November

This month Dustin got the student of the month award. It was a surprise for him, so that is his pleased grin. I made some turkey cupcakes for the ladies that I visit teach and some for Alexis' preschool class. I thought they looked like turkeys, but my kids asked me what they were.

We spent Thanksgiving at Mike's dads house. The day after was Dustin's birthday. Since it was black Friday, Mike had to work. So we let him open his present that morning and had his cake on Sunday. Unfortunatly, uncle Eddie had a little bike accident (and broke both collarbones) on Friday, so Alice was going to stay home with him and my parents were going to bring the kids over, but...

Miss Alexis decided to climb up on the kitchen counter and fell off. Mike and I were both cooking dinner, so we were right there when it happened. Mike picked her up and I lifted her sleeve. The arm was already swollen and had a nasty lump on it. And she was screaming. We decided we'd better not put her in her carseat, so we called an ambulence. We were having friends over for dinner and they pulled up right when it happened and heard the screaming. We let them in and immediatly gave her a blessing. When they sat her in the ambulence, she was very pale and was swaying. She looked like she was going to pass out. That's about when my parents pulled up. Mike rode with her in the ambulence. I went inside with our friends and we went ahead and ate dinner, then did the cake and icecream for Dustin. They had to cut Alexis' shirt off of her. It was new. She cried about it, so the EMT's went back to the hospital and took her a teddy bear. They xray'd her and could not see a break, but her arm was sooooo swollen, and she flinched and yelled and almost cried every time it was touched. They put it in a hard splint and a sling and sent us home. We were told to see an orthopedist today. So today, they took her out of the splint and straightened her arm to xray it from all angles and she started crying again. It is still very swollen and black and blue. It just looks wrong. It looks like her elbow is broken, but with the swelling as bad as it is they cannot cast it. They put her back in the splint and sling and told us not to touch it for a week. They will re-xray it next week and decide what to do. They said that when they are this young, the bones are still pliable, so they can go up to two weeks before something needs to be done. It is not hurting her as long as she doesn't move it. Too much excitement here. Let's hope for a quiet December.

The end of October

Emily turned ten! We had a little party with just us, my parents, and my sister Alice and her family. She chose chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, so I added a sprinkle 10.
Next came Halloween. It started with Alexis on Thursday. Instead of having a dress up day at her preschool, they had a scarecrow day. This is how she looked when I picked her up. So cute!

Friday morning was the traditional Halloween parade at school. It was a complete mess as always, but the kids have fun.



Dustin, Luke Skywalker.

Emily, supergirl.

Alexis, the little mermaid, Ariel. I have always let the little ones dress up when they go to the parade, they like it. And finally, Saturday night. Here are the kids in front of the house before we left to go trick-or-treating. Mike made our porch scary, so that is a tarp that says "keep out" behind them. He had the spiders and the strobe light going on. He probably had more fun than the kids.

October

Emily got the first student of the month this year. Go Emily!

Here is our PTA president giving it to her.
Here she is closing her eyes against the morning sun.

Next came Grandpa's wedding. Mike's dad got re-married. It was very dark in the church and my flash is missing (any body know where it's at?), so I only took a couple of pictures in there.




Here are the cousin's minus Savannah. I never did get a picture of her.
Dustin, the ring bearer. He's so handsome, I think I'm going to have to peel the girl's off of him when he gets older.

Emily was a bridesmaid. Loved the spiral curls.

Here's Alexis. I made her this dress because they felt that she was too young to be in the ceremony and I knew she would be heart broken if she was the only one there without a spiffy new outfit. I took her to the fabric store and let her pick out what she wanted, so we ended up with a pink dress with a sparkly overlay on the skirt.

Lastly, Dustin again. The poor boy lost his two front teeth. He's speaking with a hiss/lisp now. It's funny. The first tooth was hanging by a string so Mike pushed it and it fell out. The second tooth then went completely crooked and Dustin started showing me how cool it was that he could turn it all the way around. It was nasty so I grabbed him and made Mike yank it out. Yes, I am mean like that. It bled. A lot. So that is why there is a little bit of blood on his nose. Mike felt guilty and bought him a pack of pokemon cards, so he was happy then.

All I want for Halloween is my two front teeth!

Up next, Emily's birthday, then Halloween.

I know, its been forever...

Okay! I'm back. I took a nice long summer break. I enjoyed staying up late and sleeping in. I did not enjoy being a referee.

Here we are walking to school on the first day. Right as I pressed the button, Dustin ran in front of Mike, you can see his shoe if you look. I wanted this picture, but the sun was behind us and the shadows were bad, so I did not take another one.
Emily, first day of fifth grade. She was obviously very excited to be there. Especially after she saw the stack of books waiting on her desk.

Dustin, first day of first grade. He actually was very excited and couldn't wait to see what friends were going to be in his class and to meet his teacher.
Here he is exploring his desk. He sat right down and started chatting with the little boy next to him like they'd known each other forever. It was so cute.
Here is Alexis the next day on her first day of preschool. She was super-duper excited. She hated being all alone all day last year while Dustin was in K. She was always asking me if she could go to school. She goes two days a week and doesn't stop talking about it in between. She keeps track of the days and knows when she goes. So she is loving it!

