Joy School Graduation

Last night Samuel had his Joy School graduation. I have absolutely loved doing Joy School this year! The kids were so much fun to teach. I have come to realize that I really love teaching kids. Every so often I think maybe I'll get a teaching certificate. Quite a different track from my engineering degree!

The thing that I loved about Joy School were the fun lessons, songs and activities. Instead of letters, numbers etc. the kids learn about the joy of so many things. I think one of my favorite units was on the joy of creativity and imagination. It's amazing how much fun kids can have using their imaginations - we landed on the moon, flew through space and many more fun things.

One of the last units was on the family and teaching each child that they are special, important and unique. Saren conducted an interview with each of the kids and gave it to us last night with their books. Chuck and I were laughing reading Samuel's answers.

One question was My favorite place is... Samuel said, "Sand Hollow, I like to go there a lot to swim and I like McDonalds. They let me get toys there. I like Disneyland. It's a happy place where people like to go. I like In and Out Burger too." (So from this answer can you tell that I take the kids to McDonalds and In and Out Burger way too often!)

And how funny is this. We show up at Saren's for the graduation and all the boys are wearing different colors of the exact same shirt!

We Must Be Crazy Parents

We finally got Samuel a bed and this is the crazy thing we did. We bought a bed with a slide. It was one of those things when you're in the store and think WOW I would have loved that as a kid, let's get it. Then it gets delivered to your home and you think what have we done!

Because this is the kids at 9:00 p.m. last night - does it look like they are at all tired - NO!

They all love it. So far no major accidents. Isaac did climb halway up the slide then decided he didn't want to go up or down. I heard him crying and Samuel ran to tell me he was stuck. And sure enough he was holding on for dear life.

And this is the other crazy thing we did. Chuck bought cheap laminate for the playhouse because the kids didn't like the feel of the floor. They were having a great time sliding down the slide with the hose running, but it made a huge muddy mess on the floor. Now I'm afraid I have another area to clean!

Samuel and Stockton eating lunch in the playhouse.

First Harvest

Okay so the title is a little deceiving - we didn't actually have what I would call a harvest, but we did pick two tiny cherry tomatoes from our little garden. In all the years Chuck and I have been married we have NEVER had a garden. I've just never been interested in growing anything. But now we have the space and thought we would give it a try. I was sure we would have killed everything off by now, but there are a few things growing in that red dirt. I hope we get a few more tomatoes before the heat kills everything off.

And a small miracle. Samuel actually was excited about trying the tomatoe. He is a very picky eater so it really surprised us when he wanted to take a bite. He's been very interested in watching everything grow so I'm sure that helped.

But then look at that face. We asked him if he liked it and he said yes, but then didn't want to try another bite. Hopefully we can get him to try another tomatoe if another actually grows.

Memorial Day Hike

Trina had a birthday party for Kambree on Saturday so my parents were in town over the Memorial Day weekend. We all went for a hike on Monday morning.

Chuck has always carried our little ones in the baby bjorn when we have done hikes because by the time they were big enough to actually use this type of pack the other two just wanted to walk. So this is Trina and Wes's pack, but Kambree refused to be carried that way and was crying. Chuck switched Wes and was loving packing Isaac this way. Poor Isaac also stared crying when we put him in the pack, but I knew the secret to keep Isaac happy in almost any situation - food! So Trina and I kept stuffing Kambree and Isaac with chips on the way and they were happy.

This was just making me laugh, for some reason neither Kambree or Isaac could keep themselves straight. They both were tipping over.

And Bella wanted Grandpa to pack her because he was holding the chips in the backpack. She kept leaning over his shoulder and grabbing a few to eat along the way.

Samuel is not our climber. You can't really see from the picture, but he was a little afraid to climb along this ledge.

Bella is the climber and she refused to go around the easy way with the rest of us so Grandpa had to take Samuel up and then go back down to get Bella and bring her up.

This is as far as we got on the hike. There were so many people enjoying the beautiful weather and the beautiful hike. We'll probably go back another weekend when it isn't so busy so we can go further up the canyon.

What A Difference A Year Makes!

I had to take a couple of minutes and write about my day because nothing crazy happened! I took all 3 kids with me to ran errands and they were so good. We went to Staples, Desert Book, Wal-Mart, the library and then to McDonalds and there were no melt downs, no one pulled items off the shelves, no one tried to run away. At McDonalds the kids even got their shoes when I told them it was time to go. I could not believe it!! And I thought what a difference a year makes!

After Isaac was born, life was pretty crazy around here with 3 little ones in 3 years. Everytime I left the house something "exciting" happened, but things have definately gotten easier over the past year. It was one of those days when I just smiled all day and thought I love my life! I love being a mother! Of course it doesn't make for an exciting blog entry, but it does make for a great day.

Misc. Kids Update

The other morning I was doing the dishes and heard Isaac making a real fuss. The little guy had a bright red spot under his eye, not sure how that happened, but Bella was trying to take care of it. She had a bandaid and was trying really hard to stick it over his eye. The poor guy was trying to get out of her reach before she sealed his eye shut! She is our little mother always trying to take care of everyone.

I just thought this picture was funny. Samuel doesn't nap anymore, but some days he gets really tired and just falls asleep.

Isaac still isn't walking, but he is everywhere and getting into everything. He roams the house going up and down the stairs looking for entertainment. He has figured out how to open the cupboards and like both the other kids at his age delights in empyting the contents and making a huge mess.

After I had cleaned up all his little messes I was looking around for him. He just disappears in the house. I found him laying on Samuel's bed laughing and kicking his legs. What a delight he is - even when he makes big messes!

Visitors

It's been awhile since I've updated the blog, but a couple of weekends ago my mom and dad came for a quick visit. We had lunch at the reservoir. The kids love going there so they can feed the ducks.

The kids then got in the water and had a great time splashing around.

Grandma made the kids favorite treat - rice balls.

And Grandpa played one of Samuel's favorite games - Got You in the Bear Trap. Grandpa gets each of the kids in the "bear trap" and then the other one goes in for the rescue. The kids could play this game for hours!

Rodents Everywhere!

For days I had been going out our front door and seeing little droppings all around. I just thought they were from mice. Then about 2 weeks ago my friend Janae was leaving our home and said you know those are bat droppings don't you. We both looked up and then the screaming began. Janae let out a scream first and I followed suit as I realized there was a bat hanging just outside the front door. As she was getting into her van she informed me there was another bat on the other side of the door. Upon further examination I realized there were 2 bats on that side for a total of 3 bats hanging outside our front door! YUK!

When Chuck got home from work he tried to spray them off with the hose but that didn't work. The poor little creatures just hung there getting soaked. I was not pleased to have the creatures hanging outside my door making a huge mess on the concrete and our stucco, but I did feel bad for them getting all wet and hanging on so tight. My parents were in town for the weekend so my dad got a stick and removed them. Trina and I were walking outside into the open garage when one of the dislodged bats came flying into the garage. Again the screaming began as we quickly ran back inside the house. I cracked the door and hollered at my dad that the bat had flown into the garage. Then we spotted it on the floor and it took off again landing on our car. There was a lot of door slamming and screaming by us girls during this time. Yes, I'm a whimp when it comes to flying rodents! My dad removed the bat from the garage and they haven't been back since - yeah!

A couple of days latter I was pulling out of the garage and noticed that a mouse was running around on the hood of my car! It ran straight toward the windshield and under the hood of the car - great now there's mice in the garage. So Chuck set out a sticky trap inside the garage and what did he catch - a clump of grey hair and a bat! Yes the mouse got away but he caught another bat. I'm not sure which is worse to have living in the garage!