A Snail of a Tale

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Big Bear 2012

On Monday this past week, a co-worker sent out an all staff email saying her family had booked a time-share in Big Bear for the week/weekend but they wouldn't be able to make it - would anyone else like to take it? It sounded like so much fun! But "Nah" I thought - she works in the same department I do, it's our busy time of year, I'd probably have to work Friday, it wouldn't be worth it. Or would it? No one responded to her email that day, or Tuesday. . .so by Wednesday, my wheels were turning - could I take Friday off? Could we pull off a spontaneous mini-vacation? Got the all-clear to take Friday off, so it was a done deal. Can you believe it was our first ever family vacation? Sure, we took Matthew on a vacation to Portland to visit my bro when he was only 8 months old, and we stayed overnight in a hotel in San Diego for my brother's wedding when Kaylie was only 2 months old - but as a bonafide family of 4, this was the first true vacation. We headed up Thursday evening, spent all day Friday and headed home late morning on Saturday. Short but sweet. 

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They LOVED the lake. They would have loved to dive in and start swimming - we weren't really prepared for that, but they did wade in a bit, skipped rocks and chased the ducks :)

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My little tree-hugger ;)

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Our handsome boy!

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Ta da!!

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Off on an adventure. . .

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It's just beautiful up there - I love my crazy little kiddos :)

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Fun exploring the forest!

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Enjoying some ice-cream in the Village 

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Our first geocaching adventure! For those who don't know, geocaching is basically a treasure hunt - people hide canisters in trees or nature somewhere, hiding a "treasure" inside (some lame, some cool) - whoever originally hid it uploads a GPS location to a geocaching website, and adds a description of the canister and location, with possibly a hint or two. We were able to locate 3 treasures :) Among the treasures we found were Jelly Bellies and a sweet little Mario Kart car. We can't wait to do more geocaching closer to home!

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Family Big Bear Pic - maybe first annual?

Goofy Girl :)

Oh our silly, goofy little girl. When we moved her into her big girl bed, a few months ago now, it took her about a week to get used to staying in bed at bedtime.  Just in the past week or so, she's realized if she says she has to go potty, we'll let her out to go potty. It's so hard to tell if she really does have to go, at least if she says it's #2. It can get a little frustrating when she says she has to go, "tries" and nothing happens, only to repeat the cycle when I try to put her back in bed. . . but then she has to be so stinkin' cute, I can't stay upset for long. This is one of those nights, she said she had to go but really didn't, instead she just wanted to be cute and hang with mommy a little bit longer :)

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Red.

A few weeks ago, a few of us at work decided on a whim to go out and get ourselves office pets. So Lori, Ashleigh, Emily, Sharon and I all went to Walmart and came home with beta fishes :) I have to share a picture, because I'm cool like that :-p

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Meet Red :) 

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The kids look forward to visiting and feeding him every week - they beg to pet him, too :) So far I've been able to deter them from that. So far :-/ ha

Sick Day...

Today I got to stay home with my sick little kiddos, which really the timing was perfect because I wasn't feeling too well myself. While they were sick enough for me to keep them home from preschool, they were well enough to have quite a bit of energy, so our day ended up being full of lots of "lay low" indoor activities we don't normally have time for :) Here's a glimpse into our day:

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First off, a Pinterest inspired hand tracing - I had more fun with this one than they did :)

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Next, time for a little dress up - my pretty princess - and yes, I couldn't resist doing her makeup :) Meanwhile, Matthew wrote out the alphabet on his chalkboard.  It's just amazing to me, since going back to work I don't see the moment-by-moment, day-to-day stuff as often. He is really such a sponge for new information right now - it's so fun to see him write out the entire alphabet, play rhyming games with me, asking me to quiz him on basic math - oh that desire and excitement to learn, I just love it :)

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Experiment #1: Vinegar & Baking Soda! For a fun twist, I added a few drops of food coloring to the spoon, underneath the baking soda, so when it was mixed into the vinegar not only did it fizz up and bubble, but it changed color too!

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Experiment #2: Penny Cleaning! 3 clear glasses, one filled with water, one with soap & water, and the third with vinegar and salt. The experiment was to find out which would wash the pennies the best.

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Salt & Vinegar was by far the winner - the penny below was just dipped halfway in the glass for about 20 seconds, even in that time there was a noticeable difference. The kids enjoyed collecting pennies from their piggy bank and plopping them in the water/vinegar, but besides that the experiment didn't excite them too much, haha.

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Just like the day began, ended the day with dress up - despite how HOT it had gotten in the house this afternoon, Matthew insisted on dressing up in his dragon costume from last year - and refused to take it off for quite some time. Kaylie still fit (barely) into the ladybug costumer she wore for her first Halloween, at 9 months old!

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While none of us were really feeling our greatest today, it was such a fun day to spend with the kiddos - I sure do love them a lot :)