First Day of School

I can't believe my little Lucy has started kindergarten! Her first day was Monday. She is absolutely loving it. We are excited about her teacher, Mrs. Fees. She loves her job and she has been teaching for a long time.

It takes us less than 5 minutes to walk to her school in the morning. It's right behind our house. Lucy has been pretty ticked off at me because I haven't been letting her ride her bike. Tomorrow we're going to give it a shot. Here she is in front of her class on the first day. She was getting a little nervous.
She wore this dress the second day. She was happy to have her backpack like all the other kids did the day before.

Happy Birthday to Lucy!

How did she go from this..........

to this, so quickly?

Lucy's birthday was last Thursday. We had a princess birthday party at our house on Saturday. Everyone came in their favorite princess dress-up (except for Gavin, he came as Prince Caspian). We had 12 four and five year olds at our house for a couple hours. Crazy town!

Here's Lucy the day before her party helping make some signs for our party decorations. She was so excited for everyone to see her work.
We started the festivities with some Royal Freeze. The kiddos danced to some princess music until the music stopped and they had to freeze. We saw some pretty kickin' moves from all those in attendance.

Next we moved on to pizza. The table conversations were pretty hilarious. Lots of jokes and lots of giggles. Anyone with kids 3 and up have had their full share of knock-knock jokes. We had a full 20 minutes of non stop, nonsense joke telling.
After pizza they all got to decorate their own little crowns with flowers and jewels. Jason makes a beautiful tiara. He was quite the little helper with the younger girls.
We played a couple more games and then it was on to brownies and ice cream. Lucy doesn't like cake, so she requested brownies instead (takes after her dad, the choco-holic).
It was a crazy few hours, but Lucy had a great time and it was worth it. Although, it'll be a few years before we have another one at our house. Sheesh!

Little Get-Aways

I absolutely love little trips that give me something to look forward to. This past week we had two of them. A little crazy, but super fun!

Jason and I got to get away for a night on our own. We worked out a babysitting swap with some of our wonderful friends here in Lemoore. Caroline watched our kids while we made our way to Monterrey, CA. We got a much needed break with time to relax.

Jason and I at Cannery Row. Lovin' the daisies!

We drove around Carmel looking for a good restaurant. What a beautiful area right on the coast. I could definitely live there. After dinner we went and saw a movie. The next morning we made our way to Cannery Row and shopped a little bit. All in all it was a great trip and it was so nice to have some time to ourselves. Thank you Gilbert family!

We left on Monday for a little trip to San Diego. Jason had a conference there, so the kids and I decided to tag along. Hotel and food paid for.......why not? We stayed at the Coronado Navy Lodge again. We decided to start calling this our vacation home because we've been lucky enough to stay there 3 times this year already. We love it It's right on the beach and there's a fabulous park that the kids play on for hours.

Lucy and I at the beach overlooking downtown San Diego

I always enjoy our time there. Every time we go, we meet the most interesting people. It's on a military base, so we meet people from all over the world and in different stages of life. I'm always amazed at how quickly the children become friends and play their hearts out.
Our last night there, they showed a movie on the beach. The kids played at the park and Jason and I played a little volleyball while we waited for it to start.

Graham playing in the moonlight

Hanging at the beach, going out to dinner, spending time with family.......life is good!

Trip to Temecula

A couple weeks back we drove down to Temecula (near LA) to visit some family. We stayed at my cousin, Ashlee's, house. We had cousins and friends to hang with all weekend long. We had such a fabulous time.

Here's Dad and the kiddos hanging out at the pool. Ashlee has a neighborhood pool that is so nice. We had the whole place to ourselves!
Here's Lucy with Ashlee's twins, Mia and Sadie. They are absolutely adorable and we had so much fun getting to know them.
We had a little birthday celebration for all the August birthdays in attendance. We went to El Torito for dinner. Graham had the waiters laughing and playing with him. Lucy had a fun time joking around with cousins, Nate and Rob. The ridiculous name calling went on for hours. Here's Nate trying to teach her how to "present".

Lucy, Nate, Brad, Ashlee, Jaime, Rob, Taylor, Bev, Jim, Jason

Afterwards, we headed back for some amazing birthday cake. Here's Lucy and Taylor blowing out the candles. The cake was absolutely delicious!

I wish I would have gotten a picture of Graham with the dogs. He freaked out with laughter and yelling when we first got there. A "love-hate" relationship developed soon after. He thought they were absolutely fabulous, until Baxter would jump on him. I loved hearing him call for "Lola".
We headed back to Lemoore on Sunday afternoon after eating dinner with everybody. We were sad to leave, but Jason had work the next day. We left them quite a gift, though. Graham gave the twins his hand-foot-mouth virus that we thought he was over. We're the best parents ever! Sorry again, Ashlee!

My Little Boy

Graham is growing much too fast for my liking. This past month everyone has been commenting on how big he is getting. He looks more like a little boy and less like a baby. It makes me a little sad, although it's nice to be able to understand more of what he's trying to tell us.
Since Graham was just months old, he has jabbered and blabbered to us. He turns heads at the store as he talks and talks and talks at full volume. People look at me, waiting for a translation, but I just say, "Your guess is as good as mine." We were beginning to wonder if he would ever begin to babble in the English language or remain speaking in "Grahamganese".
This is Graham in his favorite hat that he wears quite a bit. One night he decided he had to wear it too bed. When we got him up, he still had it on and insisted on wearing it during breakfast.

The last few months he has been putting it together and we can understand quite a bit. When I think back to this stage in his life, their our so many things I hope I remember. Here's just a few:

-How he says, "Mama". It sounds French. Hard to explain unless you've heard it.

-He calls Jason, "Nanny" instead of Daddy.

-The kid is not even 2 yet and he knows most of his letters. The first time he did it, I was like, "We gotta get this boy on Oprah!" It's hilarious!

-One of his first understandable words was "stuck!" He uses it all the time. Today he got his finger crunched in the door and after we got him feeling better, he kept showing me his finger and saying, "Stuck.....stuck.....stuck."

-His newest saying is "That's fun!" Although, it sounds more like, "Das bun!" Lucy, Jason, and Graham play this game where they yell "Noses!" and they all put their noses together. Afterwards, Graham always yells, "Das bun!"

-The kid refuses to learn the word, "Milk". He begs for water and then when I give it to him, he freaks out because he wants milk. He'll sign it, but not until I've already handed him water and he's ticked off.

-Graham still yells.....a lot and it sounds an awful lot like he is cursing us. He'll point hard and give an earful to whoever he's mad at.

-Speaking of cursing, he loves to yell, "TRUCK", whenever he sees one. It doesn't sound like truck.

-He's big on making sure he gets his turn. For example: If Lucy gets a hug, he says, "I turn".
I sure love my little boy. I love that when he's upset or hurt, all it takes is a hug and some attention and he's over it. I love that he is so passionate about everything. He gets SO excited about the smallest things. There's no in between with Graham. He's either 100 percent happy and laughing his head off, or he's yelling at you and super ticked off.

We love you, Graham! We can't imagine our lives without our little boy.