Dad's Last Day at Disneyland

Tyson will be out of town next week with his brother. When he comes back there is just one more week before our Disneyland passes are blocked out for the summer. He declared this his last day going to Disneyland, so we packed up and went to the magic kingdom one more time with daddy.


I just got kinda teary eyed putting these pictures up. I know, I am pregnant, so I can be a little more emotional, but we have really loved going to Disneyland every week. There can't possibly be something as cool as Disneyland in Oregon...

An Evening Outside

I am finally not feeling so lazy. We were in a funk over here. A pregnancy funk. My neighbor, who is pregnant and due a week before me, and I just lay on the couches at either my house or her house, and our kids just play and make a mess. It is really unproductive.

I really have nothing to complain about because I haven't been sick, but I have been tired. Really tired. So, I finally got out of that tired funk and started to venture back outside.
This particular day we went to the library, and then came home and read our books outside under the sun.

Then the neighbors came out and we made these bad boys.
Grilled pizza. Best pizza ever. So yum, so easy, and SOO fast. It takes 4 minutes to make this pizza if you buy your pizza dough at TJs. Which, if you don't, you should. Yum.

Viva Las Vegas

Tyson had to take his National Medical Boards Test in Las Vegas. He was just going to go by himself, but I had this great idea to ask my mom if she would come out and stay for awhile. So she came, and I got to tag along with Tyson sans kids. He took his test, and I sat at the pool. I definitely got the better end of the deal.

I picked him up in the late afternoon, and we walked the strip, literally the ENTIRE strip to get from our hotel, Luxor, to the Wynn, to go to their infamous and very expensive buffet.

We made stops in Paris:

Italy and had gelato:

Greece and took pictures of the ancient ruins:

New York and walked downtown and across the Brooklyn Bridge...

We took pictures with some famously sweet guys..

And FINALLY ended up at the Wynn, with very big appetites!
We decided to take pictures of all of our plates, after we had each had two plates of food...
But we were definitely getting our money worth!


The worst part of the trip, having sore feet from walking 4 miles in flip flops, then binge eating, and having to walk the 4 miles back. BRUTAL, but definitely worth it!

Happy Birthday to Me!!

My 30th year has flown by. I don't really know how to deal with that, but I sure brought 31 in with a bang. It was special because my mom was here, and I haven't been around her for my birthday in a LONG time.

In the morning we skipped the traditional birthday breakfast for a bike ride to Ruby's on the Pier.

From May11

From May11

Then mom took me shopping...
I got the Volcano candle from Anthropologie. Yum. and Black Glitter Toms. So excited!
We shopped to much so we had to let the kids get soaked for a second.

That night we went to my inlaws for a birthday celebration. We had coconut chicken, yummy salad, drinks, homemade rolls, and cake! It was delicious! (No pictures, can you believe it?)

The next night, I thought I was planning a date night with friends, but really they were planning Kidnap Jen and take her to a movie night. I love my friends, and it was so nice to hang out with them with no kids, and to go see a GREAT chick flick... Something Borrowed.
Um, the main male character was edible for sure. He was so goodlooking!
All in all, a fantastic birthday. Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes, treats on my doorsteps, emails, text messages, voicemail, phone calls, and facebook wall posts. I felt loved!

Happy Birthday

Okay, first this is Tyson again taking over the blog for a day. I wont even start to pretend to be as creative as Jen but everyone should know this Lovely womens B-day is today!

This is our first place in Provo loved the Big Bay windows, I loved 2 years of Jen the Kindergarten teacher and the all the adventures that 2 poor kids could have in Provo





Our East Bay time, 4years with more teaching 3 ghetto apartments great friends, and bringing twins to a cozy two bedroom.









And now a proud Mom with one on the way, living large in HB. Great location with fantastic friends.

Unfortunately your husband took a job far away in Oregon, even though it was a good opportunity this will be a hard move. Will the new place have bay windows, or good friends, maybe less liquor stores?

Even with a new life, house, job, ward, friends, Jen you are still the same happy, intelligent, witty, kind, artistic, great mom/wife that you have always been. Happy birthday Jen!

We all know Jen loves this blog, not to show off her ideas or junk, but because she loves seeing/stalking her friends, if you read this and have time, say "hi". I think her secret birthday wish is to hear from all her friends in all the areas we have enjoyed together.
-Tyson- ya you are stuck with me for eternity...love ya!

Bugs!

So my weeks of preschool are upon me again. I love teaching, but it is nice to have those 6 hours a week off! Our theme this week was Bugs! We learned all about bugs, and the letter Z (because bugs make that sound) and we reviewed the letter B.

Writing Centers:
I found this awesome book at the library, Butterfly Alphabet. At first I thought it would be lame and just have a different species of butterfly for each letter of the alphabetm but no, som super anal person looked at every butterfly and found each letter of the alphabet on different butterfly wings. It really is an awesome book. So we wrote all the letters on the wings of a butterfly I printed out for them.

Then the go to writing center activity when my brain is half working... writing in our journals. They love it, and I will love to save their journals and look at the funny responses they gave each day!

Math Centers:
I made ladybugs out of felt, and cut out lots of dots. They had to identify the number and put the appropriate amount of dots on each ladybug.

On Thursday, we read Inch by Inch, by Leo Lionni. Love this book. I used it in my Summer Reading Books with my kids this past summer. Anyways, I made little inch worms, and they measured a shoe, a spatula, a princess, corn, and a hamburger.

ABC Centers:
My neighbor has this great old school ABC pad. We used that for preschool. I love centers that involve no thinking...

And on Thursday, I cut out lots of dragonflies and butterflies and wrote different letters on them. They had to catch the bugs with z's and b's. I have to give a shout out to Tyson, cause I thought of this center 30 minutes before preschool started, but we didn't have a bug net. Tyson fashioned one out of the nylon bag, metal hanger, and dowel. He is amazing.


Dramatic Play Centers:
They looked at a book about fireflies, and took the finger lights and pretended to be fireflies in the closet. Anything with pretending these four are all about it! They love to dress up!

On Thursday, we had so much fun dress up like bugs. We had pipe cleaners for antennas, black nylons for spider legs, Berkleigh's butterfly wings, and my yoga mat which they used as a cocoon.
They had fun looking at the book about bug faces and trying to recreate them in the mirror.


Other things we did:
We had honey on bread for snack and read about bees.

We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and acted out the life cycle of a butterfly, and then made a book about it.



We sang bug songs.

We made little bug homes, got "food" and the caught lady bugs! They loved this.
My friend did this for a birthday party, and I have wanted to do it since!




It was a great week, and I have one more to go!