California (with lots of photos)!

This summer has been one big vacation for us and I am loving it! A couple of weeks after we got back from St. George with Than's family, we headed off to Southern California with my family. We stayed in the most beaufiful house in San Clemente, just a few blocks from the beach. There was a pool and a hot tub and plenty of rooms which was great because at one time there were 19 of us sleeping in the house. Thanks again, Amy, for finding such a sweet place to stay and play!!

The ride down to Cali was a long one. Especially because we are old school and have no DVD players in the car. The kids did pretty good and just played with toys and sang songs and looked out the window and slept. Sara wanted me to take pictures of her in her seat acting all grumpy, but she was really just being silly. I promise. That's not to say there weren't grumpy moments during the drive, but I probably was the one being the grumpiest.

Once we got settled in at the house, we went to the beach. Since we were so close to the ocean, that's where we spent most of our time. Than tried his hand at boogie boarding, Aaron liked to play in the sand and be held in the water, Sara kept busy building sand castles and getting buried, and I loved sitting on the sand, soaking in that wonderful sun.

Aaron burying himself

Sara getting buried
Panic time
Ahh, happiness
Does life get any better than this?

Kiddos just messin'
Busy hands at work

Than going off to show those waves who's boss

My boys

This is the face Aaron makes when I tell him to smile at the camera

Of course, we went to Disneyland. We only spent a day and that was actually perfect. It turned out that we were there on one of the most busiest days of the year, but we still had a fantastic time. Well, Aaron kinda got sick a few times, but other than that, it was great. I didn't take too many pictures because we were too busy having fun.

Our poor sleeping sick boy

Cute Sara in her Minnie shirt

Waiting in line for "Small World"

Our other adventures included heading down to San Diego. We went to a cool aquarium and Balboa Park one day and then came back a few days later to go to Sea World. I think the kids actually liked Sea World better than Disneyland. We went to Sea World a few years back when Sara was 2 and she got really scared during the Shamu show. And she still remembers it. She was nervous this time before the show started but she was brave and and LOVED it! I mean, really loved it. The best moment for me from the entire vaction was when she looked at me at the end of the show and her face was beaming. She was so proud of herself for not being scared at all.

Hanging out on a rock at Balboa Park

Happy to be at Sea World

Mesmerized by the Beluga Whale

The rest of our time was spent hanging around the house, especially the pool. Well, the pool was really freezing so there was lots of hot tubbing. It really was the perfect kiddie pool. Sara loved to jump in off of the rocks and Aaron loved floating around in his life jacket. They are getting so much more daring in the water. I love it, but it scares me too.

My 3 loves
Aaron just floating

Sassy Sara

We had so much fun in California. The night before we left I was so sad. I could have just lived in that house forever. It was so fun hanging out with everyone, staying up late talking and watching movies. I think I'm ready to go back. Who's with me?

Kindergarten is so OVER

Before we went on vacation, the day before the last day of school, we had a little thing called Kindergarten Graduation. It's hard for me to believe that my little girl is so big. Sara's school had a little program for all the morning kindergarten classes and their families. When the kids had all settled in their places, the principal said, "Presenting the class of 2022!!!" CRAZY!! The kids sang a bunch of songs, like "On The First Day Of School, My Teacher Gave To Me ..." and "Oceans" and "It's Time To Say Good-bye To All Our Friends." Then we watched a slide show of pictures from throughout the school year. After that we headed to Sara's classroom for the handing out of diplomas.

Graduation Program

Sara and Mrs. Peterson

The whole class making goofy faces.

Back in August, the first day of school

My big girl on her very last day of kindergarten

Sara has learned and grown so much this last year. She is so much more independent and helpful and caring. She's great at reading and math. She loves to ask questions to figure out how everything works. She likes to clean the toilets and empty the dishwasher. She thrives when she's the center of attention. She speeds down the street on her bike with no fear. She has a wonderful imagination. She brings so much joy to our family. I couldn't imagine my life without her. I love this little gal so much!

Vacation

The day school got out, we headed down to St. George with Grandma, Grandpa, Emily, Andy, Joe, Kariann, and Brynlee. Last year we rented a house with a pool for a week and loved it so much that we decided to do it again. It was the perfect relaxing vacation. Just sun, pool, games. No running here and there and busy, busy, busy.

I could use lots of words to describe our lazy days, but instead, here's my first attempt at photo collages:

Field Trip To The Zoo (what was I thinking?)

Now that Sara is in kindergarten, I have been so excited for her to get the chance to go on field trips. Fall passed, as did winter, and the end of the school year was fast approaching with still no field trip. Then a note came home: field trip to the zoo, need volunteers!! I was so on that. I was never gonna miss my kid's first field trip and first ride on the school bus. So I quick told the teacher, "ME, ME, ME!!! I wanna be a volunteer and help watch the kids." (Nuts, I tell you, nuts.)

When the day arrived, Sara and I packed lunches and ran to the school. I learned that I would be in charge of a group of 5 kids from her class. No biggie. We got on the bus. (Oh, did I mention that ALL the kindergarteners were going to the zoo? ALL the morning classes and ALL the afternoon classes? That's a lot of 5 and 6-year-olds.) The bus. I had fogotten how loud the school bus can be. Before the bus ever left the parking lot the kids were yelling, "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one! Blastoff!!! Ten, nine, eight ... It was a long ride to the zoo.

