7 Quicktakes Friday- from our President's Day week

I haven't done quicktakes in awhile, but I feel like this is a good week for it.  The week went by SO quickly for me that I feel like everything literally was a quicktake.  

1. Reading is still our jam!

Kayla reading during the Super Bowl.  She watched some, but she was mostly engrossed in her book since it was not the Bengals.  :)

The other morning, the girls all came into bed with me in the morning and grabbed books.  I got up to make Chris' lunch and came back to find Kayla reading "How Things Work" (Thanks, Grammy!) to her sisters.  It was sweet as sweet could be. 

And this one I snapped a couple days ago of Chris reading to Kayla, Elise, and Ava from a book all about teeth.  I love this scene and it's one I see often around here.  

2. Kayla's One-on-One with Daddy

I mentioned that Chris plans to take one girl a week on a one-on-one during Lent.  Kayla got to take her first little Daddy Date on President's Day.  We loaded everyone up in the car and we dropped Chris and Kayla off at the beginning of a nearby trail.  Their plan was to just hike until they were too tired to go any further and then we'd pick them up again.  The trail goes on for miles (it's the same one that, as a family, we've been hiking in segments).  Camelbak strapped on, we waved to our adventurers and headed home to have some fun at home ourselves.  

 

 

 

(these are all the pictures that Chris took on their adventure- it appears that they had a pretty good time)  :)  

We picked them up around lunchtime.  They'd hiked over 6 miles and ended at a park that's not too far from our house, so I packed a lunch and we met them there for a little picnic before taking them home to get some rest after their fun date.  

3.  Gorgeous Weather

We live in SoCal, so it's not surprising when the weather is lovely, even in the winter, but it was wonderful to have such sunny, beautiful weather after a few weeks that were rather dreary, cooler, and scattered with quite a bit of rain.  It's still gorgeous, but most of these pictures are from earlier in the week when I took the girls out front to color with sidewalk chalk and ride bikes and scooters.  I got some nice time while they played to just soak up the Vitamin D and read.  Truly lovely.  

4. Cleaning the Patio

Speaking of playing outside, the girls also love playing out on the back patio and making a mess.  They have fun, so I don't mind it much, but at some point, we do have to clean up the patio from the dirt they've pasted all over.   One of their favorite past times is "painting" the back fence with a mixture of dirt and water.  The other day, we had a cleaning party with a scrub brush and clean water....they still had fun, so perhaps I should suggest that activity in the future and we could skip the "dirt painting" altogether....

5.  Trip to Sprouts

Today at Sprouts, I was paid a very nice compliment, which doesn't need to be shared, but as a mother was very nice to hear.  Not more than 5 seconds later, I caught Ava with her hand in one of the bulk food bins grabbing a tasty treat for herself.  The deed had been done, but I snatched the handful of raisins from her and gave them to Sophie instead.   But when I was grabbing my last item, she tried her naughtiness again, and this time it was worse.  I was further away so couldn't grab her or the food, but I gave her the look, and shook my head because she hadn't yet actually grabbed it.  She looked me in the eye, grabbed a square of chocolate, and stuffed it in her mouth.  She lost some treats and privileges at home, and screamed until she fell asleep for her nap because of it, but wow--that was a first, and not one that I ever want repeated again.  But we survived the trip to the store, restocked our fridge and pantry, and the yuckiness of that experience is a few hours behind us now.  Thank goodness. 

6. Valentine's Dance for Adults with Special Needs

My godfather's band played for a Valentine's Dance event earlier this week, and we attended.  It was for adults with special needs, but all were welcome, so we joined the fun to dance with the sweet folks and all the volunteers (a big group of whom were students at St. Michael's Abbey boy's school).  It was a lot of fun to spend time with a group of people that the girls do not often see or have a chance to interact with.   It was definitely a bit awkward for them at first, but they soon lost their fear and had fun dancing around with everyone.  Sophie even tried to share her water with one young man who could not use his legs, but was dancing wildly and happily with his arms and torso with a bright smile on his face.  He was not exactly happy to be interrupted, but it was heart warming to see her being so friendly and sweet with him.  

 

Plus they were offered ice cream sundaes.  Best night ever. 

                     

This video of Sophie dancing is the best.  You will laugh.  I promise.  Her moves are amazing. 

