Merry Christmas

Luke's Christmas Concert

Anyone that knows Luke knows that he can be a little shy sometimes. Kindergarten has done wonders for bringing him out of his shell a little. At the Christmas concert I didn't know how he would do because he usually doesn't like a lot of people looking at him. He surprised me when he was in the front row singing, doing all the hand motions and not at all worried about how many people were looking at him. It was soooo cute and I will admit I did get a little teary eyed. (He is the 5th person on the front row wearing the red sweater.)

Trevor

Trevor did a solo at the orchestra Christmas concert. He also got a student of the month award for Respect.

Luke's Thanksgiving feast

They ate popcorn, trailmix and pumpkin pie. Kindergarten is such a fun year!

Happy Halloween

Luke started walking on Halloween day. All it took was some bribery with Halloween candy and a little positive peer pressure (we had lots of friends over that wanted candy too). He had gotten his cast off on the 20th of October, but had been afraid to take steps.

DISNEYLAND

In October we took the kids out of school for a week and took a much needed trip to Southern California. We spent a lot of time at Disneyland. With Luke's wheelchair we were very thankful for Courtesy Vans (handicap vans that can load a wheelchair so you don't have to load them on the tram) and a special pass that let us wait at the exit to make transferring Luke onto the ride easier. It was so much fun!

Happy 5th Birthday LUKE!

Have you ever seen someone so excited about a video game? He got Toy Story Mania for the wii and it has been a favorite at our house since.



Luckily Luke was back in school before his birthday (I go for the first hour and he has an aide for the rest of the day). He got to take cookies and m&ms to share with his classmates.

Luke got a new set of wheels (and a red cast)!

It was moving day, and life has a way of not going smoothly for us...


The cabinet that tipped over on Luke.


Yep, broken in 3 places!


He got to pick the color. They cast it with his knee bent so that he can't put any weight on it.


We had some rough days, but I am amazed at how well he is doing just a few weeks later.He can get himself around in his wheelchair (it is pretty cute to watch). Our thanks to everyone who dropped everything and helped us get through our move. : ) We wouldn't have made it without you guys (and everyone who helped before the broken leg). I am thankful we were close to the end when it broke instead of just beginning, and that Luke was ok (it could have been a lot worse).

First day of School.

All smiles in the morning. Trevor starting Middle School - 7th grade. Jake is starting 4th grade and Luke is starting Kindergarten.


When Luke realized mom was not staying at Kindergarten.

Luke had a rough few days, but is going great in Kindergarten.

Trevor becomes a deacon

Trevor was ordained the first Sunday of August by his Dad. Grandma and Grandpa came to visit for the weekend.

Happy 12th Birthday TREVOR!

DISNEYLAND

Trevor's 6th Grade Promotion

Congratulations Trevor!

Father and Sons

Every year there is one night that is more exciting then all the rest. Robert and the boys go camping with others from church. The boys are always excited and I am always excited because I get to be all by myself. We got a tent this year that is big enough for the entire family in case I am ever crazy enough to go camping! The boys loved it and just like last year I am left asking "why can't we have Father's and Sons every month"?

Baseball

Thankfully we survived the baseball season. Robert didn't get ejected from any more games. We did play the Yankees again and unfortunately had the same umpire as the first time. It was the same stuff again but this time Robert didn't open his mouth. He did have to tell me to be quiet once, because I was ready to get thrown out. It stinks when your kids are watching you and you have to do what you are supposed to and not what you REALLY want to do. While I am glad we survived another season I am sad it is over.

One busy 6th Grader

As always I was stunned by the amount of activites shoved into the last few weeks of school. There is already so much going on and then you have to find time to fit in plays, music festivals and science projects YIKES!
Trevor won 1st place in his class for his science project. He tested what temperature of water freezes faster.


Trevor played his violin in the orchestra music festival.


Trevor's class learned about Greek Mythology so they decided to put on a play. Trevor was the Minotaur (half man/half bull). He did great. He even had to sing parts of a song by himself. He was nervous about it, but did really good.

Fresno Zoo

In April a friend and I had an errand to run in Fresno, so we decided to take Luke and Michael to the Fresno Zoo while we were up there. They had fun going while the older kids were in school and getting to pick what animals they wanted to see.

Injury Central

An injury here or there is pretty common in our house. With a houseful of boys it doesn't take much for blood or bruises, but we have had a run of bad luck lately.
One day we were walking in the mall. Luke had tennis shoes on and I was wearing flip flops. He cut in front of me and STOPPED. I walked into him and before I even looked down I knew my toe was broken. It hurt and as you can tell by the black and blue across my foot it was more than my toe. I was supposed to go on a Cub Scout Hike the next day but luckily we were able to get someone else to handle that. I called the Doctor but they said there was nothing they would do. Luke's response to it all was... "Mom, that is why you aren't supposed to wear flip flops".
Then 2 days later we had been swimming at a friends. We were inside and the kids were running around and playing. Luke fell and hit the corner of the wall and comes out to the living room with blood running down his face. We took him to a friend that is a nurse to make sure it didn't need a stitch and we put a butterfly on it.
I think our bad luck has mostly past, but if you hang out with us you might want to be careful just in case!

HAPPY EASTER (just a little late)!

Happy 9th Birthday Jake!

While we were at Grandma's and Grandpa's house in April Jacob turned 9. What could be better than cousins, pizza, cake and video games? THe kids had a blast!

