Happy 1st Birthday Creed!

Happy Birthday little man, we love you so much!
He isn't doing too well with whole milk. He throws it up a lot and got these rashes around his mouth when I started giving it to him. So we are going to try Soy milk.

Thanks for the laptop Nana!
Staring at his balloon
My cute little guy
Do you want some?
he was so confused as to what we wanted him to do with it. I don't know why, he usually LOVES making messes
Yuck he was not too impressed
The kids wanted to help him blow out the candles

Happy birthday baby Creed! You are not a baby anymore, you are a toddler. Although I will still refer to you as a baby until you start to actually toddle. How funny is it that the more kids you have, the less of a 1st birthday you have? With Savannah we had pizza, balloons, a pool party, cake, ice cream, and presents. With Cole it was like dinner, cake, ice cream and presents. With Creed it was like OH yeah, it's his birthday, come over and have cake!! Wonder what happens with baby 4, I draw the line at no cake.

Little Miss Integrity

Savannah is such an amazing girl, we love watching her grow up and learn new things. Yesterday we went on a drive and saw a rainbow. On the way home we saw a deer off the freeway. Savannah goes "Oh my gosh, this is my lucky day! I saw a rainbow and a deer in the same day!" the next sentence she goes "I wish we could shoot it". Mike was so proud. I was just curious as to why she wanted to shoot it so I asked. "then we could keep the meat in the freezer and put the head on the wall". OK she is definitely a daddy's girl.
I love how all the other kids are holding theirs out but Savannah is just looking at it.
Going up to accept her award
It was red shirt day, crazy hat day, and 100 day at school! It was a huge deal, Savannah had the best day.

To sweeten the deal- it came with a free kid's meal from our family's FAV burger place, the habit. We all love it. The other day we (actually I should say I since Mike was anti anything not the habit) decided to try out this new burger place called the Counter. Well on the way home COLE told us he didn't like that place and wanted to go get hamburgers from the OTHER place, the place that has yummier food called the habit. Mike turns to me and says SEE even a 3 year old gets it.
Savannah received an award at her school for having Integrity! We are so proud of her and love watching her grow and learn and really try to set a good example for others.

Tis the season for Camping!

There are some definite bonuses to living in Southern California. This posting is about just one. Camping! I have had an itch for awhile now to get out and enjoy the outdoors. While most of my family (sorry guys) are up in Utah braving the cold, I am enjoying the beautiful balmy weather down here in Cali. So the picture above is what I picture myself to be in about 50 years. The picture below is me last weekend. It's not really a picture of me, but it gives you an idea of what I did with some friends over the weekend.

Nicole got a phone call from Carinn who said she wanted to come and visit us. Apparently she doesn't like me too much because from what I gathered, she didn't want me around. So Nikki asked if I would like to go camping. Would I?!!! So I called up a buddy, who called up some buddies and before I knew it, we had a plan to go camping and shooting. So we drove up to the Antelope Valley to a place past Mojove, set up the tent trailer and had a great time. We did some shooting, .22 long rifles, multiple 12 gauges, 30-06, .45's, .40's, a couple 9mm's, and many more. Good times. Thanks Nikki for letting me go off and act like a cowboy.

So like I said, I am chomping at the bit to go camping. So far I have five campouts planned between now and the first weekend of June. I already turned down an offer to play softball with the guys this spring because I don't want it to get in the way of spending time with my family at the beach's. So below are pictures of the campgrounds or locations I have booked so far.

This is Carpinteria State Beach. It is a great little campground (Always Crowded) near Santa Barbara. Nikki and I are taking the kids this weekend and then we are going to the Santa Barbara Zoo on Saturday.

This is El Capitan State Beach. The campground is up on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. It is a larger campground with lots of trees for shade and privacy. The beach is supposed to be a great scuba/snorkeling location, so I'm sure we will be doing some spear fishing. We are going with a bunch of families from our Ward so it should be a great time.

This is Leo Carrillo State Beach. It's only about 20 minutes from our home so it's a great place to just get up and go to. Of course you can't really do that because you have to book your dates way in advance, but still a great place. Another great place for spear fishing.

This is Wheeler Gorge. A wooded campground up the canyon from Ventura past Ojai. It has a small stream that runs through it and lots of places for the kids to play. This (I think) is where we are having Fathers/Sons this spring. I took Cole last year and he had a blast. I'm still holding off on taking Creed. Maybe next year kid.

This is a picture of two lovers snorkeling in the waters just off Catalina. When I go, there will be no hand holding as it is just a group of guys going (cleverly named Mancation). There will however be lots and lots of dead fish as we are going to be doing some serious spear fishing. A friend of mine has even started a breathing program so that he can increase his ability to stay down under the water for longer periods as we are free diving. If you have never tried it, you need to. Spear fishing is a blast!

So we are going to be on Catalina for 3 days just fishing fishing fishing.

I'm sure that between now and June I'll find some more camping opportunites, but it's a good start I think.

