Somewhere Over the Rainbow

The other day I saw a faint rainbow and tried to show it to Cailen. She just couldn't seem to find it. For the next few days she kept sulking "I wanna see the rainbow Mommy....I wanna see it." Sadly, I kept having to tell her that it was all gone. I have learned the recipe over the years for a rainbow sky. Generally I find them if the east is dark and it's sunny overhead around 6-7pm. Tonight it was that way but it had NOT rained here yet. (I had a friend have her car destroyed by lightning before it rained, so I guess anything is possible!)

I kept looking but wasn't quite sure I'd find one. Not wanting Cailen to get her hopes up, I didn't mention this to her. I was just watching Riley and cleaning up some toys to go inside when Cailen suddenly stood up and exclaimed "Mommy I found a rainbow!" Sure enough, in the dark eastern sky there was a giant bright rainbow. We ran in the house to get my camera. We ran out. It had no memory card in it!! We ran back in! Got the card. Cailen said something along the lines of "we're doing so much running!!" :) I also got my video camera....I took some pictures. Cailen did NOT want to be in the picture as much as I wanted her to be.

Perhaps the rainbow shorts she was wearing were just too much for her!! :) As I was going to go inside because it was FINALLY raining, I looked back to see the rainbow it's brightest by the fire station's flag.

I ran over, in the rain, with my camera to get these shots. I am happy that I did. It was kind of cool. :)



Also, on my video I asked Cailen "Cailen what did you find?" She had just leaned over to pick something up. She answered "I found a rock!" and showed the camera....That's not exactly what I was looking for, but funny nonetheless! :)

Strawberry Fields Forever

We had been invited to go strawberry picking on Sunday afternoon with friends. Unfortunately, they got held up with some preliminary plans and weren't able to get to the patch before it was going to close, at least not without rushing through what was supposed to be a leisure activity! So we had gone to church prepared to pick strawberries afterward. I kept and washed recycled strawberry containers (of which we've been eating a lot!) and brought them to store our pickings. It was the perfect weather, though in the sun a bit hot. We had fun and brought uncle Ryan as a substitute for our family of friends. The strawberries were the best I've had in years. I forgot since childhood that picking them fresh meant they would be WARM by the sun, succulent, juicy and leave us with red slimey, sweet faces. I was almost afraid there would be an extra $5 charge per red face that left the patch! Woops. It was really to keep the kids from tasting these ruby red wonders before we left. Who could blame them? Or...me? :)

Breakfast time.

It's Saturday morning and I have left over home fries. I decide to cook eggs and home fries, (loaded with ketchup), toast and coffee. It was a nice diner type breakfast. Greasy and salty. Warm and comforting. It's just me and the girls sadly. Kris is working. They both ate their eggs and were being pretty cute and silly. The sun was shining in the kitchen, I grabbed the camera. Go figure! It sure is muggy today, you can tell by the poof on Cailen's head! :D Feels like a day to go swimming in the kiddie pool. We'll see what the day brings...Oh well, Happy Saturday!

Silly mood Cailen.


Smiley Riley (I think I promised myself I'd never say that...)
Just kidding.


Big cheesy grin.

Look Mommy I ate them ALL!/dumped them ALL!/
wore them ALL!....

Riley applauds my dinner cook techniques. Bravo Mum! Bravo!

Cailen's Hands

These mini daisies almost backfired my plans for these pictures (in my mind anyway)...They are so small that they make my Cailen's hands look bigger than they really are!! But they are hers and they are beautiful to me. In reality, her hands are as small and delicate as those tiny flowers.

I love the fact that when she sees these pictures, she asks "Mommy? Is that me??" She obviously remembers holding those flowers today. She's such a sweet girl. I don't know what I would do without her and her sweet loving ways. She's as precious as a little red head can get. :D

Cailen did some editing for me on my last post.

I fixed the opening. "m mmm mm" Sorry about that.

Little girls in the grass.

After church the girls ran around on the hill. They all looked so pretty and I was armed with my camera as I had two parties to attend later on. So naturally I got the new Canon 20D snap snapping away. I am loving it. As you can tell, my blog has been getting updated faaaaar more often ;) I am also doing a few different "photo shoots" this summer, for an engagement, a weight loss "after", a wedding, a family, etc...So I need to play with my new camera. What better way to practice than on a sunny day at church with my little Cailen and her best buddies?

