This last Thursday was Kierstyn's preschool graduation. Blake has been in jury duty all week. Lucky for him he didn't have to go in on Thursday 1pm so he was able to come to the graduation. Kierstyn has loved preschool this year and has learned alot. Not to mention its nice for me to send her off to school. This is one of the songs they sang and she has just kept on singing it!

Yesterday, we had a family night at home. We turned on a movie and I just was not excited to watch Kung Fu Panda or Cars for the 100th times. So I turned on Pirates of the Caribean (yes I know not a great kids movie) and I was a little nervous that the kids would get scared. Blake was totally oblivious to this concern I could tell when he says,"Melody, they've seen this movie before." No actually Blake has seen it many times before but not Kierstyn and Bentley. So I was ready to turn it off if needed, instead I had to smile. They sat eating their dinner with their "shoot guns" (they looked for their pirate guns but couldn't find them in their messy bedrooms!) shoting at the tv whenever the "bad guys" came on. It was quite entertaining!!!

2nd page

Here is my second digital layout. I know I used the same pictures but I'm just learning right now so I thought they would be good ones to use.

Digital Scrapbooking

I recently started a class to learn how to do digital scrapbooking, here's my first assignment. I'm hoping this will motivate me to organize my pictures better. We'll see how that goes.

Happy Mothers Day- a little late I know!

So now that I'm a parent I can appreciate my own parents alot more. I got this poem a few years ago and I have to so I hope I am a mean mother.

Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent, I will tell them:

I loved you enough . . . to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home.

I loved you enough. . . to insist that you save your money and buy a bike for yourself even though we could afford to buy one for you.

I loved you enough. . . to be silent and let you discover that your new best friend was a creep.

I loved you enough. . . to make you go pay for the bubble gum you had taken and tell the clerk, “I stole this yesterday and want to pay for it.”

I loved you enough. . . to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that should have taken 15 minutes.

I loved you enough . . . to let you see anger, disappointment and tears in my eyes. Children must learn that their parents aren’t perfect.

I loved you enough. . . to let you assume the responsibility for your actions even when the penalties were so harsh they almost broke my heart.

But most of all, I loved you enough. . . to say NO when I knew you would hate me for it. Those were the most difficult battles of all. I’m glad I won them, because in the end you won, too.

And someday when your children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent, you will tell them. . .

Was your Mom mean? I know mine was We had the meanest mother in the whole world! While the other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast.

When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches. And you can guess our mothers fixed us a dinner that was different from what other kids had, too.

Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You’d think we were convicts in a prison.

She had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing with them.

She insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less.

We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work. We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash, and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think she would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do.

She always insisted on us telling the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By the time we were teenagers, she could read our minds.

Then, life was really tough! Mother wouldn’t let our friends just honk the horn when they drove up. They had to come up to the door so she could meet them.

While everyone else could date when they where 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16.

Because of our mother we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced:

None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other’s property or ever arrested for any crime. It was all her fault.

Now that we have left home, we are all educated, honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean parents just like Mom was.

I think that is what’s wrong with the world today. It just doesn’t have enough mean moms.

Road Trip

This weekend we went on a quick trip over to Knotts Berry Farm. When we moved to Nevada we thought it would be so fun to go over to California for weekend trips. Well we've been here 2 years and this is the first weekend trip we have taken. But it was fun and worked out pretty well so it probably won't be th last. I didn't take alot of pictures so these are the best ones I have.


Kierstyn & Bentley are pretty good in the car. We made it all the way there with no stops.


Kiersty & Bentley loved Camp Snoopy and that is where we spent most of the day. Bentley however, did not want to get close to Snoopy so I had to go with Kierstyn to see him.


This is one of their favorites. They had a great time on all the rides and probably rode them all at least twice. For Blake and I we took turns going on the roller coasters but its not as fun going by yourself.


This was probably Kierstyn and Bentley's all time favorite ride. They were literally giggling everytime the car whipped them around the corner. Ben wasn't quite tall enough to go by himself so Blake got to ride too!

Last weekend Blake got to go on a golf trip. What a lucky guy! He's a little out of practice but I think he had fun!