It's been a while...

So, it's been a while since I've updated my blog. I won't bore you with the excuses.
Let me fill you in on what's been going on with everyone.

JOAN:
*I have discovered craft blogs! Have you seen all the craft blogs? There are about a million. I place most of the blame of not updating my blog on craft blogs.
Here are some of my favorites:
U-create

Tatertots and Jello
Make It and Love It
Kojo Designs

Samster Mommy
You could spend all day going from blog to blog to blog. Finding all kinds of things that you want to make but never will. Not that I have ever neglected the laundry and dishes for craft blogs.
*I have decided that I am done trying to have a good attitude about the weather this year. I will start faking my good attitude again sometime in the Fall.
I am so done with the snow and the cold and the wind!!!We have had some nice days. We got Cora a baby swing for our swing set. She loves it so much, but we don't get to use it everyday because I don't like being out in the cold windy wind. I understand that spring is cold, warm, cold, warm, I'm just saying I'm sick of it.We took this picture after the first big snow of the season. Do you know when that was? OCTOBER! Six months ago!! Done I say, Done!

The only reason I'm smiling is because I forgot what was in store for the months ahead. Also it usually snows once or twice in May.
*I have self diagnosed SAD. My friends say I should go to the tanning booth. Please listen to this link from 30 rock, Jack and Liz are talking about SAD. It is funny!
*We are looking forward to our summer break in AZ. We are also going to San Diego to hang out on the beach. I cannot wait!!

JOE:

Here he is looking hot in his uniform.

*Joe was promoted to Captain, that's right you can call him Captain Lasura. It was an automatic promotion, but I am still very proud of him. The automatic raise was awesome too.
*Joe was also upgraded to air craft commander it means that he gets to be the pilot instead of the co-pilot. That wasn't automatic, he had to study and take tests. Again, I am very proud!

*Joe got to go to Alaska and Albuquerque for training. Next month he gets to go to Guernsey, Wyoming, so exciting!
*Joe had a birthday and turned 33!
*Joe also finished SOS (squadron officer school) it required extra studying and test taking.
*Joe will be starting his masters next month, wish him luck.
(Joe works hard for our family!)

EZRA:
*Ez is finally starting to eat like a boy. We hardly ever have to bargain with him to take bites of his dinner. In fact I have found myself saying things like;
-Little bites for little boys.
-Slow down, nobody's going to take it from you.

-Where did all of your food go?*Ezra (and Joe and I) will be making a model of Krakatoa and when I say model I mean replica. It has to of course erupt, but it has to look like the volcano and have models of the indigenous animals on it too. Should be a blast to build, get it? A blast!

*Ezra has become my little bookworm. After he does his homework, he likes to read. He is reading books about dragons and lightning thieves, I'm cool with it.

RIVER:
*River lost his first tooth! Isn't he so adorable?

*River has been learning so much in kindergarten this year. It has been so fun seeing him learn to read and write. Every night he reads a short book to me.
Here is a story that he wrote and illustrated.

Obviously it is me and River on the couch reading a book. You can tell it's me by the hair and eyelashes.
It says:
I am reading a book. I like to read to mom. We read sitting on a couch(kowck). It is fun.

*River is one of a kind.
Here's the story:
We were out to dinner celebrating Joe's promotion. River orders a pizza. The pizza arrives and River takes one bite and decides that he does not like the pizza and he doesn't want to eat it.

Joe tells River that the pizza cost $5 and unless he wants to give Joe $5 River will need to eat the food that he ordered.A few minutes later I look up from my food across the table and Riv is holding up a 5 dollar bill. I nudge Joe and tell him that River has something for him. I wish I could describe the look on Joe's face when he saw River handing him the money across the table. It was priceless!

We are still not sure where he got $5.
*River is always doing things to keep us laughing.

CORA:
*Cora is super cute and adorable! She is a very good little girl. I like hanging out with her all day.

*Cora is 20 months old and likes to talk.
She says things like;
-No Daddy that's mine.
-I got my shoes on.
- I want to swing.
-I love you.
-Where boys? At school.
-Where Daddy? At work.
*Cora got a stroller for her babies. Can anyone tell my why I never thought about the boys running really fast while they push Cora in the play stroller? I honestly didn't see it coming. I guess I was just excited for little girl toys.

*Cora still likes to read books and takes all the books off of the shelf and onto the floor everyday.

I am a very lucky Mommy!
Look below for my post about Easter.

Easter-Spring Break

We got to Celebrate Easter in Tucson with Joe's mom and dad.
Here are Ez and Coco searching for eggs.
This year River found the five dollar egg.

He was very proud of himself.

Here is Miss Coco looking adorable,
even if her pigtails are kind of pathetic.

While in Tucson we played outside as much as possible.

One day we went to the park and met Grandpa for lunch.
I love this picture of Cora running to see her Grandpa.

