A Family of Four

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This lady is feeling great and wanted to let the world know we will be welcoming baby #3 to our family in March!

With summer brings a lot of swimming, with summer in AZ it brings even more. We are lucky to have a community pool as well as our friends a few blocks away and so there has been a lot of swimming! Kaleb and Avery love it! Kaleb is getting better at swimming and is practicing his dives and Avery think she can swim but still needs some work.

Growing Up

Our little Avery is sure growing and learning new things. Since being here in Arizona we have seen some great changes in her. She is now staying for nursery at church without screaming and crying. This has never happened before and she is almost three and ready for Sunbeams. She is sleeping better and even when she does wake up she goes back to sleep with almost no help, which means more sleep for everyone! Avery is also in a small joy school group that meets once a week. She loves it and after staying for a few minutes I can leave her there again without her getting upset. This is the first time in her life she is able to do this. And she loves to learn and loves school! Whenever I am talking to Kaleb about letters and sounds she will chime in and yell a letter or a sound.

I have loved being home with my kids full time, I missed all the things that I wasn't able to do before. I do love spending one on one time with Avery and I think she loves it too! We are having fun. We go to story time at the library, we get our shopping done, she helps me around the house, we have rest time together after reading books and other fun outings!

Here she is on the first day of her preschool, she was excited to have her turn!

She is even letting me do her hair more often.

"Bear Bear" likes to come on outings with us!

Kindergarten

After one week of moving to Arizona Kaleb started Kindergarten! I was not expecting that to happen so soon but it worked out great. He was so excited and happy to be going to school. Here he is on the first day of school.

He is ready to go into school and I just want to take more pictures, ha ha!

Avery wanted to stay with Kaleb, she thinks she is bigger than she is!

Even though it is blaz'n hot we still walk to and from school. As a Kindergartner he has to be picked up at their playground. So it is more work to drive the two blocks than it is to walk. This is usually how things look, Kaleb ahead anxious to get to school and Avery relaxing in the stroller. Some days I make her walk and most of those days I have to carry her part of the way home.

Kaleb is doing great at school and I love to see all that he is learning. He is doing great at sounding out words and is so excited to be able to read to his sister. Right after school started he would come home and get out his notebook and just write words. Any words that he could see or find. When writing you can hear him sounding out the letters and trying to decide what to write. If you ask him what his favorite part of school is he will tell you everything and then he will say recess. He mostly plays tag at recess but sometimes a few girls from church will chase or follow him. He says he doesn't know what to do or how to get them to stop but I can tell that he really likes it!

At the beginning of the school year his teacher got him confused with another student and told me that we needed to talk about his behavior. I was shocked and then the next day she called to tell me it was another boy and that he was doing great!

At the end of September Kaleb got a note, which means that he did not do great all day. The note was to tell me that as the class was lining up to go to library Kaleb pulled the fire alarm. Once I stared to ask him about it he started to cry, it was very upsetting. After talking it out with him it turns out that someone told him to pull on the fire alarm and so he did (we have since talked a lot about peer pressure). The teacher sent him to talk with the assistant principle and then walked back to his class in the library. That night he wrote his teacher a sorry note. The poor kid felt so bad, which just showed me how sensitive and good of a kid he really is. I sure do love this little man!

Arizona

We moved to Arizona in the middle of the hot season and yes it was HOT! Kevin applied to medical school and we were planning on moving to Washington state in two week for him to attend school when we got the call from AZ saying that he got. We were excited, that meant being closer to family and being in a warmer climate as well as Kevin had liked the school better! The caught was that it was Friday and if he wanted the spot he would have to be there on Monday. So we cleaned, packed, and ran around frantically getting things into place. He drove Sunday and started school Monday! It was crazy! Since we were planning on moving in two weeks we kept that as our moving day and I stayed back to finish working, packing the house and getting things ready to move. It was not fun but we did it and had lots of help! Friends came and helped me pack, my parents came to help pack and take care of kids and all my other family helped up pack and clean. It was amazing how much help there was, I felt very blessed! Kevin found us a place to call home in about a week and when we arrived he had about 25 people from school there to unload the moving truck.

After getting settled we finally got back to normalcy. Kevin was in school full days and some nights, Kaleb started Kindergarten and Avery and I get to hang out! Life is good!

This is our house and park, it is a great place to ride bikes for the kids and play. Now that the weather is cooling off, we are loving it here!

August 2013

Lots has changed since I posted last, unfortunately it looks like a pattern. We live in HOT Arizona, Kevin is in medical school here, Kaleb started Kindergarten and Avery seems to be liking staying home with Mom!

We had family pictures taken this summer by a great friend and amazing photographer! If you need an Orange County photographer she is the best!

I have been super horrible at taking pictures since we moved so I will update again when I have something interesting to look at!

Family Fun

We decided to take the kids and check out the new store in town Scheels. It is a huge building and all I had heard was that there was a Ferris wheel inside the store. To our surprise there was a lot fun stuff to do there. Kaleb got to ride the Ferris Wheel with Kevin (I was too scared to do it). Avery got to go up and down the escalator and wave at Kaleb and Dad, the kids played in the play station Kevin found lots of Utah paraphernalia, the kids tried on lots of sunglasses, Kaleb did some boxing with the pink gloves, we all checked out the animals, Avery and I played with the soccer gear and much more! There seemed to be something for everyone! It was a great little outing except for the part where we had two kids crying because it was past bedtime, that was our cue to leave! I love my family and the fun we have together!

Go Utah!

Don't worry I often sing the BYU fight song with the kids so that they want to go to BYU!

Giving me a thumbs up! Kaleb use to do the same thing as Avery, using her pointer fingers.

She has great form for a 2 year old, ha ha!

Kaleb was excited to ride on the Ferris Wheel but apparently was bored once he was on it!

Look out Avery is behind the wheel!

Kaleb the Champ, he had some fun hitting the punching bag too!

Soccer Time

I am not sure if Kaleb had more fun or I did but our first soccer game was a big hit! I was surprised how much I was smiling watching those kids and how much Kaleb enjoyed it. His team dominated and he did great! He almost scored a goal several times but when the goalie went to get it he backed off. His team had a lot of players so he even played on the other team for a little time to help out. He did ask to go back on his team after the second half. Kaleb was so cute and several times when running by he would look for Avery and I and wave and say "Hi Mom!" Kevin helped with coaching and had fun too. Avery wanted to take off her jacket, shoes, and socks and be wrapped up in the blanket. She was not too interested in watching. Right after the game Kaleb was asking when his next game was, he loved it that much! I must say I think I am going to love the soccer mom gig!