Recent Adventures

Earlier this week, we went to Underwood Farms in Moorpark with some friends to pick our own strawberries. There's nothing like eating berries straight out of the field on a warm afternoon - Yum. The kids also had fun riding ponies, feeding chickens and just finding their way around the farm. However, my camera died about 3 minutes into our excursion, so I swiped this from the Fornelli's blog. (Thanks Jake.) Owen and Tessa are on either side of the group.
Yesterday, Cal's school had their annual Spring Fling Carnival. The kids had a blast on all of the big blow-up slides and obstacle courses. I love that you can actually see Tess' face turning from excitement to terror in this picture. She was pretty ticked that Kirt just let her go by herself.
Speaking of adventures, here are some pics of the kids on our way to church this morning. Isn't getting ready for church always a crazy experience? But here is proof that Tessa is finally growing some hair and that she managed to get some curl in there too.
I've had a blogging stupor lately. I figured the only way out of it was just to download some pics and get going. Hopefully we'll have some exciting outings or a witty story to share soon. Cal's opening day is less than 2 weeks away and he's playing real baseball this year with the kids pitching. Can't wait!

On The Mend

As we struggle through what I hope to be the end of our kids being sick, the photo above is what I'm trying to focus on. Happy, healthy, flesh-colored children.
Saturday night we could tell something was up with Owen. He just didn't seem himself. By Sunday afternoon he had little bumps all over his legs, and by Monday morning his body was covered in hives. The doctor thinks that he just got a little virus that his body was especially allergic to. He is currently completely doped up on at least 5 different medications. He was so sad and out of it yesterday that I let him have anything he wanted. I'm paying for it now as he demands pizza and Dr. Pepper for breakfast. At least that likely means he's feeling better?
The playground at Owen's school has proved especially dangerous for Tessa. A few weeks ago she split her lip open and last week, she smacked her eyebrow on an odd corner. This picture was taken towards the end of the injury. For a few days, her eye was so swollen and especially huge after naptime or in the morning she could barely open her eye. Besides the cut in her eyebrow, now the bruising looks like perfectly placed, smoky eyeshadow.

Updated your iPod lately?

Just a suggestion.

Green with Envy

I've been posting a lot of pictures of our awesome weather (minus the rain the past few weeks), and trips to the beach lately. But there are things that we miss that even the California weather doesn't make up for. To all our Utah friends and family, please take some time to enjoy the things we miss so much. In no particular order:

Hawaiian pizza at the Pizzeria is fabulous. Why doesn't everyone put green pepper on a Hawaiian? Yum. And the deluxe salad is not complete without thousand island and blue cheese dressing. I am salivating.

Recently, there have been a few Cafe Rio's opened in Vegas, which is a 4 hour schlep that we make every so often for the weekend, but even when we get there, Kirt doesn't particularly like it. I need one closer to go to lunch with my girls during the day. I know there are recipe's floating around for the pork, I just have failed to even try. Can't a girl just go out and get a sweet pork enchilada?
The Burger Bar - nothing like it. We can't find anyone that can make a shake like the BB. We recently found a little stand with marshmallow flavoring, but still a dim comparison to the old favorite. And not to be all food related, there are other things in this photo that we treasure. Our families and friends. I had to narrow it down to a few pics, but if you see any of our family around, give them a hug for us.
We love our families so much and are so glad they're all so willing to make the trip out to see us so often. And whenever we make it into town, everyone makes a special effort to get together. There you have it, I'm jealous.
(If Kirt were writing, he'd probably mention the snowboarding and sledding, but he's not posting and just thinking about it makes me cold.)

