Hey what happened to the time?!

Summer break is here already, and I'm just hoping there's enough Popsicles or Prozac in this world to get me through to the other side. Four kids. Home. All day. Together. Lord help us all.

So as you can see, we somehow went from January to June and I have no clue where that time went, but I am sure its somewhere under the big laundry pile that has made its permanent home on the sofa. Ahhh...the view from the kitchen,

I know. It looks like I pay no attention to housework and surely this heap must represent a good months worth of wardrobe. But, nope. This here beaut is about a four day pile..and there are no children hiding underneath it. And, amazingly, it DOES end up getting folded and put away...just not on a daily basis.

Somebody fire that aweful maid.


So, a month-by-month run down to catch us up will begin with me turning the big 4-0 in February. Yowza. I remember when forty seemed sooooooo old. Like, I would wonder what "those" people did for fun, and figured they just did things like join Bunco groups and go to "The JC Penney" or something like that. Anyhooo, here I am, forty and not really freaking about it. In forty years, I sure have amassed a lot of blessings and learned an enormous amount about life, love, heartbreak, and hope. To my sweet family and wonderful friends, I am so grateful for you all.

Speaking of good buddies, my friend Cristine decided to have a little shin-dig for me and we had a great time having dinner and visiting with some friends, kids included (of course!)

                                  A quick snapshot of the family on my bday. LOVE 'em....

One thing about life around here is that there is really never a dull moment. OK, maybe thats not one thing about "life", but it IS one thing about Owen.

                           He's lucky he is so dang cute...

Owen Scott Hurtado- Age 2.5- lover of all things off limits. Likes butter, but not eating it, just smearing it.....on French door panes...while mommy does the dishes--and then denying it. Here he is in the line-up.

 ...and lets see, did I mention he likes to make messes?

 but he is also very happy to lend a hand cleaning up.....

And he is crafty. Crafty in a Scotch-tape-all-over-moms-fuzzy(or, used to be)scarf-kinda way...

hmmm,now that I think about it, had I not intervened here he may have gone on to do some dishes after this...one handed, tho.

Being a two year old,  Owen is still working out some kinks around the whole "tidy eating" thing. I mean, he IS a two year old...so why the fuss?  See the cake above his head? I am pretty sure he thinks nobody knows what he did to that cake by that grin on his face....

again...he is more than happy to clean up after himself. This was a little baking soda whoopsie. ALL OVER THE FLOOR. Just after I mopped. True story.

And finally, Owen does NOT appreciate being blamed for getting into moms lipstick. He totally has no idea what happened here.....

Ahhh, yes, he keeps us on our toes for sure. But...once in a great while....after several of these Shenanigans throughout the day...we see this

And then in an instant he is forgiven. Until the next day...when it starts all over again. :-)

So that sums up our littlest minion fairly well, now on to the next.....

   Ethan finds his two "first loves", baseball and Abby K.

Ethan just graduated kindergarden and won the "most contagious smile" award. Go figure, he is quite the handsome flirt, and has zero problems making friends. Especially when it comes to a certain female friend, who's name is Abby K. Ethan and Abby were smitten with eachother since the first day they lay eyes on eachother in class...and the rest is history.  Ethan made his very first Valentines Day card for her, and they took a tumble together in the hamster ball on the last day of school.

Little Romeo made his very first Valentine for her.....and actually GAVE it to her!

           And, thanks to the wonderful world of Facebook, Abbys mom posted this gem awhile back, apparently Abby has some future plans already in the makings with my son....this was written on the church membership card...

 He  recently found an old necklace chain at the park and wanted to give it to her, but it needed a charm on it. So, lo and behold, during one of our visits to Round Table pizza Ethan put a quarter in one of those lousy cheesy trinket machines and voila! A key charm to complete the necklace for Abby. Ahhh....young love.

                                               

Aside from literally charming the young ladies, Ethan also played Little League Baseball for the very first time this year. Can I say that he was the CUTEST thing ever out there on the field...OMG. We all had so much fun watching him learn the game and, despite never playing before, his coaches were very impressed with his batting average, and we think we have found "his" game. HUGE kudos go out to Tita and Abuelo, who made it out to watch him and cheer for him on several occassions. We all enjoyed a little summer evening air and baseball, and look forward to next season already!

                                              
                                                                       Spectators!

                                                    Still crazy for Ryan
Ryan finished up a succesful year as a second grader, and his award was for "Great Citizenship", because he is a great friend to many, and initiates lots of fun games out on the playground. He continues to make us proud in all he does how hard he works.

 Ryan is still very much a Superhero fan...and quite the Superhero himself, if you ask us. He also loves to gather up all his figures and arrange them around the house. (fun to clean up, by the way...)

A typical day of play around the house includes Ryan convincing his brothers to hide from me. Always a fun thing, mind you, when I walk by the toy basket to find this...the apparently unassuming toy basket with the toys thrown about.

                                                       
                                                                                 Boo!

No, not too creepy at all to have kids randomly jump out at you. Eek . Good times are what we are all about here these days :-)

And let me tell you who is sucker numero uno for Ryan and his love for certain toys....

DADDY.

Most recently, we took the kids to Marine World and noticed they have Ben 10 toys as one of the super cheesy-overpriced and hard to win-game stops. Thinking my skilled hubby would be a slam dunker on the first try, I suggested we plop a cool $5.00 down and try our luck. Well, it was a bit harder than we thought...but Dave wasnt letting this one go, nope...not so fast. He was set on taking Ben 10 home with us, and about $22 later we got it. Now that's true love.

