Kern County Fair 2008

Sep. 24, 2008~

This year I wanted so bad to go to the fair.  Andy hates the fair so even though that's were we officially started "going out" we've only been back once since we've been married.  So I was extremely grateful when my friend, Stephanie, offered to go with me.  We went early Wednesday morning which was perfect because we hit the "school days" offer of free parking and free admission.  We had such a great time!  We wandered around looking at all the booths and the animals.  We caught the tail end of a bird show which was really cute and we got to see a little calf that had just been delivered about 10 minutes before we got there. The friend that went with me also has two little kids the same ages as mine so everyone had a good time hanging out. 

 How adorable are these kids?  You might recognize Evelyn's little boyfriend, Brayden, from this post.  He was Evelyn's very first play date.  The two youngest, Preston and Sadie, were stroller buddies.  They were both totally content in their strollers and were great the whole time.

Pee Pee in the Potty!

Sep. 27, 2008~

I'll spare you guys most of the details and any pictures I might have taken but Evelyn went pee pee in the potty today.  I've tried on  several occasions to potty train her but I've really never given it my full attention like a good parent would.  Today she dressed herself but not before removing her diaper.  At lunch she had this sudden urge and quickly removed herself from the table.  She came back a few minutes later clapping for herself and automatically I knew what she had done.  Now before you say anything, I know all about what they say about rewarding your kids with food but this past week I've been trying to bride her with the one thing I knew she would cave for... Ice Cream.  So, she got her ice cream and she loved it.  She also celebrated afterwards by doing the "Pee pee in the Potty" dance with Mom and calling Dad on the phone to tell him the good news.  I guess she's potty training... AGAIN.

*UPDATE- Yesterday she went 5 times in the potty!  I figured I'd better not give her ice cream every time so we've switched to gold stars.  She seems to like them just as much and this way she won't get all crazy big and want sweets all the time when she's older.

Soccer Park

Sep. 6, 2008~

Last Saturday, Kory, the youngest of my two brothers had his first soccer games of the season.  He plays for the Tehachapi club team, the Gryphons.  He's a starting mid fielder and an awesome soccer player if I might say so myself (Obviously he takes after his older fellow soccer playing sister).  They had two games that day.  The first, I'm sorry to say, they lost.  But not because the other team was any better but just for lack of enthusiasm and energy on their part.  The entire team was dead tired by the second half but in their defense it was super hot. I certainly couldn't have done any better.  Several hours later the second game proved to be a much better match-up.  The gryphons were back up to par and they played an awesome game.  Kory even scored a goal which is something I rarely seem to get to witness.  I am so proud of him!  It was so exciting to watch him get all pumped up after that.  They won, of course, and for good reason- they played great! 

The kids did great and seemed to have a great time.  Between the 5 of them they managed to devour an entire box of Mini Wheats within the span of just over an hour.  Evelyn and Eliza got really into it and every few minutes they'd cheer out "Go Kory Go!" or "Go Gryphons!".  It was so cute!  For a while now I've been attempting to get Evelyn excited about actually playing soccer but for now she seems pretty content just watching.  Every time I ask her if she wants to play soccer like her Uncle Kory she replies back to me, "no thanks!".  I'm not giving up on her so we'll see in another year or two.

Since there was so much time in between games I had decided to plan a BBQ lunch for everyone and celebrate Preston's 1st birthday and Kory's 18th birthday.  After the first game we met up in a nice shady area at Hart Park and my dad grilled up some nice hot dogs for everyone.  It was so awesome to have my entire immediate family and my cousin there to celebrate.  In honor of Preston's birthday I bought these really cute green frog cupcakes.  I spent the entire day going out of my way to keep my cupcakes nice and minutes before the kids ate them I set them down next to me in the shade.  Minutes later I realized I wasn't in the shade anymore and neither were the cupcakes.  I looked down and the cupcakes were just a blob of green melted frosting.  They inevitable turned out being more fun than I had intentionally planned them out to be.  All the kids were covered in waxy green frosting and looked like mini Jolly Green Giants.  Luckily I had had enough sense to strip the kids down to their diapers saving their clothes and the whole experience made for some great messy fun and some great pictures. 