Petersons Came to Play

We hit the La Brea Tar Pits with Grandma and Grandpa Peterson this weekend. We've been a few times and the kids love it every time. It's this crazy place in the middle of Los Angeles where tar just bubbles up out of the ground. The tar pools have been there for thousands of years and have millions of fossils trapped in them. Just today they're making an announcement about a huge new find of fossils. If you live near LA and have never been, it's definitely worth the trip, if just for the huge hill that our kids could spend hours rolling down.
Cal and (a very excited) Owen in front of a Wooly Mammoth inside the museum that is next to the tar pits. Inside the museum is an observation room where you can see the scientists working to clean and put fossils together that are found just outside.
I think Tessa is pretending to be one of the scary animals surrounding her.
Owie was never far from Grandpa's shadow.
I think this is a saber-tooth cat (don't let Cal hear you call it a tiger, he'll be sure to correct you) attacking a sloth. Owen was not bothered by the carnage at all.
Grandma and the kids. We love having family come to visit and it's always sad to see them go (for the kids and for me.) G & G volunteered to stay home with the kids on Valentine's Day while Kirt and I went out. Pretty sure it's the first time we've been to the movie theater for a non-kids show in nearly 10 years. Loved it.

Long Weekend

We took advantage of the 3 day MLK weekend in January and headed north to Pismo Beach. This is the time of year that the mama elephant seals beach themselves with their new pups and hang out for a few months. There are hundreds of these giant seals up and down the beach.
Just a pic of one of the babies next to its mom. These seals can really get moving across the beach. Their whole bodies just shake as they do "the worm" across the sand. I wondered if that's what I look like when my neighbors see me running? Sorry if this is sort of like posting pics of animals at the zoo, but here's one more.
There's this crazy place in Pismo Beach where thousands of monarch butterflies stop on their flights north and south. There are tons of them, but they're mostly contained in about 10 trees. It's pretty awesome. (Thanks for the tip Rudloff's!)
Monday, on the way home, we met some friends in Santa Barbara for some beach volleyball, pizza and ice cream on the pier. Good friends, good food and good weather, what more could we ask for?...
...this view at sunset. We took a drive up the mountain in Santa Barbara and ended up passing some of the huge estates that burned recently in the Montecito Fires. (The homes near Oprah, Rob Lowe and Ellen DeGeneres.) The view was one of the coolest I've ever seen. Well worth the extra few minutes it took us to get home. All in all, a successful trip and it feels like time to go again.

Fashion Blog

A few pics for the Grandmas. Cal and Owen may have found themselves in this photo as they both looked very handsome, but neither could quit complaining about the bright sun long enough for me to get a picture of them. They have a really rough life, with sunshine all year long, and trips to the beach in January and all.
This was the Sunday that Cal was visiting everyone in Utah. These two sure missed their big brother.
And now to Kirt's greatest fashion moment. I think he stole this hunting vest from his dad when he moved out of the house 12 years ago. He busts it out every now and then in place of a jacket. Most the time I think it's funny, but I'm not sure it goes with the business casual look for work. I wonder, does he just hang it on the back of his chair? And what do people think when they walk in and see it. They probably think that he lives in an RV and eats deer jerky for dinner.

Holiday Visitors

The Arnold clan packed up and came to visit right after Christmas, we did a lot of eating, shopping and hanging out. In true Taft and Libby form, we made at least 5 trips to Nordstrom Rack in the 6 days that they were here.
One of the best trips we've had to Leo Carillo beach. We researched the tide this time and timed it perfectly. Tons of great tide pools full of sea stars, several different kinds of crabs and urchins galore. Logan and Owen have so much fun tormenting each other tossing insults back and forth.
Taft and Lesha with our newest little nephew. Lesha and Lincoln flew down on Christmas night before everyone else got here. He is such a good baby and we were so glad to get to meet him. It may be noted that he scored some new digs at ever trip to the Rack. He'll never wear all the clothes he has.
Super Aunt Libby. I think she's primarily responsible for Tessa becoming princess-like. Nobody can sing on Rock Band like Libby-Lou.
Jon and Abby took the long way down. They went to San Francisco first, then made their way down on Abby's birthday. All-in-all, we had a great time together and cramming so many of us into our tight quarters was so worth it. I don't think we'd have it any other way.

