Lydia's airplane ride

Lydia and I flew out to Utah last week. She was so excited! Here's two clips from our first plane ride in a year. She seemed to remember her last one where she was only just 1 1/4.

This four year old is growing up!

CA Adventure

Ok, it's time to play catch up. I'm going back in time to post some pictures from our trip down to Orange County the last week of March. We had a great time!

Cooper riding California Screamin. He loved it!
In Bug's Land. Lydia loved the "Chew Chew Train". She said "Watermellon, wet, my shirt." You go through a watermellon rind and it spritzes you.

Sacramento Tax Day Tea Party

National Tea Party April 15

My baby is 2!

Sigh. My baby Lydia is now two years old. The day after we drove down to Orange County, was Lydia's second Birthday. Given the fact that there is not an over-the-top bone in my body, we had a family and friends BBQ at the Newport Beach Villas where we were staying for the week. We actually had Cooper's 5th Birthday party here as well, and it is just an amazing location. Set on the hill overlooking Crystal Cove State Beach, it's basically idyllic for a beautiful Spring day.

Early in the day Cooper and Catelyn were able to feed the Koi fish near the Piazza.

At the "park" location on the property there is a mini putting green, a sand box, a basketball hoop and a nice hill for flying kites. The kids tried to fit it all in.

We had some family and friends who we hadn't seen in a long time come out. It was great to see everyone to celebrate Lydia's Birthday. Thanks to all those who came. Here are a few pics of the birthday cake fun. (We had a few cupcakes for the kids and a cheesecake for the adults)

More pictures of kites and messy kids to follow.

The Holiday Clan

I'm going to divide our week long trip to Orange County into a few different posts. In fact, I don't even think I'm going to go in chronological order. I'll start with the reason we went down there.

The Holidays! My mom's cousins on her mom's side are all Holidays, and there's a lot of them. Last week the youngest cousin got married and everyone (just about) traveled down to Newport Beach for the wedding. Nate is the youngest of the Holiday cousins and my mom is the oldest. Mom grew up with the older cousins and I grew up with the younger ones. There is now a SLEW of second cousins and first cousins once removed.

We were at the Condo (Newport Coast Villas timeshare that I'll blog about later) the weekend before the wedding and my mom's Uncle Bob and Aunt Janice stopped by. A little while later he got a call saying that two of his sons and their families were coming over to visit also. We hadn't seen these cousins in years and were excited to see everyone.

Cooper said the funniest thing when they all got there. He had been in the bathroom getting ready for bed and comes out to a scene very similar to this:
and says "What just happend?!" So many cousins he didn't know what to do! One family of all girls and one family of all boys.

The youngest Holiday is baby Gage. My kids and I were smitten with him, as well as all the other cousins that we'd never even met.

Fabulous week in OC

We got back from our week long vacation in Orange County and have lots to talk about. I'm hoping I've figured out the photo uploading issue on this computer. I'm going to motivate myself to get those blogs written and updated. Lots to come in the near future.

Parental Pride

It seems like it's been a while since I posted and I didn't really have much to say, but I just had to sit down and get my latest news out there as soon as I could because I'm just bursting with Parental Pride.

I went to get the mail this morning from Saturday because it was raining that day and we never went out to get it. In the stack of bills was a letter addressed to "The Parents/Guardians of Cooper Johnson" from our school district. I opened it up and my eyes started brimming with tears as I read:

GIFTED & TALENTED EDUCATION (GATE)

IDENTIFICATION PACKAGE - GRADE ONE

Dear Parent/Guardian,

Your child is eligible for formal identification in the ___ Unified School District Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) Program....

On the enclosed identification permission form the test name and Cooper's score were written in.

Test: Nagliari

Test Score: 99%

I don't know how many of you recall Cooper's other great achievement but I'm telling you that my Parental Pride is just overflowing. This is one special kid and I feel so blessed to be his Mother. He hasn't even heard the news yet. He's still at school.

Creative Catelyn

Catelyn has turned into quite the little artist lately. She's always been one to play by herself and make up stories and now she is using her imagination to make some very creative pieces of art. Here she's used some pipe cleaners (which I have discovered are a great cheap art supply) to craft her name.

