Birthday Surprise

4 days and counting......until my baby girl turns *sigh* 4.....(this is where I start to cry). She was supposed to stay little forever but she's growing up so fast!

We had some visitors Monday night for an early birthday visit. Grandma & Grandpa Scheidt along with Ashley & Courtney! Who Danae now refers to as her sisters =) They stopped in on their way to Legoland down in San Diego and it was a very fun visit!
They came toting birthday presents wrapped with, as Danae says "Hannah Tannah" (Hannah Montana) paper which made her day. When Danae unwrapped one of the gifts, the present was inside a cereal box. I've never seen a little girl so happy about getting a cereal box! All she said was excitedly, "You got me cededal (cereal)! Oh I love cededal! Thank you! Thank you!" It took her a few minutes to realize the gift was INSIDE the cereal box. It was one of those too cute moments to remember. After the girls helped her get the hang of ripping open the presents it was time to play of course! The kids kept busy playing and tiring each other out =)

I made an early birthday cake and managed to hide it from Danae until everyone got here. I've been asking what kind of cake she wanted and she went back and forth between a princess cake and a "badet" (ballet) cake. Finally she settled on ballet and that's what she got......and thank goodness she loved it and was so excited when she saw it!

After a wonderful visit, it was time for everyone to get going and thankfully the kids are getting better and didn't cry when they had to leave. Although Danae was sad, we downloaded the pictures on the computer and saw what a great time we had and she was happy again =)

We've also been working on our writing and letters here's Danae's first time by herself writing her letters...not a bad job...but then again I'm a proud mommy =)

Here's a link to my blog showing Derrick doing the same letters:
http://clarkfamilyfour.blogspot.com/2008/07/whew.html

Happy 4th of July

Whew! We made it through the 4th of July weekend and had a blast =) We took an impromptu trip to Fresno/Exeter and enjoyed the entire two days. This 4th was the first Saturday I've had off since moving down here so we left super early (3:45am) and drove the 202 miles to Fresno and did some visiting. We visited with Grandma Connie & Grandpa Jerry first. The kids got to see Ashley & Courtney so they were super excited. I've known the girls for 7 or 8 years now and it's so hard to believe Ashley is 16 & Courtney is 11. They were just little girls when I first met them and now they are beautiful young ladies.

The kids seeing Ashley & Courtney

Cody, Ashley, Hannah, Courtney, Danae & Derrick

Derrick & Grandpa Jerry

Now we can't visit Grandma & Grandpa Scheidt without visiting Grammy & PoPo over in Madera Ranchos! We trekked on over and had a visit while the kids colored in their coloring books Shirley has there.


Danae & Grammy Shirley

Grammy, Derrick & Danae

PoPo Richard & Derrick

Next on our visit list was a visit from Grandma Allen at our hotel. Grandma couldn't believe how big they had gotten since our last visit. She realized Derrick is "all boy" and Danae is a "girly girl". =)





And after all our visiting was done, we headed off to Pam's (Leroy's baby sister) for a barbeque! I used to feel so uncomfortable around Leroy's family, now....no way! I told Leroy the other day "I've put in some years now, I feel better!" =) The kids had fun playing with some "cousins" and the food was great! There's nothing better than barbeque that you don't have to cook to make it taste good. Then it was time to skedadle over to Sticker stadium and watch the firework show in Exeter. Last year we didn't go because we had just come back from Disneyland so we were all exhausted. I didn't know how they were going to react with the loud booms.....but they loved it! Derrick screamed in excitement the whole time & Danae loved the pretty colors. They are growing up so fast but to watch the excitement and wonderment in their faces is absolutely priceless!