Rock Out

It appears that there was plenty of Rock Band being played everywhere this holiday season. I've seen many blog posts with hilarious pictures like the ones here. This was our rockin' New Year's Eve. Take that Dick Clark. Owen and Cal both had a blast, along with the rest of us.
Logan takes his music very seriously. Usually it's guitar (he talked my mom into buying him a sweet Gibson while he was down here) but he found equal intensity in the Rock Band drums. Lesha's face says it all.
New Years morning. Grandma Leslie with all her grandkids. (She is in heaven!) Just after we took this picture, with some suggestion from Grandma Peterson, we decided to pack Cal up and let him go back to Utah with everyone. The next week he made his first solo flight home and handled it like a pro. He is seriously grown up.

Better Late than Never?

Although it was over a month ago, Christmas did occur at our house and deserves a bit of documentation. Our Christmas Eve tradition of new PJ's didn't go as planned. Both Grandmas got pajamas for the kids, but I wasn't sure which box Grandma Peterson's were in and my mom was bringing her gifts with her the day after Christmas. I didn't feel like buying each of them a new set just for tradition's sake, so Owen is wearing Cal's Christmas jammies from a few years ago, Tessa is wearing Owen's from last year and Cal is just in his usual pajamas. And we all survived! We had a great Christmas day that began with breakfast at Western Bagel (Jewish owned - so open on Christmas) and Kirt took the boys to see Desperaux while Tessa took a nap and I got Christmas morning cleaned up. Christmas dinner with our little family was the perfect end to a great day.
This was the day after Christmas. I asked the kids to clean up the leaves out back. I think the one-leaf-at-a-time into a bag approach may have taken all day, but I thought it was funny to let them try for a few minutes.

Owen Started Preschool

Owen started school today. He was sooo excited and has been talking about going for months. We finally felt comfortable with his potty skills, so off he went. I was shocked to not be nervous this morning like when Cal went to school. I guess I was just feeding off of Owen's excitement. But as I dropped him off, it was hard to leave. It's so weird to not know exactly what's going on in his day. Is he following instructions? Is he being nice? Are the other kids being nice to him? My mother-in-law always says that she looked forward to not having to worry about her kids when they grew up, but instead they just got married, had kids and gave you more people to worry about. I guess this anxiety of parenthood never ends. But it sure is worth it.
This is Owie and a friend of ours from church. She was so happy to see Owen and helped him find his way around. Just a few more hours and I'll be able to let you all know how his first day was. But for now, I'm off to the mall with just one kid. Not sure I'll know what to do with myself, but I'll manage.

No White Christmas Here

We had a very Merry Christmas, fun family visitors, a serious Rock Band New Years Eve and an unexpected trip for Cal. But those posts will come in time. Today is the day for this:
This is not a picture from the summer or a post about how I wish summer would hurry up and get here. This is a shot of our afternoon yesterday. It has been well over 80 degrees these past few days and we took full advantage yesterday. We dug out the swim suits and the sunblock and soaked it up. Today while Cal was in school, the little ones and I took a drive (windows rolled down, of course) to see Owen's new school. He starts preschool tomorrow and can hardly wait. I can't wait to see how he does. As we left the school I asked what they wanted for lunch. Owen said, "Sweet and sour chicken." The request cracked me up, just seemed like a mature request coming from him.
As long as I'm here, I guess it wouldn't hurt do post this picture as well.
This was following the Utes impressive victory over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Kirt has spent countless hours since the game reading all about how his Utes should be ranked #1 in the country. For more trash talk and commentary, go here.

(Thanks for the nudge Lola!)