As an aside, I really like the nickname Cat for her. Going into school I know there will be a lot of Katie's, Caitlin's, Kate's,but she can be my spunky Cat.
Aunt Mimi came to visit the week after Valentines weekend and cut some spirals out of the craft paper for the kids to play with. After Mimi left Catelyn spent hours perfecting the skill. No one ever sat down with her to show her, she just figured out how it works by herself.

We now have probably one hundred of these spirals in different colors cut from these note papers.

All while she sings or hums real and made up songs.

A little interview with the little ones.

This survey has been going around Facebook lately and I thought it was a great idea. I asked Cooper who just turned 7 and Catelyn who is 4 3/4 to answer these questions.

1. What is something mom always says to you? Cooper- Don't do this unless you ask. You're not the boss. Catelyn- Obey.
2. What makes mom happy? Cooper- Do what you ask me to do. Catelyn- Making jokes and silly faces.
3. What makes mom sad? Cooper- Unobey. What's the word? Catelyn- Scratching and pulling and climbing and tying.
4. How does your mom make you laugh? Cooper- Funny jokes that we haven't heard before. Catelyn- Silly faces and dancing and fun at the park.
5. What was your mom like as a child? Cooper- A beautiful girl. Catelyn- Like folding your arms.
6. How old is your mom? Cooper- 30 Catelyn- 30
7. How tall is your mom? Cooper- I don't know. Do you know? Catelyn- Get up. It looks like that long (spreads her arms out)
8. What is her favorite thing to do? Cooper- Uh, be with me. Catelyn- Play the piano and organ.
9. What does your mom do when you're not around? Cooper- I don't know. Catelyn- Do computers.
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? Cooper- I don't know. Catelyn- Go to the party.
11. What is your mom really good at? Cooper- The piano or the organ. Catelyn- Sweeping and eating tortillas.
12. What is your mom not very good at? Cooper- Climbing a tree. Catelyn- Climbing up the tree.
13. What does your mom do for her job? Cooper- Take care of us. Catelyn- At her room.
14. What is your mom's favorite food? Cooper- Meatloaf (we had it last night) Catelyn- Dinner!
15. What makes you proud of your mom? Cooper- That she takes care of us. Catelyn- When she puts on Dora.
16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? Cooper- Word Girl (its a show on PBS) Catelyn- A Rabbit and a rock star.
17. What do you and your mom do together? Cooper- Play Wii together sometimes. Catelyn- Work and clean up.
18. How are you and your mom the same? Cooper- Our eyebrows. Catelyn- Brown hairs and brown eyes.
19. How are you and your mom different? Cooper- I'm a boy and she's a girl. Catelyn- You play the computer and I play with toys.
20. How do you know your mom loves you? Cooper- We tell each other. Catelyn- Tell me a story.
21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? Cooper- To the temple. Catelyn- To go to a party.

Just another day

Every day that Cooper comes home off the bus I ask him "How was your day? What happened at school?" and the like. Most days the answer is "Fine." sometime I get a bit more, such as "We worked on greater than and less than in math." Last Tuesday I got the same "Fine." answer to my "How was school today?" question.

Later on I noticed one of those plastic bracelets that have the words printed in them lying on the floor. You know, the "Live Strong", "Courage" ones. I hadn't seen it before, it was a maroon marbled color. I asked Cooper where it came from and he said "Oh, I got that when I got my award yesterday." "You got an award? Yesterday? Remember how I asked you when you get home what happened at school? That's a good time to tell me that you received an award at school."

Cooper received the Fairness Award for "Being a Person of Character" from his teacher. On the back of the certificate his teacher wrote "Always kind and friendly to others. He shares and takes turns. He is honest." Later on that evening when he called his dad to tell him about his award Cooper said "My teacher wrote that I'm honest, and that's what I'm proudest about."

I cannot express how proud I am of this boy. He is such a young man of character who truly desires to do what is right. I am so blessed to have him in my life, to be his mother, to learn from his great example and bask in his love for all those around him. I love you Cooper and I thank God every day that you are in my life.