THANK YOU!!!

I asked and you came to my rescue. A big thank you to my cousin, Donna for finding me a site to make my blog a book. I just ordered it and it should be here within the next week or so. Yay! If you're interested in doing one yourself, see the widget on the right side of this page and scroll down just little. Happy blogging!

HELP!

I've decided to get this first year of this blog made into a book. The website that I originally found when I started this is no longer in business. Any ideas?

About Justin...

Justin decided he didn't want to play baseball after all this season. He's always loved swimming lessons during the summer, so when I drove by a big advertisement on Jefferson for indoor swimming lessons that are year-round, I knew we found the perfect thing for him. He started yesterday and will take once a week for as long as he loves it. During the summer I plan to take him out of this place and put him in the one through the city because it's cheaper and he can learn diving. This place that he's signed up for presently doesn't offer diving, but they do have a swim team once they reach a certain level. It's great because they only allow 3 kids to a class and get much more individual attention and are really working on correct technique. He can swim and I thought he was fine, but they are backing up and really teaching him the correct movements for all the different strokes. He's very excited to be back in the pool again!

Also, he received a golf belt loop that was awarded to him on Thursday night. He just loves scouts. Congratulations Justin!

Mormon Battalion Scout Hike

Yesterday Justin's Scout troop, along with the Scouts from Murrieta, did a 4 mile hike down a river bed in honor of the Mormon Battalion. They had to march with a wooden rifle to be able to feel what it was like for the Battalion, along with a wooden box to be like their ammunition. There were about 10 different stops along the way where someone would talk to them about what they went through back then. Justin really had a good time and learned a lot. I think he was most impressed that at one point the Battalion walked 100 miles with no water or food in the middle of summer. Can you imagine going through that? I'm so impressed that he learned so much about this important history of our church and country.
Isn't he just the cutest little Battalion member?

At one point they had to climb up a cement bank. Kirk says this angle makes it look steeper than it really was. It looks pretty impressive! Oh. Did I mention Kirk went on this hike too? He's a scout leader, so he had a group to take as well.

I'm grateful to all those that gave of their time to make this happen for the boys. It was a wonderful experience for them and something that Justin will remember for a very long time.

Fun times with friends

Today for play school one of the moms set up a field trip to the fire station. My first thought was oh no! But then I had to remind myself how much growing up Devin did over Christmas break. When I told him we were going he was very excited. And he did great! He really had a fun time and was good at standing there and listening. I was so proud of him and so happy! At one point on the tour of the fire house the fireman showed the kids what to do if your clothes catch fire. He told them to stop, drop and roll and that's what Devin did...right over the fireman's legs. He had fun rolling around down there with his new friend.
So much fun!
Then later we had Avery's friends from church/school over for a couple of hours. They had a great time. For snack they decorated their own cookies with the left-over frosting I had from last weeks play school. Fun times!

Just a note of something Devin said last week that shocked me and thrilled me and I don't want to forget. I was up in my room putting laundry away with the door closed. I heard the kids fighting downstairs and then Devin came quickly up the stairs yelling for me. So, I opened the door and asked him what was wrong. He said "Avery's being mean". I asked him what she did not thinking he would really tell me, but he surprised the heck out of me with "Avery said you're stupid"! And he certainly wasn't happy about it. I know that this little tattling bit doesn't seem like much, but it really is. It just shows us how much more in tune he is to what is going on around him and is learning from his brother and sister. That just made my day!

This past week

There have been a couple things that I didn't get to posting in the past week, so I'll just combine the two right now.

Last Wednesday we started up play school again after Christmas break and it was my turn on the rotation. I chose the theme "All About Me" and centered the activities on the children's uniqueness. One of the activities was using finger paint to do a foot print and hand print of each child. They really enjoyed that. They got to trace their names, color their faces according to their own color of eyes and hair and for snack we had sugar cookies that they got to frost and decorate however they wanted. It was a fun time!

Justin and Avery are both starting up baseball next month, so on Saturday Kirk took them to assessments. Dummy me thought I had signed them up with the same league that Justin played a couple of years ago and we were very happy with, but then came to find out I signed them up for Little League. I suppose it will be okay. We're just a little sad that Avery will be playing with a "T" when she doesn't need it. But it will still be good experience and fun for her. Here's to a fun season of lots of games and practices!

And I'm just throwing this one in for good measure. Aren't they a good lookin' bunch? :-)

Happy birthday to you

Yesterday was Kirk's dads 85th birthday. You'd never know he's 85. He's still golfing a few times a week! We went to Kirk's brother's house to celebrate and hang out. The kids had a great time! We had pizza and cupcakes and played outside. Fun stuff. We had picked his parents up to take them, so when we went to drop them off it was decided we would go to dinner first. It was a good day.

Happy 2009!

We didn't do anything special for New Year's Eve. We've never been big on the celebration. Kirk has been sick, so he went to bed by 9:00. I let Justin and Avery stay up for as long as they wanted. They played Wii and had a good time, but by 10:20 Justin was ready to call it a night. Avery was only 10 minutes longer. I stayed up and read my book only until 11:00 and then hit the hay myself. Today the kids played and I found them piled on top of each other, so I grabbed the camera and took the above picture. I have noticed a really big change in Devin over this winter break. He's made a lot of progress and I think it has to do with having Justin and Avery home all day every day. He's learning from them and it's so evident. He's joining in with them and wanting to play everything they play and even his speech has broadened. It's amazing to watch and we are so happy! So, back to today. We later headed out to see the movie Bedtime Stories. I can't get over how good Devin is at the movie theater. I only took him one other time over the summer and wondered if he'd be just as good and he was! He just loves it! I came prepared with baggies to split up the popcorn and our own flavored water pouches. It was a fun afternoon spent with just our family.