School's in Session!

Kindergarten has begun! We decided to try out the tiny little school in the canyon. When I mean tiny... there are only three classrooms and a hundred kids in the whole school. The school opened in 1879.  Pretty awesome, right? So far I am completely in love. Driving down into the canyon in the morning is so serene. There are huge pumpkins growing in someone's garden along the roadside and the school has its own farm (with animals!). The campus is beautiful and there are big shady trees and pine cones everywhere. It's so fun to watch the kids swinging on the swings as the rooster crows in the background. We gather together as a group in the morning for the announcements and the pledge. It feels like a little community.

Archie is stuck with me all day but we are making the most of it!

Labor Day weekend was lovely. It was hard to get back to work and school today. Yesterday we had a BBQ with my mom and then spent a fun afternoon bowling with the cousins. I'm excited that my boys like bowling. I have some fun memories of bowling when I was younger.  It's a sport that I can handle!

Summertime 2015

Well, this was the shortest summer ever. Carter's last day of T-K was the end of June and his first day of Kindergarten is on Monday! It just whizzed by! T-K was an amazing year. Carter made friends, I made some great mommy friends, and we both had a blast. I got to volunteer each week in the classroom and loved to see all the fun projects they did. Carter had the most amazing teacher and I am keeping my fingers crossed that Archie will be in her classroom for the 2016 school year.

Our summer was fairly uneventful. Dave started a new job (we are so proud of him and how hard working he is) but that meant no summer vacations for us. So instead, we had lovely long mornings spent in our pajamas, playing video games and toys. We spent time at the beach, parks, and the pool! The boys were in swim lessons all summer long and they are finally both feeling pretty comfortable in the water. I plan on continuing lessons for one day a  week throughout the year so that they don't forget all the things they have learned. I'm still dreaming of a family vacation to Hawaii but Dave insists that both boys be able to swim independently before we can go!

Playdough mornings

I survived Adventure Playground TWICE this summer!

We found a new favorite beach (Aliso) that made it really easy for me to take the boys to since it was a short drive (less than 30 minutes) and easy parking/walking. And they have a cute playground where the boys pretended to be Batman and Robin, scaling the tops of buildings in 

search of the Joker. 

Love

The loves of my life

Besides swimming, Carter started playing basketball this summer. Archie is so bummed that he couldn't play but as soon as he turns 4, he is going to start T-ball with Carter. It'll be so fun for him to FINALLY get to be part of the action instead of watching from the bleachers!

Archie is growing up so fast and is desperate to keep up with Carter. I decided to "homeschool" him for preschool with another little friend of his for at least the start of the school year and then I might put him in preschool starting in December/January. He is currently obsessed with Batman. He loves the old cartoons and has a million Batman toys (thanks to Imaginext who needs to make a new Batcave every darn month). We bought him a Batman costume and it is the cutest thing ever to see him put the mask on and actually embrace the character of Batman (deep voice and all.) When he takes the costume off, he becomes very serious and says, "Mommy, I am now Bruce Wayne."

How can you not smile when you see this?!

Easter 2015

Time keeps zooming by! Work and school and activities and life just all seem to be on fast-forward right now. I had been looking forward to Easter weekend for weeks as just our chance to slow down a bit. We are now on Spring Break and loving every second of it... more pics and posts on that to come. For now, here are some pictures from our Easter weekend this year.

We kicked off the weekend by lounging around at home. Archie was sick so Carter got to make (and eat!) all the Easter cookies. He has been seeing a GI Specialist in order to gain weight and has managed to gain over a pound in the past month or so! (His love of cookies has definitely helped!) Carter then got to play video games with his Daddy and Uncle Brian all day. My brother bought them the new Mario Party game and Carter was thrilled!

Thankfully, we all woke up feeling pretty good Easter morning. My Grandma sent the boys giant Peter Rabbit eggs full of treats. The Easter bunny hid a present for each kid and so we spent the rest of the morning playing Batman jail and Angry Bird Trouble. We went to Dave's brothers house for dinner and the kids had a really fun Easter egg hunt.

Aren't these so cute?!

Cousins are the best!

My mom got the kids a new bubble machine and they spent the other morning in their pajamas popping bubbles all morning! I love it because I don't have to do anything!

Karate chop!

Happy Easter! Hope yours was as relaxing and enjoyable as ours!

Crystal Cove Cottage Adventure

I am learning to roll with the unexpected and try not to get upset when things don't go as planned. Take this trip for example. I booked us a cottage 6 months ago for Dave and I to celebrate our 9 year wedding anniversary. It was just one night away from the kids. I thought that would be easy enough (Side note--we very rarely leave our kids overnight. I think the last time we did was a year ago when we were in Hawaii.) On Tuesday Archie was coughing and running a fever. A trip to the doctor assured us it was just a cold virus. Thursday morning (day of our trip) Carter woke up with a fever. I considered cancelling our room but it was too late to get a refund. So we dropped the boys off with Grandpa and headed to our cottage. Both boys looked a bit miserable but they were just tired and at that moment fever-free. Here's the happy part of the story. Dave and I stayed in cottage #45, which is at the start of the historical district. It was the old Soda Shack. It was absolutely charming and adorable. There are no TVs or phones. Just an old-timey radio and some really cool books. I pretended we were in Boardwalk Empire (think of season 1 when everything is still happy.) We watched the sunset and ate a very decadent dinner at the Beachcomber.

Our kitchen table... so cute, right?

After dinner, we called to check on the boys and Carter's fever returned at over 103 degrees and he did not sound well. I felt terrible. We packed up some stuff and hiked to the top of the hill where we had to park our car. We gave him Motrin and took the boys home and put them to bed. Friday morning we had to go back to get the rest of our things and checkout. It must have been the refreshing ocean air and the excitement of being on the beach because the boys seemed to have a blast for a few hours. We managed to grab a late breakfast at the Shake Shack but by that time the boys seemed to remember that they felt miserable. So our fun weekend is now being spent watching movies and wearing pajamas. But hey, we did manage to have a few hours of fun and Crystal Cove is my new favorite beach and we are planning on returning as soon as we can!

Our cottage had a private back deck overlooking the creek.

Archie hates the water. Carter begged the whole time to go swimming.

Daddy teaching the boys how to skip rocks.

My three favorite people.

Family selfie. Archie makes goofy faces when he can see himself in the camera.

Beautiful January morning.

Breakfast!