4th of July 2007!

I got a new camera and it-(& I) had a hard time taking pictures in the dark....I thought this one turned out kind-of neat though... although it kind of looks like the fireworks are really fire in the sky!~colored flames of fire!
We went to the Country club like always for the great 4th of July party!! It was really hot! Last year,, I think we bundled up in sleeping bags, this year it was so hot you could barely stand being up at the tables for dinner. Tyler was really done with me taking pictures at this point. It was just too miserable to sit there and pose!

Uncle Chrissy(Chris) & Auntie Leelee (Lisa)
Lindsey's first ballon POODLE didn't last long from the moment it touched the grass so, Natalie went over to try and get her another one.....(it was a good sister moment!).................so, once they came back with the 2nd dog we thought we would get a photo of the animals just in case they didn't last long again!

Daryle & CAJ havin a good time!

Coolin off on the 4th!

3 way slip & slide! Who knew?!?!?!?

After hours of soaking the lawn with the slip & slide we thought it would be a good idea to switch to the "volcano dude" sprinkler head. My kids seem to have had more fun washing their "tushies" with it instead though....

A's game

A fun filled pre-4th of July~A's game! The A's beat the Blue Jay's 3-1 and then they had a great fireworks show afterwards~just gettin us ready for the next night!
I love it when they love each other and act all cute & goofy.....
I wasn't sure if Tyler would like this hat I got for him. He loved it and wore it the whole game!

Special Treat!

Yes, their feet are ALMOST the same size!

For the last 3 years at the beginning of summer, us girls have gone and gotten a pedicure & Natalie and Lindsey get a manicure too.......(they always want me to get a manicure too but, I am way to rough on my hands~it'd be a waste!) I enjoy this special time with them and I think the ladies giving us a pedicure enjoy them too because they are so fun and are loving every minute of it. We all got red & blue for the 4th-Lindsey & I on our feet and Natalie got it that way on her hands, Lindsey did one hand pink and one hand purple with flowers painted on every nail and Natalie did pink & purple toes (every other toe!) with "Diamonds"-(as she calls them....little rhinestones!)

Last day of school!

Well, we finally made it to our last day of school on Friday! We finished out our last year of year-round school and we will be going onto a regular school schedule next year ~which is a huge bummer but, it was good while it lasted. They just bulit a gigantic new school over here that will hold almost 1000 kids! So, our school got split in half. No one had a choice of where they wanted to go or stay. It all depended on where you live. And for us, TONS of friends & teachers are going on to the new school. Our school will be down to 400 kids and we had over 900 being a mulit-track year round school. It will be different next year. I am trying to keep an open mind and be positive & strong for our kids. That's what I am supposed to do~right?!?!?!?
Don't wanna say good-bye!!!! Natalie and her best little bud Sarah will be going to different schools next year! Our houses our about 5 miles apart from each other so, now that puts them in 2 different schools.

Teachers

We had some great teachers this year! It was hard to say good-bye to them, espically Lindsey's teacher. This was our 3rd time having her and she is going on to the new school next year. :o(
Natalie's teacher is the daughter-in-law of the teacher Natalie had last year. She was so sweet to me the last day of school. Normally, you give the teachers a gift at the end of the school year, they don't give you one but, she was so happy to have parent helpers she gave me a gift card and cried as she handed it to me, so of course I could not let her cry alone. I am such a big sap! She is going to the new school too! I really enjoyed Tyler's teacher this year.....more than I thought I might. It was only her 2nd year teaching and it was the first time I knew nothing about the teacher before going into the new class year. She is a great teacher and I wish my girls were going to get the chance to have her too. She is also moving on to the new school. It was such an emotional last day of school-(for me!) saying good-bye to great teachers and friends. Things will be very different next year. I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised though.

Last day of school fun times! Lindsey's kindergarten class & the other classes had a big play day on the little playground with all kinds of fun things for 6 year olds to do! Lindsey loved it all!

The 3rd grade classes had their field day party out on the big playground. This day almost ended in a cast for our dear Natie.....during the sack races she fell-(as I was capturing it on camera!) She was standing back in line with HUGE tears and holding her wrist! YIKES! We iced it for awhile and after many comments of,"you should go get that checked out!" We made a trip to the Doctor and then to get it x-rayed. Our Doctor said he was 50% sure it was broken which in my mind was, "Well thats only half a chance".........and to make a long afternoon short......the guy that did the x-ray told us to go home, everything was fine! Whhheeeewwww! That would made for a long summer having one child in a cast!