Mike and I are still plugging along in school. It's been about eight months. Only three more years to go...

A few summer happenings

It's been a long summer. School is keeping Mike and I very busy. With his new job, we are not having a lot of time to do things. I haven't taken very many pictures at all this summer. We spent the fourth of July at my sister's house. She lives right by BC, so we get a nice, free show. This year we walked down the street to a friends' grandparents home and the show was even better! There was a really nice breeze, and it blew the fireworks right over us. At the end of the show it rained ash on us. A few of us even got hit by some large pieces of exploded cardboard. It was fun. We spent the day making bottle rockets out of old water bottles. Here is Alexis holding hers.
My bro-in-law Eddie made a "launching pad" to shoot these off. They are powered by water and air. They shoot pretty high and you never know where they are going to land. I couldn't catch a flying one, but here is one ready to go, I think it might also be Alexis'.


Dustin wanted a "faux-hawk" but his hair would not co-operate, so he ended up getting his hair cut into a real mo-hawk. It looked cute for a while, but now that it is grown out, it is looking a little shabby. Here he is on the fourth. I tried to get pictures of the kids playing with the sparklers, but most of them turned out all blurry. I did not have the camera on the correct shutter speed for night. This is the only one that kind of turned out. Alexis had her fourth birthday on July 10th. We ended up accidently having three parties for her. It's a good thing I made a cake and a ton of cupcakes. The first party was a little girls only party. Alexis invited over a few friends and they dressed up and played a few games. I painted all of their fingernails while they colored princess pictures. They also all made necklaces with beads and filled them with sand. I let the girls decorate their own cupcakes. They had a lot of fun. Here are all the girls dressed up. We were supposed to have one big family party that night, but it didn't work out. Alice and Eddie had taken the day off of work and were leaving for a weekend trip, and Mike's sister and her kids couldn't make it until late, so we had two separate family parties. That's okay, then the house wasn't full all at once. I think Alexis had a really great day. Thanks to everyone who came and for the nice gifts.

Dustin's kindergarten graduation

I can't believe this school year is over already. Dustin had a great time in Kindergarten and is eager to start first grade. He will really miss Mrs. Ramey. (He's absolutely gaga over her, but don't tell him I told you) She was passing out the diploma's so fast and so many parents were around taking pictures that I didn't get a really good one of them together. Oh well.

Here he is in front of the cute backdrop that they made.

And a close up of him and his diploma. He doesn't know how to smile for pictures. This is his fake, picture smile. (I hate it, he has such a cute real smile) So, now on to summer time. I am going to have to think of some busy things to do or they are going to drive me nuts. Emily will be in the fifth grade next year, and Alexis is going to start pre-school two days a week. That's going to be nice. It will allow me to actually get my own school work done without any interruptions. WooHoo! Oh, by the way, in case I didn't mention it before, Mike and I have both gone back to school. We do two classes at a time, and they are nine weeks each. Tomorrow is the last day of our second set of classes. It has been interesting. I think that the first couple of classes are to get you used to how things work at the school, and then they are really going to start laying the hard stuff on us.

Mike also (finally) got a job. He is working for T-Mobile. It seems to be going good so far. They just gave us the benifits package to fill out and it looks like it's pretty good, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper per month then we have ever payed. I am still trying to adjust to him being gone, and now the kids are here! So, if anybody is planning any little one-two day getaways and want some tag-a-longs let me know! (I meant me too, not just the kids)

The logic of the little one.

Mike will probably kill me for this one, but it was so funny that I have to share. Mike wiggles around a lot in his sleep and his pants always come down a bit by morning. This morning he was sleeping on his stomach with his arms up under his head. It was warm so he had nothing over him. Alexis came in to wake him up. She climbed up on the bed and patted him, then got this huge look of concern on her face. "Daddy!" "What?" "Your butt cracked open!"

I really needed a good laugh!

Happy Birthday to me!

31. There I said it. That wasn't so bad. This year for my birthday, I decided to take Disney up on their offer and enjoy a FREE day at Disneyland! It was a good day! The lines were practically non-existent. We walked onto almost every ride. Oh, by we, I mean my friend Alena and I. That's right, I went with NO kids. The weather was perfect. No sweater needed. Besides a nasty soaking on Splash Mountain (that took about three hours to dry from) I had an absolutly wonderful day. The only ride I didn't go on was the new Nemo submarine ride. That was the only thing in the park with a line, and it was a huge one. Everyone I know that has gone on it has said that it's not worth the wait, so I didn't wait. I didn't take a camera, so I have to wait for Alena to get me the pictures. I have to at least post the one from Splash Mountain. I don't know how good it will turn out, since it's a picture of the picture on the wall, but it's hilarious. It will have you laughing. I'm glad I can laugh at me and then share it so others can laugh at me too. Hopefully she'll get those to me soon! I would recommend Disneyland without kids any day!

