MOPS Steering Team Retreat 2011

 

We had our MOPS Steering Team Retreat during the weekend of July 8-10.  This year we were graciously allowed to stay at the home of Carly's in-laws, the Pray home.  It was in Clayton, near Mt. Diablo.  We had a wonderful time planning, bonding, and growing closer to God as a team all weekend.

As always we were well feed, just check out our snack table.

We also went out to a lovely dinner in Downtown Walnut Creek at Tender Greens.

And here is a picture of my amazing Co-Coordinator, Katie, and I leading the group during one of our times together during the weekend.

I sure am blessed to be able to serve with such a dynamic group of women.  Thank you God for this group and I pray that we lead Creekside Church MOPS how you desire this coming year.  Now I leave you with us being silly.

Fourth of July

Fourth of July was a BLAST this year! :)  It was a full day of activities starting with the annual Roseville Fourth of July Parade.

We meet up with our parade buds the Moons and Jenn's Mom, Jeanne at the event, as well as the Cunningham Family.  Here we are standing at attention as the flags paraded by.

 

It was a hot day, but several people cam out for the fun.  

Here we are watching the festivities.

Here are our friends as the parade finished up and we packed up to go home.

After the parade we had some lunch and then went back home to prepare for our evening get together at our house with some friends from our Life Group.  It was a nice party.  The big and little kids got to play a little X-box.

We had lots of water fun in the backyard.

Here are the kids all together, Evan, Evie, Savannah, Gavin, Issac in the back and Liv in the very front at the bottom.

Here are all the Momma's at the event posing pretty, Olivia, me, Bethany and Missy.

And her are the Dads, Jim, Mike and Travis.

Below are just a few more water pictures.

Jim was able to get in on the water fun too. :)

We also got to dine on these delicious and festive strawberries brought by Bethany.  Thank you friend!  So pretty!

After the party we all packed up and drove to Lincoln's McBean Park where we set up to watch the fireworks.  Evan feel alseep in the car on our way to the park.  He was exhausted. 

Evie on the other-hand still had some energy.  :)

These picture cracks me up.  Here are Issac and Cade pretending to sleep like Evan.  They just couldn't get over the fact that he was asleep and that they couldn't wake him up.  So funny!

Lastly, I leave you with a final picture our family right before the fireworks show.  At this point Evan had woken up, but he was still pretty tired and now Evan was fading.  We were up way past everyone's bed times, but it was a very memorable evening.  The fireworks went off right above our heads.  You couldn't have had a closer view.  It was amazing.  I think Evie could have passed on the show.  She was not a huge fan, and Evan watched with intensity the whole time.  :)

Hope you all had a memorable Fourth of July with your family and friends too!

Random Summer Fun

This summer has been real enjoyable with a variety of activities.  From doing a back yard train...

Enjoying a bounce house in the backyard for a week that we borrowed from a friend.

Just playing and eating outdoors.

 

Lots of water fun.

 

And we have even found a new friend in our toy box outside - Froggy.

 

Evan's 1st Movie in the Theater - "Cars 2"

We went with Evan to see his first movie in the Movie Theater, on Saturday, July 2nd.  This was also the first time Jim and I had seen a movie in the theater since having Evan.  We all had a blast.

We sat in the very last row in the corner.  It actually was a pretty good seat.  No one was in front of Evan at all.

Here we are posing pretty with our movie tickets.  Not like they used to be back in the day, but Evan still thought they were cool. :)

We sure had fun and our little man, loved the movie.  He also thought it was pretty special that he got to have a date with just Mommy and Daddy.  Evie stayed at home with her loyal babysitters, Grandma and Grandpa.  Thank you!  Love you!

Evan's Potty Trained!

On June 27 we put underwear on Evan for the first time and he was almost immediately potty trained.  We ask ourselves why didn't we try this sooner? :)  This picture above is of Evan with a special reward he got for doing so well.  Doesn't he look proud of himself.

Evan has known how to go potty on the toilet for awhile now and we had been making him use the toilet every night before bed.  However, we had only been trying with Pull ups.  When we talked about him going on the potty throughout the day he said, "No I will just go in my pants." (The luxuries of being a toddler, pooping and peeing in your pants.)  So the day after we got back from Family Camp, I thought, I am going to put some underwear on this boy and see what happens.  Well, sure enough it worked great!  That evening we went out and bought him some new undies which was another huge perk.  He choose to get Toy Story and Cars underwear.  So cool!

