Random Stuff

We went to Chuck E Cheese with Valerie and my friend Rachel and her kids.  We had a great time!  For some reason I only managed to take a couple of pictures and the ones that came out the best were only of Blair.  Haha!  Kind of funny how that works out.

Blair on the huge rocking horse.

Blair on the swing.  She LOVED this thing.  I swear she spent the majority of her tokens on this thing.  If you look closely Valerie and Dyer are in the background.  

I wanted to take family pictures before church, but of course that didn't work out so we tried to get some after church.  This happened to be the best one:

Silly Easton!

It's a bird!  It's a plane!  It's Easton!

Easton and Blair are in gymnastics together this time!  Luckily for Easton there is another boy in the class.  I was a little worried that he would be the only boy.The first class was really crazy since there were double the amount of kids and they were a lot younger than the kids Blair was with the first time.  There should be two teachers next time the meet.

Video of Blair on the balance beam with a little help:

She is getting a lot better!

Video of Easton on the beam :

Video of Easton doing high kicks on the beam:

Not sure what was going on with my camera.

Video of Blair doing high kicks:

Video of Easton doing the beam all by himself:

Video of Blair doing the beam by herself:

Video of Easton jumping on the trampoline: 

Video of Blair jumping on the trampoline:

I'm constantly shutting the bathroom doors and telling Easton and Blair all the time to shut the door to the bathroom because Dyer LOVES to play with/in the toilet.  He loves to splash in the water.  He loves to put anything and everything (especially toilet paper) in the toilet.  And apparently his new not so favorite thing is to put himself into the toilet!  Luckily once he somehow manages to get himself into the toilet he's not a huge fan!  This was the second time I caught him in the toilet so I had to get it on film since I didn't the first time.  Here's Dyer in all his glory:

Wouldn't you think if you didn't like it the first time that you probably shouldn't do it again?  I guess he just had to make sure!  He hasn't done it since so maybe he has learned his lesson.

 Such good helpers!

 Blair rolling out her dough for her own pizza!

Easton putting cheese on his own pizza!

Children's Museum

We took the kids to the children's museum just outside San Francisco.  We thought most of the museum would be inside but we were wrong.  We all looked and felt rather silly in short sleeves and shorts when the weather outside was below 60 degrees.  We saw many people walking around with scarfs and coats.  It was that cold!  We still managed to have a good time despite the fact that we were freezing.

Nathan and Dyer walking to the Children's Museum.

See how cold my kids are?

Easton's face says it all!  Do you notice the wind blowing the grass?

Dyer checking things out!

Easton and Blair drawing with chalk.

Blair found a xylophone.

 Video of Easton and Blair playing the xylophones together:

Dyer got in on the action too!

Easton and Dyer playing with the foam blocks and noodles.

Dyer loved this!

Video of Dyer:

Dyer enjoyed crawling through Easton's road.  Easton however wasn't a huge fan.

Easton with his finished road/tunnels.  

Do you notice all the people in the background?  They all were smart and wore pants and long sleeves.

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from the museum.

Blair chilling out in a tunnel.

Blair and Dyer playing in the rocks/construction zone.

Blair climbing on top of the boat.

Easton and Blair climbing to the crow's nest.

Easton's first day of Kindergarten!!!

Easton started Kindergarten on August 22nd.  I know he was really excited to go to Kindergarten but I could tell that he was pretty nervous about it too.  He got to meet his teacher (Ms. Crummey-Smith) two days before school started and I think that helped a lot.  He found out that one of his good friends from preschool/church was going to be in his class.  I could tell that he was really excited about this and I was glad that he had at least one person he knew pretty well in his class. 

Video of Easton the morning of his first day of kindergarten:

We went out the day before school started and bought him some clothes and his back pack.  I don't generally wait until the last minute but I didn't realize until we met his teacher (two days before school started) that he needed a BIG back pack so off we went!

Easton

Dinosaur back pack!  

I had to get a picture of his bag because it cracks me up how big it is on him.  I wouldn't be surprised if we could squish Easton up in a ball and fit him inside of it.

Attempt #2 at getting all the kids in a group shot.  Dyer is still not cooperating.  

Of course we had to do a silly one!

I'm excited that I get to start volunteering in Easton's class this week.  Valerie said she would take Dyer for me so I could help out so I'm helping out twice a month when Blair's at preschool.  