Cailen revs up and is ready to go burn off some fun energy. She's famous for saying something along the lines of "You catta goth me!!" I think it's a cross between "you've gotta get me" and "you can't catch me."

The girls chased each other around the trees and played "ring around the rosies." At some point while she played Cailen, started belting out to herself in her sweetest most cracking voice "Keep trying and trying until we get it right..." The other girls paid no attention. I found it so endearing...

Inevitably when the girls are together, their imaginations switch on. Lately they have been playing Elena is the mommy and the others are sick and lay around coughing a lot.

So it looks like Elena is hugging Cailen but she's actually tipping over while trying to pick her up as every good mommy would try to do for their sick child. *cough cough*

Next they ventured off to pick "berries" from the pine tree and pretend it was food to eat. Perhaps the natural remedies would help their illnesses....

I was trying to take a macro shot of the church flowers and suddenly Cailen picked one. Oops! So here she is savoring this stolen little, pretty treasure.

I love this one of Cailen standing with her back to me, picking at her flower.

Adriana or "Jyana" as Cailen calls her sits patiently waiting for someone to sit with her.

And there she is, Cailen to the rescue! Friends. Enjoying the sunshine together. If only they knew just how simple their lives were. *sigh*

Grandma's 85th Birthday!!

Here she is! The birthday girl. 85 years young. She is a wonderful, loving great-grandmother of....eleven great-grandchildren? She was told that we were all going to my Aunt Pat's house but really we threw her a bit of a surprise party at the place where she lives. She's pretty keen on details though, she started thinking something was up when her sister and kids hadn't mailed b'day cards to her yet....She said she has had a hunch, on and off, for a couple of weeks. Nothing gets by her!! :)

We gave her a lei of flowers to make her look more festive. She wondered if that meant she was supposed to do the hula dance or not... She seems to be pretty popular because she had lots of friends show up to our party. There were plenty of nice gifts and cards. I think one of her favorites was a pair of Crocs! I have never seen someone so excited to get a pair of shoes! I guess they are comfortable...I have no clue, I've never tried a pair on.

We made up a scrapbook of our kids, using the digital software on ritzpix.com. I hope she likes it! She didn't have a chance to look at/read all the pages while we were there. (but it made my mom get a little emotional so I'm pretty sure it's good.)

My kids kept eye balling the cake all afternoon....It seems Riley already recognizes my decorated cakes as FOOD! I had trouble keeping her away from the cake. She kept fighting me to get at it saying "NUMMY!!" So, we put the lid on it.

Originally I was just going to use my macro function lene to take a picture of her hands holding the card, but then her cute smiling face entered the frame. I had to take this picture below. I thought it looked cool in black and white.

Here I am with my awesome Grandma. The writing on the cake started to lose it's color so I wasn't too worried about keeping the color for the picture. It was nice to see her and to be part of her special day, surrounded by friends and family who love her. Happy Birthday Grandma!

Shhhh, the party is tomorrow!!

For my Grandma Ruth's 85th birthday we are having a party. My mom decided she would like to reuse some of my decorations from Riley's b'day party since they were handmade type things by moi!...SO anyway, halfway through the week I realized I should not let this special occasion go by without making....another cake! Here is a first glance at it....What do you think?

Riley gets to play in her car finally thank you Cailen!

First on the agenda today, more bubbles...of course.


While Cailen was preoccupied with bubble blowing, Riley decided to take her car out for a spin.


Or just sit in it and wait for someone to push her!


Doesn't she look happy?


Cailen decided to take a break from bubble blowing to give Riley a push. Riley paid no attention to the fact that she was slowly careening toward the fence!


They got stuck at the bottom of the yard.


And then Cailen hopped in and said "move it sister!!" with her actions...Riley decided to get out of her way...

Next we played sidewalk chalk but on the asphalt it's kinda rough. Cailen found a piece of broken slate from the yard and started drawing on it. Thus inventing for the very first time: the chalk board!! Well, maybe not for the first time, but I was impressed as I hadn't thought of it first...So, I made a sign of Riley's name...and then one of Cailen's name.

One of my favorites from Easter

Bubbles, Bubbles, everywhere...

Holly Hobby at the bubbles again! Blow,

bloooooooow,.....

....and....POP!!

I really like this one above.