Little Readers

I love seeing this every night...   Love that all my kids are readers now, love that all it took was a Minecraft torch to make this little one a nightly reader.  Books are the best toy ever.

Stix, the escape artist

I didn't get any pictures of the boys and I traveling down.  It was a bit crazy with 4 boys and 8 pieces of luggage, and so I didn't even think of capturing any photo's of our flight down.  

Joe, on the other hand was taking photos while driving, of an empty Stix terrarium.  Stix is our Rosy Boa, well, Calder's Rosy Boa anyway.  Joe had a car packed tight with as many fragile belongs as we could fit into it.  Including Stix, who couldn't fly and would certainly have died stuck in storage for a month.  She didn't know we were doing what was best for her, but she did know that she absolutely hated riding in a car.  I am sure the vibrations alone wigged her out.  Joe kept watching her in the rear view mirror as she pushed against the ceiling of her cage.  It has locks on it, but you never know.  After a while, Joe couldn't see Stix in the mirror anymore and so he decided to use the camera on his iphone to take pictures of her cage.  This is what he saw when he snapped the shot:

No Stix!!  She was gone!  The lid was still on her terrarium, but she was no longer inside it!!  The great Houdini snake had used her mystical powers to escape!  Joe was on the freeway and so he had to wait until he could find a good place to get off the freeway and find her..... He couldn't!! He looked and looked and looked, but couldn't find her.  He had to keep driving and just hope for the best.  When he finally got down to our temporary housing, he got everything out of the car and tore through it.  It was amazing that she had disappeared so completely.   Finally as he looked under the seat in the tracks for the seat to move up and back, he found her.  Nestled tight... STUCK in the tracking of the seat!  It took him forever to get her out, but he did and even without getting bit.  I think she was actually really glad to be rescued by him.  She huddled down in her cage the next few days and wouldn't eat because it was so traumatic.  Poor Stix.  She is definitely not loving the move to California.

Oregonians no more...

The sad state of affairs...

We really are moving, the boxes prove it.  Why oh why does it have to be so hard?

The boys last day of school (two weeks early) was a sad one.  I had them wear shirts and have their friends sign them.  It helped... a little.  

Look at that sad face! :(

The bus driver let Kaelan ride on the bus that last day because she knew we were moving to California where there are no buses.  (Lucky for us the school is walking distance).  He was SO excited to hop on the bus.  He could hardly believe his good fortune.

This is from our flight down to Buy our house.  Kaelan was such a fun travel buddy.

He loved BART

He even cut the rug at Kellyn's wedding.  He CRACKED me up with his moves.  Funny kid.

Kaelan's first time at Mel's Diner in Walnut Creek.  This is a family tradition that he missed out on being born in Oregon.  But he quickly adopted it and was very much in love with kids meals in cars!

Our dear friends the Russell's were getting a new floor and invited us to a sharpie party!  We got to do art all over their old tile!  It was so fun!! The kids couldn't believe that they could actually draw on the floor!!

Let's just hope that 2012 is looked back with fond memories!

This is Stix getting ready for her journey south.  She gets to ride in the car with Joe, while the boys and I fly down.  The story of Stix in the Enclave with have to be saved for another day.  Let's just say Joe is very familiar now with the inner workings of our car as he searched for her.

One last day with his BFF!  SO sad...

The last day is over, and tomorrow we fly out bright and early.  The kids are excited and sad and can't drive by our old house without sad puppy dog eyes.  Moving is always such a mix of happy sad.  Let's hope that as time goes on it is more happy than sad.

Our new digs!

Two weeks after Kaelan's birthday, he and I went down to California and bought a house!  Joe was there too of course! :) It was exciting and also scary how much houses are in the Bay Area, I still can't believe how much we paid, but we got what we needed so I guess it is all good in the end!  Here are the pics of our new house!  

Our house is on a corner lot, in a court.  We love how private it is.  It has a very long driveway that sets the house really far back from the street.  The part of the driveway directly in front of the house is the size of a half basketball court, and the drive than descends down to the street is a good 200 ft. long.  So it really is a nice distance off the street.  

The house has amazing landscaping with timed lighting and water fountains.  It is so pretty.  I am a little nervous what it will look like after the boys have taken over the back yard!!

 A couple of views of the Master bedroom.  Note, these are the photos in the listing, this is not our furniture.

A partial view of the master bath.  It is huge.  But the closets are even bigger.. It makes me happy!!

This is our huge 5th bedroom that we are using as the playroom.  Yes, we will fit 3 bonus rooms from our old house, into one room.  Truly amazing.

Ansel and Levi's room: They loved the orange, we just had to get rid of the girly vinyl appliqué.

 The boys bathroom:

In this view you can see the living room, the entry hall/stairs and the dining room:

more living room:

Entry hall and a little bit of the living room:

Kitchen.  I LOVE my kitchen!!

 Family room with the kitchen in the background:

Dining room, the entry to the kitchen in on the right:

Definitely getting excited to move now!  It was really hard before because we had no idea what we were in for, what kind of house we were going to get, etc.  But we felt really blessed to get this one!  We offered under asking because it was so high and with a little back and forth really got an acceptable price on it!

