Sunday, February 19, 2012

Happy holidays

Christmas time!  First we went up to the Buda House, and everyone got together for Christmas celebration.  After that, off to the Wood family for more celebration.  The kids had a great time, but this is mostly a picture update.

















Sunday, February 12, 2012

Been I can't believe we haven't updated since July

So hopefully over the next week or two I'm going to get caught up on what's been going on.  I really need to schedule this on my calendar so that I regularly update.

Today's Update:  Taylor had her first season of Soccer.  Her coach, Coach Alex, was awesome.  He has 4 kids, 1 Taylor's age, and the little girl is in Taylor's kindergarden class.  He was super patient and really pushed the kids to play soccer and have fun.

If you've never been to a 5 year old soccer game, it's awesome.  A huge pile of kids surrounding a ball, then the ball pops out and the melee chases it down.  It's great fun and really excellent to see the competition and fun the kids have.  I really look forward to next year.

I have to write about this so I don't forget.  Final game of the Season, Taylor's team had lost 1 or 2 games all season, her team was 2nd in her age group.  We're facing the one team that beat us earlier in the season, and they were undefeated.  Taylor wanted to win SOOoooo bad, and she played an amazing game.  In 1 quarter, she broke past 3 defenders *3* times to get open 1v1 shots on the goal.  The other team's goalie was impressive and stopped all 3, but watching Taylor weave through them like it was nothing was such a cool moment.

Taylor also played a quarter in the goalie box, and she had 2 amazing saves, including one where the ball got past her and she crawled on hands and knees and stopped it from going in.  Then, later on, she thought play had stopped, and it hadn't.  She turned around as the ball passed her and the other team got the go ahead goal.  She was SO sad, it was one of those "Thrill of Victory, Agony of Defeat" moments, like you'd see on the cover of a sports magazine.  She cried and I was proud and sad for her at the same time.  After the game, like 2 of the other team parents came over and congratulated her on an amazing game.  

At the end of the season dinner, Taylor was the last kid to get her award, and I remember what Coach Alex said.  "When you coach, there are lots of good times, but sometimes a player comes who reminds you why you coach, and makes it all worthwhile.  In the final game, that was Taylor.  Thank you Taylor"

It was so cool, I love soccer!







Monday, July 4, 2011

Pre-4th of July

Getting ready for some pre-4th of July Fireworks. Mostly we just did some sparklers and a few of those spinning flower things.
The big hit was to do 2 sparklers at once, but had to get AJ in the habit of holding the sparklers safely away from himself.
This is Taylor's 2nd year of celebrating our independence, and she's even more excited about it this time.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Taylor Graduation from Preschool

Oh my, how time flies.  Taylor just had her graduation from Preschool.

She looked so cute and did her little presentation.  This is mostly a picture update, so here goes.







Sunday, June 19, 2011

Father's Day

So, been doing lots of things with the kids.  Today was Father's day, so we checked the kids in to Kids' Camp and went to lunch.  Taylor made me a Father's Day cookie (Ritz cracker with frosting on top).  Then we read Calvin and Hobbes together for a while.  Taylor loved the idea of a Transmogrifier, so we made a sign for her closet that says "Taylor's Transmogrifier" and has some random clip-arts.  We spent half an hour transmogrifying ourselves into fishes, cats, and disney princesses.  I'm not sure the last one was part of Calvin's original design.

Somehow the kitten, who was called "Cookie" is now "Hobbes"... She's grey and white, and doesn't really have stripes, AND it's a she.... but somehow I'm still ok with it!

I bought a tablet PC and I'm hoping that Taylor ends up liking playing with it.  From what I hear, kids and tablets go great together.  If this doesn't work, it may be Nintendo DS time!

Recently, Taylor had a problem where her ears were clogged up, so she said it sounded like we were at the pool all the time.  It means that for the past week, she couldn't hear ANYTHING unless you yelled it to her.  I feel so much sympathy for parents of deaf children now.  I can't imagine how much patience that requires in the long term.  Thankfully, she can hear again, and it was just a temporary thing.

AJ has started a phase where he's learned ultimatums.  So a typical conversation goes like this "Aj, you need to eat your food or you're going to have to get a time-out".  "If you make me eat my food then I'm going to get out of my bed!"... UGH.... He's not supposed to understand IF-THEN's for years.  He LOVES remote controls and he loves anything he can get into (sunscreen, liquid soap, markers).  I joke that if we had had him first, we'd only have 1 kid.

No pics this time, so I'll leave you with one pic that I love.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Been a busy couple of weeks!
A few updates in the last few weeks.  Steve and Si came down and visited, Ben is getting so big!  Unfortunately we have lots of camera fail, so only a few Tricks pictures this time, but the kids jumped on the trampoline and hunted easter eggs and had a great time.

We have season passes to Marine World, and we went.  The dolphin show and orca show were big hits with Taylor, but AJ was only interested for a few minutes before he decided climbing the stands would be more fun than watching the show.

Nicky has joined a 'Mom' group and they do fun little field trips.  Yesterday they went for a field trip of the police station, and the kids got to stand in the jail, and meet the dispatcher and talk to police-dudes about 'Erasing drugs'.  Great fun and the kids really seemed to enjoy it!

Here are some DisneyLand and Tricks Picks







Wednesday, April 20, 2011

A trip to Disneyland and other adventures!

This past weekend, Tay and I went to Disneyland for a bachelorette party. I had never before seen her so excited and anxious to go anywhere, but as soon as we woke up early Saturday morning in our hotel room, she was raring to go! Our friend and bachelorette, Heather, bought Tay a beautiful Cinderella costume with all of the accessories to go with it. Tay quickly got into her costume and headed to the Bibbity Boppity Boutique for hair and makeup...yet another gift from Heather. All day long, Taylor walked around looking like a princess and being treated like royalty by the Disney staff. She was totally in her element. Her favorite ride was the Haunted Mansion. We rode it 8 times. I can't wait to return to Disney in a couple of years and bring AJ and Daddy with us!

In other news, AJ is in the process of being potty trained. He is doing so well with hardly any accidents. The only thing I really have to work with him on is doing his poops in the potty chair. Unless I watch him closely, he will slip one into his underwear. Sneaky guy! I'm hoping that soon potty training will only be a fuzzy memory and I'm grateful this is our last child to have to potty train. Yay!

Overall Taylor and AJ are happy and doing really well. Taylor has been accepted into the Spanish magnet program for Kindergarten in the Fall and AJ contiunes to flourish with learning to recognize all of his letters and many numbers. We are so lucky the kids learn really easily. It makes being a parent and teaching so much fun. They are both really helpful around the house with cleaning and picking up. Pretty soon I'll have them scrubbing the bathrooms and mopping the kitchen floors. I hope to make them strong in the areas where Chris and I are weak. Ha!

I will go through my camera later tonight and post some pictures.