Preschool Graduation

This past semester, Graham attended a preschool that was run by students at Oxnard High School. He loved it! I'm not sure how much Graham got out of it, academically speaking, but he loved the attention he got from all the high school students and he looked forward to it each week. He went on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Here he is with two of his buddies, twins, Zephr and Cypress. We always had to wait at the gate for the students to come pick up the kids and these two boys were always there ready to play as we waited.
Enjoying some grub

Here's Grambo with some buddies from class. Tylei and Kylan. They're also in our ward. It was so nice to be able to have play dates right after school and have their moms to help with carpooling and such. Grant, Graham's best bud, was out of town for the party.

Here's my buddy with his graduation certificate.

Here's one of the teachers that always got a kick out of Graham. I can't remember his name.

Graham turns 5 in August, but we've decided to have him do another year of preschool. We would rather he was one of the oldest and not the youngest. Besides, I'm not ready for him to be away from me every day. He's still my little side kick. He's going to start at another preschool in September.

Lucy's Extra-curriculars

Lucy has been taking a music class this past year. It's called "Let's Play Music". It's a program that teaches them the foundations of music in a fun, new way and gives the kids a strong base to start on piano. We've loved the classes! Lucy was kind of ahead of the game because she had already taken 6 months of piano lessons, but she still enjoyed the classes. It's a 3 year program and sadly, our teacher isn't going to be teaching next year. So.....it's back to piano lessons this fall.

We attended Lucy's end-of-the-year program in May.

This is Lucy with her teacher and my dear friend, Alexis. We love her and her sweet family. Lucy once asked me why I can't be a nice Mom, like Sister Thunell.
Here's Lucy and Cameron in between songs. In this song they were doing the hand signs for do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do. My favorite song was called "Bugs". It taught the different timing for all the notes.
Check out this awesome dessert! It's a piano made out of Twinkies and Kit Kat Bars.

Lucy has also been taking a gymnastics class since January. She is so good! I'm always very impressed as I watch her. She flew right through level 1 and she's excelling in level 2.

The pictures are a bit blurry because the studio is kind of dark. Here she is on the uneven bars. She has such a wiry little body and she's quite strong.

Here's the balance beam.

One of her favorite things is when they climb the rope. She can get all the way to the top and she's super quick.

It's so fun to see her develop her talents and try new things. She's also our little fish! She'll be taking swimming lessons next month.

Family Home Evening with the Rays

Back in May, the Ray clan had a couple Family Home Evenings that were picture worthy.

The first one is of our Missionary FHE. We talked a little bit about what full-time missionaries do. We spent the majority of the time discussing why we need to be good examples and share the gospel with our friends. I wrote down some questions down on slips of paper that people might ask us and we practiced answering them. We thought it would be fun to have the kids practice being missionaries and asked them the questions and come up with answers together.

Here's Elder Ray and Elder Ray

Here they are answering one of the questions from the bowl. Graham looks so deep in thought. He really took this role seriously ;) .

The kids would go into the room under the stairs and knock on it like it was our door. We answered and they introduced themselves. Here's Sister and Elder Ray.
Cheeser Ben-O was an awesome investigator.

These other pictures are from a lesson that Jason gave on the importance of work. He really just wanted help getting our nasty back yard weeded and cleaned up. He shared some quotes from Pres. Hinckley and then we all got in our grubs and worked.

Ben cheered us on as he played with his super heroes.


As we dug through the dirt, we came across a whole lotta snails. Graham started a "snail collection" of his very own. Here they are with a couple of their finds. Notice the two of them found it necessary to wear their soccer cleats (we had our first practice that same week).

Funny Lucy strikin' a pose.

As our kids get a little older, I'm finding our Family Home Evenings to be more enjoyable. There are still many times when I wonder why I bothered because it seems that I yelled at them more than I taught them. But, the more consistent we are, the more effective and worthwhile they become. Yes, we miss more than we should and sometimes it's just a quick little review on what they learned in church that week and then we just play. But, I know that we have been promised that if we put forth the effort, our families will be blessed.

I know that our Heavenly Father wants us to be successful as parents and wants our children to thrive. He gave us families to help us through this tough life. I'm so grateful for my little family and my extended family. I am truly blessed.