When we finally arrived, there were kids everywhere. I had to get my group as far away from the other kids as soon as possible because I knew I would lose them in the sea of small-folk. We ran from exhibit to exhibit, barely looking at any animal. I had 2 runners in my group who would just look at something for half a second and then take off before I had a chance to tell the others what kind of animal we were looking at. We ran from the giraffs to the hippos to the elephants. Then we had lunch. Lunch was good--no incidents. Then more running.

Somehow, we got to the small animal house when it was pretty empty. A zookeeper noticed our group and asked if the kids wanted to feed the birds. So they got to carry these big food dishes into the middle of the tropical junglely place, in the center of the building, and go behind the gate to feed the birds. Way cool. If there were a contest, my kids would win for coolest thing done at the zoo.

Pretty soon, time was up. Time to get back to the bus. The ride back to the school was considerably more quiet. Some kids even fell asleep. At the school I talked to several other volunteer moms who were just as worn out as I was. They all said the same thing: "This was a lot harder then I thought it would be."

Smiling at mom.

Feeding the birds.

Looking for snakes.



Climbing at the playground.

Later that night, at dinner, Sara exclaimed, "This was the best day of school ever! NO LEARNING!!!!!"

Dancin' in St. George

Sara has been taking dance for a couple of years and this year she is on a dance competition team. It's been quite an adventure. She has 5 competitions and now has completed 3 of them. Her last competition was down in St. George, so we made a really mini vacation out of it. We were planning on leaving at 10:00 Friday morning, but traveling never goes quite as planned and we had some errands to run before we could leave, so it was noon when we got on the freeway and were headed out of town. The kids did pretty good in the car. They ate snacks, played their Leapsters and just talked to each other. At one stop, Aaron picked out a giant kit kat bar for all of us to share as a treat. He didn't like the mess that it left on his hands. But Sara scarfed it down!

After we checked into our hotel we went swimming at a rec center. There was a pool at our hotel and people were swimming, but it was still a wee bit cold to me. The rec center was awesome. We'd been there before last year and had a blast. I put a life jacket on Aaron before we got in the pool and he loved how it made him float. The kiddie area was really shallow so he could walk in places but then it would get a little deeper and then the life jacket would flip him up on his back. At first that was funny to him, but soon he got frustrated and was just crying and crying about it. But he wouldn't let us take the dang jacket off of him!! That was our cue to leave. We got some yummy dinner and then headed back to the hotel for bed.The next morning it was all business. Breakfast and then get ready for dance. Sara has 2 dances for each competition. She has a jazz dance to "Who Let The Dogs Out" and a ballet to "Somewhere Over The Rainbow." It was a crazy day because they performed their first at 10:45 and then their second a half an hour later. Thirty minutes is not a lot of time to get changed and redo makeup and practice before hitting the stage again!

Sara has been having a lot of fun with dance this year. She loves performing on the stage and goofing off with the other girls between dances. In her ballet dance she gets picked up by 2 other girls and that's her favorite part. She gets a medal or trophy for participating each time and she LOVES that. They've been pretty consistent at 2nd place each time. It's such an amazing feeling to watch my little girl up there. She looks so big and independent.

After she finished dancing, we grabbed some lunch and headed to a park for a picnic. The weather was so nice. The grass was green, the trees were blossoming. Beautiful. All good things have to come to an end, so before we knew it we were back in car, heading home.

The Best Way to Watch TV

In our house we have the ever-so-popular-TV-over-the-fireplace situation. This is good because we didn't have to buy an entertainment system for our house when we moved in. But it is bad because the TV is way high in the wall and almost touches the ceiling. For me, this is not the best viewing angle. Sara must agree, because one day she decided to assemble her own seat for watching her shows. I maybe assisted by putting her on this seat, but the idea was 100% Sara.

Oh, yeah, that's Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! that she's watching. Nick Jr., I am so sick of you!

Excuses and The Rocking Chair

Than has been bugging me for weeks to get a new post on the blog because he's tired of looking at Aaron in a dress. I think it is so funny that he checks the blog at work to see if I've posted anything new. Aww, shucks.

The truth is that I haven't posted anything because it seems like nothing interesting is happening. Since Sara started kindergarten I feel my life is just the same routine everyday and I've fallen into a bit of a rut. I spend the days running errands and cleaning and reading to the kids and cooking and doing laundry and setting up forts in the living room. I guess that's just being a mom and it's nothing to complain about. In fact, I actually really do have a great life and so many things to be thankful for. And I wouldn't trade it for anything. But, I just haven't been taking time to notice the moments that make life super special. Or at least, if I do notice them, I don't record them. So everyday just flows into the next.

And the next thing you know, Christmas and New Years and Thanksgiving and Sara's birthday have all passed and I have no desire to blog about them at all. But at least I've taken pictures. Though, let's be honest, they will be stored on the computer for months, if not years, until I finally decide to get them printed. Oh, I sound like such a slacker. Maybe it's just January blahs?

On a happier note, since we've moved, Sara and Aaron have found a special spot in the house where they love to get their picture taken. It's in my bedroom on this rocking chair that was my mother-in-law's when her kids were itty-bitty. They are always asking me to take their picture on this thing. Usually, when I'm folding laundry on my bed, the kids wander in and that's when the magic happens. So now I present my collection, entitled "The Rocking Chair."