Easter

Before I get to the pictures, it's confession time. (As a side note, blogs seem to be a GREAT place to confess your parenting shortcomings without your kids ever actually become aware. Until they learn to read. Then you transition to Facebook, I guess.)

Anyway, Easter Eve, Tara and I were watching a movie. She was writing clues for the kids to find their Easter baskets but never got around to finishing them by the end of the movie. Instead of staying up late to finish, we *MAY* have told our kids that Peter Cottontail was busy placing Easter baskets around the world and couldn't get to our house until a little later, say 10AM, so they should sleep in. And surprisingly, NO ONE SAID A WORD! As a parent all I can say is: Best. Easter. Ever. With that out of the way, onto the pictures.

Hear No Evil, See No Evil, and...wait, what was my line again? Still trying to get this whole reading thing down.

Gratuitous Candy Shot ahead!

My name is Inigo Montoya...

Miscellaneous Pictures

Here are a few pictures floating around on my phone that I've been meaning to put up on the blog:

Here's Melina learning to be a Jedi Baby form her siblings. I think's it's fair to say Star Wars was a great movie, but I don't know where my kids are getting this whole Star Wars kick from.

This is a picture of Kailani getting a fairy package from Grandma. She absolutely loved it. The only problem? So did Ian. We had to convince him that fairy wings don't belong on boys.

This is a picture of Melina on a recent drive back from Salt Lake. We stopped at the McDonald's in Victorville for lunch and Tara thought it would be a good idea to lure the children back into their seats with ice cream cones. Apparently, so did Melina.

Saturday Hiking

Since I've been relieved of my blogging responsibilities, I haven't been overwhelmed by the content published (sorry honey). So I figured I'd go all old-timey and throw one up just to show what I've been up to.

Last Saturday, Tara was busy with a Church function, leaving me with an unprecedented amount of responsibility - the livelihood and well-being of all four children...simultaneously. So we hopped in the van, packed bikes and a stroller, and went exploring. There's a great hike here locally that I've been meaning to check out with my family, the Sycamore Canyon hike through Mugu State Park and down to Sycamore Cove on the PCH. I hiked it *many* years ago, growing up in Simi, and figured it would be a great way to spend the morning with the kids.

Here's some pictures, all taken from my phone (can't remember the last time I actually brought a camera). We went in about a mile, most of which was paved. The kids had a blast, and with all the rain we've had, everything was very green.

This is us at the trail head, which was surprisingly dry. There were puddles, and each of the kids on bikes came home (to my utter dismay) with "butt-stripes", but at least they had a good time.

About a half mile into the hike, there's a Native American hut and fire pit. My kids thought it was fun to walk around the fire pit on the log seats.

Here's a picture of the five of us sitting on the trail with the Dos Vientos neighborhood in the background. The trailhead to this hike is literally a five minute drive from our house.

Here's my little angel posing for me in front of Mt. Boney. I told her to smile, and this is what I get. Still cute, though.

First Day Of School

So today was kind of momentous: first day at the new school, and Ian started kindergarten. We're a little anxious about Ian and how he'll handle sitting in class all day without hitting anyone. We're also dreading the call home about an "accident" and a change of clothes. We'll see how it goes. But Tara's pretty excited to be home all morning long with just the girls.

The other kids in the picture are a family in our ward that we've become friends with. They walked out of their house as we were walking past and their little girl Patricia is in Ian's class. He seemed pretty excited to already know someone on the first day of school. We saw several other

families from church that live in the area (not all in our ward), which was kind of fun. California isn't considered one of those conservative-values states, so it's nice walking into a new school seeing people of similar values there. While I'm sure there are families of other faiths with similar values (NP is pretty conservative itself), I just haven't met any of them yet - good thing we've got Boosters (PTA) as a chance to get to know them! (Yes, Tara's already signed "us" up for some class activities and "fun"-draisers.)

Anyone seen Avatar?

Because apparently Lani has. Tara and I were upstairs getting ready for the morning. Turns out Lani was downstairs getting her inner Na'vi on with the water colors.