Hi-ho, Hi-ho, it's off to CA we go!!!

The day has FINALLY arrived, and we are flying out later on this evening to head to California!!! I don't know who's more excited, Madi & Caiden, or me! I cannot wait to see them.... three weeks has been entirely too long to be away from them!
I'm heading to work in a couple of hours, and Tyler's staying home to straighten the house and take care of the last minute details... very nice that I don't have to do that for a change!
I am going to attempt to blog some of our CA adventures while there, but we'll see how that goes! So stay tuned...
In the meantime, enjoy a couple pictures from our VERY quiet 4th of July. We took Kamrynn to see "Wall-E" in the morning, and then headed out to Mt. Olive (home of the famous pickles) to a really cool park, and then went to their very tiny airport to watch fireworks. Although we had fun, the 4th just wasn't the same without Madi and Caiden!

I LOVE this picture of Tyler & Kami looking at each other!




Kami loves to swing!

Playdough recipe!

Just in case you wanted to know... I thought I'd share the recipe Kamrynn and I used to make our Playdough! It was super easy, super quick, and the Playdough turned out great! In fact we made TWO batches... orange and purple! So without further delay...

Playdough

1 c. flour
1/2 c. salt
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tbsp. veggie oil
1 c. water
Food coloring

Dissolve salt in (warm) water.
Pour all ingredients in a pot, and stir over medium heat until a ball forms.
Knead dough until it resembles Playdough.
If I remember correctly, we added our food coloring to the water, after the salt had dissovled, but before we added the rest of the ingredients.
Store in an airtight container, or in a Ziploc bag! I think I remember reading that the Playdough should last 2-3 months.

Have fun!

Look out world... here comes Kami Jean!!!

Okay, so it only seems fair that I do a blog entry for Kami Jean since I've done one for both Madi and Caiden. We have been having a LOT of fun together in the two weeks since the older two have been in California. Sometimes I think that she is getting a little bored with Tyler and I, and really wishes she had her Bubba and Sissy here to play with her. We have played more games of Memory, Sorry, and Chutes and Ladders in the last few weeks than I've played in the last year, or so it seems! We've made cookies and playdough, worked on learning our letters, read lots of books (her favorites is the Search and Find book), had our very first sleepover at our house, and even had two weeks of swimming lessons! Here are some pictures from our adventures with Kami over the past couple of weeks!

Learning to swim!


Kami's favorite part was jumping in! And she only jumped in ONCE while her teacher wasn't looking! Now that was fun.


Swimming lessons are over! Kami was very proud of herself that she passed the class and gets to move on to the next level!


Kamrynn enjoying some cookie dough... don't we all!?!


Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!


Maybe just one more lick!


Playing with the new Playdough we made!


Kamrynn & Kylie playing with bubbles.


Kamrynn & Kylie, Bestest of Friends!


Eating Root Beer Floats!!


Snug as two bugs in a rug! Good night!!


K & K playing with Playdough

Look out Hollywood & New York, here comes Madi!

Okay, so yesterday I said I was going to brag a little bit on Madi & Caiden since I'm missing them so much. Caiden was yesterday, so it's Madi's turn today. And I can't get this thing up fast enough... yesterday when I was talking to them on the phone and told them to go look at the blog, Madi said "Mom, are you gonna do one for me? When?" So here ya go, my sweet Madi-girl!

So far this year we have done three theater productions. In March, Madi was a curtain warmer for "Oklahoma!" This was her final curtain warmer performance, as she will FINALLY be old enough this year (4th grade!) to be in the "big" show... and there is no better time as the "big" show this year will be none other than "Beauty and the Beast". But that's not until 2009. So back to 2008... the curtain warmers came on before every show and "warmed up" the audience, singing "The Farmer and the Cowman". Here's a picture of my beautiful little cowgirl...

After "Oklahoma!" it was time for a whirlwind week when Missoula Children's Theater came into town in April. If you've never experienced Missoula Children's Theater, I highly recommend it, as it's always so much fun! And if you've ever known anyone interested in performing this is a perfect opportunity to give it a try! Check out Missoula's website and see when they're coming to your town! www.mctinc.org
So anyways, Missoula comes into town on Sunday, auditions on Monday, rehearses through the week and performs on Friday or Saturday! Madi has been in four or five of these Missoula shows now, and this time around it was "Cinderella". She was one of the mice.. and a very cute one at that!




