July

July was a good month... as good as it gets for still living in an apartment! With really nothing to do and Jason on vacation for the month, we decided to take a little beach trip for the 4th of July so we headed to the Thousand Oaks/Oxnard area for a few days. We love going this direction as is usually less crowded which makes for a nice, low key vacation, AND most importantly, we can eat at the Cheesecake Factory... YUM! We did some shopping at the outlets and took the kids to Build a Bear. We also spent some time on the 4th at the beach. The kids had so much fun playing in the water and building sand castles. Paige wasn't quite sure what to think, but luckily she is a pretty easy going baby so she entertained herself by watching the other kids and trying to eat the sand. :) We ended the day watching a great fireworks show.

Want some sand! :)

We ended the trip by driving to Knotts Berry Farm for the day. I had not been there since I was very young and Jason thought it would be a fun place to take the kids. Now, the heat and I are NOT friends. I make it a point not to visit very warm places in the summer, and we only go to Disneyland between October and April. Why I thought Knotts (being only a few miles from Disneyland) would be any different, I have no idea. It was HOT. The kids were pink cheeked within minutes of arriving. Hailey was crying, literally, for water. We watched a old west show, rode the train and carousel, dropped something like $50 on an order of nachos, a burrito, and a couple bottles of water, and got the heck out of there. Here is the only picture I was able to get during the two "fun-filled" hours that we spent there

Hailey thinks this place is quite possibly hell on earth... I don't think we will be returning soon! Haha (Oh well... I like Disneyland better anyway... but only when its cool! ) :)

June: Part 2

After Paige's birthday was over it was a huge relief... but the next day was Father's Day so we had to celebrate the great daddies in our lives. I got up early and braved going out WITH NO MAKE UP ON... (scary!) to go get Jason his newspaper, a Starbucks coffee and breakfast sandwich. He appreciates me so it was worth it! HA! Then the kids gave him his presents... unfortunately none of them included some quiet time to read!Oh well... Nannie had everyone over for a Father's Day lunch. Here are a few pictures of that.

I look a bit rough in these... I was TIRED!!!! :)


That evening we went to dinner with Jason's family to celebrate with his dad, brother and Grandpa Ray. It was a busy weekend!

At this point everyone was ready to go on vacation, but we still needed to get through Hailey's recital. This included many practices and a dress rehearsal. This year she only took a jazz class. It was just TOO hard for me to take her to more classes with the other two in tow. Jack doesn't do "sit and watch" very well unless it is Thomas the Train on a T.V. screen. :) This year she danced to RESPECT... she did GREAT! I was so proud of her and what a great performer she has become. Next year we are definitely taking more classes... how can I deprived the audience of seeing more of my little STAR!!! :)

Ahhh June... thank you for being over. I am tired just reliving you again.

June

Okay... on to June. It was a BUSY month for us. The first thing on the agenda was packing up our house. *sniff* It was a sad project... I didn't realize how much I loved that house... until it was time to leave it. While packing is NOT fun in and of itself... packing when you have NO IDEA WHERE YOU ARE GOING is REALLY bad. We had planned on renting a friend's house while we were looking for a house (there was really nothing good on the market at that time)... but their house had not closed yet so that didn't work out. SOOOO with the buyers move in date approaching, we had to rent an apartment at the last minute. ACK! Five people in a two bedroom ONE BATHROOM apartment for the summer... I thought... okay, great... this should be interesting. (And it has proven to be... trust me! ):) So, we moved most of our things into storage and the bare minimum into this apartment for the summer. (Side note... we finally found a house in July and we are waiting for escrow to close at the beginning of September... Praise the Lord!!!!) We are more than ready to get out of this apartment... but I think it has been a good learning experience for our family. It has taught us to be thankful for a home and not take our blessings for granted... I hope we all remember that too!

So, back to June, we moved into this apartment at the beginning of June which is always a very busy time. Hailey finished Kindergarten, which was very sad for her. She loved her teacher, loved school, loved her friends and was not at all happy that this chapter was over. They had a party the day before the last day of school at the park, and then they had a fun day on the last day with bounce houses and slides and treats. Fun Day... you know... a day for kids to have fun. Not Hailey... she cried because she was so sad that it was all over. Heartbreaking! Jack had a fun time though... HA!

In the midst of all of this chaos... little Paigie's first birthday was quickly approaching. I had to do something to celebrate such a milestone... so Nannie and Pop let us have a "berry fun" party at their house.:) It turned out great... and our sweet little strawberry was so cute.

Happy Birthday, Poppy

Today is what would have been my grandfather's 89th birthday. Instead he is celebrating his 7th birthday in heaven. My Poppy, Jack, who shares a name with my son, was a wonderful, generous man who loved his family SO much and I miss him terribly. Perhaps the thing that hurts the most is that he never was able to spend time with my babies... they would have loved him.

Happy Birthday, Poppy. We love you and miss you!

Jack

One of the reasons that I wanted to start blogging was to record our daily activities as well as big milestones. I have forgotten so many things that I just knew I wouldn't forget,that I am happy to have a way to help me remember. With Hailey I wrote A LOT in her baby book. Currently all baby books are packed away in boxes somewhere in our storage, patiently awaiting the day they are found and put away somewhere in our new house...(more on that later). Today, I want to focus on Jack and his stats and favorite things at the age of THREE!!! So here is a little interview with JACK:

What is your name? I'm Jack

How old are you? "free" Three

What is your favorite color? Blue and red... ummm and yellow too and green too... (apparently the boy has a few favorites):)

What is your favortite food? Spaghetti (WHAT? Hmmm... don't know where this one came from but.... )

What is your favorite T.V. Show? Thomas the Train

What do you want to be when you grow up? Apparently this one was a stumper... He couldn't quite think of a "job" he wanted to be...he chose instead to be relatives, (Kyle (his cousin), Pop (my dad), and Daddy were top choices)

What is your favorite movie? Thomas

What is your favorite thing to play? Trains

Jack is currently 33lbs and is 3 ft 2 inches tall. He wears a size 7 1/2 WIDE shoe and size 3T-4T clothes. We are "trying" to get potty trained but this proving to be more difficult than I imagined. :)

We love you big boy!!!!

May

So the first of May brought about a few changes for our family. The first change being my job... or rather my lack of job. :) I quit working for CAVA at the end of April... it was just TOO much. After Paige joined the family, I just couldn't devote the required amount of time to work anymore. I enjoyed working from home so much that it was such a difficult decision to make, but when they needed me to travel out of town several days a week for state testing that was the final straw. With no one to watch the kiddos... I had to quit. So now I am happily unemployed! Well... I guess I should say I'm without a PAYING job! Mom to three is still a big job in my book!

May also brought Mother's Day and several birthdays in our family. We went to El Portal for brunch as usual to celebrate Mom's day with the family. Jack's 3rd Birthday was on the 14th. We celebrated at My Gym, because it is just a fun place for him and his friends to play. He wanted a "Super Why?" party and even dressed up in the Super Why costume that Nannie and Pop bought him for his birthday. He had a great time! I can't believe this little guy is 3! He is such an awesome kid. Here are a few party pics:

Time consuming

So apparently there is a slight learning curve to this blogging thing. I spent the ENTIRE evening trying to figure out how to get my design to work. I think I finally have it though.YAY!  Since I have been trying to start this for a while, I want to go back a bit to the beginning of summer, or rather the beginning of May, so that I can post all of the kids birthdays.