Corbin's Last T-Ball Game

Corbin's last T-Ball game was last night. He was pretty bored all season, but he isn't old enough to put into coach-pitch yet. Because he is a constant goof-ball, we couldn't get a good picture of him in action, so we just made do with what we could get. There are more pictures and details about this season on his blog.

Sunday Morning Photo Shoot

If you are a parent, I'm sure you will agree that sometimes, trying to take pictures of your kids is an extremely frustrating process. They blink, try to say something, change poses, or decide to be shy...right when you hit the capture button.

Today, the kids were looking pretty good before we headed off to church, so I grabbed the camera to take some quick pics. As you can see, I could not get all of them to cooperate at the same time, so the end result isn't exactly what I was going for. Anyway, here are the handsome boys and the darling princess (Payton stayed the night at Courtnee's).

Story Time

Laney loves being read to. Her current favorite book is a Sandra Boynton (love her and have all of her books) called "Dinosaurs Binkit". Laney has a blanket of her own that she can't live without called a na-night, so when reading the story, we replace binkit with na-night. Tonight as soon as we were done eating (mexican and ice cream), before we even got up from the table, Delaney brought her daddy the book. The camera happened to be near-by so I snapped a few pics of them spending quality time together at the messy table. What a good daddy!

Strawberry Jam

I am so impressed with myself (and Courtnee)! This past Tuesday, we didn't really have any plans, so when Courtnee called me up and said that strawberries were on sale for the last day and we needed to make jam, I was up to the challenge. Neither of us has ever made freezer jam before, so we were a little apprehensive, but decided to face it head on. I bought all the stuff; strawberries, pectin (much less expensive at Wal-Mart, by 1/2) and sugar (tons and tons of it).

Courtnee came over and we began reading the directions. The measurement conversions didn't work, so we just started mixing and went from there. The only unfortunate part of the day was that Courtnee and I see things differently as far as "cleaning as you go" or just cleaning it all up at the end. I would have taken pictures of the humongous mess we made, but I didn't want to get depressed every time I logged into my blog (I had just mopped the day before).

We were an ooey-gooey-sticky-mess by day end, but oh my gosh, this jam is super-dooper delicious! We made 55 jars! I can't wait until Cheryl gets back into town (she's on one of her SOS trips) and makes us some scones or homemade bread! YUM!

Annual Lake Weekend

This past weekend, we had our annual lake weekend with all of the Marvin Jacobs' Siblings (and posterity). For the first time ever, I actually stayed over night at the campsite. Now granted, I did sleep in a fairly new camper, but still...the kids had a blast as always swimming, fishing, frog hunting, tubing, sleeping under the stars (and getting eaten alive by bugs) and roasting mallows! We told scary stories around the campfire and Grandpa Jay got out the guitar and sang some preschool songs and some country western faves.

On Saturday, I just laid out for most of the day and got a bit burned, although it has already faded into a nice tan. For most of my time laying out, I had a friendly dragonfly that stayed very close by. By 4 pm, Laney and I had had enough dirt in our unmentionable places and headed for home (and the shower). Clint & the other kids stayed until dark and came home bringing plenty of dirt and mud with them. All in all, it was an enjoyable weekend and one that will be repeated again this summer I'm sure!

Meanest Mom Ever!

So when we go to a certain pool one city over, we have to pack a lunch and get there early to find a spot in the shade. Anyhow, after we finally get in and somewhat settled (drag the chairs over, sunscreen, etc) I have the kids eat lunch. As we all know, it is wise to wait 1/2 hour after eating before going swimming. Knowing that waiting 1/2 hour would seem like an eternity, I figured it wasn't too much to ask for them to wait 15 minutes. The kids were great and waited patiently while all of the other kids ran helter skelter to the pool.

A mom sitting somewhat close to us came over to me after I "finally" let the kids go and was marveling at how she would have never been able to keep her kids from running off to the pool. I thought that was a shame on many levels. Since she doesn't expect her kids to respect her now, I am very afraid for her when her kids hit their teenage years!

Anyhow, the kids were able to swim for almost 4 hours and I hope they aren't scarred for life from having to wait after eating for 15 minutes before they could go swimming!

Delaney's Favorite Dress

Aunt Jenni got Delaney this dress for her 2nd birthday. Laney loves this dress! Whenever she picks out a dress to wear, this is it. So to keep her from wearing the same dress everyday, I sometimes have to hide this dress in the back of the closet! Thank you Jenni for such a cute dress!

Water Play @ the Casebolt's

On Tuesday, we went to my girlfriend, Michelle's, house to help break in the slide pool that her daughter, Samantha, got for her birthday. The kids had a good time going down the slide, jumping on the tramp and playing lacrosse.

Mad props to Fallon's SIL, Michelle, for putting together this awesome picture of all the Reeves' side cousins. This is what we gave my mom for Mother's Day (dad got one too for his office). My MIL, Cheryl, will get one with her grandchildren's heads for her birthday in August now that cute baby Trent is here!

Shameless Plug

The entire reason Clint & I moved the kids to Utah for 9 months was to learn all about Nouveau Riche. NR is a real estate investing college...you can actually go to the school and learn different real estate investing strategies and become a real estate investor.

We are students of the college ourselves and are back in northern Colorado to market the tuition, as independent student advisors. So basically, we need to find students for the school.