Lindsey got a perfect attendance award. She never missed one day of kindergarten. That is a down right miracle. I don't be expecting to be getting another one of these again but, you never know! I just thanked my lucky stars we somehow escaped all the stomach flu that had been going around her classroom!
Tyler got most ARTISTIC in his classroom vote. His classmates thought he was a very creative boy with lots of ideas. It was neat reading what everyone had to say about him.

Girl Scout Picnic

I love this of Natalie getting ready to jump!

Lindsey was very brave jumping in the deep end and off the diving board with her tube! She kept going again & again & again & again!

Great day last Sunday for a pool party and to celebrate the end of the girl scout year! Thank goodness! I am ready for a 3 month break! We had a nice BBQ and all the kids had a great time swimming, playing, diving until their little hands and feet started to shrivel up!

Father's Day 2007

We love OUR Daddy Daryle!!!! He works so hard to take care of us!
Daryle's first FISH in 10 years-(it might be even longer than that!)Then he lets it go.....and they say us women don't make any sense.... We took the boat out for Father's day weekend. Had a great day of swimming and fishing..... Not too many fish bites (but the one we let go),,,,,,(still don't get that one....), we stopped to swim lots of times. It was a great day!

May & June updates!

Well, you end up having lots of pictures when you can't get on your computer for almost a month! So, here's just a quick wrap up of our month! Almost everything is coming to an end, yea!! Baseball ended-thank goodness, girl scouts is basically over-right on!! 14 days left of school-I can handle that! Boy Scouts is year-round but, hey thats once a week! I am looking forward to some down time and more time doing fun things with the kids & hubby.

Just a quick note!

Hello Blogger world! Us McLaughlin people are still here....we got a lovely VIRUS on our computer.We got it off but, everytime we got on-line, we would get ANOTHER one! So, after checking into it and wondering if it would be worth it to get it fixed or just get a new computer?!?!? Daryle has been wanting a new computer so, we went for it and yippeee! Here I am again. Although, now I have to figure out how to save all my pictures on here again. Thankfully, I already had 99% of my pictures on CD's that I also had on my computer. When we first got the VIRUS I had just saved all my pictures from, Easter, Mother's day, Daryles' birthday on the computer-I had not saved them to disc yet. Let me tell you the stress, time, & TEARS I went through to try to get those pictures off my computer. 305 pictures! I don't think I have cried that much in a long time. Luckily my husband understands my picture obsession and was very patient with me. Love that guy! It took hours but, we got them all but, 16 picures off the computer. I will always save my pictures to disc now along with saving them on my computer because you just never know!

Kids are doing well,,,,,,couple weeks left of school....we are finishing up our last year of year-round school. It is such a bummer that they are going back to traditional but, I guess we just gotta deal with it. Basball will be over this weekend! THANK YOU! We are ready.....we have been dealing with baseball since January! Tyler's team lost its play-off spot last week so, now the girls are just finishing up!

RAIDER is doing well...he is going in for his doggie VASECTOMY-(don't know if I spelled that right!)next Tuesday! He weighed 36lbs at his last check-up. He is getting so BIG! He is a lot of fun when he is not biting someone or chewing up a beloved toy!

We have been working on our hall way-(well Daryle has been but, I have been very supportive!) We painted-(yes I did help paint) and put up all new doors. He even made me a closet door for the Linens. It was 2 cupboards before and just looked OLD. So, now it looks so much better....I will have to take some pictures-although now that I think about it, I didn't take any befores. oh well.......

Ooh, and the biggest NEWS of all.....After 12 years I am employed again! Yep! I got a JOB! I am a YARD duty at the kids school. I get paid $12 a shift-(I know BIG BUCKS-no whammies! hehe-just kidding) So, I guess you could say I am not there for the money! My main reason for doing it is to have an "in" in the school. I think I already am well known around there but, now if I request a teacher, I should get the teacher I want. Plus, it is a great way to get to know the kids-all the little darlings, see which ones are the kids you want your kids to hang around with and which ones to keep away from. And let me tell you, there are a lot of hellions! There are some punks! Boys & Girls.....

Well, my quick re-cap turned into a novel......I will hopefully POST some new pics SOON!

Daryle is 34!

My MAN is 34! Yea! He & I are the same age again for 6 months! We celebrated with a nice steak dinner for him, lots of fun gifts from the $1 store and I surprised him with season tickets to the RAIDERS! He got very spoiled is all I can say! We had a small crowd over to help us celebrate the big day for him....I love you BABE! Here's to many more birthday's together. It's amazing to think we celebrated his 17th birthday together and now, here we are 17 years later celebrating his 34th! Gosh, we are getting OLD!
I wonder what he is wishing for?!?!?! Better make it a good one babe!!! hehe............... LOVE YOU!

