New Friend

Meet Lizzy

Kids found her in the backyard tonight and she is quite friendly!

All was fine and dandy until she crawled up Gregory's arm into his "PIT"!  I had to rescue her from the back of his neck and all was fine again.  

First Day of School!

Today our kiddies started school!  Bailey is in Mrs. Schinske's 3rd grade class and Gregory is in Mrs. Judice's 1st grade class.  They are both quite excited and enjoyed their first day of school.  Today they only went for a few hours and were home by noon.  Tomorrow is Wacky Wednesday (minimum day) and starting Thursday we will be on a full day schedule.  Homework has already started, but I think I came home with the most!  

My two babies are growing up!

CELEBRATE!

 Well, summer has finally come to an end!  School starts tomorrow and we are SO EXCITED!  So excited we had to celebrate with an ice cream sandwich from CREAM!

There's a new ice cream shop in Walnut Creek called CREAM

They serve these yummy ice cream sandwich treats ~ Here's Gregory's chocolate chip cookie and strawberry ice cream sandwich

AND best of all, they also sell VEGAN ice cream AND cookies!  Bailey picked Tuxedo cookies with mint chip ice cream!  Whoo hoo! 

Today ~

Now that Daddy is finished with the front yard (well, the grass part), he decided to start another project!  

The squirrels chewed up our pergola so Daddy is going to use our old deck wood to repair it

He's making good use of our beautiful patio

Look at the beautiful flowers I found when I woke up!  Daddy bought them for our anniversary ~

The kids gave us zucchinis 

Look!  They are bigger than Gregory's hand!

Happy Anniversary, Baby!

DONE!

A while back, Clark and Gregory destroyed our deck and moved/chopped down our trees ~ basically gutted our whole backyard.  I've been getting estimates and waiting and waiting (and waiting) for Clark to decide who to use and... well, I took the job into my own hands.  I hired a crew who came on Wednesday!  They leveled and hauled away two loads of dirt, framed the area, put in a drain, spread out the base layer, pounded it all in and added the rebar SO they could pour the cement TODAY!!!  WHOO HOO!!!

Here are my kiddies ~ they pretty much watched the men almost all morning

Look at that beautiful broom finish!

Can you picture the basketball hoop over there in the dirt?

I had the kids add their prints ~ I'm a little bummed about my crooked writing, but what can you do?

Now that Clark is finished with the front, he will be busy landscaping the backyard!

Time with Cousins

Yesterday we went to Stockton to hang out with Oliver and Emma!  They swam, made glass marble magnets, homemade basketball cards (I'm sure Uncle Denis will want to start collecting!), played games and just had a super great day!  We left Gregory there to spend the night with them and Grandpa and Grandma will drop him off later today.  

Obon/It's Done!

This afternoon we made a quick trip to the Diablo Obon with Grandma and Uncle Frank.  The kids played a few games and we picked up a ton of food to take home for lunch/dinner.  (Chicken teriyaki, kushiyaki, tempura, udon, gyoza, sushi and a shave ice too!)  Grandpa and Daddy stayed home to work on the grass.

Bailey fishing for a good prize

2 pallets of grass that was delivered yesterday

Rolling

Pounding

Rolling

Admiring 

My kiddies on the grass

Doesn't it look wonderful?

We can't wait til Daddy will let us play on it!

This week we start the backyard!!

Fun filled Days

Aunty Joey is playing single parent while Uncle Ryan is out camping so yesterday we watched Lukie!  (Camryn was planning to come too, but a special guest was visiting her school so she didn't want to miss out)   Grandpa and Grandma came, we played, had lunch at Taco Bell, went to the park and ate a HUGE pot roast dinner Grandma cooked for us!  

Today Daddy and Mommy had to roll maki sushi for the Concord Obon so Aunty Joey watched the kids and from what I hear, they had another day of fun-filled adventure!

Now Daddy is back in the garden.  Another 700 sq ft of sod was dropped off on our driveway this morning so he'll be rolling the day (and possibly the night) away.  But he's in the home stretch.  Gonna look BEAUTIFUL! 

Update ~ Bailey's tree!

Back to the playdate ~ They played Skylander Giants

Watched a visiting hawk in our backyard

Played with Koolaid Playdough

Played at the park

 

Had a great time!

The Tree

This summer the kids participated in the Library Summer Reading Festival.  They were required to read a little over 7 hours and if they completed the minutes they'd win a  whole slew of prizes.  Well, Bailey finished in less than a week (and still continues to read at least an hour a day) but she wanted to wait until Gregory finished his chart too.  Gregory still hasn't finished his, but we went to the library a few weeks ago to collect Bailey's loot.  One of the prizes was a coupon from Learning Express for one of these lovely trees.  We had to stop by there to pick up something so we also took our coupon for Bailey's tree.

Here's the kit

Bailey got it all set up

And we waited for it to grow

Pretty nifty, eh?

Gregory took this shot of her next to her tree

It'll continue to "grow", but I'm thinking it is looking pretty good already!  Nice work Sweets with your reading and your tree!

Getting Ready!

School is (kinda) around the corner so I took the kids shopping today to pick up a few essentials.  Actually, Gregory woke up this morning and was surfing the internet for the stuff he wanted and I didn't want to pay for shipping so we went on a search before we were left with slim pickings!  We had to go to four stores, but we managed to find everything we needed.  

Skylander Giants and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles we on his MUST HAVE list

Bailey ended up with a lot of OWL stuff.  Quite cute ~

Here they are ready to roll!  (Does this mean I get to send them to school tomorrow??!)

They wanted you all to see their backpacks on the back while they are facing backwards

Our New Pets!

Worms!  Now this is my kinda pet!

This morning we made worm habitats ~ we wanted to watch the worms tunnel through the layers of sand and dirt.  After our houses were made we went out to the yard to dig up some worms, but we only found ONE!  When it rains out our street is COVERED with worms and today when we need them we only found ONE!  Well, that didn't go over very well at our house so we were on a search...Let me tell you, worms are hard to come by!  After running around town, we finally called Grandma and she suggested Walmart.   We called over there and they had some in their sporting goods section (bait).  We picked up a container and came home to put them in their new homes!

Bailey ready to fill her habitat with worms

Notice she is managing the worms just fine

Gregory, on the other hand, refused to touch them

So Bailey helped him out

To give them a little privacy, they made screens and we wrapped their homes in them.  We'll have to take a picture once the worms have burrowed down into the dirt.