Snow in Vegas

It has snowed in Malibu a few times since we have lived in Southern California and it even hailed for about 45 seconds the other day at our house, but we found a lot of snow this weekend at Bart and Andria's house in Las Vegas - of all places. Owen figured that it was easier to pick up chunks of ice and throw them instead of hand-packing a snow ball.
A little early for Kirt and Bart, but we had to get a picture. The kids had a blast on our weekend trip. We did a little shopping, a little cooking and just hanging out. A nice little trip away from everyday life. Thanks to our generous hosts!
I've seen a few people post pictures of their Christmas trees and thought mine may be of interest for a different reason. Can you tell that we have little trouble makers at our house? Owen helped decorate it this year, so it never was "perfect" but even the ribbon wrapped around the top has been mangled by flying footballs and other random objects. I found an orange in the tree last week and Kirt pulled a sippy cup out of it a few days ago. Don't forget to notice the heap of lights on the floor that have come unraveled. I'm told someday I'll look back on these times with nostalgia. Okay, if you say so?
Cal's school had their annual Holiday program last week. Cal's grade sang The Reindeer Twist. Cal was down in front and got to pick someone from the audience to come out and dance with them. I was given specific instructions on where I should be seated so he could find me easily. Owen was not crazy about being in front of a large audience, but he's been singing and dancing ever since.
One last pic from the beach that I forgot to post last time. It's not often that we get a picture of the whole family together. Oh yeah, and we never get one where everyone is looking at the camera, let alone smiling.

Leo Carillo State Beach

We had heard of this beach, but reached it out of desperation a few weeks ago. We headed to the beach for Christmas card pictures and the entire coast was sooo foggy. We just kept heading North until the fog cleared out. We ended up at Leo Carillo Beach and it was awesome.
This picture was taken the next Sunday when we went back with some friends for more pictures. We didn't time it very well, it was high tide and all the tide pools were submerged, but it rained for a few minutes and this awesome rainbow appeared. I don't think I've ever seen the beginning and the end of a rainbow like this one. Pretty sure I even saw a leprechaun at one end.
This was the first week when the tide was out. Tons of tide pools with sea stars, urchins. There are also hundreds of sand crabs everywhere.
A few pics that didn't make the Christmas card.
One of my favorites. As documented previously, I have a soft spot for the crazy pictures.

Another must-see for our Los Angeles readers is Candy Cane Lane in Woodland Hills. We drive through at least once a week during December. It's an entire neighborhood that pulls out all the stops for Christmas lights and decorations. Heading south on Corbin, turn left on Oxnard and you'll find it. The traffic can get a little backed up, but it's pretty awesome. See you there.

Mommy and Tessa have been tagged.

I've been tagged once again, actually Tessa and I have both been tagged. Mine is first, then a few facts about her. Can I just say that I love keeping in touch with everyone through these blogs? I have blogged about my love of Christmas cards, and I find the same satisfaction whenever new posts appear on my Google Reader. This first tag is from my great-aunt Kathie whom I haven't seen in quite some time and it's great to catch up with her and her family whenever I have a second. Tessa's tag is from one of my oldest friends, Betsey (Kirt makes fun of me when I say Betsey - he says it's when my Utah accent comes out. think I say it with a hard "t"?) Anyway,, Betsey is just one of many dear friends that I've been able to re-connect with - and all in our spare time. I love it! Okay, on to the tags:

1: Two names you go by: Kade, Cal's mom

2. Two things you are wearing right now: 1. Fuzzy pink bath robe 2.My wedding ring.

3: Two things you want very badly at the moment: 1. Breakfast 2. A few more hours in my day.

4: Two people who will most likely respond to this tag: 1. Libby 2. Holly (consider yourself tagged!)

5: Two things you did last night: 1. Decorated for the ward Christmas Party. 2. Grocery Store (can you stand the excitement?)

6: Two things you ate today: Nothing yet, I still have my retainer in. tmi?

7: People you just spoke with: 1. Cal 2. Tessa (kind of a one-sided conversation)

8: : Two things you're doing tomorrow: 1. Cooking a turkey for dinner 2. Game night

9: Two longest car rides: 1. Ogden to Phoenix 2. Ogden to San Francisco (just realized both of these trips were after visiting family for Christmas going to see the U play in bowl games. Kirt's still trying to figure out a way to get to the Sugar Bowl this year.)

