"Mom, I'm going to play at the neighbor's house!"

I anticipate this being yelled at me in the near future, in fact, this is one of those things that I, for one, thought about hearing, (and thought about when I used to yell it myself) even before we decided to have kids. Well, gratefully, we have been blessed with great neighbors at our new house, so I am happy to say that I can't wait to hear Cal yelling this from the back door at the top of his lungs!

Here are some pics of Cal playing with his new best friend, Grayson, from up the road.

And you want to know something cool... we think Grayson's parents are pretty great too! So that means we can actually have a conversation that consists of more than yes/no answers with another person of our own age bracket... YAY! (I know you parents out there can appreciate this!)

10 Years?!?! What happened?

So recently, we were blessed with an invite to Adam's 10 year class reunion, which prompted me to ask, what the hell happened to the last 10 years. No way am I really 10 years older than the last time I ran down the halls late to class at Ross High... Whatever, as if... that kind of stuff

But then I realized, I still have one more year until MY 10 year... hey, I'll take every little bit I can get! HA

We apparently, even though we are parents now, can still dress up and look appropriate for a night out... shocking, I know! especially those of you who are used to seeing me in a pony tail, tank, and shorts, sans makeup

Despite the number of years since we first met, adam is still a full head taller than me... even when I wear heels. no fair! in the background you can even see the beautiful curtains we were blessed with when we moved in, more on that soon, hopefully we will be rid of them in the near future

Are those two brothers? possibly... switched at birth

some of the gang

holy cow! is that a moose? gotta love a good moose pic

I love mooses!

STUCK! (again...)

Calvin has been really testing our patience lately. He has finally reached his "teenage toddler" stage, as I like to think of it, and has really starting pushing limits and trying his darndest to get us to break when it comes to discipline and just pure exhaustion from saying the word "NO" 4 million times per day.

I wonder what the limit for saying no in one day is... I should contact guiness book of world records...

On another page, this has produced some pretty hilarious moments in the household as of late, the most recent being when cal tries to get off our bed on the wrong end and winds up stuck in the decorative scrolls at the end of the bed...

The sheer irony of this pic is that later that day we went to get pictures taken for cal turning 18 months and THESE pics turned out better than ANY of those did... AH 18 month olds... gotta love 'em!

Flavor-Ice

Summertime... the ideal time for popsicles. What is the popsicle most likely to be eaten in the summertime? flavor-ice of course! Because summertime is the only time you will allow the freezing popsicle to sit in your hand for more than a second..

Just cause they're so good...

Doesn't mean they aren't messy!

Mmmmm.... Yummy!

(Great) Grandma and Grandpa's Birthday

We celebrated my Grandma and Grandpa's birthdays today. Grandma turned 77 and Grandpa turned 79 earlier this week. Here are some pics from the day

Here is the new pup in the fam, "Duke" he belongs to Dan, Deb, Jake and Ben

everyone commented on how cal is such a climber (really? hadn't noticed!ha) and he screamed when my brothers got there and at the cows...

My aunts Linda, Nancy, and Debbie were there along with my brothers, and my uncles Dale, David and Gary. Everyone assisted in putting a new clothesline in for grandma and then we had cake and ice cream. it was a good day

Oh by the way, did I mention

More ugly...

In the last post, I said that we gave the cats baths, but did I mention that we also shaved Cleo... we were pretty much sick and tired of picking up hairballs, so here she is, the new and improved, less hairy, but still very soft and lovable - Cleo!

you can see her hair is shorter here


but here is where you see why we (adam and I) were never graced with a groomer's license

Please forgive us...
This is what her hair used to look like... taken in the old house when we finished the attic

The good, the bad and the ugly

Ever noticed that many things may be so good, but so bad for you at the same time, or vice versa?!? I sometimes can't help but notice this

First the good... when I got to work, there was a gift there for me from a patient that I particularly remember because she was so ill... just a bad situation all in all, but apparently, my care and kindness really mattered to her and her family because her grandma made this for me.