Sneaky sneaky

I was bathing the kids this morning. Like usual Creed stood on the sidelines cheering them on (he gets his baths all throughout the day whenever he makes huge messes with his food or has blow-outs) I got Cole out, lotioned him up, then put Savvy next to him on the counter to lotion her up. Lickity split Creed slithered himself into the tub in his jammies! I had only turned around for a second. He was SO pleased with himself too! Normally I would have been mad, because as anyone who has kids and needs to get out of the house by 8 sharp knows, we are on a schedule people! But he was so happy with his smart little self I let him splash around for a bit. Not 10 minutes later the little busy body is crawling around and stands up holding onto a lamp. Seconds later it comes crashing down on top of him. He flinches but is fine. Our lamp is not. Cole says don't worry mom, dad will fix it. I told him "dad can't fix this!!". He said well a man can fix it and dad is a man. I thought it was so funny. I guess I have to stop saying dad will fix it when he gets home, and start doing stuff myself!

The wedding

Now introducing Mr. and Mrs. Madsen! They are both completely twitterpated.........
The kids could not get enough of Jenna!! They were in complete awe! If you recognize the dress ( I am sure you don't) it was mine 8 years ago almost to the day from this wedding! How time flies....
Everyone kept asking if we were sisters and telling me we looked alike. I was super flattered!!
Sisters! How cute are these girls!!
Ty and Geoff. Seriously they look like twins don't they!
Drew, Savvy, Clarke, and Cole
My guys in their suits
I LOVED my bride's maid dress. My cousin Laura let me borrow it and I thought is was so cute.
Aunt Jenna and Uncle Kellan with his new niece and nephews.
Yet another strong photo op, we have been having plenty of these lately
Can't you tell he loved it?
Cole's first suit
My baby sister is married! She got married Jan 2 in the Draper Temple. As in bride tradition, she looked absolutely beautiful and seemed sublimely happy.

Utah fun.....

Nana and Creed. Look at his face, he is like I already have to deal with my mom doing this all day! Today Cole said "When do I get to see my Nana? I miss her." We miss all our Utah fam! Hopefully they will come visit us soon! Enjoying the yummiest part of Utah, Cafe Rio!! Even Savvy loves it and will eat it over her quesadilla. Yum I am completely obsessed. I don't know how everyone who lives there is like, oh cafe rio? It's ok. I personally think it is my favorite food ever. Give me a Cafe Rio pork salad and a red velvet nothing bundt cake and I am in heaven. And they have both in Sandy! So lucky. We are actually getting one here though. Well in Manhattan Beach. Its 30 minutes but still, better than driving to Utah when a craving hits.
Our little guy.
Happy 8 years babe! Mike took me to see Sherlock Holmes and then to the Roof for dinner, it was our first time there and I loved it. In two years we will be celebrating our 10 year in Greece! That is the plan at least!
My kids!
We went to the children's Gateway Discovery museum. The kids totally loved it! They had so much fun. We spent like 3 hours there. I love all the stuff they had upstairs. Tayler was going to town on these drums
Natalie, Sydney, and Brandt, trying the helmet on for size
Cousin presents. Cole got this police man helmet from Logan. He loves it.

We got to spend a week in Utah. We went up the day after Christmas- and stayed until Jan. 2. We love being able to go visit family and experience a true white christmas. Then being able to come home and enjoy the 73 degree weather here. Yesterday we went to the beach and rollerbladed to the pier with Cole and Creed in the stroller and Savvy on her new Razor- courtesy of Santa. Mike said- you know, I always thought I really missed Utah winters, but after coming home this time I realized a week is good. Funny, he is finally conforming into a true Californian. Anything above 85 is to hot for me. Anything below 67 is too cold. I really do belong here! Anyway, we had so much fun in Utah and got to spend lots of time with our family and even celebrated our 8th anniversary. Also went to my sister's wedding, which I will post about separately. Now our vacations are over for awhile. You might be reading our blog thinking what is going on with the Strongs, everyday they are going out of town. Well with Mike's work, he takes his vacation consecutively, and this year we saved up $ and decided to vacation the whole time. We had to take Savannah out of school for 3 weeks (the school gave us a packet and we home-schooled) and it was a crazy whirl-wind of fun. Now it is over so we will be back to our daily lives. boring I know :)

Strong Family New Years Resolutions

Last night for FHE we had a lesson on goals for the new year. We told the kids we wanted each of them to pick a spirtual goal and a temporal goal for the new year. We went down the line, Mike said his, I said mine, then Savvy said her's (notice she wants to buy a nintendo DS-she didn't even know what those were until she saw her cousins had them and now that's all she can talk about). When we got to Cole he said "my goal is to not drink orange juice". We again explained that goals should be something positive and since orange juice is good for us that he should try a different goal. "My goal is to go to church when I was a little baby, I went everytime and never cried." Uh ok you will be assigned a goal :) Creed was also assigned a goal by us as well. As the latest walker of the trio, we decided he should be walking sometime soon! And since his only words are da da and dog and thought we expand his vocabulary, maybe to at least mama!! I wanted to post our goals on the blog so we can look at them once in awhile and remember what they are. Hopefully we will stick to it this year!