Race Cars, Fish, and Monkeys

Like most little boys Joshua loves the movie Cars. Well until recently he thought it was too scary to watch, but loved the die cast character cars. Today we were racing them across our floor, which is one of our almost daily activities. He was excited today because he bought himself his own new race car with his own "Moneys". I have started to enlist him on my cleaning day for 10 cents a job. He loves it and is a great little worker. When I started I explained to him that if he wants to buy things when we go to the store he can save and use his own money. Of course right away he said he wanted to buy a race car. So a month has passed of doing jobs, he has paid his tithing and had just enough to buy a race car. He was so excited. Not that he needs more! They are all very well used and loved though.

Recently we got a free fish tank from a lady at a garage sale. So we decided the kids would enjoy some fish in their room. Joshua named them and of course we have had quite a few fatalities (luckily Petco has a 15 day promise on their fish), and a couple tears and lessons on Heaven, and the resurrection. Abigail is enthralled with the fish and very motivated to get a good look at them.

In fact so motivated that she will climb up on Joshua's bed...

...stand next to the tank and pat it...

...and climb on the table to pound on the top. I walked in the other day and almost had a heart attack. She is a real monkey!

And yes that is the wall color of Joshua's room. He picked that room himself he calls it his "pretty flower room". When we close on the house it will be the first room to be repainted!

She also loves to climb the stairs now and obviously is very excited and proud of herself for her new found abilities.

Such a cutie!

First Day of Preschool

Today was Joshua's first day of preschool! He goes Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30 -noon. He was so cute and excited to go. I was excited to let him go but also sad that he is getting so big. Despite Caleb and I's more introverted personalities he is very outgoing and friendly. He was getting really bored at home so we thought he would love preschool. We were right! I brought him in this morning and he walked right in and started playing. When I picked him up he was tired but happy. He said he wanted to go home now but come back next week. It is a great little Presbyterian preschool with only 8 kids in his class. In a quiet house Abigail took a 2 hour nap, and I got some stuff done. I was so excited to go pick him up and have his little voice fill up my house again. I think it will be a very fun and enriching thing for him, and I will just have to get use to it.

9 Months old

I can not believe Abigail is 9 months old. It has gone so much faster than it did with Joshua. I am actually a little sad. She has been so much fun. She is such a smiley happy baby.

Her new trick is to clap and she does it all the time.


Joshua and Abigail love each other so much. They always want to be near each other and are always laughing at each other. The only problem is that Joshua gets a little too excited and rough...then the laughing ends.






Joshua has gotten so big. He is potty trained and doing great, and I am loving it. He loves to tell people that he is a big boy now! He is also my little helper and loves to help me do tasks around the house. I can't believe how big he is.

Getting bored of pictures... probably like you by this point!

Oceanside

Some of Caleb's family went to Oceanside for a week which is only an hour and a half from us. So his mom and brothers drove to visit us and spend a day at the beach with the family. It was a really fun day and great to see his uncles and cousins again. Then grandma came back home with us and spent a few days which we always enjoy.

The San Diego Zoo

Caleb went home to work after Lego Land and we stayed with my sister overnight in San Diego to go to the zoo. It was a really fun but long day. Elizabeth and I started the day off with an adventure walk through Balboa park with the babies and toddlers. With the room they only got a few free breakfasts so we decided we would just walk to Whole foods to get food while Scott took the older boys to the restaurant. We looked it up and it was about 1.5 miles...no problem for two active mothers with a baby in a sling and toddler in the stroller each. Well it ended up being much longer! Long story short after lots of walking some potty stops in the bushes...we walked up to whole foods as Scott and the boys drove up in the car! Needless to say we were pretty tired of walking by the end of the day. The zoo is huge and we walked and walked. It was a really fun adventure, and I wish Caleb was there to spare my back :).

Our favorite animal to see was the Hippo. I had never seen one so close before.



These two love eachother so much.

Silly Baby!

Lego Land

Five days after we moved into our house Scott had a few days off work and discount tickets to Lego Land so they decided to come down and go together. Luckily Caleb had the day off so we were able to go together as a family. It was so much fun to finally have my sitter see my house. Basically since we first got married she had never seen our house, since it was always to much to fly out to Vermont. Joshua especially loved being able to show his cousins his bedroom and have them sleep in there with him.

Besides having long not effective lines Lego land was really fun. It was perfect for the little boys.
Joshua was quite the dare devil. He really liked any of the fast or high rides.

Joshua got to drive his own boat and car. He was so excited! I was his passenger for the boat ride and Elizabeth I were laughing so hard because we are going backwards and running into each other...three year olds are not the best boat drivers!

They had these amazing animated models of places in America all made out of Legos. The boys really loved running around looking at them while we took our lunch break.

It was so fun to have Daddy with us and to be able to do something fun together as a family.

Ezra got Joshua liking Bob the Builder, so of course we had to take a picture with the Lego statue of him.

There were not many rides for Abigail, but she loved the few she got to go on.

Updates from Weeks of no Internet!

It has been a crazy summer. We had graduation and moved with all our stuff to California...with no where to live. So we traveled around a bit, and used my parents as our home base. It was very fun be we are so excited to be in our own house with our own stuff again. You can only take so much living out of suitcases especially with kids. So after 3 months of being homeless, we almost have a home:). Well we are moved in, but still technically renting while we wait to close. Anyway in the process of moving in we were out of touch with the outside world for about three weeks. Therefore, here are my catching up posts.

Given the instability of our situation for a few weeks Joshua and Abigail did really great. Joshua would ask almost everyday if we could go to his old house, and when we were moving into our new house, but despite that he did really well.

Luckily he had lots of people to entertain him, especially Ezra and of course Grandpa helped.

Everyday this summer Ezra and Joshua played together. Here they are having fun on the slip and slide.

They are perfect for each other. Ezra is loud and can be a little pushy, but Joshua is silently stubborn and pushy, so neither of them is able to push the other around to much. THey really just adore each other. Every Sunday Joshua asks if we are going to our new church, and if Ezra can come to Nursery with him. He really really misses him. Actually the other day we had the play pool out and he would not go in it. I asked him why and he said I will go latter when Ezra, Elijah and Isaac come to Joshua's new house. Poor little guy.

Abigail is crawling all over. Although she crawls on her hands and feet...like a monkey. The funniest is that she loves to look at the world upside down. She will sit in this position for a while just looking and giggling.

Abigail and Levi are interested in each other. As you can see it is still all about the tasting of each other at this point.

Abigail thinks he is funny. I am sure they will be good friends. She is feisty and sweet and he is quite, calm and sweet.

We spent lots of time swimming in the pool and at the beach, it was very fun and relaxing.

Abigail is just starting to try out solid foods. So far she likes the taste of most everything, but her skin and bowels don't seem to like much of anything. So we are taking the eating thing very slowly.