Last day of preschool

Claire had her last day of 3 year old preschool last Thursday. She is already asking when she gets to go back. She cannot understand the concept of "September" or "in 3 months" or "in a little while".
Here she is ready to go on her last day. She loves to pick out what to bring for sharing (in the white bag) and what to bring for her snack (pink bag).

Here is Claire with her teacher Mrs. Beesley. Words cannot express how thankful I am that we know her and have been able to send both of our kids to her preschool. Claire has literally blossomed in front of our eyes. When she started school she was very clingy and cried when she got dropped off by me - not anyone else of course! She has become much more social and says hi to her friends when we see them at parties or at church. She also made a special friend who happens to be a boy. She asks all the time if we can go to Nolan's house. We are sad that he won't be in preschool next year, but her favorite girl friend Ava will! We had a lot of fun carpooling with Ava. They are really funny when they chat with each other in the car.

A last day picture with everyone: Cayden, Nolan, Ben, Mrs. Beesley, Claire, Ava, and Katie. Next year there will be 12 kids in her class including Elaina.

Preschool field trip

At the beginning of each month Claire's preschool teacher puts out a calendar that shows what subject the kids will be learning each school day. Claire loves to get this calendar. Andrew usually reads her each subject and discusses it with her. Well, when May came out Claire was beyond excited that a field trip was on the schedule. She had to wait almost three weeks for the day to finally come. She was been so looking forward to this field trip and rain threatened to cancel it, but it ended up being sunny after all. I went with her class to Emma Prusch Farm in San Jose.

We started out with some pictures on some old tractors. Claire wanted to know what all of the knobs and levers did.

We quickly got to looking at the animals. We saw turkeys (above), chickens, pigs, sheep, cows, goats, ducks, and rabbits.

Claire really wanted me to take a picture of this rooster but I didn't know why. I didn't notice until I downloaded the pictures that the rooster only has one leg!

Here is a picture of Claire with her classmates. It was really bright and they had a hard time looking at the camera.

After looking at the animals the kids played on the playground. Claire, Nolan and Cayden had a great time sliding down and then climbing back up the slide. They did this over and over. We had lunch at the picnic tables and then came home. Claire really wants to go back to show Andrew all of the animals. I was so proud of her because she wasn't clingy at all. She talked to her friends and interacted with her teacher as if I wasn't there. This was a huge improvement over the experience we had at the pumpkin patch where she wouldn't even be in a picture with her friends.

Father's and Son's camp out

Last Friday night our ward had their annual Father's and son's camp out at Pioneer Park in San Juan Bautista. Andrew was very excited to go for the first time. Luckily Danny borrowed a smaller tent from my dad rather than try to put up our super complicated family tent. Unluckily, that tent had issues, but with some help from Chris all was well.

Andrew got right to work playing with his buddy Max. There was a dessert, s'more making and a late night game of capture the flag. They had a lot of fun running around and playing with some of the other older boys.

I told Danny to make sure he took some pictures and he remembered! This is a fun tradition for everyone. Meanwhile, Claire, Grant and I went to an ice cream social at Sara's house for the wives of those who went on the camp out. The best part was no sports on TV for one night!

Andrew turns 7

Yesterday we celebrated Andrew's 7th birthday. His birthday party isn't until next week, but we still wanted to celebrate on his actual birthday. We let him pick where he wanted to go to dinner and he chose Chevy's because you get a cool hat and ice cream! He said that his class at school sang Happy Birthday to him and his primary teacher dropped off a card and some candy. He also got a call from his favorite cousin Landon.
Claire was quite interested in his sundae so he was nice and shared some with her.

One of his presents was new golf clubs. He was really excited to try them out in the family room, but it was deemed unsafe with Grant close by. He also got a new Wii game and a Giants t-shirt. He is very excited about his upcoming party as well as the end of school. Happy Birthday Andrew!

Grant is 8 months!

Grant turned 8 months old on Tuesday. In the last month he has popped up another tooth and had finally learned to roll over. He doesn't like to share this talent though as he won't do it on demand. We just have to catch him at the right time - so no pictures yet.
It is close to impossible to photograph Grant with any type of sign. The moment he sees it he grabs it and crumbles it into a ball. He looks like he just won a prize.

And then he starts chewing on the paper. I tried and tried to get a picture, but it was a losing battle.

I took some pictures of Grant after his bath last week. He was in a really good mood and I got some good pictures.

He generally doesn't like his stomach, but I can get him to pose for a few pictures.

Grant loves to take baths and splashes the water all over the place. Here he is in his duck towel. He is showing no signs of trying to crawl, which I think is a good thing. Claire has taught him how to clap, it is really cute to see her try really hard to get him to do it. Grant also has "sticky fingers". He will try to grab, pull, or touch anything in his reach. If it isn't in his reach he will try to dive bomb out of your arms to get the item. If he does happen to get what he is looking for it will immediately be put in his mouth!