Disneyland

In April we went to Disneyland. We visited California adventure on one day and Disneyland the next. We hadn't been in so long that everyone was excited. Luke is the perfect age and LOVED it! It was a lot of fun. On our second day we took 1 of my neices and 2 of my nephews. I am ashamed to admit it but Robert and I love Disneyland as much as the kids.

Life in a small town

I know I have been neglecting the blog lately but will work on catching it up soon, but today I had an experience that I have to blog about. Frist of all I have to start out by saying when we found out we were moving here (almost two years ago!) I thought I would hate it. "Small town" life isn't for me, I am a Southern California girl. Then we moved here and surprise, surprise I actually like it. I have great friends who go out of there way to help me out and I actually appreciate the small town moments that we have.
Now to today. Luke and I were out running errands. I turned onto Demaree and in front of me there had just been an accident. A man who was crossing the street had just been hit by a car. There were other people stopped to help but by the t shirt held up to the man trying to stop the bleeding it was obvious that nobody had a first aid kit handy. I stopped and got out (and had Luke stay in the car). I took them my first aid kit and bottles of water to clean the blood off the people trying to help (after today Purell will be added to the car kit, I think I took it out for Trevor's scout stuff and never replaced it). Somebody was already on the phone calling 911. The guy driving the car was freaking out and needed a phone to try and call his family. I kept trying to get ahold of his family for him, so I was standing on the street by the accident for a long time.
Now the small town part. A JCPenney employee drove past and saw me and went to work to tell Rob where I was but that I was OK and she didn't think I was part of the accident. Rob called me to check on me and we laughed at what a small town we lived in. Then after I was finally home another friend called because her husband had driven past the accident and saw me out there and she was calling to make sure we were OK and didn't need any help. I am thankful for the other people who live in our "small" town and knowing that when we are on the side of the road (whether we need help or not) people will call to check on us. So if you saw me standing by the ambulance with cop cars/motorcycles all around we are fine. We weren't in the accident and didn't even see it happen. We just stopped to help : )

Robert gets ejected...

I think it is funny to tease Robert about it, but don't want anyone to think he is one of those psycho Little League parents so I am putting the whole story here.
Our boys have been working hard at practice (and when we have nothing going on we go out for even MORE practice) Jake has been working on not swinging when the pitch is high. At yesterday's game Jake was up to bat and had a full count. The final pitch came across his helmet. Jake didn't swing, yes finally all that practice payed off. Unfortunately our umpire called it a strike. I never knew the strike zone included the helmet. Jake was called out and went to the dugout and cried because he had done exactly what dad told him to and he got out. Rob was basecoaching at 1st and at the end of the inning walked back to our dugout. He couldn't resist just one comment to the umpire as he walked past. He said "Good job making a player cry because you couldn't call it right when it came across at his helmet." The umpire gave Robert a warning and Robert walked to our dugout to calm Jake down. Robert was at our dugout door talking to Jake and the other players when the umpire decides to walk towards our dugout and continue the fight with Robert. The umpire then says "You can't argue balls and strikes ump". Robert said "I am not the ump, I am a coach" and for that was ejected from the game. For Robert's temper and what he probably wanted to say I was amazed that he held his tongue and think that it is rediculous that the umpire can walk over to our dugout to continue the problem when Robert is no longer questioning the call and doing what he is supposed to be doing and Robert get's ejected.
Then at Jake's next at bat we were in the last inning and had 2 outs already. Jake got struck out making the final out. This putz of an umpire who has been told that his bad call already made this child cry has to call the strike and the out very exaggerated and over dramatic. He did not call any other strike or out the way he called Jake out. It is pathetic what somebody on their power trip will do, especially when they are supposed to be enforcing sportsmanship.
This is a first in our family, but given our number of boys and their love of baseball I don't think it will be the last time it happens. The more I thought about it the more mad I got. There were other things with the other team that did not even get questioned (the other team manager is also the President of the League go figure) So I got up in the middle of the night to write a letter to the league. We will see what happens. So yes Robert is one of those crazy Little League dad's but not really!

Slow and steady wins 2nd!

Jake decided his pinewood derby car should be a turtle. He made a drawing for me and I said we couldn't do that. We went to a handy dandy tool man for help cutting and he had us a turtle just like jake wanted in a few minutes flat (thank you Todd!). We painted and put wheels on it and got it ready for pinewood derby. Jake won 2nd place and he had lots of fun.

Scouts

Trevor has been just a few requirements away from earning his tenderfoot. The two that gave us problems were the 1/4 mile run and the pull up (Thank you Aaron for help with the pull up). He did these and then had to show improvement and beat his own score. His first time on the 1/4 mile run was 2 minutes 18 seconds and on all of our tries he missed beating that time by a second or two. We tried and tried, and finally got it. Trev was so proud that he did it that he wanted a picture of the watch used to time his run. Finally he actually beat it by 3 seconds. So anyone who lives within ear shot of El Diamante probably hear all of our cheering when he crossed the finish line!

Somebody Stop Me!

I get these really good ideas for things that would be totally cute (like cutting 1,500 stars for Blue and Gold Dinner). Well they would actually be good ideas if I could turn the work over to somebody else and just stand back and see how cute it was. Instead I get these ideas and decide to do them and then when it comes to actually doing them I get annoyed at myself for even thinking of it. Today we did snacks for the baseball team. I decided to make them baseball sugar cookies. They really weren't that much work, but with everything else we have going on at the moment I was thinking I need someone to stop me when I get these ideas. The kids loved them though!