Here is everyone having fun together.

The boys begged me to let them go swimming.
River wouldn't get in all the way.

Here is Grandpa helping River take a dip.

Ezra jumped right in.

I'm pretty sure that is was too cold for swimming, but the boys have been so deprived of warmth that the 80 degree weather was just perfect for them to go swimming even if the pool hadn't warmed up yet.
After a fun time in Tucson we got to hang with more family in Mesa.
We got to hang with the Yamamotos. It was a good time!
We had a picnic at the Train park.
This picture is funny you can see how much fun Ezra was having.

Ezra is getting older he will be 10 this year. I guess we were a few years too late taking him to the train park. When our ride was over and the train was pulling back into the station Ezra let everyone waiting know how he felt by giving everyone a thumbs down and telling them that the train ride was a ripoff.One night we got to see a lot of Martin cousins.
Ezra always loves to see Jed.
Aren't they so sweet?

While we were at my brother's house the kids painted their faces.
River came out and announced- "I'm a man!"
You know, because of the mustache.

We had a so much fun in AZ and can't wait until we go back for summer vacation!

Random Update

What's that Cora?
You've got an important test coming up and you need to study?

You are very studious.
Got the dash-1 almost memorized?
Good girl!
Oh, wait what's that? You're not the one who needs to study.
It's your daddy that has a test coming up?
Does he know you've got his dash-1?

I didn't think so.

Hey, it's time for a blog update. I put some pictures in a folder to blog about before Christmas. Then our computer stopped working the week before Christmas, so I never got to put these pics on the blog.

I decided a post out of order is better than no post at all.
So here is my random post. Random because the pictures are out of order and because this post isn't going to flow very nicely.
Here are the boys wrestling on the couch in their jammies.

Not too unusual.
Except now Cora wants to join in on the fun.

The boys usually let her play until she starts getting mean. She plays dirty, pulling hair and pinching faces are her usual moves.

So I had to have a 2nd procedure done on my shoulder. It wasn't as bad as the first and really helped me to get my range of motion back. Joe's parents were nice enough to come on short notice to help us.
Here is the awesome chair that I had to sit in for 6 hours a day. Yeah I said 6 hours, that's why Joe's parents came to help.
So the chair started out like this with the arm next to the body.

Then the motor would start and move my arm up.
I had to adjust it to move a few more degrees every time I sat down to do a session in it.

After I maxed it out I got to return it. It was pretty awesome and by awesome I mean boring and hurty. I can use my shoulder a lot more now. I can even put my hair in a pony tail. Let me just say that any cute hair requires two good arms. Think about it. A blow dryer and a brush requires two good arms, even using a straightener or curling iron takes two hands.
I'm practically back to normal. Reaching up is still hard. My next goal is working on putting things in and out of the cabinets with my right arm. After that things on the top shelf!

Amber got to come hang with us for Thanksgiving.

She got to be here for Ezra's birthday.
Ezra is now 9 years old. Can you believe it? Me niether.

Since Joe's parents were here for the surgery they got to stay for the Christmas program at Ez and Riv's school.
Here are the boys before the program started.

Sure they look cute, that morning River told me,"Don't forget we need Christmas shirts for the program tonight." I'm pretty sure that was the first time I heard about it. That's why they just got green t-shirts.

Here is miss Coco with a pair of swim goggles that we had floating around the house.

How long ago was Halloween?

Two rock stars and a pink cheetah.

River turned 6. Can you believe it? Me neither.

Riv also got to be on his first soccer team.
He was adorable. On his first game he would wave at us every time he ran by.

How long ago was the first day of school?
Here are the boys. Riv is in Kindergarten and Ez is a big third grader.

Cora likes to hide in the cabinets.
Here she is under the bathroom sink.

Cora's new favorite pastime is taking everything out of the cabinets and throwing it wherever she wants.

If she wasn't so cute I might get tired of picking them up 24/7.
She has a new best friend in the kitchen. Her friend in the oven.

She talks to her reflection quite a bit.
Here is a glimpse of my kitchen floor. She is also good at taking things out of the drawers too.

Got to put that Cora only drawer in soon.

Here is a note that I had to put on the blog.
It's from River.
One night(way past bedtime) he came down stairs and told me he was hungry.
I told him it was too late and if he was asleep he wouldn't be hungry.
A few minutes later he comes down the stairs and hands me this gem.
I'll translate the kindergarten writing for you.

Oh Oh o
I'm Hungry
From: Riv
To: Mom

The note didn't work. I made him go back to bed. A good effort though, don't you think?

Best summer ever....

We had such a great summer. It was so fun and I took a lot of pictures. I was going to blog about it earlier, but this shoulder surgery was rougher than I thought.

So here are some of the fun things from our trip to AZ this summer.

