Catch-up post

First day of kindergarten!
First day of 2nd grade!

First time getting dental work done! He did great!

There's Blake on the zipline at pioneer day! He was so brave.

Climbing the tall ladder to get to the zipline. He had no moment of hesitation!

Walking the rope at the pioneer day. Again, all by himself! He's really growing up.

The kids in the pioneer day parade ("Pioneer children sang as they walked, and walked...")

Julianna was invited to a "fancy" birthday party, so I did her hair fancy, of course! She let me spiral curl her hair in layers! A big first for her. It looked so cute.

Funny picture over the summer that Joel took. They love our indoor swing!

More funny pictures.

Phew! I'm caught up for now! School is back, and it's almost time to pick up Blake from kindergarten. Today is his first day by himself! He told me when I dropped him off, "I'm not going to cry!" And Julianna's teacher told me this morning that she did really well in her class--first year where she is in a regular class, all day (with some aide support). I think she will do fine!

Recent things

We went to Calicinto Ranch with our little preschool. It was such a fun day. I will miss that place--I've been there four years in a row now!
Here's the whole group. (Some are younger siblings.)

Riding the horse--wow doesn't he look excited. I've noticed sometimes he hides his excitement on purpose--he really was excited about it.

Julianna was in a school play with her mainstream 1st grade class. They did 3 plays, hers was "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." She was a sheep. She didn't have any lines, but she was supposed to read together with some other kids in the class. I'm so proud of her for walking up there by herself and being with the group. By the way, her teacher said she can read 45 words a minute now. She's made so much progress this year!

There she is again, a little nervous, but she did it!

Blake with his coach tonight at the awards ceremony/pizza party. We really liked his coach and hope to have him again next year. He has a real trophy now! The ball spins around--Blake actually wanted to sleep with it tonight, he liked it so much.

Blake at his last game while he was sitting out. When I told him to smile, he said, "SOCCER!"

With his team getting their snack at the last game. Blake ALMOST scored a goal in this game. Actually, he thought he did. He kicked the ball toward the net (miraculously) and watched as it slowly went toward the goalie. The goalie picked it up and then the ref blew the whistle. Blake looked at me and said, "I got a goal!" I smiled and said, "Almost!" He then gave a confused look. So I had to tell him that he needs to get the ball into the net, not just to the other goalie. It was really cute. But for being his first time, he did a great job--the coach had him play a lot and would pull him aside to talk to him about how to play and improve. It was a fun soccer season!

Here's a little video of him playing, a few weeks ago.

The end!

Spring Break happenings

I celebrated my 29th birthday. Last year in my 20's! Blake always has to do something silly in pictures now.

Some good friends "egged" our door as a birthday surprise for me. We didn't see it until Joel left for Priesthood session--we were inside watching conference, or in the backyard working. It was pretty sneaky, and it totally made my day!

My birthday present was a raised bed garden--I really want to learn how to garden this year. Here I am with Blake during our "groundbreaking" ceremony. We also went to a movie as a family and a few days earlier, Joel and I went to the temple and had lunch together. It was a great birthday.

When the yard was being done, we moved our trampoline to the concrete, and the kids thought it was extra fun to jump on it this way.

A "before" shot of our yard, just one side of it. The weeds were out of control!

And the "after" shot. We had the ground cleared, and sprinklers and grass installed. The other side of the yard is dirt for now until we get a swingset, and the trampoline is moved over there again, and there's room to expand my garden. We love having grass, finally! We will plant in the edges as we go--we just wanted the grass in for now. We also finally caught the gopher that's been living in our yard for YEARS.

We've also had lots of soccer during the break--2 games and a few practices. Here's Blake ready to go to his first soccer game.

Here's his coach talking to him before the game--the pictures are blurry because I was sitting far away.

Standing in his position. Whenever the whistle blew, he was VERY good at going back to his position. In fact, he might have been the only kid who did this. He seemed a little shy when the ball actually came within kicking range, but he was very good at chasing that ball everywhere. He played the ENTIRE 30-minutes (I think his coach forgot to switch him out). At the end of the game, he said, "I kicked the ball THREE times!" We asked him how many times he will kick it in the next game, and he said, "Um, like 20 times!" He is liking soccer and whenever we are getting his "uniform" on he says, "I'm a soccer player now."

Spring break is almost over now...it's been fun!

Catch-up post

The kids playing their "drums" after church today. Blake uses his spoons to hit the metal spoon/spatula as his "cymbals."

This is what's been keeping me busy lately--preparing our RS Birthday Celebration. I loved how it turned out--so beautiful decorated with everyone's antiques, and a wonderful program. It was a lot of fun to plan out, but now I feel like I can take a deep breath.

After I went to a "rockstar" baby shower, I came home with these cool glasses. Blake loved them, put them on, and went to get his guitar to really be a rockstar.