Dustin's tooth

Dustin finally lost his first tooth! We've been waiting for this for a long time. Since he was about three years old we could see these huge teeth waiting under his gums on his x-rays at his dentist appointments. He has been complaining of this tooth hurting for about a week now, and I kept asking him if it was loose, but he was saying no. So there it is. It's too bad the tooth fairy is broke, Emily has lost two in the last few weeks herself.

Easter Sunday

I made the kids dresses again. This year I did not make them match because Emily didn't seem to like that very much last year. Alexis asked me for a "ducky color" dress. I found this adorable material with lady bugs on it, and made her a red jacket to go with it. Emily wanted a green dress. She's being anti-girly right now. No pinks or purples. So I found this material at my moms house with blue flowers and just bought a little bit of plain blue material to complement it. Mike hated it until she put it on. Then he said "That looks a lot better on her than it did just sitting there". Thanks Mike.

I also let Dustin pick out one of Mike's ties and cut it down to kid size. Mike has I think 55 ties, so I figured he wouldn't miss one. These are the only two pictures I got of them, I posted them both because neither one is that good. They were complaining about the sun and making funny faces, so I gave up. That and we really needed to get to church.

Spring Break

This year for spring break we stayed at home, cleaned the house and had a yard sale. On Thursday night, Mike suggested we go to the L.A. Zoo. I ignored him. On Friday morning, Mike's cousin Mark called and said he and his family were going to the L.A. Zoo on Saturday and asked if we'd like to go too. We agreed to if the weather stayed nice. We were expecting thunder storms. Well, it turned out to be a beautiful day. Not too hot, not too cold. Only a few clouds floated over, some of them were very dark and scary looking, but not a drop fell on us. The zoo was having some Easter activities, so we did a few that were not too crowded. We petted the bunnies. (Dustin is in this picture too, see the extra hand?) I let the kids each pick a giant egg to have their pictures taken in front of.

Alexis made some bunny ears. (Emily felt she was too old for this and as soon as she said that Dustin put his ears back)

We were able to make it around the whole zoo and see all the animals there. We were there a little over five hours and we took a nice long lunch break and several smaller snack breaks, so the kids all stayed happy. We didn't feel rushed, so that was good. The only animal the kids wanted a picture of was the flamingos. I'm not one of those people to take pictures of every single animal in the zoo, so that was the only animal pic I took. After we left the zoo, Alexis really wanted to go to the beach. Unfortunatly, we had not planned this, so we didn't bring any beach toys. She didn't want to play in the water, she wanted to play in the sand. We drove over to the Santa Monica Pier and got there just before sunset. So, we walked on the pier and watched the sun set, we watched some people fishing, we walked around the rides, then we went down in the sand and let her push it around with her hands for a little while. Once the sun had set, a very cold wind came in, so we didn't stay there for very long.
That is a monkey on Alexis' back. While we were walking around the rides, a lady walked up to Alexis and asked her if she wanted it. She was so happy, so I hung it around her neck and sat it in her hood so it would not get lost. Oh, and that's cotton candy on their faces. We didn't get home until 10:30pm. The kids had all slept at one time or another, so I had to force them to go to bed when we got home. I was so tired. At least our legs got a good work out!

March in Bakersfield

This is in response to Shawna's picture that she sent out yesterday. I'm sorry I have to do this, but you all know that this is really the only nice time of the year around here.

Dr. Seuss' Birthday

Every year for Dr. Seuss' Birthday, our school does something. Usually it is a crazy hat contest. This year our new principal decided to have a shirt making contest. So, I traced the outlines on the shirts and the kids colored them in. These are both pages from Dr. Seuss' ABC book. He wrote 44 books, so we put that on the backs jersey style.

Emily's shirt.

"BIG Q little q what begins with Q? The quick queen of Quincy and her quacking quacker-oo"

Dustin's shirt.

"T.....T t.....t What begins with T? Ten tired turtes on a tuttle-tuttle tree"

2009 begins

So, not much has been going on so far this year. We are busy surviving. We all got a touch of the stomach flu a few weeks ago. It wasn't that bad. Dustin and Alexis both threw up once and were done, and the rest of us just got horrid stomach aches and sat around for a day. Emily is currently playing basketball, but we haven't got any good pictures of that. She is also starting softball soon. Dustin is now complaining that he wants to play again and we need to sign him up. He is doing really well with his reading and is very excited about that. He kept telling me all last summer that he wanted to learn how to read so that he could play video games better. The picture is of him getting a star student award. Apparantly they only hand these out a couple of times a year, and this was the first time this year. He is a huge teachers pet. He would do anything to please her, so it kind of didn't surprise me that he got it. Alexis has been asking me to help her write her name, so I write it and she picks the letters at random and writes them all over the page, but they look right, so that is a good start. Mike and I both started back to school. We are now in week four. Only three and a half more years...