California

On Halloween we drove to California to see my family and friends for the weekend. I was very excited to go home, because I had not been there since April. It was the longest Ventura drought I have ever experienced. Hopefully, it will never happen again!

We did the Halloween thing with my parents, my sister and my brother-in-law, and my three little nephews. Kate was so excited to get to dress up with her cousins! Kate was Tinkerbell, Austin was Peter Pan (we planned that), Zach was Mr. Incredible, Ian was Winnie-the-Pooh, and Everett was a dinosaur. Here are some pictures from the parade that they do in my parent's neighborhood every year.

After the kids were done getting candy, etc. we went to my friend Ruth's Twilight Party. She did an excellent job! Yeah, Ruth! It was very fun, and I'm even more excited for the movie now.

The next couple days we spent with my family. It was nice to actually get to hang out and spend quality time with all of them. We even had a slumber party that night. I don't think it worked out that well for Tamara, but it was fun to get to all stay up late together. We went to a baby shower for my friend Kristen that night too. It was very convenient that most of my friends were there. I miss all of them a lot! (The next picture is of my best friend Ruth's daughters with Kate and Ev, and the one after that is all of the kids at the shower.)

Monday we went to Disneyland with my parents. Kate loved it! I can't wait to go back, and take her again. Everett did really well too thankfully. Kate's favorite things were the Tea Cups (she calls them the Coffee Cups, haha!), the parade, and Pixie Hollow, where she met Tinkerbell. Next time we go to Disneyland we will stay longer though. One day is not really enough with little kids, because you can't go very fast. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to go again soon!

4 months

Everett turned 4 months old last Wednesday. I can't believe he has only been here for 4 short months, I can't imagine my life without him! He is an amazing little baby. He is so happy, almost all of the time. His laugh is hilarious, and his smile is so cute. He loves his sister, but probably not as much as she loves him. She still can't get enough of him, which is better than her asking to send him back! I took him to the doctor on Thursday, and he was doing great. He only gained a few ounces in the last 2 months, but he is still in the 70th percentile for weight. He is 26 1/2 in long, which is the 98th percentile. He is growing very similarly to Kate, but I think she stayed chubby a little longer.

Farm Animals

Two weeks ago the theme for school was farm animals. I honestly barely remember what we did, because the last week has been kind of crazy. I didn't do everything with Kate that I had planned since we were both sick, but below are some pictures of one thing she liked. We read a book titled Mrs. Wishy-Washy, which is about an old lady who washes her farm animals when they make a mess in the mud. I bought her some plastic farm animals, it was called a Farm Animal Toob. I thought it was weird! Anyway, she made a painting with her farm animals and some mud, aka brown paint. After the farm animals were dirty, she cleaned them all just like Mrs. Wishy-Washy. I was finally brave and just let her paint on her own that day. She actually did really well, no messes!

We read some other books about farm animals, she really liked one called Barn Dance by Bill Martin, Jr. She also learned the letters N and O. I was planning on taking her to the zoo, because they have a farm section and they added a new Little People Farm area. It didn't happen since it was still too hot and we were sick. Hopefully soon!

Dig Pink

A couple weeks ago, our volleyball team held a breast cancer fundraiser with our rival, Desert Vista. Everyone wore pink (even I wore pink), and there was pink everywhere...pom poms, beads, the uniforms and even the volleyball were pink. Our school won for selling the most raffle tickets, but sadly we did not win the game. The coolest part was that the two teams raised $12,000! There were about 450 similar events done across the country, and we were the national leader for fundraising in Dig Pink events. We heard that the next highest was only $5000.

Dinosaurs

On Saturday we went to the Natural History Museum in Mesa. Kate liked seeing all the dinosaurs, and panning for gold. Mostly she just liked playing in the water. I'm sure she had no idea what we were trying to get her to do. Before we left we went to the little museum gift shop and let Kate pick out something. Brian was showing her the little dinosaurs, but she wanted a bag of rocks. She played with them for a long time yesterday, who knew rocks could be so entertaining.

Kate waiting to watch the flash flood reenactment. There is a Tricerotops and a T-Rex that move and roar on this "Dinosaur Mountain".

Ben & Everett's first boat ride

Last Sunday it was actually cool enough to go on Papa's boat. Kate was very excited, she has been waiting all summer. It was the first time that Ben and Everett were able to go out on it, and it went very well! There was no sea sickness, and everyone made it back alive.

First Suns Game of the Year

Last week Brian took Kate to one of the Suns preseason games. He is a brave man! Actually, it went pretty well. She didn't make it for the whole game, but they did stay for half time. Kate's favorite things were the gorilla and Steve Nash. Good girl!

Next

This last week I have been reading a book that my friend Ruth told me about called The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. It is a book about homeschooling using the classical education approach. I had never even heard of this, which is sad since I was an education major. It is an approach that the US education system has gone away from, which I now believe is one of the major problems with our society today. It makes so much more sense then what is being done in schools now. I feel that I was given a pretty good education at College Heights. I never knew exactly why what they did there seemed to work, but now I know it was because they were somewhat using this system. I have no idea if it was intentional, but hopefully it was! I would love for my kids to learn this way, so I'm thinking about teaching them myself. We'll see!

For Kate's preschool I have lessons figured out until the 2nd week of February, and then I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I wanted to do something more literature based, but I wasn't sold on any of the programs I had seen for her age. Then I found a book called Storytime from A to Z. I haven't ordered it yet, but it seems like what I was looking for. There are 26 lessons, one for every letter. Each lesson is based on a book and then there are different activities that go along with the letter and the subject of the story. I think Kate will like it!