The "snow" that we got on the daythere was supposedly snow on the forecast out here (which is not common!) It was more like lots of hail that mostly collected on the trampoline and Blake and Joel made snowballs out of it.

Another picture from the snowy day--there was snow on the mountains right behind our house--I've never seen this before. This picture was taken from my car window while Joel was selling his civic, in the picture, to our mechanic. He got a new car, Chevrolet Cobalt, so the civic is gone! Now I'm the one with the old car.

We took a trip to Garden Grove to visit my sister Cindel while my mom was there. Here are the cousins together--the best picture we could get! We went to IKEA and had fun. Blake and Julianna loved Olive's toys.

The puppy that showed up on our back door right before Valentine's day. This dog immediately warmed up to our family. It was late when found the dog, and church was the next morning, so it stayed with us until after church and slept at the bottom of our stairs. I am not a dog person, but I really loved this dog. After church we put up signs, and it turns out it's our next-door neighbor's dog! We were sad to see it go, but since then it has escaped a few more times, eager to come visit us again. I love this dog! And that is a big deal. Maybe we can get a dog like this--someday?

In other news, I've had to stop running for about a week or so because I injured my foot! I was reaching to get something out of a cupboard while standing on a chair, and a very heavy, old aluminum thermos fell directly on the top of my foot. I thought I broke my foot, the pain was so bad. But after icing it for a few hours, I was able to at least limp around. Of course the next daywas when we were going to buy the car, so I had no choice but to walk on it, and the day after that I had to teach in Relief Society, so I knew I'd be standing on my foot the whole time! But amazingly it has gotten better each day, but not enough to where I feel comfortable to run. I am only 4 weeks away from the half marathon, so I don't know what I'm going to do.

Well, I feel better being caught up now!

Recent happenings

Julianna lost her second tooth on Friday night. I finally pulled it by folding a paper towel and laying it over the tooth--as recommended by the dentist on the little field trip we took with our preschool. It worked well! Not too many tears, but I'm sure glad it's out. You'll also notice she has her hand over her ear--well she just learned how to make a funny noise with her hand over her ear. We got the best video of her doing it but it's too big to put on here. She thinks she's pretty funny that she can do it. I just hope she's not hurting her ear!

Thanks to some sewing expertise from Cindel, I made new curtains for our sliding glass door. I had saved some khaki panels I bought on clearance from Walmart a long time ago, and sewed the new fabric I bought over the panels to make them energy-saving and thick. I love them! You can see part of the old curtain on the right. When Joel was with the scouts on Friday night, I stayed up late sewing the rest. They are finished now and look great.

Something else Cindel helped me create--a new pillow cover. This is the first of 6 pillow covers I will make with old fabric I've never used! So glad I kept it all in the hopes that I'd sew one day. I am using the old curtains from our sliding door to make some as well. I'm so glad Cindel took the time to show me how to put thread on a bobbin, put in in the machine, and thread the machine--I pretty much know how to do it now. So there's no end to what I can make!

Well, not the best picture...this was the kids and Olive, Cindel's baby, when they were playing under the table. Blake really likes to cross his eyes right now--so fun, right? Olive had fun exploring our house and watching the kids play in the backyard.

This picture is a little better...at least Blake's not crossing his eyes! Well, that's what we've been up to!

Big Updates

Three significant things have happened this week that have been miracles.

1. I decided to fight my HUGE red-light camera ticket in court yesterday. Because the officer who issued the ticket (using the camera?) didn't show up to court, I get my whole $456 back. SO glad I went in and took the time.

2. Today I was an advocate for Julianna at a meeting put on by the area board for developmental disabilities--in attendance was the new Director for the Inland Regional Center (the IRC has denied Julianna year after year even though she's diagnosed with autism). The new director wanted to hear firsthand from parents their concerns. I emailed the person in charge of the meeting and after hearing my story, she wanted me to be one of the key speakers at the meeting and share my story. We'll see if Julianna will finally get help! The IRC services help more at home, which is something I've needed for years now.

3. And here's the BIG one--drum roll--Julianna can now go #1 IN THE TOILET! We decided to hire outside help for a few sessions (and only had to do this because the IRC isn't helping us--big reason why I spoke at the meeting) and toward the end of the last session, we had a miracle! She did it! We are so happy for her. HUGE burden lifted from me, even though this really is the beginning of another long road to finalize it, but for her to do this makes me so glad we paid for the extra potty help.

So those are my updates!