Mother's Day 2007

I love to be a Mother, Mom, Mama, Mommy-seems like I get called all of them! We had a nice Mother's day-we started off with Brunch with my Mom. It was yummy as always and the kids always have fun playing in the Golf carts afterwards. Later in the afternoon, we went to Chris & Lisa's house for a nice BBQ. We had all the MOMS there and my kids got to go swimming in the pool. They were in hog heaven.

As my kids are getting older, I love being a mom even more....I love to be with them and to make memories with my family. I wish I could slow them down from growing up-its just happening way to FAST! I'm just trying to enjoy everything, I can with them and not miss a thing!

New pics!

Just some random pictures from the month. Tyler's first scout Court of Honor. When your Boy moves up in rank-the Mom gets a pin. It is very special. I have a ribbon with all my pins on it. It is getting quite heavy! And there is still a lot more room to go! We are so proud of our boy!
My 3 baseball stars! Getting ready for the games of the day-this only lasted about another 15 mins before it started pouring rain on us! The rest of the games got cancelled for the day so, we went, got donuts and did nothing for the rest of the day!
RAIDER-he's a growing! At his last check-up he weighed 26lbs. He had an allergic reaction to his shots-so, we had to rush him back up to the vet so, he could get another shot to stop the reaction! This dog! Now, he has to have a shot before his shot so, he doesn't have another reaction. We sure do adore him though! Except when he chews holes in things-(like my screen door.) I think he thought I was going to kill him that day-he ran from me everytime I walked near the door.
The kids bulit a fort. Can you see 3 heads in there? They are all in there....I was surprised they were in there, it was hot that day! They come up with some creative things! I love it when they play together so well.
Natalie with her "newborn". Our Brownie troop went to Bulid a Bear with the money they earned from cookie sales. We figured this was Natalie's 7th trip there~ Pretty lucky girl I'd say! Every time we have gone though, it is like the first time again for her. She loves it! It is so cute to help them pick out things and Natalie had such a hard time picking her animal, she actually broke into tears! The stress of a 9 year old!

Daryle & Melanie~How we met!

It was my Junior year in high school-1990, I had just been dumped and Daryle had himself a girlfriend. I knew he was interested in me because I had everyone telling me so, but, he had a girlfriend!!! FINALLY, he dumped her and asked me out. I was really not interested, at that point in getting into another relationship. He asked me to the Junior Prom and I said Yes!! He must of asked me about 5 times before the Prom to be his Girlfriend and I kept saying NO! After 2 months of dating, I commited to being his girlfriend! I had plans on dumping him after the prom-he drove me crazy! He was too nice to me, he always wanted to be with me, hold my hand and buy me flowers....I was not used to this!! Prom came and went so, I thought I will dump him at the end of the school year~then I won't have to see him all summer before our Senior year-well, we went to Utah for 2 weeks in the summer and I missed him-I really missed him......I knew I didn't want to break-up with him anymore after that! I only told him this story probably less than a year ago. He took it pretty well! :o) We dated for 3 years before getting engaged in April of 1993.....We were married, June 4, 1994 in Oakland, California. This June will be our 13 year wedding anniversary and we have been together now for 17 years. We did break up one time for about 5 days right before we got engaged. I wasn't sure what I wanted and I don't know if he really knew either...... Even though we were young, it was one of those things where we needed to take the next step....Marry me or let's move on~ apart..... We have 3 great kids together and I think we love each other more than we ever knew we could. I think about everything we have done in our almost 13 years of marriage and it just amazes me~still! Even though he drives me crazy-I love him with all my heart!



P.S. I had to take pictures of my pictures since my husband hasn't hooked my scanner up for me yet! They turned out pretty good considering but, that is why the quality isn't great!

Easter 2007!

O.K. I cannot believe I figured out how to do this! I am so excited! That is why it has taken me a few days to get my Easter pictures up because I really wanted to figure out how to do one of these slide shows! Yippee! We had a great Easter weekend. On Saturday, we did our usual Easter Bunny breakfast at the Jelly Belly factory with our favorite Jones' family. Daryle does not care to go there but, Lindsey enjoys it so much, the dancing, singing, all the fun of the clown that is always there. I told Daryle,,"see, she is the reason, we come!" Tyler and Natalie still really enjoy it as well. On Easter Sunday, the kids were up by 7:00 and on the hunt for their baskets! Our Easter bunny is mean-he hides them and every year it gets harder! Natalie's was in the dog food, Lindsey's was in the outside fridge and Tyler's was outside in the back of Daryle's truck! What a crazy bunny!! Afterwards , they got to collect all the eggs from around the house that the bunny had hidden!Later that morning, we had an awesome brunch at the Country club with close family and the kids enjoyed another Easter egg hunt! We always love going to Easter brunch and stuffing our faces! We ended the day with having a nice dinner at home. My mom, Aunt Joan and Daryle's parents joined us for deep fried turkey, twice baked potatos, bread and asparagus-(sp?)!! The kids had 3 more Easter egg hunts! Needless to say, we have a TON of candy~and the kids are that much richer with the money they got in some of the eggs! I just love Easter and what it means to us....these special times with our children and the fun it is to watch them and see their faces light up!

