Tis the season...

Christmas time is upon us here in CA, even if we don't get the snow like all the rest of our family. We've begun the celebrating in our house by putting up the tree, making Christmas cookies, opening a few early gifts from Grandma B., and with new tree ornaments for the boys from Grandma and Grandpa N.

Here you can see just how exciting it is going to be this year!

Slug Bug No Return! (That is what Caleb is yelling!)

Family Pictures

We had our world famous brother-in-law take our family pictures a few weeks ago. They turned out wonderful and I thought it would be great to share them! If you need someone to take your pictures, look him him up!

http://markleonardimaging.com/blog/lapka-family/

There are more in his picture gallery if you want to see more!

4925.5 miles and one dead bird later...

We are home!

There is too much to include in a vacation that lasts one month. If you really want to see what we did, come over for a visit! We had a blast driving, visiting, swimming, laughing, playing and lots more. We left Escondido at 5 am on June 30 and returned August 1 (today) at 4:20 pm. We definitely feel blessed that we could spend time traveling like this! The country side is full of beauty -- if you count Nebraska I guess -- and our boys saw a lot of cool sights. I think they liked picking out the trains and cows!

I'd love to share all the pictures, but that would be crazy to upload!

Oh, about the bird. For the record, he flew into us!

Happy Birthday, Caleb!

Caleb is two years old! I can't believe that it was two years ago that we were packing up the Temecula house getting ready for a move and waiting for this little guy to join us. Despite the crazy-ness of his deciding to make a backwards appearance (resulting in a C-section) two years ago, we are so thankful for the time God has blessed us with him. He is quite the little character and keeps Paul and me laughing daily (even at times when we should be holding our laughter). Yesterday at Moms' Group the nursery attendant said that he has such a "personality and will be the class clown someday" (not sure I like the sound of that).

He is talking up a storm though we still can't understand everything he says (more to his frustration than ours at this point). His clearest words are thank you ("day-too") and "I do! I do!" though he gets others out (his favorite new one is "baby" since he loves being around Mackenzie and Owen--some friends' li'l guy).

Lately, he has been into "jumping" (his feet do not leave the ground at the same time so it is a stretch to call it a jump) and falling flat onto the floor (sometimes with a pillow and other times not). Below is a good example of what Caleb looks like while jumping, and I think you can hear him counting off before he goes.



Yesterday, Isaac ran into the kitchen to tell me that Caleb was standing on the couch...he was actually standing on the arm of our Ikea chair with his hands outspread and then threw himself from the chair onto the couch--quite the little daredevil. I am not sure you can even see it in the birthday pictures/videos, but he fell backward down a couple steps at church yesterday cutting his lip and leaving a black & blue mark over his eye. He loves to run (albeit a bit funny-looking) and counts off before he takes off. Singing is something he loves doing and knows his "ABC" song and "Jesus Loves Me." He is very dramatic and in the last couple weeks has been responding with a large sigh if we ask him to do something he is not too sure about.

Caleb got a hair cut on Wednesday (two days ago). Paul got out the razor while I was at praise team practice. Above is the before shot, and below is the result (these were before the fall at church so you can't see the fat lip and bruised eye).He really looks like a big boy now! (Sorry, Grandmas, the razor was the only option with him this time. He got so much sand in his hair at the beach that we had issues getting it all out. Wednesday a.m. he was still itching his head so much that we decided getting rid of all his fine hair was the only option. Besides, Paul and I absolutely love the buzz cut!)

Anyway, back to birthday news. This morning Caleb was the first one up. Because Paul has a meeting after school and we have a youth group end-of-year party, we decided to open a couple gifts before Paul left for school. We sang happy birthday to him (since Isaac's b-day, he breaks into song anytime we mention a birthday) and then let him open his present from Gpa & Gma N. (We had to coach Isaac before that he could watch Caleb but not open the gift since it was Caleb's turn to open presents...it worked fairly well as you can see in the video below.) We think Isaac was just as excited as Caleb with this gift. They have been busily playing with the train for over an hour now--I think I LOVE this gift as much as they do! ;-)

