Fun with the Cousins

A couple of weekends ago I took the kids to Oroville to see their new cousin Eli, Briley, and Dasen. We went to Leia's for a little bit and then we went to the park to play with Briley and Dennis, then ended the day at Dennis' house to visit. Grandpa and Grammy joined us at the park for a lttle bit. The kids rode the bikes and climbed on the jungle gym. Dennis introduced me to the rip stick, which I can legitimately ride now :).  All in all, a fun day. Cousins are fun. I'm glad my kids can have as much fun as I did with my cousins!

Nolan's 4!

I can not believe my Nolan is 4. Crazy. Nolan has had a big year already. In the last month, he has learned how to ride his bike and pump himself on the swing. Way to go Nolan! Growing up on me.  Nolan is getting more and more independent. He is his own little person.  He loves his brother and sister. He loves anything Star Wars.  He loves to ride his bike and to swing. Today he flew off the swing and scared me to death. He has a big bruise and scratches on his back, and he wanted to go back out and swing. I couldn't believe it. I let him. Not a problem for him, but I was nervous the whole time. When I tucked him in tonight, I told him he scared me and he said that I scared him.  I guess it looks worse than it feels. Other things about Nolan these days: he sucks his thumb still, wants to grow his hair long like Cesareo's, almost got ran over by a car more than once, (not allowed to sniff the road), changes his clothes at least eight times a day, likes gymnastics (had his birthday there two years in a row), is loved by Loralai, is a great helper at home, hates being told no, hates the corner, likes movies in the car, likes going to grammy's, likes to stick his butt out, races me to the door every morning at day care, races me to the car when I pick him up, likes the Tim Mcgraw "bird song" (can't remember the real name), likes Toy Story movies and all his Toy Story toys (thank you Nana! and grammy!), likes to make his brother and sister mad, is almost over the random hitting (I hope), can spell his name, does't break as many things, would have peanut butter and jelly every day, Top Ramen otherwise, sneaks candy.....Happy Birthday my baby!

First Snow Trip

We finally ventured out and took the kids to the snow today. I am hoping this is the start of more trips to the snow and snow skiing. I really want to get into snow skiing and snow boarding.  We just went up the road to Butte Meadows. The kids were so excited when they saw snow. It was so fun to watch them. This was their first time playing in it and making a trip to the mountains to play in it. I wish I would have remembered my camera. Oh well, next time.

Family

Left to right: Austin (Misty's), Jaxson (Diana's) Nolan and Avery (Mine), Kinsley (Audrea's), Peyton (Diana's), McKenna and Brenna (Tucker's). How cute is that?

My cousin Bradley got home from his two year mission on Wednesday, so we had a family gathering to celebrate his return. It is so fun to get together with the family. Different, but fun. Different because we are not the kids anymore, we are the moms and dads and we have kids. Knowing how much we had fun as kids, I know my kids have a blast. Those were the greatest times, playing with the cousins. It is so fun for me to visit and share our children. Everyone else is finally having kids, so now Austin, Avery, and Nolan are gaining playmates. Avery, of course, is the Janeane of their group. She wants to take care of all the little ones. (Janeane is finally pregnant!) Anyways, we had fun and the kids are tired. I got a picture of all the little kids that were there.

Student of the Week!

For the week of January 31st, Avery was the student of the week in her class. She got to be the special helper and the first to do everything, like stand in line, take roll, lead the flag solute, and so on. A part of being student of the week is that she also gets to bring home a Curious George backpack/puppet and play with it. Then you write in this journal about what you did during that week with the monkey. For me, a pain in the butt. I have no imagination to begin with it was just this huge hassel with trying to play referee while the kids fought over George. For Avery, a great joy. She carried that monkey everwhere in the house and that is all she would talk about. She would put the puppet on and pretend. I tried my best to have a good attitude because like I said, Avery felt pretty special.

I got to spend Friday in Avery and Austin's class. It was great. I really like their teacher. He does make each student feel special, and with 30 students, that is hard to do. I am so glad they have Mr. K this year. I hope that next year we are blessed with good teachers again.

Wow!

Here is last three months that I have so failed as a mom to post. I haven't been taking good pictures or writing down all the wonderful things that my children have done that I never want to forget, and then I forget. I have been enjoying being a mom so much. The kids are so fun right now. We enjoy playing and hanging out. I wish the weather was better so we could get outside more, but wherever we are our kids have fun. They are such good kids and I am so proud of them. Austin and Avery are enjoying kindergarten and have been introduced the the drama of being in school. Nothing real bad, just having to deal a variety of personalities. Garrett and I being teachers see it every day. I just hope that my kids don't have to be in classes with out of control kids. We love their teacher and the class they are in right now. There are so many good and supportive families. I feel bad being a working mom, but I know that they are well taken care of by our family and other families. The room parents just love our kids.