After the first week of school I asked Easton if he still liked school and he said, "Not a whole lot because I don't like to get up early, I don't like to walk to school, and I REALLY don't like to work!"  Haha!  Well Mr. Easton you better get used to it because you have 9 1/2 more months of kindergarten and at least 13+ years of school left!  Wish us luck this year!

Blair's first day of pre-school

Blair finally started her first official day of preschool on the 14th of August.  She was so excited and is still excited about preschool.  She only goes twice a week (Tues. and Thurs.) but she asks everyday if she gets to go to "PEE-school".  She gets upset when it's not her day to go.  Speaking of PEE...Blair is officially potty trained!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Did you notice all the exclamation marks? Ya, you could say that I'm pretty excited about this.  I kept telling her that she couldn't go to preschool until she was potty trained (this was my rule not Valerie's.  Valerie would have let Blair go anyways).  Almost everyday for a whole month I was counting down the days for her.  Seriously two days before preschool started was when she finally decided to go full time on the toilet.  Not sure what to label this one....clever, stubborn, turkey....maybe all the above!  In any case I finally found something that motivated her enough, even if she waited until the last minute.  About a week later she was night time potty trained as well.  WAY TO GO BLAIR!!!

Happy little girl!

Thanks to gymnastics Blair likes to pose like this too!

Tried to get pictures of all the kids together.  Ya, that didn't work out all that well.

I thought standing in the windows might work well for Dyer since he generally loves looking and playing in the windows.  That didn't last long enough.

One in the middle together...

Dyer's gone but these two sure are cute!

Best Big Brother Award here!  

Easton was insistent that he carry Blair's back pack for her.

And he's ready to go...

One more group shot!

Blair started school a week before Easton so while she was at school the boys and I took a trial run to see how long it would take us to walk/ride to Easton's school.

Easton rode his bike and it actually takes him longer to ride his bike then to walk.

Easton standing outside his school.

The 14th also marked mine and Nathan's 8th anniversary.  We celebrated with the kids by eating cake.

Happy Anniversary Handsome!  Love you always!

Gymnastics

Blair had tons of fun with gymnastics (nastics-as Blair calls it) and can't wait until her next set of classes to start.

"Swimming through the foam pit"

Video of Blair on the beam:

Blair on the beam

 Video of Blair doing a somersault:

Video of Blair doing a back somersault:

End of a back somersault

Hanging on the bars

Last day of nastics

Waving!

Video:

Blair's supposed to run, jump, and land on both feet in a continuous motion.   She is, however, doing a lot better than the last time they worked on this.

Video:

I just had to include this one because it makes me laugh/smile to see her twirl around.

Water Park

Last time my sister came into town (2 years ago) we went to the water park and that is the one place her kids remembered and wanted to go to.  So we made it happen the last day they were in town.  First off in the morning Nathan wanted to take the kids black berry picking.  We packed up the older four kids and headed to a local farm.  Unfortunately the farm was closed so we weren't able to pick any berries but we didn't come home empty handed.  We stopped in at a local fruit stand and picked up a bunch of fruit and veggies.  On the car ride there I put some kid songs on and all the kids got into it.

Video of the kids singing:

I made sure Ashlyn had her seat belt on correctly after I filmed this...

Blair giving Daddy kisses.

Water Park:

Easton Swinging on the ropes.

Heading to the squirt guns and slide.

Aunt Jacqui (which Blair referred to as Princess) helping Blair squirt the guns.  Blair was attached to Jac's hip almost the whole time.  Hopefully Jac didn't mind.

Dyer and I and of course Aunt Jac with Blair.

Gma with Adisyn and Blair.

Blair, Adisyn, Gma and Dyer

Dyer in his typical stance.  He loves to just squat!

Dyer loves chairs!  

When Adisyn's car seat became available he didn't waste anytime climbing in.

After swimming the girls got dressed up in their matching outfits.

Blair, Adisyn and Ashlyn

 Typical nighttime routine for Blair...

Sneaking out of bed.  If she can't see you...You can't see her!

Peak a boo!

 Not entirely sure what these next pictures are all about but Jac had my camera and apparently had some fun with it.  In case you were wondering this is my mom who is a supermodel...

Nice!

Lovely!

Cute!

Sexy!

I've got like 50 pictures of my mom jumping (multiple pictures rapidly taken one after another-it's like a video  taken in pictures).  

Of course there had to be a few pictures of my mom doing the famous "bend and snap"!

Bend...

 ...and snap!

I sure love you Mommy!  

Thanks again you two for coming to visit.  It was a lot of fun!  We definitely need to do this again sometime!