He did initially have a fear of the "Big Potty" and using other people's toilets, but we solved this by the end of the week with a little bribe.  He got a Talking Lightening McQueen from Cars 2.  Now, he is doing amazing and rarely has an accident.  We are still working on night time, but honestly he has woken up with a dry diaper on a number of occasions, so who knows we may be close to night time potty trained as well.  However, I do know this is a little harder to control and we will probably still be in for some accidents along the way. :)  That's okay though, this is just part of growing up.  

We are so proud of our boy!  Way to go Evan and enjoy those undies!  Love you!

Creekside Church Family Camp

We got to spend an amazing long weekend with our church family during June 24-26 up at Rollins Lake at the Greenhorn Campground.  The weekend couldn't have gone any better, expect that we wish we could have had one more day.  Jim was actually out of town the week leading up to the trip and flew in on Thursday.  This is actually the day Family Camp started, but with trying to get all packed and loaded up we just couldn't get out the door and decided to just head up early Friday morning.  However, as most know with small children, getting out the door early, is never really super early.  So we did get up there on Friday, but it was more like late morning, lunch time.  Nevertheless, we made it and were so happy to be there.

A huge bonus this year for us going camping was we got the very special treat of using Jim's Dad's RV.  Can we say luxurey camping - it was AMAZING!  Here is a picture of our home for the weekend.

Here is a close up of us in front of the RV after we had lunch during our first day of the trip.

We all had so much fun, especially the kids.  The nice thing about this camp ground is there is a huge open area where all the children can run and ride bikes.  You can see them in action below.

Evan feel in love with a tricycle that was at the campground that belonged to our friends.  Well, they were so kind and actually let Evan have the bike.  Their son gave it to him because he was getting older and moving on to a larger bike.  Evan was thrilled!  He pretty much lived on this bike the whole weekend.

Another fun thing we got to do during the weekend was hang out at the Lake.  The weather was perfect too; hot during the day (so you wanted to be in the water) and cool in the mornings and nights.

Evie was very excited about being at the lake too and really wanted to get in the water.  Well we made the mistake of doing a quick look at the lake before actually getting our swim clothes on, so we had to go back to camp and get the clothes.  During the walk back she feel asleep with her inner-tube. 

Both kids were loving the water.  Here are Jim and Evan getting in for the first time while Evie slept in her stroller next to Mommy at the beach.

Look at those good looking boys.  Our friends Ed and Ellie are in the background with their puppy on the dock.

As soon as Evie woke up she wanted to get in the water.  Mommy quickly changed her and in she went with Daddy.  While this was happening, Evan played on the beach with Mommy.

That night the kids got to get their first taste of Smores.  Our little sweets eater loved it.  However, both kids I think preferred to just eat all the elements separately. :)

Day two of our camping trip we headed back to the beach.  It was Saturday, so it was little more crowded.  You can see Jim and Evan in the picture below.

Another fun treat that we got to experience that day was going out on the lake for a boat ride with our friends Dan and Sara and our boat driver and friend, Sean.  We had a great time.  The kids were a little nervous, especially Evan for some reason, but they did seem to warm up to it eventually.  Evie actually feel asleep for most of the ride.

Mommy and Daddy and Sara had an especially good time on the boat and got to see if any of their water skills from high school still existed.  The good news is they did.  Our friend Sara water skied and both Jim and I got to get out and knee board.  We had so much fun!  Here are Jim and I in action.  Pictures are courstey of Dan - thank you!

After all the water fun we headed back to camp for some lunch and a gigantic slip and slip.  Evie really wanted to be like the big kids.  We couldn't keep her off this thing. :)

Here is Daddy doing his thing too. 

Look at that form. :)

Here is just a cute pic of our baby after all the slip in slide fun.

And here is Evan passed out in the stroller from all the festivities.  He was whipped out!

That night our whole church family came together for a big potluck dinner, baptisms at the lake, an outdoor worship service, and some skits.  Our skit group actually one first place!  Here is our family pictured before the skits.  The kids all got to wear mustaches.  It was a blast!

Look at these adorable tough guys. Evan and Cade striking a pose.

This was one of the best camping trips I have ever had and actually our family of fours first time camping together.  Sure was fun!  I can't wait until next year.  Thank you Pops for letting us use your motor-home.  Love you!

This is our family all packed up and pulling out.  See you next year Greenhorn!