Benny Boy's Ear Trouble

Poor Ben-O has had a rough time in the ear department. Since he was about 9 months old, it seems his nose has never stopped running. He had many ear infections during his first year, but he got a whopper of an infection in September and it wouldn't ever clear up. So, in December, he had tubes put in.

Here's the cute little guy pre-operation.
Waiting with Daddy

Well, we had hoped that tubes would put an end to our woes, but no such luck. His nose continued to run like crazy and at every follow-up appointment his tubes were plugged up. No bueno. At three different appointments, I had to hold him down as they used a little hook and vacuum to clear out each the plug and mucus. He would scream and scream while I tried not to cry. Absolutely horrible.

We are going to the doctor every 3 weeks now in hopes of avoiding that traumatic experience. We do a saline spray twice a day and occasional drops to help keep his ears clear. For a while I was convinced that he has allergies (my other two kids do), but his doctor is not convinced. The boy never goes longer than a few days without a runny nose and then it comes back and he's leaking like a faucet again. Needless to say, I no longer judge the parents of snotty-nosed children. I used to think, "Could you get the child a Kleenex already? Is it really that hard to wipe your kid's nose?" Now I understand how hard it is to keep up with a nose that never stops. I don't usually even notice it anymore.

Luckily, this kid is so darn adorable. The snot just adds to his charm!

Here he is, rockin' the ear band that keeps his ears dry. It doesn't get much cuter than that!

Here's another one of his cheesy grins. I love my little man!

Mother's Day

I had an absolutely fabulous Mother's Day! Jason and the kids made it so very memorable and happy for me.

It started with an excellent sleep-in followed by an excellent breakfast. Jason made me some french toast and broccoli eggs (with cheese....love 'em). My favorite part of the meal was when Jason was putting my food on the "You Are Special" plate and Graham was super ticked that he didn't have one, too. Apparently, he missed the Mother's Day memo explaining that it's my day, not his. Lucy was trying to make Graham happy, so she got out paper plates and wrote his name on it. As you can probably guess, Graham continued to cry and I had to smile at the ironic moment I was experiencing.

Lucy went shopping with Jason and got me some great gifts. The rockin' sunglasses I'm wearing, a pack of gum, and a precious picture telling me how awesome I am. Who wouldn't love that loot?

After church, Lucy made me lunch and I got to take a long, uninterrupted nap.

The best part of the day came after naptime. We had our friends, the Cowley's, over for some amazing sweet and sour chicken, courtesy of Jason. He also made some homemade ice cream that we all enjoyed together.

After the Cowley's left, we got out the microphone from our Rock Band set and Lucy sang a few songs that she wrote for me. Love that girl!

Graham wanted to sing me a tune or two, too.

I was able to talk them into singing me a couple primary songs together.

Ben thought it was pretty fun, too.

Jason surprised me with tickets to see SugarLand in concert next month! We're going to have a little weekend away in San Diego. So excited and sooo surprised!

During all the talks at church I get a little sad that I don't get to spend the day with my mom. I would love to give her a big hug and have some time to share with her and the rest of my family. I am so blessed to have her as my mother. She helps me through so many tough times and helps me keep perspective as I raise my kiddos.

During another meeting at church, I got to thinking about my mother-in-law and wishing I had been able to get to know her better. What a special lady she was and I'm so grateful for the wonderful son she raised.

A fabulous day with my sweet little family.

Our Housing Dilemma

Life around here has been a little crazy this past month. I wanted to journal a little bit about what's been going on with us and our little family.

I'll start at the beginning. When we first moved to Oxnard in August of 2009, we lived on the military base. The housing was nice enough, just kinda snug. We found out the end of that year that we would be staying in Oxnard for another two years, so we decided to move into something bigger off base. So, we found a home we really liked and moved into it May of 2010. We love our neighborhood! We got a great deal on a large home with plenty of room for visitors. It's a gated community, so I feel a little bit safer when Jason is away for work and there's a community pool just 1/2 block away.