We plan to open more gifts and cards after school today before youth group so we will possibly have more pix on here later on. Yes, I pulled another bad-mom this year and planned youth group on his birthday. When I was making the schedule, something about the date sounded familiar, but I was so focused on the day of the week (not the date) and making sure it worked with the school schedules that I did not think of running the actual date past our family life. I guess I can look at it as a thoughtless mom move or a wonderful way to plan since he will have so many kids (who absolutely love him) at his party! This is the group that helped us move into our house two years ago--almost every youth with many parents showed up at our Escondido house and helped unload the truck without complaining about all the work. The youth and their families have been a blessing to our family (actually, they are the ones who threw Caleb his only baby shower) so it is very fitting to celebrate with them!

This video is of Caleb opening the train set from Gpa and Gma N (yes, that is Christmas wrapping paper, but that is all we have in the house). Notice how well Isaac refrains from actually opening the present with him but spilling the beans as to the contents of the present!

Spring Happenings

I know it has only been a couple weeks since we updated the blog so I am sure that you are thinking your mind is playing tricks on you. Don't worry...this is for real (and it is not even Caleb's birthday which will warrant another post in just a few days)! Below is a picture of the boys having a snack in their tent which we set up in the living room every once in a while for fun. (I did learn to stay in the living room to supervise the snack until it is done since they had fun squishing the crackers and spreading them around the floor of the tent...)
Looking over the entries (as few and scattered as they might be) is a good reminder to me that God is so good to us--blessing us above and beyond what we need and showing his love to us through our family and friends and letting us live in this country that has so many freedoms (often ones we take for granted) thanks to the men and women who have served and continue to serve in the military!

We had a wonderfully relaxing Memorial Day weekend full of time with friends and family. It was baptism for Mackenzie so we spent Saturday and Sunday in Beaumont to celebrate that. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera in the car so I have absolutely no pictures to show from baptism. I guess the picture of the older kids in the pool will have to do--I did not take swim suits along for the boys so we made do with undies and diapers.

Then on Monday we had double-the-fun with a late morning through afternoon time at the beach and then a BBQ and time with friends that evening. It was a weekend that gave us a good taste for summer vacation. (I know Paul is counting the days, and so am I at home. It is always wonderful to have lazy days to live at our own pace.)

I realized I did not post any pictures from when Mom visited so below is one from Easter and the big easter egg hunt. As you can see, Isaac was quite successful in his quest for eggs. The funny thing is that his basket got so full, he started dropping eggs and the younger ones would follow after him and pick up his eggs that would just be lying out in the open in the grass. Caleb was very excited to discover that the eggs held stuff inside them--once he realized that, he was more interested in having us open the eggs to get out the candy!

We also finally got a room painted--started with the kitchen. It helped to do that while Mom was visiting so she could entertain the boys and keep them out of the kitchen while we painted. We absolutely love the difference it makes, and now I can't help but look at every wall with "painting" eyes trying to think of what color would work in each room (especially our rose-colored bathroom which I hate!). I am thinking it will be a little bit slower of a process in this house since we have to work around the boys and all their stuff so I will settle with one wall at a time if that is the way it needs to go.

Oh, we forget to update so many things. Caleb is also sleeping in his "big-boy" bed now. We converted his crib to a day bed, and he loves it. He has done surprisingly well with this. Every once in a while he cries when he goes to bed, but he is very good about staying in the bed. Actually, the first few weeks he would yell for us to get him out of bed rather than climb out himself. That has changed...he now comes out to find us (even a few times at 3:00 in the morning) when he wakes up. We have only had to go into his room and tell him to stop playing with his toys a few times for which we are very thankful. The funny thing is that he knows he can only have his paci and lovey when he is in his bed so he thinks he is free to be done with his nap as long as he leaves them in his bed--nothing like going into his room and having him decide he is not going to sleep despite the time. Ah, our little strong-willed boy has a few things to learn yet.

Happy Birthday! The Big #4!

Isaac turned the big 4 today! Wow! When I used to hear people say that their kids grow up so quickly, I thought they were nuts. But today I realize that those words are very true!

Four years ago God blessed us with the arrival of Isaac, and every day since we are indeed grateful for him! He's becoming quite the little man and is a very good helper. I recently overheard he and his mother talking after he begged to help in the kitchen. She informed him that he will be one of those boys who knows how to work in the kitchen when he grows up.


