Finally and Update!

I guess since Eric finished school I have been super busy and not just because of the kids. I just have a car during the day now so I have been out and about. So here is the update of pretty much our whole summer and pictures for it all. First off, Haley finished school and that weekend we had a fun birthday party for her. We were supposed to have a swimming party but we ran into the June gloom so we just played games and had presents and cake and ice-cream at home. Oh well her cake was super cute (I made it, wink, wink). Then we had a second party the next day with just family at Grandma and Grandpa's house so she got 2 cakes and it was a good thing, because I missed getting a picture of her blowing out the candles on the first one. Anyway now she is 6 and will be starting 1st grade on the 10th very soon. Earlier that week we started the potty training an got rid of diapers for Alex for good. We used the same method my sister-in-law used with my nephew Payson and it worked. The problem now is that he gets lazy and doesn't always tell us in time, but we are working on it. Ok then we started swimming lessons for both Haley and Alex and they had a lot of fun. Father's Day came and went and so did our 8 year Anniversary which were both fun and I appreciated Eric's parents watching the kids so we could go out to dinner. Then I started taking a sewing class once a week and have been working on a baby quilt for a friend of mine who is having a boy. I've decided that I love sewing and if I had more time and more money I would like to take on that hobby. I also did her baby shower which was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. I had some help which was good because there were 60 people on the guest list. I have also been studying the CA driver's handbook, because I still need a CA driver's license. I gotta say I am a bit nervous about taking the written test again since it has been 9 years since I have taken one. I just wish there was some way to skip all of the questions that didn't apply to me and my personal driving, but that's life. It doesn't sound like a lot, but I really feel like I have been so busy that I haven't spent much time with my family at home just enjoying life the way I used to. Then it was the 4th of July and we went to a flag raising/breakfast that morning and then spent the rest of the day at Eric's parents house and watched some fireworks from their backyard (some of their neighbors set them off even they are illeagal here in most parts of CA). I missed the fireworks in Utah, but we still had a good time. Then we celebrated Alex's 3rd birthday on the 6th. We just had a simple party at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I made an R2D2 cake and we did the whole Star Wars theme. Alex had a great time. We have been slowly making changes in our home with our decor. We finally bought some much needed shelving for the kids rooms and for ours and I finally was able to unpack my stamp things so I can get back into my card making that I love so much. And now the kids have their books on shelves instead of in boxes. And we are moving all of the boys clothes into their own dresser, yay! Eric has been watching the kids a lot for me, and he has been out shooting with his dad and brothers a few times for fun. Haley just started her next swimming lessons today and we are hoping she will be able to stay in that class and not get pushed back into the class she took a few weeks ago. And I had Alex and Max weighed for our WIC appointment this last week, and Max is now 19 lbs. and 27 inches long. Alex is 25 lbs. 36 inches long. So as you can see Max is really growing and catching up. He has is 6 month checkup on the 17th and we will be starting solids this weekend. I always wait until 6 months for that. He has also been rolling over like crazy too. It just started about a week ago, so that is fun, and I think he will be crawling pretty soon. I also joined facebook, because I was trying to find some old HS friends. I didn't find who I was looking for, but I have enjoyed catching up with others, especially family members who get online a lot and some of my super good friends who I have missed since moving. Anyway that is our update, sorry this post is so long, but like I said we have been super busy. Enjoy the pics!

Haley with Mrs. Maylad at Kindergarten Graduation Hooray!

Haley's birthday beach cake

Haley blowing out candles on second cake

Haley and her pile of gifts

Father's Day

Daddy and Alex at swimming lessons (sorry he's hard to see)

Alex on the wall getting ready to jump in

Haley at swimming lessons

Alex's R2D2 birthday cake

Alex waiting for his cake
Alex Blowing out Candles

Alex with pile of presents (Uncle Kevin helping him open some)

Finally a picture of all 3 of them together!
Haley, Max, and Alexander

Catching up on 3 weeks of fun!