10: Two favorite beverages: 1. Dr. Pepper 2. Water

11. What are your Two Favorite Things about Christmas: 1. Kids on Christmas morning 2. Christmas cards

Tessa's tag - A few months ago I did a little tag about all the kids, but Tess just had her 18 month dr. appointment, so it's a good time to post her stats:
34 inches tall, 23 lbs = 75th %tile for height, 25th%tile for weight
She's talking quite a bit. She says all of our names - my favorite thing is when she wanders around the house looking for Owen saying, "Owie, Owie." She also has her own versions of hi, banana, no, i want this, and even tries to count with us. She even tries to sing the alphabet song with me when I lay her down for bed. (She's sitting by me now playing with a bi-lingual toy and just said, "uno!"
She is officially a kid, no longer a baby for sure. She chases the older kids everywhere they go and does her best to imitate everything they do. She refuses to sit in her high chair and must sit at the table next to Owen to eat her meals.
It's funny how different girls are. When she was first born, we commented on how even her fingers were feminine, but even with trucks and dinosaurs all over the place here, she'll find her little kitties and babies and pull them out of the pile. We sure love having this little girl in our family.

New Additions

Taft and Lesha (my little bro and sil) welcomed a sweet little boy to their family last night. By all reports, despite being 2 weeks (!) overdue, Lesha did not look ready to deliver. She maintained about a 5 month baby bump until delivery. So we were all shocked when the baby weighed in at 9 pounds, 8 ounces! He's 23 inches long! I've never heard of a baby being that long at birth. We are so thrilled for them and can't wait to meet him in a few weeks. Babies are definitely the hardest thing about living away from family. (No offense to our moms.) Congrats guys!

And to our latest addition...
I can't get a decent picture of this because my good lens is in the shop (thanks again Owen). But this masterpiece was created by Kirt and his Dad on our roof this weekend. We had Kirt's parents and sister here for Thanksgiving. I managed to get a total of zero pictures of any of them, probably because we were too busy having an awesome visit. We got some Christmas shopping knocked out while Grandpa hung out with the little ones, another fab trip to Santa Barbara, and several other fun adventures while they were here. They didn't even mind heading to our friends' house for Thanksgiving dinner. (Thanks again Gay and Yosh.) The boys did some great work on the Christmas lights. I think this will be a traditional staple in our decor.

Where have I been?

Celebrating. That's where.
We enjoyed the Utah/BYU game at the Hansen's. It was a great game for the Utes, and a fabulous afternoon with friends (and foes.) If I could download the pics from my phone, I'd love to show you what we did to a Cougar-friend's car the night before. At 11:00 pm, Kirt and I headed over with all the kids asleep in the back seat of our car. We changed out his BYU license plate frame with a more fitting "U" one, and painted his windows to make sure he knew that Utah was BCS bound. I felt like I was in junior high again, toilet papering the neighbor's house and was about ready to pee my pants the whole time. I was sure we were going to get caught. Kirt still hasn't quit laughing at me - he keeps asking "what did you think was going to happen if we got caught?" I hadn't thought that far, I was just reveling in the feeling of rebellion.
The Cougars and Utes making peace after the game. Madagascar brings us all together. See Tessa's pony-tail on top of her head? It was her first, and she's had one every day since. She is finally growing some hair and doesn't mind having it combed once in a while.
Despite the overwhelming number of Cougars, there were only a few cookies left out of the 4 plates that I brought. Good cookies, not good picture.
And, as previously mentioned, Owen turned 3. This was the "big" cake that he requested and helped me make. We had a quiet family birthday, with dinner at Owen's choice: Chili's. Then cake and ice cream at home after unwrapping presents.
Owen got a bike from his aunts and uncles. He loves cruising around the neighborhood on this bad boy. Thanks guys! He loved the card too - stinkerpants sandwich.
And a scooter. He has always loved these scooters, and has figured out how to ride it pretty well, despite the age suggestion of 6 on the box.
Tessa enjoying the ice cream. As we were walking through the store, Owen spotted some ice cream cones. I told him to throw them in the cart. It was, after all, his birthday. What I didn't realize until we opened them that night was that they were so tiny. Tess has not even begun to eat the cone in this picture. I need a melon baller to scoop ice cream into them. Makes for a great bedtime snack.