Saturday park fun

Last Saturday Natalie and I both found ourselves husband-less. Danny was golfing and Pete was out of town so we decided to take the kids to the park to get some energy out. We hadn't been to Oakmeadow Park for a while, so we headed over there. This park has several different things to do so the kids had a hard time deciding where to start. There is an old airplane that kids can sit in and walk on.Loaded up to fly away!

Here is a picture taken on the wing - getting them all to look at the same time is impossible!

Once Claire and Andrew saw this climbing wall they were all over it. I was really surprised that Claire was climbing up it without hesitation.

Also without hesitation Claire and Elaina climbed on the play structure. They have never been this adventurous before.

We had a little mini picnic before the "best" part of the park. I brought a bag of popcorn and they couldn't have been more thrilled. I happened to have it left over from the Friday night movie the night before. Grant was quite interested in the grass.

Once again, my kids don't know how to pose for a group shot.

Here is Grant showing off sitting up skills. He does this really well and doesn't think it necessary to move onto other skills like rolling over yet.

The "best" part of this park is that it has a merry go round and a train. I found that it is really hard to take a picture of a moving carousel especially while holding a baby. No pictures from the train, but while we were on it, the flower Claire's hair blew out and we had to go back and get it. Natalie risked her life, or so the kids thought, to go out next to the track to get it. Claire was quite happy to have it back. We ended the outing with lunch at Taco Bell. Yeah, I suppose that we could have made a fabulous picnic lunch, but I'm not that together.

Hair accessories gone bad part 2

This is the second in what is most likely an ongoing series about hair accessories and/or stuffed animals. You may remember a few weeks back the girls decided to put all of the flowers, bows and clips into their hair. This time they turned their attention to some innocent stuffed animals.

Caught in the act as the fun begins.

The first "victim" was bear. Just like her doll whose name is girl, this is simply just bear. Unfortunately for bear her arms seem to be bound by some hair rubber bands. You'll notice her ears are the perfect size for the toddler sized claw clips.

Kitty Kitty 1 got into the action with some oversize Tinkerbell clips on her ears as well as a fashionable blue clip on her collar.

It looks like Kitty Kitty 2 got the worst of it as she has multiple clips all over her head. I like the yellow clip holding down her whiskers - you never know when your whiskers will be unruly!

A group shot with all of the participants/victims. Aren't they lovely??

The proud hair stylists. Anyone need their hair done? Their rates are very reasonable!!

2nd annual cousin camping trip

We held our 2nd annual (hopefully) cousin camping trip the last weekend in April. This time we went to Malibu Creek State Park. This year we had 10 adults and 10 kids - 2 more kids than last year. Just like last year it was a lot of fun. Here are some highlights:

This was Grant's first camping trip and he was a trooper. He really liked being outdoors.

I was watching Grant and McKenzie while tents were being set up and the whole time McKenzie was eyeing Grant's pacifier the whole time. She slowly creeped up on Grant and finally went in for the swipe. I love the look on Grant's face in this picture.

Erik had this nifty bike seat for McKenzie and she liked it so much she fell asleep on a ride.

On Saturday we went to the beach. It was a bit windy and the water was cold, but the kids didn't care. Here Elaina, Claire and Taylor were made into mermaids by Lisa. They thought this was really cool!

That led to Isabel, Landon and Andrew wanting to be buried. They did this last year too - I can't imagine wanting to be buried in sand.

This was also Grant's first trip to the beach to hang out in the sand. He wasn't really dressed for the beach, but it wasn't warm enough for his suit.

Claire, Elaina and Chris loved being in the water. Just taking these pictures made my feet numb.

Here are Grant and McKenzie in the bike trailer. I just pulled them around the campsite, they didn't get hooked up to a bike. It is funny to notice how much larger Grant is than McKenzie. She is 2.5 months older.

We also went down the creek to play on Saturday morning. The kids threw rocks and played in the sand.Here is a group shot of everyone down by the stream.

Landon and Andrew spent most of their time on their bikes. They had a lot of fun riding around the campsites.

Before we left we did a cousin picture with everyone in age order. From left to right: Grant, McKenzie, Chris, Taylor, Mia, Claire, Elaina, Isabel, Andrew, and Landon.

Some of the kids breaking into the licorice before the long ride home.
And Grandpa and Grandma with the two babies. The moment we got in the car to come home Claire asked when we were going camping again and when we were going to the beach. Like last year we wished we had stayed longer. We are so blessed to have our kids cousin's live close by so that we get to spend time with them.