Beach pics

We had some great mornings hanging out at a beach nearby. It was called Sunset Bay, I think. Since it is a bay the ocean waves weren't rough so the kids could put their feet in the water. It was fairly cool so we bundled up. It was great to relax and let the kids play in the sand!

Ahhh...the peace of the ocean. I took this pic...and I really like it. It says a lot about Jason and I.

We found some tide pools and the kids had fun looking at the animals. There is a group of sea anenomes in this pic.




Me and the kids on the beach.

Grammpa did a great job helping the kids around the slipery rocks. Elijah fell a bunch and got so dirty. He doesn't like his hands to be dirty so he had a bit of a hard time.

Ohh...little Ethan on his first swing! Gramma Barb sat and swang him for a while at the park. Ethan LOVED it!

Here, here little fishies!

We went on a little fishing trip with my parents while we were in Bandon.

This was how the kids fishing experience ended up. :)

They had a lot of fun tossing rocks into the lake.




Their first fish! After this picture grammpa threw him back into the water since he is so little.

I'm getting bigger!

In the past month or so both Alia and Elijah had their annual well check DR appts. They are both doing really well...both on the small side of things-in the 20th percentile for height...but doing good. :)

Here's Alia-she went for her 5 year appt. She got about 4 shots and was so brave. She wanted to watch the nurse give her her shots. I tried to convince her not to but she wouldn't put her little head down. She wimpered a bit but then was fine. She did great! Now she's all ready for Kindergarten! Hard to believe my little girl is starting grade school.

Elijah had his 3 year appt! Here he is trying to put up 3 fingers :) He can actually do this by himself now-he's had lots of practice . No shots for Elijah-horray!

Ride that bull!

Alia this morning eating her waffles on our birthday plate. Her shirt has little cupcakes all over it. We thought it was fitting. :)

We ate dinner tonight at Big Bubba's. Yes, I rode the bull. Enough said.

Alia's friend Jenna (and her mom and dad) had dinner with us. They had a lot of fun playing in the tree house. They worked up a sweat, that's for sure!

Happy Birthday Alia!

Today my little girl turns 5! It's so hard to believe that she's already 5 years old! Such a big girl she is. I still clearly remember the day she was born...what a day it was.

On Sunday we had a little birthday party for Alia at the Build A Bear store. She had so much fun with her little girlfriends. It was fun to watch them.

Here's Alia with her new little bunny.

Since we were having her party at Build A Bear I decided to put bear heads on Alia's cupcakes. I made these out of candy melts...they were so fun to make. The frosting ended up melting off so on Sunday morning I had to do a quick fix em up...so for her party the frosted ended up being brown-which I didn't like as much. The white makes the bear heads pop so much more. :)

And, here are my boys. :) Please excuse the pacifier...Ethan hadn't slept very long so he was sleepy.

Here are all the kids listening well and getting ready to make their animals.

Characters!

Goofy's Kitchen!

We met my parents at Goofy's Kitchen in the Disneyland Hotel before we went ot Disneyland for Elijah's Bday. It was so much fun to have personal one on one time with a good amount of the characters.

Here are the big kids with the star of the show, Goofy.

They sang ot Elijah and he got a special cupcake and an "It's my birthday" button. He actually got another button when we went to get him his annual pass. He wore one the next day when we were at Disneyland and it was great! People were saying "Happy Birthday Elijah" all day long and he felt so special. During the parade one of the singers on a float even noticed the button and told him happy birthday over the microphone! So special! :)

Ethan even enjoyed the characters! Well, their noses, at least. :) He grabbed their noses and was trying to get them into his mouth. He loved looking at all the characters.

At the entrance to the hotel.



Here we all are with Pluto. I'm not so sure when Goofy doesn't do this picture...since it's Goofy's Kitchen. But I guess if he stood here the whole time he couldn't be in the restaurant roaming the tables. I think they do a rotation for this pic.

Ethan's Dedication

Ethan Oscar Backlund was dedication to Jesus on May 31st. Since Jason's the pastor, he got to dedicate him.

Ethan is doing really well. He's sitting up all by himself and he loves that. The other kids do, too. He is almost crawling...he's trying so hard. but he can move all over! He rolls and pushes himself to get to what he wants. He spend lots of time in the crawl position rocking back and forth...and trying to get somewhere :) He does have a bit of reflux-just like Alia & Elijah...so he spits up quite a bit. Some days are better than others. He has some meds for it but I'm a bit leery of them because of how groggy they made Elijah when he was a baby. So long as he's gaining weight and doesn't seem like he's in pain, I'm not too worried. It's more trouble for the carpet and mommy & daddy's clothes! and the couch...and, well, whatever the spit up lands on! :)

OH! He finally is saying "mamamamamama"!! Yeah! I love hearing that. He's also said "dadadada" and lots of other sounds. He loves it when his brother and sister play with him. He's all smiles and giggles lots.

