Shower and Sand

Today we had a very fun Baby Shower for Jane's primary teacher and invited all the kids in her class and their moms. It was a big hit! Here are 2 cute things that I thought to share:

One cute thing to decorate was I hung this on the door:We had brunch and it was all delicious, but I made a little baby buggy out out a watermelon and filled it with melons and it turned out so cute! (Plus the Peonies bloomed just this morning-they smell so good)These last few days Kate has also discovered how much fun can be had in the sand box.

Here she is with a silly face at the shower.

In other news: we've painted our kitchen kind of a limestone color- no more bright yellow!
Today's weather was crazy with clouds, then sun, then crazy rain and hail, then blue sky and sunny.
Keep enjoying your weekend!

Now You See It, Now You Don't

Hey- before all you tree lovers get all angry with me let me explain.

We had this really tall pine tree in our back yard and since 3 of our neighbors pine trees got uprooted with the last wind storm we thought it would be good to get ours taken out before it took our our neighbors home. Plus it only had branches growing on one side.

The "tree guys" came this morning, one of them climbed it and cut it down, another came and ground the stump, and then they let B keep the big pieces of trunk. We are going to put in 2 more garden boxes where the tree was an a strawberry tower. It's good.

Pictures from Memorial Day:

In the morning while some VERY kind friends came over to help B roof again, I took the kids to meet some friends at a cemetery to place flags on some tombstones.

We've also been having fun at the park and Baby Kate loves swinging" in her new shoes.

Today Bruce also discovered that when you squeeze a water bottle it does this... so fun!

Bruce also graduated from pre- pre-preschool (her still has 2 years until Kindergarten) today and we'll post that later.

New Chair

Story: Yesterday I took the kids to a park while B was getting the roof ready for new shingles. On our way home we saw a sign for a BARN SALE. I thought it would be fun so we stopped. They had lots of awesome stuff, a lot of it was really old and cool.

Bruce walked by a little chair with Jane and Jane told him it was a potty. Bruce decided to try it out I guess and went potty in it. Everyone there (which wasn't many) thought it was hilarious and were all laughing.
So $10 later we bought the chair and the nice woman running the sale also threw in this cool old window.

A HUGE THANKS TO THE WONDERFUL, KIND, FRIENDS THAT HELPED US PUT OUR NEW ROOF ON TODAY! It looks SOOOOO good!
I also got these 2 white plank chairs at the barn sale to go with 2 other chairs I thought were pretty cool.

2 cute videos

*My apologies to those with slow connections & can't watch these*

Untitled from Eliza Damstedt on Vimeo.

This is how we spend our Saturday afternoons:

(Note: B is redoing out roof this week hence the black pieces, the fence was broken in a storm and will be replaced soon, and Bruce says "hi.")

Untitled from Eliza Damstedt on Vimeo.

I'm SO CUTE!

(Thanks Hiromi for the package- including this adorable outfit)

Another Scientist

Jane is a scientist!

If you ask her she'll tell you that "Engineers know everything!"

She has been doing lots of expirements with plants lately. The closest ones are the Chia Guys, then celery that had been placed in water with purple food coloring and it turns the leaves purple. Next, there are lots of seeds growing and we watered them with different things (water, juice, salt water, etc...)

Here's her Chia-Guy made of grass seed in a nylon, stuffed with saw dust,
and placed in a plastic cup filled with water.

Kate LOVES to walk (holding onto something)- video soon to come...

Finally, A HUGE THANK YOU to my mom for her latest package full of
Cinnamon Bears (can't find them here), books, Build a Bear clothes, and popcorn for Bruce.

Bruce the Camper, puddle jumper, & more

Last Friday B and Bruce went on a camp out. They had such a great time. They ate dinner by the fire, threw rocks in the lake, ran and ran and ran, had water rockets, and then when B went to put Bruce to sleep he was out within 5 seconds on hitting his pillow. Bruce also got a big gash on his chin when he fell and hit a rock, but he's fine.

He found this puddle while we were at a friend's this weekend and LOVED it!
He got really dirty, I love this little guy!

This is what our Mother's Day table was set like.
Thank you!
We had a fabulous dinner with only moms at the table while dads and kids were downstairs!

Happy Mother's Day!

To all you amazing mother's that I love and admire,
I wish you a wonderful day!

These are what greeted me this afternoon followed by a very loud
"Happy Mother's Day" yell from a cute Bruce.

Jane made me these are Home Depot this month.

We Love Home Depot workshops!

One YEAR Here!

We have now officially been here for 1 year!

Time has gone so fast.
The absolute highlight of this last year was baby cakes being born.
We have also enjoyed so many visits from family and friends.
We have been to lots of new parks, playgrounds, museums, and events.
We have also made lots of new friends for which we are very grateful!
So far today we've celebrated by me teaching preschool, a quick trip to the grocery store, rest time, and later we'll go get wings after our dad comes home.
One year down and more fun ones still to come!

Hiking in the woods &other neat stats

Last week we met with some friends to take a nature walk in some woods nearby. It was beautiful and really interesting to learn about different plants and trees.

Jane with beaver fur
This picture is small, but there are like 10 turtles on the logs in the pond
(It was a little chilly that day- but this week has been in the 70's-so nice)

On Another NOTE:

I found this in a magazine and thought it was interesting:

"According to the British documentary The Human Footprint, which compiled hundreds of statistics tracing the average life journey, we know that your baby will likely:

* Eat 10,354 bars of chocolate
* take 7, 163 baths
* have 104,390 dreams
* speak 123,205,750 words
* Walk 15,464 miles
* Cry 121 pints of tears
*Make 1,700 friends
(I though this one was so cool! Someday I'll have to try and write down my 1,700 friends and I know there are many to still come. Thanks for being my friend everyone!)
* Take 59 trips abroad (I only have 57 more to go)
* Read 533 books (Children's books must not count)
* get 628 Christmas presents"

He's GOT it!

Yesterday Brad drove home in his new truck!

It is beautiful and we are SO happy(especially Jane and Bruce.)
It was an amazing event/deal and now we are owners of a brand new 2008 Toyota Tacoma. (We've never brought a car from a dealership before and NEVER had a new car before so it's pretty exciting for us.)
Thanks Alexis for watching the kids!

Sweet Kate is almost 10 months old!

She KNOWS she's cute