      Getting the ball to actually fall into one of the colored holes just wasnt as easy as it   seemed...

But look....how can you NOT keep trying to win that tacky Ben 10 doll when you see Ryan's reaction...a huge hug for the thing. All day...                             

Remembering who started this whole thing....

In between all of this my dear hubbie and I celebrated our 14 year anniversary.  As we look back on what life has handed us over those years, it makes us even that much more grateful we chose eachother...I can not imagine having a better guy by my side through it all. Like I told him, if it hadn't been for him choosing me years ago I would have been driving some other poor man crazy all this time.

                                                         Young love- April 18th, 1998
                                         
                                                         ...14 years and four kids later.....

                           

The language of love for a pre-teen....

Now we arrive at Katie Rose. She finished her first year of middle school this year and will be a 7th grader come August. Yikes. And let me tell ya, folks...its ALL about the eye-rolling and the fear of mom and/or dad embarrassing her. She is definitely entering into the tweens but I have to say she is still pretty dang perfect in our eyes. She still sorta likes me, but cant show it too often, you know---the embarrassing part. So, I take little memory notes when those moments occur like her holding my hand as we are walking into the store...

or when she sends me a text where she spelled "mom" in Skittles....

 Katie's bedroom recently got an age-appropriate renovation, complete with a queen-size bed, in which mom will occassionally crawl in to :-)

Katie's school had it's first middle school dance, and she and her girlfriends had lots of fun, despite the fact, (insert eye-rolling here) that I set up a small photo booth in the WAYYYY back corner and let the kids get their photos taken with various goofy props. The kids all loved it, but Katie would prefer I just drop off cookies and NOT stay at the next dance.

This was Katies first year participating in the 4-H animals and we had so much fun (ha ha) learning all about rabbits and how to show 'em. Katie's rabbit, Sweetpea, was a bit of a brat and kinda freaked out on her during her showmanship time, so when all was said and done it was not hard to give good ol' Sweetpea back to the sweet lady who "loaned" her to us. Great experience, however, and I have to say I really like 4-H and all it has to offer children...lots of great lessons on community outreach and responsibility--just cant get enough of those things these days.

Nana and Papa made a special visit up to see Katies bunny and spend some time at the Mayfair with us!!

 Katie reading up on all things bunny shortly before the big judgement time....

                         Judgement time! Katie did great....her bunny, Sweetpea---not so much.

                       

Wanna see what Katie looks like on a typical car ride these days?????

 connected to everyone BUT us. Yes, welcome to the world of tweenhood. I am sure she will be back someday......

Because I know it will be ages until I am able to actually post on here again, I want to include some photos of other highlights lately....from the Mayfair to our trip to Monterey to just a few of my favorite photos of my very favorite people....

Dad and da boys...chillin' in their jammies

A picture Ethan drew of a robot. What makes this funny is that he came up to me and said, "mommy, I drew this robot just for you because I love you." Of course, I gushed, gave him a kiss, and thanked him. Being in the midst of a lesson on honesty, Ethan quickly returned and confessed," mom, actually I made that  picture for Katie, not you, but she hates robots." Ok, Dr. Buzzkill, thanks anyways.

 

Everyone loves seeing Ampy...especially when he brings cool things like John Deer tractors for them!

We took a trip to Monterey during Spring Break...and although it was a *tad* windy, we all had a great time and loved the beach.

                                       
                             Owen preferred the view from our blanket...that water was chilly!

                                               
                                                     

                                            The fam at Louie Linguini's restaurant...YUM!

And to my dear sweet little chicklets...I would like to you to know a few things and figured I would jot them down in here, for good keeping....

#1. Katie: When you do my hair at night and tell me you are going to make it look "really really nice, I know its a lie. Total scam. You just want to stay up a little later than your brothers...and yes, I know how ridiculous I look every time you are finished but the time spent giggling with just you and I is every bit worth the "really really nice" hair.

#2. Ryan: I have known you are a Superhero from day one. Your fascination to everything heroic is awesomely fitting, and you may not say much in words, but you communicate to everyone just how much you really do understand.  To infinity and beyond, Ry.

#3: Ethan: I have a confession. Remember on your first day of Kindergarten when I told you to be strong and not be sad, and that it will be a super rad, totally fun day? Well, when I turned to say goodbye to you and you had this look on your face,

I went around the corner and my eyes leaked a bit. You melt me, bud...but you know that, right?

and....#4: Owen: You make a TON of messes, dude....I mean..whatever the other three kids didnt think to do you are all over..keeping me guessing 24/7. Your gap tooth grin and zest is what keeps us all smitten. But really...if you want to take a break from those messes...just for awhile...please?

 

And sometimes I need to remind myself that when I look in my rear-view mirror every day and see this......

  or on the evenings when daddy has to take you ALL in to after-hours at your pediatricians office because one of you has a screaming ear ache...and you SIT, and WAIT, and then WAIT longer.....

  or even when I happen to walk in to the living room after a NOISY, stressful day of being taxi driver, tutor, private chef, toy repairman, etc.....I  see this....

 

I am instantly reminded at just how precious these times---even the crazy ones--are, and how they represent just a scene or two in life's big picture. I am so thankful for you all, and want you to always remember I love you to the moon and back. :-)

                                                                      Katie-12

                                                                      Owen-2

                                                                        Ryan-9

                                                                      Ethan-6