200th post

I just noticed this is my 200th post. So in celebration of this momentous occasion, I have decided to write about....well, nothing. If I had something amazing to write about, I would, I promise. Julianna is in ESY (Extended school year) for 4 weeks (except Fridays), so she's gone in the morning. I am trying to do handwriting workbooks with Blake every day, all the while he is complaining and saying he just wants to play. I didn't get to run my 1st 5K last Saturday because after we got there we found out someone passed away right after they did the swimming portion (it was a tinman) so we just went home--very sad. I'm still running, though, and still am amazed that I went from HATING running to actually liking it (I don't love it yet--I hope I will soon) and doing as much as 4 miles at one time. I changed our blog--blogger has a new design tool--you should check it out! Tons of fun backgrounds, layouts, templates, etc. A book background was an easy choice--without books around here, Julianna would have no happiness in life. Speaking of books, I'm going to read "The Well-Behaved Child" by John Rosemond. It's supposed to be a great book on disciplining children. Anyone else have problems with this? Well, I do and I need to do something. He even talks about potty training so I'm excited to try some of his techniques. Anyway, that's my 200th post! Hope you are all having great summers so far.

And I should have put this in earlier--oops! A big congratulations to my sister Callie and her husband Craig on their baby girl August yesterday!

What's been going on

It was hot enough today to do some trampoline sprinklers!

The BEST picture I could get of Blake at the preschool graduation (he finished his first year, of course. One more year to go!) He was not happy because all his friends were already playing on the playground--he was the last one to be announced.

In other Blake news, Blake is excited to wear his first belt to church. But then halfway through sacrament meeting, he wanted me to take it off. Oh well.

And just because it was cool, I wanted to share pictures of eggs laid by a bird that we discovered in a rock pile at the park. Pretty clever place!

This is the bird that was standing over her eggs. Every time someone would come within 6 feet, she would squeak at us and fluff her feathers! Can anyone name that bird? I've never seen one like it.

So it's been 2 weeks again. Where did the time go? We just got new brakes and tires for my van--and it was long overdue! But it wasn't so bad spending hundreds of dollars when we also got 4 tickets each to Wild Rivers, Wild Animal Park, and the SD Zoo, FREE! We did it at Discount Tire. Look for the ad in the mail. We are so excited!

This past Thursday we held our co-op preschool graduation. It was so fun! The kids wore white t-shirts with their handprints, and they all had little caps with tassels. We sang the circle time songs with them and each mom announced their child. Then we had pizza and snacks. I'm so glad I started the co-op--it has turned out to be a really great experience for everyone, and I look forward to working with new (and some old) people next year!

Anyway, that's about it for now. Random post, I know.

Updates

So it's been almost 2 weeks since I last blogged. I guess it's been busy, or boring! Probably both--haha. Anyway, Blake went on his first Fathers & Sons campout with Joel last night. He was so excited to go! Every time Julianna asked, "Can I go, Blake?" He'd say, "No, it's just for boys." As they were walking out the door, Blake sounded so grown up and said, "Bye, Mommy!" and marched off. He is sounding so much older and mature these days. Joel said he did really well and had a lot of fun. While they were gone, Julianna got to pick a movie (Bee Movie) and we ate way too much chocolate ice cream (I had the worst stomachache the rest of the night). We're the only ones that like chocolate, so I thought we'd spoil ourselves! Then we made pancakes in the morning and watched episodes of Powerpuff Girls on the computer. She is currently obsessed with the Powerpuff girls--they're growing on me!

The other day, Blake was watching some TV. All of a sudden, he turned it off and said, "I don't want to watch TV. It's going to hurt my brain." Gee, I wonder where he heard that. At least he's taking my warning seriously. And he also recently said, in the middle of eating some Starbursts, "I don't want candy. It's not good for my teeth." See, kids really do listen!

I just finished my 9-week couch to 5K training program. I can now run 30 minutes without stopping. The furthest I've run in that time is 2.34 mi. I'm hoping to get to a 10-min mile or less. I am glad I am pushing myself to run--this is the first time I've ever done it! Now we are going to run 3 miles 3 times a week and hopefully improve our 3-mile time to be ready for the 5K on June 12th.

New things

New living room set...finally! It's so bold but I like it! This is the first new piece of furniture we've ever had, besides our mattress.

New niece, Olive Meg Huston, born Feb. 20th to my sister Cindel and husband, Ryan. I got to see her this weekend in Long Beach. She's adorable, and likes to sleep! Julianna didn't want to be in the picture--we tried several times.

New mother, Cindel! She looks so good and she's a great mom!

New nephew and new niece together at Bradley's baby blessing yesterday in San Diego. Was Blake really that tiny? Wow!

And here's the shocker....drum roll...NEW HAIR FOR ME! (Sorry not a good picture--I took it myself and don't have a lot of makeup on...oh well!) Now you can scroll up and see what it looked like before, and now after. I LOVE IT! The highlights really made a difference, and the length is perfect. Sorry family, I did cut my hair, A LOT! But I really like it.