With all that said, if you know anyone interested in learning how to invest in real estate, or if you know an investor who is looking for a new (or a couple new) strategies to expand their R.E. portfolio, please have them contact either Clint or me! Thanks a million!

Something Old, Something New

4th of July Weekend

We began independence day with an early flag raising ceremony and breakfast. Then we tagged along with the Hansen boys to the Greeley Stampede parade. They aren't allowed to throw out candy any more during the parade route so the kids quickly tired of seeing horses and marching bands. We stayed just long enough to get a slight sunburn.

We then went back to the house to pack everything up and then headed over to my mom's house. We ate some delicious grub (including my much sought after brownies and Caribbean Dump Cake). We spent the entire afternoon and into early evening taking boat rides, swimming and jumping on the tramp when we were tired. The ski boat is broken, so no tubing/wakeboarding/skiing this year.

Evan & Cale (my brothers) invited some of their friends over for the weekend and Payton was in boy-crazy heaven. My brother Ian (based at Davis Monthon in Tucson) came up and Fallon & Zane came over from Utah with Zane's parents & his brother Trace and wife Michelle. My FIL, Jay, and Clint's sister, Courtnee's family spent the day with us as well as Stacey from Nouveau and his daughter, Kristen. With my 5 kids and Kristen & Ryan's 6, we had a full house. Thank you to my Aunt Julie who is awesome about taking pictures at these events!

Zane, his dad, brother and my dad went to the Rockies game. Because they were seated behind the Marlins dugout, we all watched the game from the house to see if we could spot them in the crowd. We did! That was fun for everyone. The game was fantastic and Cole was on cloud 9 when Holliday hit a grand slam to put the Rockies score up to 16 (the Marlins had 17). One more homerun and then a few base hits and the Rockies were the victorious home team winning 18-17. 35 runs...that was an exciting game.

We decided not to battle the traffic this year at lake Loveland, so everyone hopped on the Pontoon boat and headed out to the middle of the lake to watch fireworks. On Saturday, we went back over to my mom's house to hang out with my brother Cale (foolishly living in CA away from us) and we karaoked until after midnight. Because we believe strongly in sharing, Fallon (and family) brought us the stomach flu bug from Utah and we ended our weekend in bed or bent over the toilet. Fun times!

Punk Rock Chick

Payton wants to have long hair. Unfortunately, I haven't met a 10 year old girl yet who actually takes care of their hair and brushes it and keeps it looking nice. So, I prefer for her to have shorter hair. My brilliant husband came up with a plan to keep all of us happy. He made a deal with Payton that if she let me pick the length of her hair, she could put whatever color streaks in it that she wanted for summer.

She thought about it for a few days and the deal was struck. Aunt Courtnee put in semi-permanent pink streaks and cut it almost short enough. I thought it looked really cute. Payton got compliments on it wherever we went. She was a big hit at Disneyland too. Unfortunately, we swim at the pool a lot and it didn't take much for the pink to fade out after too many consecutive days at the pool. Now the pink has turned into really blond highlights and it looks great on her. She is already bargaining for a new color next summer!

The End of the Baseball Season

So baseball season is finally coming to a close for Cole. He had a pretty good season. He was the youngest, smallest guy on his team, but he definitely held his own! Cole did well as a pitcher (threw strikes so the ball was in play a lot) and he also mostly played short stop and left field. They weren't supposed to play the same positions all season, but whatever. He is at the age now where it is a little more fun to watch (when I wasn't upset with the coaching) so I'm looking forward to a really fun year next summer. Cole had a lot of fun playing and this was the first year that he got a "real" uniform! Yeah for simple pleasures!

Darling Delaney

Basically Laney just sits around being beautiful...no wait...that's not true at all. She actually doesn't sit around...she is way too busy getting into trouble! I have always said that I wanted an even number of kids. However, I have also heard that once you've had your naughtiest, that usually means you are done. So, I think Laney just may be the caboose of our family. She is talking quite a lot now and "considering" potty-training. Her first full phrase was "I'm a princess" which is totally appropriate! She loves all things girlie. She wears earrings, bracelets and a necklace every day and always reminds me to let her put on her "yips" (or lip gloss as us common folk call it) before we go anywhere (thank you Grandma Cindi for that gene). Laney pretty much runs our household and has everyone wrapped around her dainty little fingers. She loves her friends in nursery and LOVES to put on her "simming soup" to go to the "yake or poooooool". She gets her heart broken every time someone leaves the house without her and her new favorite movie is Willow (I have to get a video of her saying Willow...absolutely hilarious)!

Quick-witted Corbin

As stated previously, our kids love to swim. Corbin is our 4th joy and the picture is of him swimming in the Caribbean off of the Bahamas. I know...tough life so far for this little guy. Corbin is basically Clint's mini-me. Looks just like him, acts just like him, is as funny as his dad and even has the same naughty-grin! He constantly cracks us up with all of his many antics. He is currently playing tee-ball and seems to be pretty bored with it by now, but eh, it's kind of a rite of passage right? Corbin is our color-er. He draws the most amazing superhero symbols and he loves both Justice League and Marvel. He carries around at least 25 of his "guys" at all times so he can stop, drop and play at any moment. He is SOOOOOO many excited to begin all-day kindergarten this fall with our favorite kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Bennett. I can't believe he is almost off to kindergarten!