The twins had their birthday party at Water Sprites. It was nice to be able to give them a pool party in November. Everyone had a blast. It was so easy for us too because we got to sit back and watch the kids have a good time. Highly recommend that place for birthday parties. Nolan's birthday is coming up and he is going to have his party at gymnastics again. He loves that place. He is having a hard time right now because he is in a class with a some rowdy boys, including himself, who don't listen. So their free play at the end of their class has been taken away. They love the free play and hopefully can earn it back next week. But every time Nolan is naughty, he tells on himself. This week I made him apologize to his teacher. He didn't want to do it, but he finally did and I am proud of him for that. That is one thing I will not let my kids do is be disrespectful to people who are trying to teach them things. I have been on the other end of that many times and it is not fun.


The slide was a big hit at the party. Not everyone had the courage to go, but you can bet my boys were first in line. The little dare devils.

I feel bad. Austin finally lost his tooth at the end of November and I didn't even post it. So here it is. It was cool because I just wrapped some floss around it and pulled and it popped right out. He didn't even freak. Not a drama queen like his sis. Since then he lost his other bottom tooth as well.

Christmas. We have yet to go to the snow and get a tree. We have wanted to. We missed going with Uncle Wes by a couple of hours. So we bit the bullet again and went to a lot and paid out the wazzoo for a tree. I really liked our tree this year! I told the kids to be human trees in this picture. Of course when they do crazy things, they always want me to take a picture. I don't do it enough.

For Nolan's Christmas program some of the little kids said a nursery ryhme. Nolan recited Jack and Jill. It was so cute. They sang songs too. The whole time they were singing Nolan was flicking the little bell on his hat with the music. What a silly boy! Nolan is enjoying being at Sherons on his own. He is a different kid when he is not around his siblings. He doesn't have to prove his worth. He is really good for Sharon. I am so proud of him. One more year in day care and it is off to the hounds.

So we snuck off the Disneyland for a couple of days after Christmas. We didn't really tell anyone because we wanted to make it an exclusive trip. Not very often do we get time just with the five of us. Don't get me wrong, we love spending time with all of our friends and family, but we didn't want to share our kids with anyone this time. The trip was o.k. as it was a little rainy here and there. Nolan absolutely loved it because it was the first time he actually got to ride most of the rides. He has been begging to go back ever since.

I love this picture. (above)

Splash Mountain in the middle of winter... AWESOME!

We wanted to do something special for the kids on our trip so we got the character breakfast thinking that we would be swarmed with characters and the kids would love it...NOT. Two characters, and the boys only got to see one because we were getting our food. What a waste. We were so mad. We tried not to be though because the kids didn't really realize we got cheated.

We sat and watched the Pixar Parade which was cool because it had Toy Story. Nolan loves Toy Story.

I had to put the above picture in because of all the toys the kids fought over the most after Christmas, it was this stupid buggy. Thanks Wes and Tesha for the awesome gift. Even the boys liked it.

Norm Mackenzie, my old high school P.E. teacher found Garrett one day at work and told him that he wanted to nominate me for the Oroville HS District Hall of Fame. Cool. What a load of work, but I did it for Norm. Norm is such a great person. He is one of my favorites. He always makes it a point to hug and kiss (yes, on the lips) me every time I see him. He is at most basketball games we go to. It is just a wonderful feeling to have someone so glad to see you. There are a handful of people like that for me, my children being three of them. I am so thankful for that. These people make me feel special. I hope that I am that person to some people too. Oh, so I was going to mention about the picture. Part of the paperwork for the nomination was giving a picture. Well, I procrastinated and then when I really wanted to get it done, Garrett was gone. So I had Austin take a few pictures of me. He did a great job. Always got a good shot. Too bad I looked like crap. It was after work and I was so so tired. Like every day. And we definately did not have any good lighting. Oh, well. I don't care. This is me. Thanks Austin for being my photographer.

Soccer 2010

Avery lost another tooth. The tooth fairy is feeling overworked.

Soccer is finally over. While I might be glad, I know Austin is not, and Avery doesn't care either way. She enjoys it when she is out there, but it is not her favorite thing to do. Austin, on the other hand, is a die hard sports fanatic like his dad. I'm sure Nolan is glad it is over. Just another thing he is left out on. Garrett is definitely glad it's over. Along with football, this fall season has worn us all out, but especially dad. So yeah for fall sports being over! It was fun while it lasted, don't get me wrong. I enjoy watching the kids play. They are understanding the game more and more and it is so fun to watch them excel. Austin loves to play goalie. I think the gloves are a good motivator. Avery was queen of missed shots this year. She had the most shots on the team, but not all of them went in. She did good. Austin is getting more aggressive and getting more touches in every game. We are proud of both of our soccer players. We are proud of daddy coach too who helped out with Avery's team. She really enjoyed having her dad out there.