something good from a bad situation. p.s. she is much better now

the bad: we are in desperate need of rain, our grass, plants and even some trees are dying at a rapid rate. the good in this, is that every time it even so much as sprinkles now, I rejoice, whereas usually I am in a foul mood whenever it rains. sometimes it takes the bad to bring out the good in something... (it doesn't help that I am really bad at remembering to water!)

the ugly: this is really just kind of funny. the cats needed baths so we finally did just that and bathed them yesterday. They look so ugly afterwards, like gremlins or moles or something... the good = they smell better and less hairballs show up around the house. the bad = they hate us for at least the rest of the day!

cleo was too elusive to catch a pic but we lucked out and got a pic of zeus staring me down. we imagine he is trying to decide how to kill us in our sleep...

this is the most we saw of either cleo or zeus for a good length of time... escaping to the basement. aka the "Gremlin's Realm"

Introducing...

The new and improved... House of Wahls! here is the new abode. there have been some requests for pics of the house (as well as just some pics on this blog) but haven't quite made it there yet, so here we go... gonna try it out!

New home blues...

Sounds so silly... you get a new home, take the time to slowly make it your own and move all of your treasured items into it. Then you sit back and look at all the work that must be done to REALLY make it yours, you homeowners know what I mean. patching and filling in old nail holes, making new nail holes, tearing up carpeting and painting away all the PINK in this house, etc... When it hits you, "Honey, I want to move back into our old house, where all the rooms were the color I wanted them, all my pictures were hung just so and... I knew how to get to the bathroom in the dark, without turning on every stinking light in the house."

do you really mean it.

Nah. but it seems like the right thing to say, until your husband looks at you like he might hit you, "are you crazy!"

Calvin gets messy

My little boy, the one who LOVES to eat, has turned into an eighteen month old and suddenly is very choosy with his meals. Here you can see that he makes a normal everyday lunch into an absolute catastrophe by smashing every last bit of what mom gives him.

from the pre-lunch strawberries...

to the actual lunch of hot dog with ketchup, veggies and dip

now lunch is a major clean up issue and I miss my tiny baby that licked his lips clean of all the mess! all I can say is at least we have a dog in the house that keeps the floor fairly clean. He always stations himself directly under cal while he eats and cleans any droppings up before I have to worry about it. thanks ralphie!

4th of July

The 4th of July was a very full day. We celebrated in many ways but mostly it was about being with those people that we love. We all went to the zoo, which you will read about in another post, but we also got to see a parade in Fremont and watch the fireworks there too, as well as go for a swim and eat a good barbecue meal.

We waited a long time for the parade to start, the news-messenger got the time wrong (I know, I know - shocker!) and then I guess the people just walked really slow or something and we were towards the end of the route so here we are sweating in the heat and waiting for it to start

Here are the boys playing in the pool in a short break time before dinner, after the parade and after the zoo.

Cal fell asleep on the way to the fireworks and missed the whole thing, but he did see clyde's fireworks the night before and will get to see daddy's fireworks when we have our party on 7-7-07... which is good because this kid really loves fireworks.

Here the rest of the fam watches the fireworks.

Adam and I enjoyed it as well

Here are some of the fireworks for your enjoyment, if you didn't get to see any this year

Trip to the Zoo

the first thing we decided to do at the zoo was chase the ducks, here cal thinks he is a duck as follows them along in their little parade... the people standing around at this point were laughing and pointing at cal and one man even asked if I could send him an 8x10 of this photo... it really was cute as he swerved around and followed them all the time saying "ducky" and laughing

Calvin and Zac really enjoyed their trip to the zoo on the 4th of July. Here you can see that they are the best of pals, as long as there aren't any toys to fight over!

Here cal let me capture his devilish little grin as he leaned in for a smell/closer look at a flower near the butterfly exhibit that the zoo has this year...

and finally, at the end of the day, calvin was falling asleep in his stroller but refused to lie down so he just kept hovering on the edge of hitting his head in his stroller... so funny!

hope everyone had a great 4th!