Aubrey's 3 year old pictures :)

Happy Birthday Aubrey!!!

My little man is "already 3" as he likes to say.  :)

We had a cake and ice cream party for him on Friday night and he had so much fun.  Here is his Costco cake that Tony won't let me live down.

He loved it though, and it was very yummy.

He is never sure about being the center of attention... but I think he handled it pretty well.

Anne brought over these cute Aubrey candles, he thought that was pretty special.

After the cake, he finally got to open the presents he had been waiting for since Jaden's birthday.  :)

He had a lot of friends there to help him.

Nana got him this very cool "toughguy" shirt that he loves.

He was thrilled to get so many presents, he had such a fun night.

His favorite thing though, was his "green life saver" from Grandma.  He waited very patiently for it, now he never puts it down.

He also got a blue one, and a sword, and this very cool Yoda shirt.  He is obsessed with star wars!!  :)  I have to say that as much as I have a distaste for anything StarWars, seeing how happy it makes him makes me love it almost as much as he does.

Cuteness

Guess who got new footed fleece pajamas?  :)

Now they are even more irresistible.

Livie is off, she is crawling as fast as Brenna now...

But Brenna has been busy working on other things.  Uh Oh!

First Day of School, Take Two!

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.  :)

 

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

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

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

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!

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.  :)

First Day of School!!!

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

Everyone was very excited to get started.

I gave them all new supplies.

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

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

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

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

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

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

His new name is butterfingers....

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

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.

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!

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.)

Always happy when food is on the way!

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

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!

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.

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

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

It was cold.

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

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

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

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

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

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!)

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

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

They especially liked spying on people with the telescopes.

Jaden most of all.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Aubrey loved making sand castles.

We even turned Baylee into a mermaid.  :)

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

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.

Aubrey-man.

Baylee-girl

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

and for some proof that I was there :)

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.