Preston's 1st Birthday

August 21, 2008~

To give myself a little credit I actually wrote most of this post on August 21st which of course IS Preston's birthday.  I wanted to wish my little boy a HAPPY BIRTHDAY and at the same time celebrate and share with everyone what an 

amazing son I have. 

Preston has made so many awesome achievements in the one short year that he's been on this earth.  His latest being that he is walking!  About 2 weeks before his 1st birthday he started to take daring little steps into the center of the room and he would mostly fall but by a year he had just about got it and now, weeks after his birthday, he's a total pro.  At one year old Preston weighs 18 pounds 9 ounces and is 29 1/2 inches tall.  Preston is such a joy to be around.  He has THE biggest most infectious smile and the cutest little blond curls.  He's a huge mamma's boy and always insists on being held just about every second of every day. 

 He's a NON-stop drooler.  Andy once asked me, "Where does it all come from?" and to be honest I have no idea.  I catch myself all the time calling him Buddy, so much so that Evelyn's starting to pick it up too.  Preston loves his big sister so much and he always gets super excited when she interacts with him.  It's only been the past month or

 so that they've really played together but already I can tell that they are going to be lifelong friends.  Also, like most kids Preston is SO ticklish- just about everywhere too and he has the most adorable belly laugh ever.  On the flip side he has quite the temper too.  It's actually pretty funny to watch though because he looks so cute doing it.  He clenches his little fists, looks straight at you and lets out a growl/scream.  It almost always ends in a screaming match between the kids until mom breaks it up and they usually have

 a good laugh at my expense.  

 

At least every hour on Preston's birthday Evelyn told him "HAPPY BIRKAY PRESTON" and she would do her best at singing the birthday song.  She was so excited for her little brothers big day and that made the day that much more special for the rest of us.  Unfortunately Andy had to work on Preston's birthday so the kids and I went on a little field trip by ourselves.  I had to get a few things at Walmart so we stopped by there and ended up wandering the isles looking at all the fun stuff, their favorites of course being the toys and the fish.  I bought Preston his first brand new pair 

of shoes (size 4) and the smallest regulation sized soccer ball.  

We ended the day by going to the park and the kids had a blast playing until the sun went down.  A couple days later, Andy's parents threw Preston an official birthday party.  It was so much fun getting together with everyone!  Then last weekend my side of the family got together at the park and had another celebration for him which I'll write about in a little more detail later.

I've been debating whether I should share this last story or not but I've decided to just do it.  The other day something funny and slightly embarrassing happened to me.  I took Preston in for his 1 year checkup with the doctor and as the doctor was doing his routine check up he said something that totally embarrassed me.  True story: He said, and I quote, "Wow, he's got a big scrotum!".  And then examining further he continued to say "He's big all over!".  I couldn't believe the doctor would be so nonchalant about something like

 that.  I guess I'll admit I was a little proud but when I told Andy about it he was ecstatic.  The doctor also said he got the award for the bluest eyes of all his patience but that wasn't nearly as funny (or shocking).

Preston is such a sweet kid and as his mommy I hope that he always knows that.  I am so proud of all the little things he does and all the things he will do.  I can't even begin to explain how much happiness I feel every time he takes a little step and I just love that wonderful look of accomplishment on his face every time he does.  He honestly is the best little boy a mom could ever ask for.  I LOVE him SO much!  

Rock Climbing

Some friends of ours have this freakin' sweet rock climbing wall in their backyard so during our last visit with them we thought we'd let the kids take a crack at it.  Here's some pics...

Here's Preston hanging on tight...

...STILL hanging on....

...and STILL hanging on!  I'm not sure how long he actually stayed up but he managed to hang on for quite a while.  I casually took like 10 pictures waiting for him to drop. 

/

<-----Evelyn rocked it too! Check out that technique! She actually managed to climb up a few steps too.

All the Things You've Missed

Hello again everyone.  I promise I'm still alive.  I apologize for my severe lack of new material but I can guarantee it hasn't been for lack of trying.  I've written (on paper) a couple of posts in my absence and kept a pretty extensive list of things I want to blog about but until now we haven't had any Internet or computer out at our house.  However, Andy just bought this nifty little antenna and he's promised to leave his laptop home for me a couple times a week so hopefully I can get caught up again.  Nothing real major has happened for us in a while.  You know what they say, "No news is good news"- right?  But for that reason I've really started to enjoy the little things in life.  Here's a tidbit of all the little things.

