This Is Kristin

One of my favorite things to do growing up was to go bike riding around Lake Tahoe. Ever since I had kids this was something I looked forward to doing with them. We found a trail near our house, that is paved and flat and perfect for our boys who are learning to ride their bikes.

Of course we had to venture off the path into the creek on the side of the trail, and throw some rocks.

Blue had to try to ride through it, and eventually went swimming in. Which I was fine with after all this recent rain, until I saw the leeches in the creek as we were leaving….

Aiden loved riding his newly “pimped out” bike (nice way of saying fixed up hand me down) with new training wheels, and handles. After a few tip overs, he got the hang of it and was cruising ahead of everyone else.

We had a picnic lunch, and rode and walked for hours.
It was such a wonderful day, and I hope to go back often this summer!

We are fully amused by Cooper’s happy enthusiasm for patty cake…

I took these two old chairs which were nicked up, painted them black. Then I made some seat cushions out of fabric which I had previously used as a sling for Cooper when he was a baby, and before that was my Grandma’s fabric that I inherited. I had some leftover foam, and ribbon lying around for the ties. The total cost was $3 for the can of spray paint and took a total of 3 hours. Now I have some nice chairs to sit on my front porch!

I picked up a book that we have on our shelf, which I’d been wanting to read. I have loved Brennan Manning’s other books, and this one has started out, yet again with so much to chew on. I think one of my biggest struggles in life is fear of certain things, and so this paragraph seemed to jump off the page at me:

(when he’s talking about Cannaan and Haran he’s referring to when God called Abram out of Cannaan into the unknown land of Haran.)

“Fear breeds a deadening caution, a holding back, a stagnant waiting until people no longer can recall what they are waiting for or saving themselves for. When we fear failure more than we love life; when we are dominated by thoughts of what we might have been rather than by thoughts of what we might become; when we are haunted by the disparity between our ideal self and our real self; when we are tormented by guilt, shame, remorse, and self condemnation, we deny our faith in the God of love. God calls us to break camp, abandon the comfort and security of the status quo, and embark in perilous freeedom on the journey to a new Canaan. But when we procrastinate our of fear; this represents not only a decision to remain in Haran, but also a lack of trust.”

~Brennan Manning “The Signature of Jesus.” Anyone read this book before?

(These are baby lizards eggs that hatched, that Blue had in his class for the last 40 days.  I am not a reptile person at all, but now I’m convinced that anything as a baby is cute)

This is the last week of school, and Blue’s last week of kindergarten!  I can not believe how fast the last few months have flown by.  I am having mixed feelings.   I am sentimental  as we say goodbye to the sweet kindergartner year, goodbye to a really wonderful teacher, and also ready to celebrate a job well done, and ready to embrace lazier days of summer! 

One thing I am excited about of having Blue do, is a journal this summer.  I don’t want him to lose his reading, writing skills he’s gained this year, so I thought having him write and draw in a journal each day this summer will be a great exercsise, and a wonderful momento for me to keep… 

Some of our other plans are swimming a ton, taking a couple day trips, maybe seeing the ocean (I hope so at least!), visiting an aquarium, and having family come out and visit!  

What are your summer plans?

The rain did a number on my roses, and sadly they didn’t recover from the black spot disease they got last year, and so now it’s even worse to the point that the roses are dying…. It’s sad.

Blue has said some pretty cute and creative things lately…

• His stomach was hurting the other night, and after some mild dinner I asked him how he was feeling, He said “I feel better, now I have an Ex- stomach ache.”
• Blue was telling me about a little girl in his class, whose grandma lives with them.  He said, “When her mom is gone, her grandma is like the vice mom.”  
• One day we were watching the Jonas Brother’s sing, and Blue said he liked the lead singer the best.  Then he said, “I like all lead singers, they always have the best hair.”  

(which is why he’s growing out the front only, of his hair.)

*Tiny Talk Tuesday

I was happy to have a fun day with all my boys yesterday. I picked up Brody first thing in the morning, so we were able to have breakfast out at Pancake pantry, and get there before the crowd. I had some yummy raspberry pancakes, we played at the park, shopped at Target, napped with Aiden and Cooper, and had an Asian themed dinner made by Brody.

I loved my paintings and card…

I also really loved my poem from Eliot that he made at school. This boy is not my most affectionate one, and if he can make a joke out of something he will. So when I saw this, I was expecting some jokes, but instead it was pure sweetness..

I had a very happy mother’s day, thank you to my boys!

I love this commercial, mostly because of the song. Also it’s cool to watch that many bouncy balls bounce down the streets of S.F.

“Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.” ~A.A. Milne

I can not get things done if I don’t have a list. I also can not seem to think well unless things are organized. I don’t know what that means about me, if anything, but that is just how I am. (Apparently I am not the only one whose inner happiness is somewhat influenced by outer orderliness)

This week I am aiming to organize things in my house, get things ready for a garage sale, we’ve already started selling some things we don’t use on craigslist, and feel somewhat accomplished so that when it finally stops raining, I can get outside!

Simple mom is having a Spring Clean marathon on her blog, and she’s got some good tips to go with it.

Apartment Therapy has some great organizing tips also, which is where I got the picture above

*What about you, are you happier when things are organized?