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...

Catch Up Time

So I had a fun experience this week: I inadvertently crashed my laptop. While fixing it, I couldn't get any of the MS Office programs to behave correctly (serious problem for work), so I switched over to Linux. It's been a steep learning curve, but I'm typing this from Xubuntu now. And the best part, certain parts of my laptop, such as Bluetooth, now work better than before! So I can get my pics off the camera and onto the blog MUCH easier. Here's a Melina post:

Hide and Seek

Melina likes to play hide and seek and peek-a-boo. Not a very popular hiding place amongst my more odor-discerning children (though I'm surprised she's the first to start hiding there).

When A Sweet Tooth Goes Wrong

Tara had stashed some jellybeans in my office prior to Easter (I may have opened the bag and sneaked just a few). Melina saw Tara take a few and decided to follow suit while Tara wasn't looking. I came home to find a recreation of that scene in Sixth Sense (couldn't find a good Youtube link) where the little dead girl goes into Cole's tent and barfs all over the place. There was no barf and I laughed pretty hard.

Quintessential Kid Shot

So I was in my office working the other day and was a little hungry so I went out to the kitchen to grab something to eat. Tara had bought some flour to bake with a little earlier in the day, which must have caught Melina's eye. Don't ask me how she go into Ian's robe.

On Thursday I was driving through Redding, CA to visit a client. I missed the turnoff and found myself on the way to Shasta, a small historic site a few miles away. As I looked for a place to turn around, I came face to face with a familiar family name!

It's spelled the right way so I knew it was from the same family. After spending some time on both Google and LDS Familysearch, I was able to make the connection. The street is named for Dr. Benjamin Shurtleff, MD, who lived in Shasta and later moved to Napa in the 1800s. He originated from Massachusetts and sailed to San Francisco during the gold rush. He settled in Shasta and had a storied political career in addition to his medical career.

From what I could find, Benjamin is 4th cousins to Luman Andros Shurtleff and they lived about the same time. They both come from the William Shurtleff line - William Shurtleff was one of the first Shurtleffs from England during the colonial period, back in the 1600s. Luman Andros was descended through William Shurtleff's first son, William, while Benjamin was descended through William Shurtleff's third son, Richard or Abiel.

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.

Sock Hop

For Valentine's Day, someone came up with the idea of doing a sock hop at Church. It actually worked out really well for me, as I was traveling for work on Valentine's Day. None of the pictures turned out great, but here's the best one we got.

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.

Four kids

I have four kids. Aaron is so smart that he often rattles off random facts about space that I had never heard before. He is so sensitive to my feelings that when I start yelling a little too much about why nobody ever picks up their clothes he gives me a hug and picks up everybody's clothes. Ian has the most awesome, winning, handsome smile. His laugh is contagious even to his siblings and, usually, he says he is sorry. Kailani can color in a coloring book for hours, but she also loves "school time," painting nails with mommy, and her favorite thing is to curl up and read books together. Melina is a little pixie. She points a lot at the rabbit that lives in our bushes and says Mommy, and cookie, and ball. In the morning when I get her out of her crib (that's right, her crib-not my bed) she gives me the tightest hug around my neck. I have four beautiful, adorable kids.