1.  We moved into our house!  It's been great.  You wouldn't believe what it feels like to be HOME again.  Our stuff is still in storage but we've kind of just learned to live without it.  The house is wonderful... and not haunted like previously thought.  We love it!  The kids each have their own room, we have an amazing backyard (w/ pool), and the best part of all is that we have AMAZING neighbors.

2.  We went on a weekend trip to L.A. a little while back and we took the kids to the Zoo.  They loved it!  We also did a few of the L.A. things I've always wanted to do- We went to the La Brea Tar Pits which were very interesting and we went on a little expedition to see how close we could get to the HOLLYWOOD sign.  I got tons of awesome picture of the trip so I'll probably write a more extensive blog on our trip.

3.  Evelyn and I had an EGG Day.  Yeah, just for the heck of it.  We had tons of eggs in our fridge that needed to be used up so I figured I'd use it as a learning opportunity.  For breakfast I let her crack her own eggs (very messy but fun and well worth the mess).  I set her on the counter and demonstrated to her how I make a scrambled egg, a fried egg and at the same time I boiled a pot of eggs.  Afterwards we ate all three different kinds of eggs.  Her favorite was the boiled.

4.  I've kind of missed my chance to mention this one but as of June 28th I've been blogging for an entire year and this post in particular is my 100th post.  I have really enjoyed blogging.  It's crazy how quickly you can really get caught up in it.  I really love that I can look back at my first year of blogging and remember how little and cute Evelyn was and as I read back I get to remember all the fun things we've done.  I imagine most of the posts I've written are things that I would have otherwise forgotten so blogging is kind of my way to get them down in writing.  Plus I love that I can share the wonderful things about my life with my family and friends and share in the wonderful things that they write about.  ~Now if only I could be a little better about it~

5.  Since we moved into the house there's been a cat that wanders around outside.  She's great because she's been catching mice for us.  So after days of deliberating we decided to "unofficially" adopt her.  We named her Frankie.  She's an orange, black, and white calico.  She's actually really great.  In fact the reason I say "unofficially" is because nothing has really changed except that we now claim her as ours.  She's strictly an outdoor cat and I just feed her the kids' leftover table scraps.  She is the most low maintenance pet you can have.  Plus she's amazing with the kids and she loves ever bit of the attention.

6.  The kids are doing great.  To no surprise, Evelyn is turning out to be a beautiful and bright little girl.  The other day as we were getting into the car she looked at me and with perfect precision she said, "Mommy, can I drive the car?"  Yeah, no joke.  Her prayers are still my favorite though.  Every night we say our little prayer and she gets to list off all the things she's thankful for.  She is so sweet!  All by herself she remembers to say thank you for her family, for church, for Jesus, for our home, for her toys and books, for her bed, her baby and her cuppy.  She usually throws in something funny too that totally catches me off guard.  The other night she mentioned TV, Disneyland, movies, and cows?...  She's not all cute though.  She's finally figured out that there's more to write on then just paper- like the walls, the couch, the table, herself, and yes... her little brother.  I don't believe I've ever mentioned this one before but ever since Evelyn was a baby she has been terrified of the THX sound and logo.  Well, at 2 1/2 she STILL is.  She literally hides behind the couch until the movie starts.  I do not know where she got that from.  

7.  Preston turned 1.  He is the most adorable little boy ever!  He started walking about a week before his birthday and he's really got it down now.  I won't say too much about Preston just because I wrote a whole Birthday post about him which I'll most likely post after this one but one thing I didn't mention is his new interest in eating dirt.  I seriously can't take this kid outside without him eating a handful of dirt and leaves.

8.  I've been up to a couple of interesting things myself lately.  I just finished all 4 books of the Twilight series and yes... they really are just as good as everyone says they are.  I will add too for everyone that's read them that if I had my choice between Edward and Jacob I would for sure be out there riding motorcycles with Jacob.  I don't know what it is.  I've also, like many of my sibs in laws have taken up jogging.  I started the couch to 5k program and I've made it all the way up to WEEK 5. 

9.  The last thing is that I've done a few things outside.  We put up a Hummingbird feeder which has proved to be really cool.  There's almost always at least one hummingbird around it, usually several.  I've also started watering all the plants and every thing's growing really well.  I trimmed the rose bush and I finally got my first rose.