Wednesday, September 08, 2010

First Day of School, Take Two!

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Today was the first day of enrichment classes at Valley Oaks!  There are a lot more of Jaden's friends at school this year.  Here are a few of them posing before classes start.  :)

 

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Here is the same group, plus a few more.  They were all so excited!

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This is where they line up while we listen to announcements and do the pledge of allegiance. My kids all have it down, even Aubrey because we do it every day before school starts.  I am such a cheesy homeschooler.  :P

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It was Matthew's first day of Kindergarten and he did great!

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Here are the kids and Becky (Jaden's resource teacher) walking over to the tractor.  (They load onto the tractor and it takes them to their classes because they are pretty far away.)  They LOVE that part!

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Here is my sweet Jaden before the tractor took off.  He is officially a first grader now.  He did well in his classes today and I wasn't even worried about him.  He is getting to be so grown up.  He was thrilled that August was in his class again this year, along with Luke, Matt, Reese, Kimberley and Owen.  It should be a fun year!  This quarter they are studying insects, camping and music.    Right up a little boy's alley!  I just love our little school.  :)

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

First Day of School!!!

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The big day finally came on August 23!  The first day of school!

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Everyone was very excited to get started.

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I gave them all new supplies.

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We worked on Language, History, Biology, Art and Spanish...

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Most of the time Aubrey played a crayon battle, but I think he absorbed a little bit of it. :)

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The after all of the hard work, we had a water balloon fight!!!

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What better way is there to relieve the stress of a hard day's work than pummeling your siblings with water balloons?

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Well, actually your children.  Most of the pummeling was done by Daddy.

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We decided that Jaden would be a much better pitcher than catcher.  :/

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His new name is butterfingers....

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But he had a blast, and he sure earned it.  He is doing great so far in school and I am so proud of how hard he is trying this year.  His little work ethic has improved tenfold from last year.  He starts everyday excited and energetic.  I know that is a blessing and am trying to really enjoy it.  It looks like it is going to be a really fun year!

Morro Bay

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We finally got out of town for a few days!  Despite my morning sickness, we decided it would be worth it to take the kids to the beach and have a little end of summer fun before school started.  It was great!  Here are the kids on our way out of town.  They are so excited.

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Aubrey didn't last long, and I had to snap a picture of him sleeping peacefully with his little hands folded.  He is such a good boy!

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This is at dinner the first night there.  We loved getting out our sweatshirts!  I love this look of determination on Baylee's face.  (She is trying to unwrap her straw.)

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Always happy when food is on the way!

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Feeling much better after he was carsick on the way there.  :(

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Sunday afternoon, we went to our friend's home to visit.  They live in Paso Robles, it was much warmer there!  They blew up a bounce house and a little pool and the kids had a blast!  Here are Jaden, Tanner and Baylee dancing to some praise music Jaden learned at VBS.   They loved it!

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Of course, we had to hit up the aquarium.  That was a big hit and the kids just wanted to go back there the whole rest of the trip.

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This was Morro Rock on our first day at the beach.  Cold.

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It didn't stop them though, they were determined to have fun.

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It was cold.

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They ran and ran and got wet and more wet...

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Aubrey took some snack breaks to hang out with Mommy.  :)

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Eventually, they lost their outer layers and were having so much fun didn't even notice the temperature.

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I think people thought they were crazy.  I thought they were crazy.  But they had fun.

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Baylee spent a lot of her time running around looking for seashells.  She loved it.

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Here was their pile of treasures that we had to leave there when we left.  They each chose one special thing to keep, if it had been up to them the whole beach would have come home with us.  (And when I did the laundry, I thought it had!)

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We decided that Pismo might be more fun, we went to the pier and watched the fishermen...

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They really liked it on the pier, Jaden ran to every fisherman and asked him if he was getting anything.

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They especially liked spying on people with the telescopes.

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Jaden most of all.

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And because Tony is an infinitely more fun parent than I am, we hit a few of these places.

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One day in Morro Bay, we went to this really neat museum.

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It was a museum of natural history, the kids loved it.  Here is "Rocky" telling Baylee all about Morro Rock.

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They had little exhibits the kids could control to explain weather and natural processes.  They even had all sorts of stuffed animals (Real animals that were stuffed) that the kids were amazed by.

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They got to go out on the deck and look at the seals and birds with binoculars.  They even had a giant seal skeleton out there and some other little animal skeletons.  It was very cool.

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Our second day at the beach, we decided to spend at Avila to enjoy a little more sunshine!  It was perfect.

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The kids had a great time, the temperature was just right.

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Aubrey loved making sand castles.

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We even turned Baylee into a mermaid.  :)

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Our last day we just walked around town and enjoyed the local shops and sights.

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We stopped at Morro Rock again to snap some nice pictures.  It was a much nicer day, the sun was out and the weather was perfect.

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Aubrey-man.

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Baylee-girl

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and my little boy who is getting just way too big...

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and for some proof that I was there :)

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It was a very nice trip.  I'm glad that our kids got a little fun in before school started, even though Tony had to work over time taking care of them and me.   He was a trooper though and we are glad he planned such a nice little break for our family.  Thanks also to my mom who watched the girls for us!  It would have been a lot less relaxing sticking to a baby schedule, so we were very thankful she offered to take that on.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Battle!

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This is a common scene at our house these days... the kids all ask Tony at breakfast, "Daddy, can we PLEASE have a battle tonight???"  Usually they do, and this is what it looks like.  They divide all of their toys and catapult them at the other team's toys.  Whoever has the most standing at the end wins, which is usually Jaden because he always has the most toys.  Note Baylee's princesses lined up on the table watching the battle... that is as much into it as she gets, but she enjoys monkeying around with them while they play and cheering on her team.  (Daddy and Aubrey)  The girls always watch from the safety of  the playpen... I wonder what they must be thinking about this crazy family they have.  :)

Saturday, August 07, 2010

Wow!

Am I behind or what? I do have a good excuse though. One that is about an inch long, growing like a weed, making me extremely sick and set to make his/her debut in Mid-March. :) Yes, I know all of you know by now, but #6 is on the way. How incredibly blessed we are!!

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