It started out pretty cool.
Some where in Colorado we see a woman in a truck waving a red flag out of her window and wonder why. Then we see why. A big herd of cattle being moved. We almost threw an apple to the cows, but then decided against it.


Our first order of business:
In-n-Out Burger, of course.
Here is Miss Cora enjoying her first french fry.
She couldn't believe we were holding out on her.

This thing is delicious!

Joe spent time doing manly things.
He got to shoot guns.

I don't know the specifics of this gun, but he does look pretty bad a**, don't you think?

So to balance out the picture of Joe and the gun here is a picture of him and our baby girl. This is from the family pictures that Becca took for us.
Aren't they adorable?
Here is one of my other favorite of the family.
Becca did a really great job.
We only got a few shots because it was seriously 113 degrees.
When we left Cheyenne it was still in the 5o's, so the high temps were too much for us.
We headed back to Joe and Becca's house for some cool drinks.
Joe and Becca also let us have a party at their house. We were so glad too see our friends. It was fun catching up with everyone! Good times.

When we went to visit Joe's parents. The boys got the best surprise ever.....their very own club house!
It was totally awesome. They are still talking about it.
Check out the doghouse.

Joe's dad worked so hard to build it for them and they couldn't believe how cool it was.
Grandpa gave them their very own keys.The pictures don't do it justice. The boys can't wait until our next visit to have fun in the doghouse.

Joe's parents are ridiculously good cooks. Every night we ate the best meal ever.
Here is a shot of the night we had sauce. It cooks all day long, I mean all day. It feels like torture waiting and waiting but in the end it is so worth it.

Meatballs, sausage, pork chops, noodles and sauce. My favorite salad and delicious everything bagels turned into garlic bread.
The only bad thing about eating like this (besides my pants not fitting me anymore, seriously).....
You might go into a food induced coma.
River and Grandpa passed out after a delicious meal.
Not only was there a clubhouse and delicious food, there was also a pool!
Did I mention that we never get out in the sun anymore? River got a bit of sun poisoning the second day. I tried to tell them they were having too much fun in the sun, but they didn't believe me.

River stayed inside for a day and hydrated.
By the next day both boys were back to the fun game of try and push dad in the pool.

Followed by "try to see how many floaties I can wear."

Here is a pic of Cora being cute, she can't help it.
So our visit wasn't all clubhouse, food and fun. There was also some serious competition.
Maybe you heard about the "Golden Taco Challenge of 2009?"
No? I'm surprised.
Lucky for you I documented the action as it happened.
Did I mention Joe's mom and dad are the best cooks?
Joe's mom makes the best tacos ever, they're deep fried, I don't think I need to say more.
The tacos are so good that when you are making them you remember the last time you had them and how many you ate. Joe and his dad were reminiscing about how many tacos they had ever eaten in one sitting and that is how the competition got started.
Joe and his dad decided that it was time for a good old fashioned taco eating contest.
Here is the table set for competition.
Three pans of tacos. One for Joe, one for his dad, and one for everyone else.

Here are the guys posing by the golden taco trophy that they made together, what sportsmanship!
A friendly handshake to get the contest started.

May the best man win.
Let's see how Joe is doing.

Hmm, only 6 tacos and he looks full already.
How about Bruce? Still going strong.

He's putting el pato his taco so he can enjoy the deliciousness of it.
Another check on Joe.

This is where the boys were saying, "Come on Dad, you're really letting us down." They really wanted him to win.

Let's check on Bruce. He's just making sure he gets every last bite.

Here is Joe facing the facts.
He will not be the winner of the golden taco challenge.

Tacos eaten by Bruce =17
Tacos eaten by Joe=10
Bruce wins!

Joe's parents were nice enough to watch our kids while we had a little getaway.
We stayed one night at a resort in Tucson, yeah we used our military discount.
It was beautiful! Check out the pool side view.

We loved being just us two by the pool. Try not to look at our pastiness. I told you we never see the sun anymore.

On our way home we were lucky enough to stop by my cousins farm in Pleasant View Colorado. They really know how to make you feel at home. It was great getting to know my cousins again.
I got to have a nice lunch with the women and Joe got to shoot prairie dogs. The boys had a blast doing things that they never get to do in the city.
Here are some of fun things they did.
Here is River with Jen and Andelin on their way to feed Freddy the calf.

Here is River petting Freddy

The kids helping Jen feed Freddy. He was hungry.

All the boys having fun on the 4 wheeler. Ez and Riv are still talking about that.

They even rounded up a horse for the boys to ride.
Here is River on Clancey.

Here is Ezra on Clancey.

It was great visiting our family on the farm and eating even more delicious food.
On our way to the main road we stopped to take pictures of the amazing scenery.
Pleasant View really lives up to it's name, although I think it's more of a spectacular view.

Amber waves of grain, literally.