He's 3!!

Elijah turned 3 on May 31st. Hard to believe he's 3!! Here are a few pics.

Here's Elijah at Gramma Barb and Grampa Jim's house. He loves his new baseball T!

Vroom Vroom! Grandma and Grandpa B sent Elijah a Big Wheel! Have you ever seen anything like this? He loves it, although he's not quite tall enough to reach the pedal :( But one day he'll be "that cute boy on the fancy big wheel". :) All the girls will have eyes for him. teehee

He got to eat his breakfast on our special BDay plate. He's showing you 3 fingers-that's how he says how old he is.


We had a little birthday party for him. He had a good time with his little 3 year old friends.

He had a dinosaur party...so here was his cupcake cake. Can you see the T-Rex? :) He really liked his dinosaur party.

Happy birthday to our little boy! We love you very much!

Alia's Graduation!

On May 21st Alia graduation from preschool. It was a very proud moment for Jason and I! They had a ceremony that evening in the high school auditorium and it was PACKED!!! The three classrooms sang songs from up front-too cute. Then they each got their diploma. Afterwards we met some friends for ice cream to celebrate. I can't believe little Alia is a Kindergartner!

The proud family.

Alia and Celeste. She is one of Alia's good friends from the past 2 years. They really enjoy each other.

Eating ice cream afterwards. They were making silly faces.



Alia with one of her teachers. I was bummed about the lighting for the pic.

Alia and Haley...best friends. They won't be going to kindergarten together but they will still be best friends! :)

Riverway

This past Tuesday we went to Riverway Sports Park with some friends. They have a splash park area so the kiddos got to play in the water. We took our lunch and then they got to run like crazy. Surely a fun place to go! Can you tell?

The two big kids posing for a pic!

I had the most fun watching Elijah. Last year he was very apprehensive about the water...mostly watching from the sidelines. But this time he was all for it! My favorite was when he was putting his face right in the stream of the water and laughing his head off! I realized that he didn't have any swim trunks so I put these orange shorts on him...the are 18 month shorts and are STILL falling off him! He ran around most of the time with his shorts falling off. I'm glad he had a swim diaper to cover his little cheeks. :)

Full of bows!

So I have volunteered (and been accepted) as next year's MOPS creative activities coordinator (AKA crafts coordinator). This means that a friend and I will figure out about 9 crafts to have our group do over next year's MOPS. We have a tight budget and probably will average about 60-70 people to plan for. I am super duper excited about doing this, and also a bit anxious-mostly because not everyone is a "crafty" person and people have different likes when it comes to craft projects. Anyways, I am ready for this challenge, and this step up in leadership. I have really missed being in a leadership role and being part of a team.

Over the past few weeks (an into the next few months) we're going to be planning the crafts for the next year. So I've been hunting and gathering craft ideas. If you have any good ideas or links please pass them my way!

This ribbon bow wreath is one of the ideas I saw in a book. I decided to make one using patriotic ribbon so I could use it for the 4th of July/Labor Day/Memorial Day. I made it Sunday night and I LOVE IT!!! I just think it's so darn cute!! Imagine the possibilities...Halloween ribbon, valentine's ribbon, Christmas ribbon...the list goes on!

It's really easy-all you need to know how to do is tie a bow! And if you can tie your shoe, you can tie a bow! Fabulous, isn't it?

Here's a close up of the bows!

The final product...isn't she cute?

Please excuse the white ribbon sticking out at the bottom...I apparently missed that one when I was trimming the ribbon. :)

Just some pics.

Jason took the 2 big kids to a Visalia Rawhide baseball game last week. They had a blast! A preschool friend of Alia's was there too...so the three of them basically ran around the stadium the whole time. They were wiped out by the end of the game!



Here's a little project I did for teacher appreciation week last week. I made these candles with my young women's Bible study and it was so fun. I then added the little cards that say "For all you are, for all you do, thank you". Alia gave them to her teachers on Friday. Note the beautiful sweet pea flowers in the background...my FAVORITE flowers-they smell so dreamy.

And here is my mother's day treat. I used candy melts (my new favorite thing!) and made candy lollipops. It's funny because I totally remember my mom making lollipops out of candy melts too. I guess I am my mom's daughter. :) I made a bunch of these and passed them out at church and then this afternoon we drove around to some friends homes and I dropped them off. It was fun-that was one thing I wanted to do on mother's day...bless my friends.

Happy Mother's Day!!