Well, in January, Jason and I found out that the house we are renting was being put up for sale. Awesome. Our one year lease was up in May of this year, so we were told we needed to be out of the house by the end of April. We weren't way concerned at first because we figured it would take a while for it to sell and we would be able to decide what to do. We wrote a letter to the home owners (an investment group) and asked if they would consider taking it off the market until the summer of 2012, but instead, they just gave us one more month to find something to move into.



If this situation wasn't stressful enough, add to it that I still hadn't decided if I was going to move the kids and I home to Utah during Jason's deployment that starts the end of the summer. Many, many factors were being considered and it seemed like my feelings on the matter changed almost daily. We could save A LOT of money if I moved home, but I just felt that I should keep some continuity for the kids and stay here. But, now that we were going to have to move anyways, the decision was complicated to say the least. I felt very overwhelmed, knowing that ultimately it was my choice and my family would do whatever I decided. Jason offered advice and counsel, but knowing that I was the one that would have to deal with the consequences of my choice, we both understood that I would have to be the one to decide. Talk about pressure! This for a woman that has a hard time deciding what to have for breakfast or whether to wash a load of laundry in hot or warm water. Let's just say decision making is not my strong suit.



So, in the meantime, we started looking for available homes to rent. We really wanted to be within walking distance of Lucy's school (like we are now) and we wanted to stay in the same ward. We looked at some homes that were okay. Most of them were in the same ward, but most definitely not within walking distance. We just never felt good about any of them. All the while, we were praying to know what was going to be the best situation for our family in the coming year and a half. I had come to the decision that we should try to find a home here and stay in the area. I wanted Lucy to go to the same school for two years and even though I knew the support at home would be a huge help, it's more important that I keep life as much the same as I possibly can while Jason is away. We found out the end of April that the house had been sold and we would most definitely have to be moved by May 31st. This put the pressure to find something close a little stronger, but we both felt that something would work out. I felt we were continually blessed with a feeling of peace. Those that know me well can attest to the fact that under stressful situations, I don't normally "keep my cool". There were a couple small breakdowns that lasted just a few minutes (thanks, Mom, for listening to my rants), but I continually surprised myself with how unstressed I really was. I know that it was the Lord bringing me comfort and as we prayed, we knew something would come up.

I continued to look every day (sometimes 6 or 7 times a day) on Craigslist for a home. I would get my hopes up about a home, then go see it and be let down because the price was to high or it just didn't feel like where we were supposed to be. It got to be the first week in May and "crunchtime" was officially here.

A few days into the month, our neighborhood was having it's annual garage sale. We decided to go check them out and made our way up and down the streets. We got to one house and I realized that I knew the owner's of the house. We had visited at the pool a couple of times. We got talking and started chatting about how the house we are living in was sold and we're looking for something close. She went on to say that her elderly parents live around the corner and they were planning on moving them out to his brother's house in Somis. Long story short, they were going to start renting it out the beginning of June! We went and saw it that next Monday and felt great about it! We have somewhere to go and it's in our same neighborhood! The people we'll be renting from are absolutely fabulous. So kind and gracious. As we were leaving the house after we decided to start renting it, I told the owner's that we felt it was truly an answer to a prayer and we feel very blessed. They went on to say they felt the same way and knew it was meant to be.

I knew this is a long post, but I wanted to record this experience for my family. My testimony was strengthened through this small trial we were given. I have no doubt that the Lord is aware of me and my little family. He wants to pour out blessings to us, but first we have to come to Him and show faith. There are moments when I feel so confused and completely overwhelmed when I think about the future and what we'll face, but I know that He will provide a way for us to get through it.

So, we're throwing in another move, just for the fun of it. Now, if only I could get motivated to pack up some of the house.

Goofy Graham

What to say about my little guy Graham. This guy is as crazy and intense as ever. Ever since he was a baby, it's been all or nothin' with this kid. He's either all happy or all mad and occasionally all sad. No middle ground. The beauty of this sensitive little man is that he can go from one emotion to another at the drop of a hat. It's actually quite impressive.