We had a long break from the theater after Missoula which was filled with Spring Soccer! After soccer was over, and school was let out for the summer, Madi jumped right into her 3rd year of Stagestruck's Summer Stars camp. This has been so much fun for her the past few years, and this year was no exception. The theme was "Shake Your Groove Thing" and featured music from the 70's. It was so fun to see Madi learning and singing songs like: YMCA, I Will Survive, Night Fever, Joy to the World (Jeremiah was a Bullfrog), Celebrate, of course the title song, and many others! The two weeks of camp were capped off with a performance for all the campers family and friends! We were especially happy that Grandpa was here to see Madi shake her groove thing!



After her performance, Grandpa treated us all to DQ malts!!!! Grandpa said Goldsboro's DQ malts weren't as good as Sacramento's DQ malts... guess he's gonna have to prove it when we visit him in a couple weeks!

Look out MLS... here comes Caiden!

My "babies" have been in CA for 9 days now, and I am missing them terribly!!! So since I'm new to the blogging world and have lots of pictures that I've yet to share with y'all, I thought I'd post and brag a little bit about Madi and Caiden. Caiden's up first....

So most of y'all know how much Caiden loves soccer. If I didn't give birth to the kid myself, I would've sworn that he was born with soccer cleats on and holding a soccer ball. Here's a picture of him at 18 mos. old, holding a soccer ball that was given to him by our waitor at a restaurant when we were on vacation in Spain.

So the biggest and most exciting news regarding Caiden and soccer happened about a month or so ago. I had seen an ad in the Sports pages of our local newspaper awhile back about tryout for a competitive soccer team, but it said they were looking for boys ages 9 and up. So I decided to do a little research and email one of the contacts to find out if they would let Caiden (age 7) tryout. I never heard anything back, so I kind of forgot about it and put it out of my head. On our way home from a soccer game one night back at the end of May, I noticed a bunch of kids playing soccer in a field. Oh yeah, I told Tyler, they're having those tryouts tonight. Let's go watch! So reluctantly, he drove back to where all of these kids were, and we sat and watched for a little while. I noticed some kids on the field that looked to me, to be the same size/age as Caiden. So I persuaded Tyler to go take Caiden out there and get the scoop. Long story kinda short, we found out that these kids were 9 & 10, and they don't typically make exceptions to the age rule, but the guy who's in charge of all the teams, agreed to let him go ahead and try out for the last 10 min. and if he liked what he saw, Caiden could go back the following night. So Caiden, who by now is rushing to put his cleats back on and lace 'em up, went out there with these 9 & 10 year olds and basically played as well if not better than a good deal of them! He was invited back the next night, and then again to the 2nd round of tryouts which were held the 2nd week in June. After those tryouts we found out that they didn't have enough kids for the U-10's, so they grabbed some kids down from the U-12's and made an U(nder)-11 team, which they have asked Caiden to play on!!!! His coaches love him and are SUPER impressed with him!!! And Tyler and I couldn't be more excited and proud of him either! This is going to be a brand new experience for us... the world of traveling, competitive soccer, but one we are all very much looking forward to! Here are some pictures from the last game of the Spring Soccer season (Madi & Caiden were on the same team AND Tyler and I coached!), as well as some pictures from his summer soccer camp!

The last game of the season was so scorching hot, we had to pull Caiden out of the game during the last quarter, as we thought he was getting a bit of heat exhaustion.

This is Caiden with his coach for the week, Coach Bazz. At the end of the camp, all campers get a little evaluation from their coach. This is what Coach Bazz had to say about Caiden: Caiden is a very gifted soccer player. He has the ability to beat defenders and finishes well. Keep your head up and look for teammates when dribbling.


Minus the ladies legs in the way, I thought this was a pretty cool picture!




On the first day of camp the kids are put into teams, and get to partake in a World Cup tournament. They get to choose which team they want to be and then get points throughout the week based on games won, good sportsmanship, making a team flag, wearing team colors, etc. Caiden and his team were Argentina.


Argentina won the World Cup! They went undefeated in tournament play, demonstrated good sportsmanship, and racked up all kinds of points! Here they are getting their "trophy".