Birthday Season!

Well thus begins birthday season in our family. We actually have two seasons really, July and Fall, we made it through July. now we usher in the fall season. We are excited to start it with Adam turning 1 and following that will be mine, my sisters, Kevin's, Bryan's brother...then voila we have made it to Thanksgiving followed closely by my favorite holiday of the year Christmas (Christ's Birthday)...I could live in Christmas forever. So from now until Christmas I will be counting down by birthday/holidays until Christmas... each birthday is a marker we have passed that gets us closer to the happiest time of the year, in my opinion. I think it is just that I really love family and tradition and really Christmas brings those things to the forefront. Plus what a perfect time to remember Christ and all he did for us and the miracle of his birth.

Naps

Naps are changing at my house. Adam has started waking up usually around 8-8:30 which is great, except that Kevin continues to wake up at 6:30. Due to this sleeping in in the morning Adam is not ready for a nap until 11:30ish which is fine but by then Kevin is ready too so they both go down earlier and we have only one nap a day...one problem. They are really done with the day at 6:00p.m. but Bryan does not get home until 6:30 and because Bryan does not see them in the morning either I feel the need to keep them up. It will be so nice someday when we live closer to Bryan's work (the date keeps moving farther away for that to actually happen). So for now I have really grumpy kids from 5:30-7 nearly every night. There really is nothing I can do about it and after this I am good on the ranting about it as well. maybe our next baby will have an earlier bedtime... (We are not expecting one soon, so don't start rumors)

Losing my Mind

The other day as I was leaving my home to go for a walk to the park, I had to stop off and unlock a vacant unit (job related). So I went over and did it then tried to round up my kids. We have a courtyard in our building and Kevin was playing in it. I found him and got worried because I did not see Adam. I asked Kevin where Adam was. He said, "he's right there mama" I didn't see him. I asked again, more worried, "Kevin, Where is a Adam show me!," He is right there as he pointed towards me.... . . . . My heart racing I look behind me, nothing... Then it happened, I found him, I had been holding him the whole time. Kevin has actually teasing me about this for about 30 minutes calling me silly. I was relieved to have found Adam and I felt totally retarded and hoped nobody had been watching me in the courtyard. This was losing your glasses on your head to a whole new level. So if any of you out there think you are losing your mind sometimes just know it could probably get worse.

Home Schooling

Well many of my friends and family know this about me but I was home schooled for a good portion of my schooling. This being said, I am now about 90-10 going to home school. To me it is scary but I have put a lot of prayer and thought into this and I think it is what I am going to do. I always thought I would become a school teacher, I even started with a major in education then went to history thinking maybe then I could go on to get my law degree and not teach but with my kids nearing the age (not really) but nearing the age when I have to think about where I want to be when they get into school and what I want to do for pre-school, I am now pretty much sure I will be home schooling. I know it is controversial and I can see both sides of the argument. I have one thing in my favor (some may disagree) but I think I turned out well adjusted and socially able to hold my own. I do not plan on home schooling all the way through but at least through elementary then sending them on their way with a strong sense of family, moral values, and a strong academic base in hopes that they will choose the right based on a stronger testimony of the Gospel and its values. There are things that are being taught in school at too young of an age, and I think that some shelter from today's society is not harmful to very young children. I wanted to get this out there to see what you all think, (it won't change my mind, but it may give me ideas on what to work on when I do home school to make sure that my little ones are socially stable always) Don't worry they will all be in sports and music programs while being home schooled. I loved music and sports in school, I didn't play in elementary but I know that in today's world to compete you have to start much earlier than middle school to make a middle school or high school team.

Here is a little visual history

A picture of my family when I was eight

Left to Right... Sarah, Grandma, Jessie, Mom, Rachael, and me

Just for Laughs

Just a quick thought... or comment... Today Kevin went in the potty number 2 and he always wants to show me, I usually hear, "mom come look" or something like that but today, I could have died laughing as I heard from the bathroom "WOW!, MOM CHECK IT OUT!" It was, of course, a big one... (who taught him that...?)

In Review

So I have been horrible at updating partially due to my camera, I left my charger in Tenn. and had to wait for my little sister to send it back out to me it took a while, of course. But I wanted to do a few weeks in review so here goes.

We went to Disneyland a week ago or so ago and California adventure and had a really fun time...

The pixar parade was Kevin's favorite thing.

We went Camping in Yosemite with the Barty's and that was super fun.

1. Mirror Lake, we hiked to this lake to go swimming, obviously we didn't it was gone...so sad

2. the boys eating some snacks after our exhausting hike

3. Our picnic once we found out there was no lake, the rocks were cool though as in not hot.

Adam Learned how to walk and he does it so cute, I love babies just learning to walk they are like little drunk beings.

Kevin is potty trained...!!!! He even didn't have any accidents camping although he went every hour b/c he loved peeing in the bushes, oh to be a boy. and he even went on the toilet for every poo (sorry for poo talk).

Tales of Potty Training

We have been potty training this week. We have not worn diapers since Thursday and we have only worn pull-ups during naps and at bed time, and at church. So far we have had one accident Thursday morning and we had a little pee in the pull-up after church. ( We are not brave enough to tell our nursery teacher we need to go) I am so impressed at how well this is going so far. We had given Kevin a mindset that when we got home from Grandma and Grandpas house we would be too big for diapers. He seems to have had enough time to process this because he is doing awesome! I do have a funny video of the boys and some of it has to do with potty training.

Adam is my technically advanced one. He can turn the tv on with the remote, Kevin can't do that, but Adam is good at pushing all the buttons where Kevin gives up after just a second. Also as seen in the video Adam can remove cd's from the cd player. He is like a little squirrel with a treasure when he gets them, it is so funny.