing was as fun as this night.  Our seats were as far as they could possibly be from the ice rink.  It didn't matter, it didn't bother me, they were perfect and we could see everything.  When we got there, the boys were walking with us to find ours seats and one of the workers stopped us and handed the boys two Sharks wrist bands.  Their little faces lit up.  When we found our seats, it was clear they didn't want to even leave to get dinner...they wanted to stay to watch everything.

Here is a view from our seats. 

Happy, happy boy!

This kid was ridiculous cute all night.  He sang, chanted, clapped, cheered...you name it, he did it.  He was all in!

Sharks vs. Kings.  Best part of about this match up??  The "BEAT L.A." chant we got to scream all night!

One of the favorite parts of the night for the boys was when the Sharks scored, the Shark in the sky blew smoke and his eyes lit up.

I know this is not a great picture, but I took it as quickly as I could to get them in front of the rink.

After the game, we headed to the team store and picked up some merchandise.  New shirts and new hockey sticks. 

At 7:00am the next morning, we could hear them playing their game in the living room.

One of my favorites from the night.  Can you hear Ryan?

After a great night, they were ready for EASTER!

Sunday morning we made them change out of their Shark's wear and put on some nicer clothes.  They were not exactly happy about this.

Some pics with Mom.

Some pics with Dad. 

Finally....Let's get this hunt on!

A successful battle.

New headphones for our trip!!!  So exciting!

And Ted...who can blame him?  He wanted to be part of the hunt too!

Hunt number two at Nana and Papa's house.

Very cool looking eggs this year.

The loot!

We take the counting and collecting of eggs very seriously!

Happy Easter!!



Pin It!

So, I have a new addiction.  I am addicted to Pinterest.  I blame my sister for it.  Originally I had heard of it from my friend Emilie last year, but never really understood all that it entailed so I didn't pursue it other than looking at what Emilie had already pinned.  Fast forward a few months, my sister called and said I HAD TO BE ON IT, her exact words, and since I never back down from peer pressure..I joined.

Let me say this....BEST COOKBOOK EVER!!!  There are all sorts of things your can "pin", like clothing, house decor, art, kids projects....the list goes on and on.  I really only pin things to my recipe board.  And because I am such a stellar cook (are you laughing too?), I thought I would dedicate my two week break to my Pintrest meals.

Now, I waited until our break because it is really the only time I can "cook" and take my time.  I like that I used that word "cook" again...as if that is what happens here on a regular basis.  I enjoy cooking when it is me in the kitchen being one with my pots, pans, and utensils and I am not simultaneously going over homework with Matt or making a homework sheet up for Ryan so he doesn't feel left out because he has no homework.  (won't that come back to bite him later on!) My favorite time to cook is when the music is blasting and Ryan and I break out into dance or sing at the top of our lungs...that is a good time!

The first thing I made were these babies!!!  Strawberries filled with a cream cheese mixture, topped with graham cracker crumbs.  YUM!  I took them to Emilie's when Matt and I went to visit her, Andersen and Marshall.  Andersen was so stinkin' cute sitting across from me saying, "Mo strawberries pease."  Come on!  How cute is that! 

The next thing I made is this salad dressing.  It is the creamy pesto salad dressing that Old Spaghetti Factory serves on its salad.  Rich and I don't necessarily like the meals at the restaurant, but we always would go there just to have the salad.  So when I found this recipe....JACKPOT!  It was soooo good!

Next, creamy pesto chicken with a to-die-for cous cous.  The night before Valentine's Day, Rich and I went to Rosewood downtown because I had gotten a gift card from a couple of my students for Christmas.  I ordered halibut and it came with a cous cous dish that was so unbelievably good...I had to make it at home.  So, I went online and typed in all the ingredients: cous cous, bacon, mushrooms, and spinach.  I was able to find a recipe that was similar and made it to go with this chicken.  I could have eaten just the cous cous and done away with the chicken, but the boys loved the chicken so it was a win win.

I then made chicken parmesan (no picture) and zucchini.  I needed a new way to make zucchini to trick the boys into eating it.   This was also so good...but it does take some nutritional value away when served with ranch, I get that.

And this last one was just okay, but my friends Kelly's was better.  Chicken, garlic, and spinach pasta topped with mozzarella.  Looking back, I would go against the recipes instructions to not cover it because the cheese melted and burnt a little.

We got Matt and Ryan's baseball schedules the other night...it took me forty-five minutes to put all practices and games into my phone and as I was doing it, I thought to myself...Go hit up Pintrest for slow cooker meals!  Because they either have practice or a game each night and there is no way I am going to find the time to "cook" anything after work before the game.  What fun!

Here are links to all recipes....
http://www.thesweetslife.com/2011/08/cheesecake-stuffed-strawberries.html
http://cookingclassy.blogspot.com/2012/02/old-spaghetti-factory-creamy-pesto.html
http://fatsecret.com/recipes/creamy-pesto-philly-chicken/Default.aspx
http://ooh-look.blogspot.com/2009/09/now-for-something-different-pearl.html
http://thewellseasonedcook.blogspot.com/2007/06/baseball-bats-in-backyard-squash-fries.html
(did not do cornflake crumbs, but did a mixture of parmesean cheese and bread crumbs)
http://www.bitchincamero.com/2010/02/moms-baked-chicken-spinach-pasta/

Low Snow!

Last weekend we took advantage of the storm that came through and found snow in crazy low elevation! The place we were headed to was a golf course that we have played at before with friends, was now closed to ALL TRESPASSERS, which I think is code for "all you freaks that think this is a snow park when it storms this low." So, we took the next turn up into a semi-residential neighborhood and found a semi-abandoned road to play around in.

I kept taking pictures of outside as we were driving because it was unbelievable how much snow there was...and we were only 50 minutes from Lodi.

So gorgeous!

Okay, last one.

Time to get our sled on!  Turned out that the groove of the tire track was the best place to slide down.

Glove malfunction.

Freezing, happy boy.

Freezing, crazy boy.

Oh yeah...and we brought this baby with us too.  He got out, ran around, loved the snow and then slept in his bed in the backseat for the rest of the time.  Apparently he is more of a fair weather dog.

Doesn't he look so happy to be heading home?  In his bed, warm, and in between the boys.  Heaven.