Wednesday night we went to Red Robin for his free kids meal and ice cream sundae. Today his birthday was filled with fun activities that Isaac got to choose (reading books on the couch, playing Hungry Hippos, doing Lite Brite, playing outside, watching the opening scenes of Survivor just to name a few). He opened one present from us before I left for school (Lightning McQueen crocs) and was eagerly waiting for me to come home to open the rest. After what was probably 100 times asking if he could open presents since Dad was home (and the billionth time Mom heard it during the day), he finished opening the rest of his gifts. He even enjoyed opening the birthday cards and was thrilled to find money in some!



Isaac got to pick what he wanted for supper and chose tacos. I tried to talk him out of it, but I failed. :-) We enjoyed our meal with our friends Brad and Jayne Jansen and shortly after got to probably the most exciting time of the day--THE CAKE!

Mom surfed the Internet for what seemed like hours and found exactly what Isaac requested for his cake: a treasure chest. Danae did an awesome job crafting this creation. After a few tense moments with me offering my two cents and a cake that we figured would fall apart while trying to prop open the top of the chest, she ended up creating a cake that could win contests. Isaac was thrilled at the final result--especially that he had his choice of any candy that was spilling out of it!

We had a great time celebrating!

Isaac, you are wonderful little boy! We love you lots and can't wait to see you continue to grow! May God continue to bless you each day!

Oh yeah, Caleb loved the party just as much!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We don't normally do a large celebration for St. Patrick's Day. To avoid any pinching, we wore our customary green (Caleb's was a stretch since his shirt was a bit teal-ish, but Isaac made up for him by wearing green sox, pants and shirt). I (Danae) thought it would be fun for the boys to start the day with something green so for breakfast we made green eggs. Isaac helped scramble them and even added the food coloring--a couple extra drops than what I would have added which made for a beautiful green batch of eggs. Isaac really caught onto the spirit of green by insisting upon using the green plate even!

We got a couple pictures of them with their eggs, and I had to post both since the boys didn't cooperate at the same time (in the first Caleb wasn't sure of the texture and was caught spitting them out--he ate them later with ketchup--and the second with Isaac's classic deer-in-the-headlights look). They actually loved them so much I had to make a second batch.

Guess what Isaac wanted for b-fast this a.m.??? Yep, blue eggs.

Grandma N. was here!

Grandma N. came all the way from the frozen land of MN to visit us for a week. Although it was great to have her here, she may say otherwise. Both boys got sick the second day she was here and were snotty nosed and hacking all day and night long. Just when it seemed that everyone was getting better, she had to go home. We're all good now--wanna come back?

While she was here we still managed to go to the San Diego Zoo, go over to Oceanside and walk the pier, eat out at Red Robin 2 times, ride bikes, and do some shopping! You can't say it was all dull and boring. We had plans for more activities, but that dreaded cold bug just wouldn't go away quickly.

Overall we had a great time! Come again soon Mom/Grandma N!

Visiting with Grandpa!

Grandpa N. called today to see if he could stop by and have dinner with us. What a fun surprise! His trucking route has now taken him through for Paul's birthday and this time for Valentine's Day weekend! Hmmmm...what's the next big holiday or celebration? (We'll leave St. Patrick's Day open just in case he is trucking through at that time. :-)

Once he pulled into Escondido, Grandpa parked his truck at school and came to our house for a quick shower before we headed for a late dinner at Applebee's. The boys had fun eating out, learning to arm wrestle with Grandpa and even ordering dessert!




As you can see, Isaac enjoyed browsing the menu to pick dessert as well as helping Grandpa cut my leftover steak with his own steak knife. (No children or grandpas were injured.)



Our server added the cherry to Isaac's dessert--Isaac enjoyed the chocolate mousse but probably would have been happy with a bowl full of cherries! We kept joking that Grandpa stuck his chin in the dessert.



These pictures took place within a minute of each other--Isaac obviously enjoying his dessert and Grandpa trying to decide which bite to eat first (steak or key lime shooter).

"These two characters in my booth are crazy!"