Now the only quest will be how am I going to maintain this beautiful house at it's current glory, with 4 boys running around?!?! It will be a challenge I assure you!

YO, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday KK!

My baby is 5 today!! I can't believe it. It still feels like he should be 3. I don't like this part of time flying. It is crazy how quickly kids grow up. 

Kaelan has been looking forward to this birthday FOREVER. He finally gets a real birthday party (although he thought today was it, there is actually going to be a surprise party for him this Saturday, with all his friends that he is going to miss when we move to California!) and he gets to be 5...  Five is an important milestone in his life, all his guy buddies are already 5 and have been so for 8 months, he finally feels like he is joining the big leagues. 

 The boys and I stayed up late last night decorating the house so that when he woke up he could be surprised with a birthday transformation. The only downside of the night was me, falling off the barstool I stood on to hang balloons on the ceiling. It was a regular Loony Tunes moment. The stool disappears out from under me and I hovered a moment before crashing down on top of it, as it lay on its side, breaking it AND breaking myself. I had a 6 inch piece of wood sticking out of the side of my left leg and serious bruises all the way up my back side, knees to neck. I tried to put my right hand behind me but I was 8 feet up in the air and landed on it very wrong. It was a miracle that it didn't break. My jeans are toast though I ripped my back pocket out and there is a tear in the left side of the pant leg where the wood penetrated. After I fell I just lay there, pain signals going off like crazy, pinging all over my body. Calder asked if I was okay and all I could say was, "I don't know yet..." I am still in pretty bad shape today. It feels like I was involved in some sort of gang beating. I hurt EVERYWHERE, and have some pretty nasty bruising from my knees up to my low back, very much in the shape of long stool legs. The stool didn't make it out much better than I did. That, unfortunately was great joke material for Calder. "Haha, mom broke the stool when she sat on it" My reply, "There is a huge difference between sitting on and falling on to a stool!!" The best part of it was that I was lecturing Calder on wasting time, while hanging balloons and was in the middle of a sentence about not wasting time when I went down. So, after confirming that I was going to live Levi and Calder had a great time reenacting my less than graceful interaction with gravity and lecturing. Very funny boys, very funny. 

 When Kaelan woke up, WAY too early for my taste, he ran through the house shouting "I am 5, I am 5, I am 5!!" That made me smile. He had a great day, a play date with a friend, and lunch and movie date with his best friend, opening presents and eating cake. What more could a 5 year old want??! Here is a little short video of KK on his big day:

 

A few photos from the day:

Claire and Kaelan.  BFF's for life.  They are two peas in a pod.
It was just Claire, Kaelan and I at PF Changs and the Movies.  Just perfect....

Claire and Kaelan enjoying Egg Drop Soup together.

They were SO cute sharing their bowl of soup and commenting on the flavors of it.

Eating with chopsticks only gets you so far up the fun meter, after you are done eating with them, then of course you must enjoy them in other ways.  First they were walking "men" on the table, then swords, and last, but definitely not least, the lovely nose pinchers you see here:

Kaelan's MORE than delicious free birthday dessert.

I, ahem, he sure lucked out!  Coconut ice cream, fresh strawberries and blackberries, and fried bananas! YUM!!!

We went and saw "The Pirates, Band of Misfits", A claymation movie not unlike all the Wallace Gromit movies.  It was very funny, and it was in 3D, which the kids loved.  The best part was that they had it in this enormous theater and we literally had it ALL to ourselves.  No one else was there.  It made it so perfect for enjoying the movie with two 4/5 year olds.  I didn't have to tell them to be quiet, I could let them move around, I could take a phone call during the movie!  I definitely recommend seeing a movie that way!  What a treat!!  It was like we rented the whole theater out for just us...

After the movie the kids went into this photo booth and were really wanting a photo taken with it, I convinced them to let me take it, with them sitting in it, fortunately that did the trick!

The fun never stopped, because as soon as we got home, it was time for opening presents, cake and then PLAYING with the new toys.

Opening up a present that turned out to be an Angry birds game:

Lite Brite, but with LED, SO thin.... much better that the old fashioned kind!

Finn McMissile Remote Control Car, that also opens up a secret compartment to fire missiles.  Kaelan was in 7th heaven!  He also got a super fast Trackmaster "Spencer" train with remote control and tracks... I don't have a picture of that though.

Kaelan playing "Mad birdies" as he calls Angry birds....

It was a great day, for a great kid!

He makes me smile everyday, so it made me happy to see big smiles from him on his birthday!

I love you Kaelan!  You are a very special and fun boy.

I can't wait to see your smile on Saturday for your big "surprise" party!!

Pirates of Penzance

Levi was one of the leads this year in the Middle School Musical, Pirates of Penzance. He played the Major General and he did SUCH a great job. I am so glad he had a chance to be in the musical before we leave for California. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that... By the way, we are moving to California. More on that in a later post. But for now, here is Levi in his performance, just his parts. So fun!!

Here are a few stills from their dress rehearsal, where we were actually allowed to take pictures. He doesn't have on his full get up, no facial hair, or silver hair dye. But still cute.







Levi and his buddies Nathaniel and Jay.  Not only are they in the same play, but they are in YM at church together in our Ward.  Levi will miss them terribly when we move.