I love it when he wakes up ten or fifteen minutes early and comes and lays in bed with me for a little while. We sometimes talk about what he dreamed about or he tells me stories he makes up. He asks for breakfast and I tell him that we'll get up when the clock says seven, zero, six (or something close to that). Graham gives me the play by play as the digital clock changes with each minute. Then we get up and tell Lucy it's time for breakfast. We grab Ben (if he hasn't already joined us in bed) and head downstairs for some eatin'. Graham always has one or two waffles with peanut butter and syrup. He's always ticked when they are gone and begs me to make them. I, as previously mentioned, always say no. Then he has to settle for toast with PB and dry cereal (he hates milk on his cereal, but likes to eat it with a spoon).

After breakfast, we head back upstairs and I begin the constant nagging for Lucy and Graham to get ready. Lucy and Graham always seem to play together best in the mornings when they are supposed to be getting dressed, not playing. Graham always wants "help" getting dressed. I pick out an outfit and assure him that he can do it himself.

Eventually, we get Lucy off to school and I load up Graham and Ben to go to the gym for a bit. Graham always wants to choose a little toy to bring with him in the car and to the gym's Kids Club. I love our conversations on our drive to and from the gym. Most of the time it's about whether or not he can go to Grant's house to play or if he can play the computer when he gets home. He prefaces a lot of his thoughts with, "Oh! I have a good idea, Mom!" or he follows his thought with, "Did I have a good idea, Mom?"

Graham is always ticked off when it's time to leave anywhere. If it's time for me to check him out at the Kid's Club or I'm picking him up from a friend's house.....there's always drama. I'll give him a pep talk before I drop him off in hopes that when I come get him he won't make a scene. Sometimes it helps, but not usually.

On Mondays, Wednesday, and Thursdays, I drop little buddy off at preschool on the way home from the gym. It's just a few blocks away at Oxnard High. The high school students run the program with a great teacher supervising them. He loves it! He gets lots of attention and gets to play with kids that think he's hilarious. We're going to do one more year of preschool next year before kindergarten. I think we'll try a school with a little more structure and curriculum, but this one has been great for now.

Graham loves to play on the computer. He usually plays on playhouse Disney, but occasionally he'll do pbskids.org. It's a fabulous bribery tool and it works well for punishment purposes, too ("If you don't do _____, you won't get to play on the computer today. Ya' know, that kinda thing.) He always wants to play on Jason's IPhone, too. Quite the gamer. For this reason, we will not own a Wii for a looooong time. I don't want to deal with that fight every day.

I wish I could get a dose of the confidence juice that Graham is drinking. He has no doubt in his mind that he's "better at this" than everybody. Today, I did my workout at home with the help of a Jillian Michael's video. Graham popped down on the floor and started trying to do the exercise I was doing. I told him he was doing great and he rebutted with a, "I'm better than you at this, huh." If you tell him he's doing a good job, he assumes that means he's better at it than everybody (namely Lucy, Dad, or myself).

His latest thing is that he thinks all girls love him. I'll ask him, "Graham, what did you do at Tylei's house today?" He'll say, "I played with Isabel and Carson. Isabel loves me." He went with me to pick up the babysitter this weekend and as she and I walked out of the house, Jason heard him say from the backseat, "Oh! I know her! She loves me!" Graham offered the family prayer before bed on Saturday night. He said something like this, "Thank you that we got to play at Katelyn's house and thank you that she loves me."

We signed Grahammer up for soccer this month. I'm actually going to coach his team. Hopefully, he'll survive the season. Our first practice is Friday. Eleven 4-6 year olds. Wish me luck!!

Here's some of my favorite Graham-isms as of late:

• He says "actually" instead of "accidentally". For example, I might ask, "Why is Ben crying?" He would say, "I actually stepped on his head." Ya. I'm believin' that.



• He calls the remote, the "greemote".



• Instead of "without", he says, "about".



• He calls earrings, "aliens".


• He asked the other night, "Why are there so many Jerusalems in the scriptures?" What?




• Last, but not least: About a month ago I heard Lucy yelling for help. I went upstairs to check it out and I heard Graham say, "I'll get off of you, if you would just give me a hug!" When I reached the bedroom, Graham was laying on top of Lucy and wouldn't let her up.

Life with Graham is never boring. We love our Graham Cracker!