Ok so I am getting worse and worse at this. I thought that I would have more time to blog once Eric finished his first year of law school, but I was wrong. Yeah thats right, the 16th, his birthday, he finished his first year hooray! We celebrated with dinner at Red Robin and then Sunday we did gifts and dessert at his parents, it was a lot of fun. I wish I could get into more detail, but like I said I have little time and so much to blog about. Ok next, Max had his 4 month checkup since he was 4 months on Eric's birthday and he was drumroll please... 17 lbs. 6 oz. and 26 1/2 inches which puts him in the 95% for both weight and height. Holy cow he is getting so big, he can almost sit up by himself now and he almost rolled over a couple of times since I have been giving him more tummy time lately. He loves to play with toys on the floor, which just means I need to vacuum more. I have also been busier since I started working out on a regular basis and am going to try and lose the 20 lbs. I have gained since having 3 kids. I also signed the kids up for swimming lessons and they will start next month once Haley finishes school, I just think it is so important that they learn what I never learned how to do. We have also been cleaning out the last of the boxes that we never unpacked since moving here, shopping for much needed clothing and shoes for ourselves and the kids, and moving some of our furniture around to make room for the shift in kids rooms. Max has been sleeping through the night so I thought soon we would move him in with Alex and that means Haley gets her own room. So a lot of cleaning out and change and just spending quality time with my family this week. We are doing better about having family home evening now and it has really made a difference. We attended a play put on by our stake "Saviour of the World" it was nice to get out of the house, and we have spent a few fun filled weekends at Eric's parents house swimming, watching movies, and playing Rock Band. Anyway that is pretty much the last 3 weeks in a nutshell. I have included some fun pictures of Max and am planning on getting some good ones of the three kids together this week so wish me luck; it is really hard getting all three of them together all smiling and looking good.

Eric an Max

Max was all smiles while Eric was swinging him one night I caught him at the top of the swing smiling

He was so happy that night, I wish the lighting had been better though.
You can't see this one very well but I thought Max had the cutest face.

Happy Mother's Day!

Ok so I am getting worse and worse about keeping this thing updated, but I promise I try. I just have so much to do, I really don't know how moms do it with more than 3 kids. I just can't keep up, but I can't complain, I love my family. Eric has been home this week studying and stressing for finals and he has his last one on the 16, yep his birthday. Oh well we'll just have to celebrate after the test. I can't believe how fast time has gone, but I am glad he'll be done with the 1st year since that is supposed to be the hardest for Law students. We have all had colds this week and I just started to get it a couple of days ago. No its not swine flu, but it still stinks being sick. I just have to say, the more kids you have the more you get sick. We get something at least every 2 months, but oh well it could be worse I'm sure. I finally got some good updated pictures of Max and he is growing like crazy. He is wearing 6-9 month size clothes now. He pushes with his legs to standing on my lap a lot and now if he's not buckled in, he can slide right out of his car seat/carrier. He smiles and plays all the time. He loves his toys and trying to grab things, but mostly he just loves to be talked too and played with. He's been sick this week too, so we've been trying to get healthy again. Haley has had a hard week (which she brought on herself), but I promised her we would go swimming if she was good all week and today is the last day of the week so I guess we'll be going swimming. Alex has been sick and still obsessed with Lego Star Wars so mostly we just hung out at home this week trying to get well. Friday Haley's kindergarten class put on a cute little Mother's Day program for the moms and Haley did a great job. I took my camcorder and got it all on video. The funny thing was, she had taken her play earrings to school in her backpack without me knowing and she was wearing them for the program. I guess she just wanted to look dressed up for the program, but I guess I'll have to start checking her backpack before we go to school from now on. She is so funny about wanting to take her toys to school. Anyway its all on video. I was thinking about it while I was filming the program, but we have a lot of home movies and we never watch them. I think I'm going to have to pick a night and make it home movie night. We always film things, but we never watch what we film. It's strange because I remember watching home movies when I was a kid and laughing at how young I looked and things, but I guess I just get busy or something and we forget and never get around to watching anything. There is so much I want to do when Eric is done, but we'll see. I want to finally organize my apartment and move Haley into her own room. I want to get Alex potty trained and exercise more and just spend more time with Eric and have family time without a law book in the mix. So things are looking up, we just have to get over our colds and make it through finals. Oh and don't forget to call your moms and have a Happy Mother's Day tomorrow!!

Max is always eating his hands, despite my attempts and keeping his hands out. He makes some funny faces with his hands in his mouth sometimes. Poor little guy is losing all his hair too. He hates to be on his stomach so he rubs it out, and he's growing so fast his hair can't keep up with his head growth and the cradle cap doesn't help.

Max loves the swing

Max playing with is new teether toys in the mouth of course.

The smile shot, unfortunately the swing was moving when I took it so its a bit out of focus.

I got an even better one, but it was really blurry. (darn) I'll just have to get the ones Eric's dad took last Sunday with their camera, he has a super cute smile.