5 things you may not know about ME!

My cousin, Marcia, tagged me to do this and I needed a few days to think so, this was really hard but, I came up with a few things some of you may or may not know!
1. I am addicted to Ebay! At first I thought ebay was just a big online garage sale but, then once I figured out NO it wasn't~ that there is actually talented people on ebay who make great scrapbooking things, dresses, handmade items, I was hooked!
2. I need to have my coffee in the morning-(I know, bad thing!) but, I do....there have been a few times that we have ran out of coffee in the house and I didn't know what I was going to do! ugh! I was really addicted to Starbucks a few years ago but, once I had joined Weight watchers (way back when)....and realized how many calories I was drinking, it really helped my addiction to going there everyday! Sometimes twice a day! Shhh,,don't tell Daryle!
3. I hate having my shoes on in the house! I kick them off as soon as I get home. You will either find me barefoot or socks and sometimes maybe slippers!
4. I am like Marcia and hate to be tickled. Daryle will think its funny every once in awhile and I just want to hurt him! :o) When I was little my Dad would hold me down and tickle me, lick me in the eye or give me a whisker kiss. Why do these Pickup men think this is so funny!
5. I would of had a 4th baby if I could of. It was recommeded to me that I not have another baby after Lindsey because of my 3 c-sections and all the scar tissue I had. I told Daryle we could get a 2nd opinion but, after much talk and a lot of tears(on my part.), we were happy & blessed with the 3 beautiful souls we had. (I would of loved to have had another boy!) We decided to cut (Daryle's) plumbing off about 2 years ago.I was really sad at first-it was such a weird feeling but, it is so nice now to not have to worry about it- I highly recommend it when your baby making days are over!

I guess I came up with a few more than 5......

6. I call myself a "scrapbook collector!" I love to scrapbook but, don't have much time with everything else but, I keep buying things like I scrapbook everyday. My front closet and bedroom closet are full of scrapbook supplies, stickers, paper etc....
7. I recently got nominated for a PTA position at school.They called me and asked if I would accept and of course me and my mouth said, "yes" I will be corresponding secretary-I don't even know if I spelled that right?!?!?
8. I love going out for Sushi! I know, it sounded gross to me too, the first time I was invited to go out for sushi-I actually ate dinner before I left because I thought I would be starving! Now, it is my favorite meal to go out for....although its expensive so, we can't go out for it too often!
9. I don't like to be made fun of-I can handle teasing as long as it is mutual and I am not the prime target. I don't care to be picked on. I don't mind it as long as the person doing
it can take it, as well. If you're going to dish it, you'd better be able to take it. I know a few people like this!
10. I am trying to think, if I can think of one more to make it an even # of things. ooh, I always wished that I would of had blue eyes. Anything but, brown. I think its pretty neat now that both my girls have big beautiful eyes, that I always had wanted. Natalie has blue and Lindsey's are green! I would trade with either one of them!

O.k. Lisa,,,,,your turn.....I tag you next! You too.....Malinda! I know Marcia already tagged you but, I thought I would do it again so, you'd better get moving! Tell us some things about yourself that we may not know!

Coloring eggs 2007!

My kids were so excited to color Easter eggs this year! They did a great job and it didn't take us very long to color about 60 eggs. I didn't realize I had bought so many eggs! oops! Guess we will be having egg sandwiches and scrambled eggs for awhile! We went to see the Easter bunny at the mall the other day after school and he wasn't there, wasn't there, so, we waited, waited, waited and Tyler looks up at me and says, "you know, you're really lucky, I will still do this!" I said, "I know, I am~thank you!" My boy is growing up but, still so sweet and innocent! If he does know about the Easter bunny(which I really think he does!) He plays it up really well. Which I really appreciate for his sisters-espically Lindsey. Needless to say, we never saw the Easter bunny! They said he might be another hour-he was at lunch!

Coloring Easter eggs!

We colored about 60 eggs! We color even the "non-boiled" ones since, Daryle & I are the only ones that will eat the boiled ones. Tyler didn't really want to wear the bunny ears but, he is such a good boy, he put them on for me! I told him the pictures were just for me! hehe......