7.  My health

I thought about writing a much longer post about this, but I don't really want to.  In December, I had a bunch of blood work done.  I've had blood work done in the past, but this was very extensive and covered a lot of different things.  What I found out is that we still have some more digging to do to because my body showed signs (in the numbers) that it's been fighting something for awhile.   I was also formally diagnosed with the thyroid autoimmune disease Hashimoto's.   I have been having thyroid problems for several years at this point, but up until now it's always just a vague "hypothyroid" diagnosis with no questions answered as to why or what happened, so this series of blood tests were a step in the direction of getting more answers and solving some problems instead of just throwing medication at something and calling it "fine".  I was also very deficient in a lot of vitamins and minerals, so I'm taking lots of supplements and we are trying the more natural Armour Thyroid medication at the moment.  The hope, of course, is to find more answers and perhaps be able to get me off medication completely eventually if we can solve some of the problems that caused this to happen in the first place.  I could go into it more, but frankly, it's somewhat personal so I don't want to share all the details with everyone, it's exhausting, and it's rather emotional for me.  What most people need to know is that I will be gluten free from now on and am also staying away from sugar for the most part as well.  I am not terribly sick and confined to a bed.  My body is just having some troubles and we are trying to figure out exactly what it is.  I am grateful for a wonderful, supportive doctor, supportive and loving family and close friends, and I'm thankful that I've kept my body as healthy as I could throughout my life because I'm certainly not in a super bad place and I think that has a huge part to play in my current health being quite good despite there being these underlying problems.  

Now, that was a little heavy, I know, so simply scroll back up to #6 and watch that video again.  Perhaps twice.   :)

Hiking near Home

I'm playing catch-up because our month of July was quite busy, and I didn't have the time to get posts and pictures up in a very timely manner.  

So we are heading back to somewhere around early-mid June when we explored the area behind a nearby park and found a little maze of trails and some lovely views.  It's perfect for a little evening hike to catch another of God's beautiful sunsets and get some exercise in while spending time together.  

Heading up to the trails behind the park

The next evening we decided to go again and explore going another direction on the trails up there.  That path was filled with lots of cacti and other interesting plant life.

 

It quickly became our favorite little spot, so we have been back a few other times and took my parents up recently too when they visited (that in another post...)

family hiking selfie

These were supposed to be silhouettes, but I guess the backlight wasn't where it needed to be, so....fail, but they made me laugh to see them, especially Ava.  

Come on out to visit, we can take you for a lovely sunset hike too!

Kayla's Date with Daddy

We spend a lot of precious time as a family, but we rarely take the girls out for any one on one time. We decided to do something about that. Chris planned a date with Kayla last week. We gave her some ideas of possible activities they could do and then she planned the day.

This was the picture I took before they left. Elise wanted to be in a picture too, so we took a second one.


First, she wanted to have a picnic lunch. I packed them some fun treats and they set off on their adventure. Chris told me that Kayla rationed out her crackers throughout the date. She apparently even had one saved for the ride back home.


After that she chose to go to a water feature park and then play on the playground.


And then she stopped to snack on some of those crackers she had rationed.


The next stop was Daddy's choice: a local nursery. Chris wanted to check out the selections of grass seed they carried because we are going to plant grass in our front yard this fall. Kayla loves plants and dirt, so they had a blast walking around the entire nursery checking out ALL the flora and fauna. Apparently Kayla's favorite was a butterfly bush (swarming with butterflies, of course).

They also found this ridiculous and enormous metal rooster that was $300. They just had to get a picture.


Kayla came home with lots of happy smiles and descriptions of all the fun she had with Daddy. Next is Elise's turn...we'll see what kind of activities she chooses for her date with Daddy!

Classic Car Show

A couple weeks back, our new little gem of a town had a classic car show. I can't say for sure that Chris has never been to one (though he didn't say he had), but I know that I've never been. And I'm certain our girls haven't either. That is, until we toured the local one recently.

If you follow (or just read) our blog, you typically get to hear me brag about my kids, rave about my husband, talk about what an amazing God we serve, and share about my hobbies (crafting and cooking mostly). This is a bit of a change-up for me but I found the car show to be quite intriguing.

Here's why:
1) Older cars are so unique and classy looking.
2) It was cute to watch my husband walk around taking pictures (and I'm sure wishing he could have a few of those sweet cars)
3) I found the car show to be fun, informative, and a great way to spend part of a rather lazy Sunday afternoon.

But seriously, aren't you rather intrigued after looking at a few photos? They all seem to have their own personality. And it was so chill. I felt like I had traveled back a few decades in time and it wasn't just because of the cars. It was the whole feel of it all. I loved it.