A Busy Week

Ok so I finally have a minute to blog. Now that Max is getting older he is demanding more attention and I find less and less time to sit and type let alone check my email so I got lucky today. It's strange because I feel like I'm super busy and can't keep up with my housework, but at the same time I feel like there really hasn't been a lot going on at least not anything terribly exciting anyway. Haley has been doing really well in school and she and Alex have been obsessed with the Lego Star Wars game for the X-box so I have to limit their play time. It figures that my children would pick up their dad's favorite hobby and not their mom's. It has been so hot here too that my arms got tan just from walking Haley to school. Then after one of Haley's school friends asked why Haley always wore jeans to school, I decided it was time for new clothes mainly shorts and t-shirts and some of us needed shoes, so we went shopping this week. Max is already in some 6 month clothes and since the seasons were off with Alex's old clothes he got some new things too. The only down side is that I couldn't really find any shorts that were modest for Haley to wear. I am going to really have to search more than one store for Haley. It really is too bad that you can't buy modest clothes even for a 5 year old. It's times like these when I really miss Provo. So I got almost all of my shopping done, minus the shorts and we are set for the warm weather now. This last weekend was birthday weekend for us too, since Eric's brother James and his best friend Steve had birthdays on Friday and Saturday so we had a fun weekend celebrating with them. Then Sunday I sang in church and judging from the complements I got, I would say it was great. I'm just lucky I didn't start crying during the song, because I was feeling pretty emotional yesterday during church and I haven't sung a solo in at least a year. And Eric and I got called as the new ward librarians so that will be something totally new and different and I am looking forward to having a calling that isn't quite as demanding as my last calling was. I am also helping out as a district leader for visiting teaching and I have been on the phone a lot lately, but I love to talk on the phone so that's not too bad. So that is about all that has happened since my last post and like I said, it doesn't sound like much, but for me that is about all I have time for anymore. It's funny because last week Haley had a homework assignment to write 5 sentences about a weekend activity and draw a picture, and she wrote about going to the grocery store. I guess our weekends need some livening up. Unfortunately she only gets from June 11th through August 10th off from school and then she starts 1st grade so we don't get much vacation time. They really push kids hard with school these days. I can hardly believe some of the things Haley is learning in kindergarten. What ever happened to nursery rhymes and making crafts? Anyway I could go on but it seems Max is demanding my attention once again so I guess I'll have to sign off for now.

Easter Happenings

Ok so I finally have some time to blog this week. Easter was wonderful and the kids all got tons of candy and the Easter bunny brought them all a gift as well. I took the kids to an Egg hunt that some of the sisters in our ward put on Friday and the kids had a great time finding eggs, so that was fun, then we decided to color eggs on Saturday and it was fun up until Alex knocked over the cup of blue dye and well lets just say that I really hate having white carpeting in our dining area. Luckily we have a bissell wet vac, carpet cleaner and with some quick work by Eric, you can't even tell there was a spill unless you are right down next to the spot. Haley wasn't very happy about not being able to color any more eggs blue, but we got 3 out of 24 so it wasn't too bad. Then Easter Sunday the kids were up well before us and had already found their baskets, but it was still fun watching them play with their new toys that the Easter bunny brought. Especially Max, he got a little einsteins cow that hangs from his carrier, it has a rattle tummy crinkly arms and legs, and a pull string that makes it vibrate. He just stared at it and talked to it and smiled forever, and then after several attempts to grab at it, he finally got hold and made it vibrate. Anyway I really should get it on film some time, it's so cute watching him play with it. Haley got a Silvermist doll to go with her Tinkerbell playset that she got for Christmas, and Alex got two new Star Wars figures, R2 and Luke Skywalker, since he has been really into Star Wars lately. I forgot to mention that on Saturday while I was looking for extra egg dippers to color the eggs, I found our old camera and realized it still had a bunch of pictures on it that needed to be taken. So most of our egg decorating pictures aren't digital, but I guess we just completely forgot about finishing that roll of film, when we got our digital camera. Anyway that will be fun to get developed and see what was on there. Then Sunday for church the kids got all dressed up in their new Easter clothes and we got pictures afterwards at Eric's parents house before we had our Easter Ham dinner there. Eric's parents and his Aunt Gloria got the kids some nice treats too and the kids had fun finding their special eggs and bunny bubbles before dinner. We also got to see the movie Bedtime Stories which I thought was really cute and really funny. So I have to say that Easter was a big success and here are some of the pictures we took Sunday at Eric's parents.

Haley in her new Easter dress, she looked like a princess so pretty in pink.

Here is the whole family, Alex wasn't in the best of moods, but still a cute picture.

Here is one of all the guys, Alex looked super cute in his new suit. It was his first suit with jacket and all, he looked so grown up. And of course Max already in 3-6 month size clothes he is such a big boy and super cute.

Well everyone it looks like once a week is the best I can do with this blog, but I still enjoy doing it. Conference this last weekend was wonderful. I got so much out of it this time and President Monson made me cry with his story about the woman who lost everything she had. I am always awed by those who have lost so much and stayed strong in the church. My husband and children are my life and I cannot even imagine life without them in it. I just felt so humbled this conference because I need to improve so much. I also really felt out of the loop when I heard that Elder Wirthlin had passed away. I guess out here you can't keep up with the church news as easily which is probably why Eric's parents order and read the church news. Anyway I also had some good news: Alex finally had some potty success last Friday he went instead of just sitting and we made a really big deal out of it too, so I hope he gets the picture now, although so far that has been the only time, we'll just have to keep trying. Max has started the standing on your lap thing now. We have tried it with him before, but now his legs are stronger and he loves to stand, with us holding him of course. I still haven't caught that perfect smile photo, but he has a super cute smile, so I'll keep trying with that too. This week I also got to see Speed Racer, and Quantum of Solice, and I gotta say, Speed Racer was better than I thought it would be, it was exciting and I thought the story was good, Haley liked the Chimp. Quantum was ok, but I didn't like it as much as Casino Royale. I also got a chance to go shopping with Rita this week for Easter clothes for the kids, and it was fun, even though I didn't remember to bring the stroller. We got some really good deals and I can't wait to get pictures of them all dressed up. Alex will be wearing his first suit, jacket and all, and I was lucky to find a dress with sleeves for Haley out here that I liked. Max even got a nice outfit too, Thanks Rita! Anyway I'll post those next week hopefully. So on that note, HAPPY EASTER! And don't forget what Easter is all about, Haley asked me about that the other day and I had a wonderful teaching moment about the resurrection with her. Kids are wonderful and reminding us what is really important in life.

Well this last week was really nice with Haley on Spring Break and the weather has been really warming up and very spring like. We are finally all healthy again YEAH!!! I made this peach no bake cheesecake for dessert on Sunday and it turned out great so I gotta say it has been a really good week for me. Even my kids have been better behaved. It must just be because of spring. Max has been talking and smiling up a storm. I might just get a picture of it one day if I'm really fast with the camera, we'll see, it seems like I just can't quite catch it fast enough. He has also been sleeping through the night although I don't know how long that is going to last, but he is just such a good baby and so big too. It is amazing to me how much bigger he is than Alex was at the same age. I am already putting him in 3 to 6 month size clothes and everything. Anyway overall it was just another boring week, but it has been nice and I have been thinking about just how blessed I really am. Oh and for anyone who is looking for a good family movie to watch, Nim's Island is really cute. I just watched it the other day with Haley, and she and I both really liked it. Haley especially liked the animals. I don't have much else to say and I need to go and feed Max, but enjoy conference and spring and all the blessings of life because we truly are blessed with so much. We just tend to focus on what we don't have more often than we should and I am definitely guilty of that.

My sister in law sent this to me and I just thought it was something everyone should think about in this day and age of texting. I felt bad for the poor woman who this happened too, but maybe her story can help us to be more cautious.

This lady has changed her habit of how she lists her names on her mobile phone after her handbag was stolen. Her handbag, which contained her cell phone, credit card, wallet... etc...was stolen.. 20 minutes later when she called her hubby, from a pay phone telling him what had happened, hubby says 'I received your text asking about our Pin number and I replied a little while ago.' When they rushed down to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cellphone to text 'hubby' in the contact list and got hold of the pin number. Within 20 minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account. Moral of the lesson: Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list. Avoid using names like Home, Honey,Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad , Mom, etc..... And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through texts, CONFIRM by calling back!! Also, when you're being text by friends or family to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them. If you don't reach them, be very careful about going places to meet 'family and friends' who text you. Along with that if you have an entry called 'Home' with your actual home phone number it's not too hard to do a reverse look up on the number to find the address. now the robber has your home number, keys, AND address.