First Day of School, First Day of School!!!!!

Wow my baby is a 1st grader! Hard to believe it. 

He is getting so big and is so much fun to have around. As you saw in this post, he has been growing up a lot this summer. Since then he has lot another tooth. He now has two missing on the bottom. 

Well today was the 1st day of First Grade for him at a NEW school. We decided to make the change to the new school because they are doing a new program that combines more Arts and Innovations into everyday learning. I think it's go to be great!!!! And two of his buddies from church are in his class. I think I might be more excited for him then he is. 

 

His teacher said Good Morning to all the kids and then waited for them to say it back. Then she taught them their class cheer. It was really cute! Their cheer is "Room 5 Rocks."  

I think this is going to be a GREAT year for Charles!

Now if only preschool was starting for Madison we would all be happy! Poor girl is so BUMMED that Charles gets to go to school and she has to stay home with me! Just a few more weeks.

Done!

Well summer FUN has come to an end.

It's back to the grind of school tomorrow. I am SO READY for school to start this year.We did have a LOT of FUN this summer! Check out our Summer To DO LIST! We almost got it all done! I think this will be a new tradition for our family!

Steps

Last week Claudia took 3 steps. I didn't' really mention it to John because it was only one time and it wasn't that much so I didn't really think much of it. Then at dinner Monday night John asked if Claudia was taking steps and I said "oh yeah she took 3 last week" he asked why I hadn't told him and I didn't really have an answer. I guess with 3 kids those little moments don't seem so monumental. So I brought Claudia over to where we were and stood her up and had her show daddy what she could do. It was perfect, she walked over to him, taking about 6-8 steps. I think John was very happy to see Claudia walking, especially so many steps. It was the first time she had taken that many steps all at once.

I think sometimes as a stay at home mom I tend to forget how important some things are to John. He needs to be involved and feel like he is a part of what is going on even though he is working most of the day. But we LOVE him for all he does for us! I am truly blessed to be a stay at home mom.

11 Months

On August 11th Claudia turned 11 Months old!  

She is such a HAPPY Girl!

Taking her picture next to the monkey for comparison is getting more and more difficult. She just wants to grab the monkey and eat him, or throw him at me. She is too funny!

 

The kids wanted their picture taken too!

She isn't walking yet, which is unusual for my kids, but I'm okay with it. She has mastered going up the stairs and thinks it is SO funny to climb to the top super fast and then sit up there and squeal at us down below. We've taught her to come down backwards on her tummy and she does a pretty good job. She still worried me on the stairs so I stay close by when she's there. She is eating pretty much all table food now and loves most everything. We are still nursing which is huge for me. I think nursing is great, but I do not enjoy it and have never nursed passed 7 months until now. Claudia is doing great.
She is babbling like crazy and does say "hi" and "dada dada." I can get her to do the "mmm" with her mouth but the M sound doesn't come out. I'm sure she'll get it soon enough. She is starting to explore more and more each day. She has discovered my kitchen cupboards and loves to try and get them open.
The other day I found this...

You may not be able to see if very well. But the jar sitting next to her is our oil jar. The jar where the cooking grease gets put once we've used it. Yeah! Nasty! She grabbed the jar and when she dropped it the bottom broke off. Luckily it was in a plastic bag so the glass did not get out but the oil was EVERYWHERE. She was frustrated because she couldn't get away. She was so slippery! I had to mop my floors multiple times to get out the oil off. And the towels I used to clean up the mess still smell like Vegetable oil after washing then 3 times. Yuck!!!

This past week she had Roseola. She developed a fever on Sunday that wasn't too bad. It came and went then on Tuesday it spiked up above 102 and continued through Wednesday. Then went away and came on mildly again Thursday and then on Friday she started getting redness around her eyes. (Which is normal for her when she cries, but not normal all the time.) I thought maybe she irritated her eyes by rubbing them with something on them. But when I was getting her into the bath I noticed her back was COVERED in red spots. I went to my Kaiser Health Care book and researched rashes. Then I tried to rack my brain to remember if there was any new soap or detergent I was using that she may be allergic to. I couldn't think of anything so I read on. I found were it discussed Roseola and the sudden rash that comes after fever. All the symptoms that they listed were EXACTLY what Claudia was experiencing. Luckily her fever never got too high and she now just has the rash a little bit. Which is way better then the fever.

Dancing! Dancing! Dancing!

Last weekend we rented Smurfs Dance Party Wii game. It was so fun. The kids really enjoyed it. Claudia even liked it too!

Summer of Firsts

Charles has experienced many "Firsts" this summer.

1. He started swimming without his LIFE JACKET! Hooray!!!!

He is doing such a great job but still loves to use his jacket. Which I am totally fine with, especially since Claudia is still so dependent in the pool.  

2. On August 2nd Charles lost his first tooth!

3. He is learning to ride his NEW bike without training wheels.
He was hesitant at first and kept wanting to quit but is finally getting the hang of it. He still needs some more practice but is doing good.

 
Madison has now taken over Charles' old bike and LOVES to ride.

4. We took the kids to the LA temple for the first time. 
My parents ward took their primary kids to the LA temple and asked me if I would take photos of each of the children in front of the temple. I decided to take advantage of the trip and bring the family along. The kids had never been to the LA temple and since that is where John and I were married we decided to show them the grounds and the newly renovated visitors center. It was AWESOME!!!!
The visitors center is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!!

The new background of the Christus is breath taking. I LOVE IT!!!!

He's how old!!!!

John turned the big 30 on the 29th so I threw him a surprise dinner party with a few of his closest friends and their wives. Luckily his friends have GREAT wives who are some of my closest friends too!

It was a stressful day for me (I just couldn't get it together).....the kids and I drove out to meet him for lunch. We picked up Sonic (Yummy!) and then headed to a park near his work to eat. Unfortunately it was a REALLY busy week for him so we weren't able to let the kids play. He had to get back to work. From there I dropped the kids off at my parents house and then headed home to finish the preparations for dinner and the party.

John was planning on working late since he had a TON of work to get done. I was hoping to just have him come home and have his friends there with no thought that anything exciting was going to happen for his birthday. But since he kept telling me he was going to work late I had to tell him I was planing a date night for us and I needed him home on time. So he finally agreed to come home on time.

The party was Minute to Win It themed. I sent out these invites

Each team picked a name and wore matching outfits. 

I had John's outfit hanging up in the laundry room with a note that told him to get dressed before coming in the house. Two of the couple and I were waiting inside to surprise him. (The third couple came a bit later)

He was very surprised!!! I was so excited!

We had yummy Pork Tacos and chatted for a while and then headed to the park to play the games.

For the teams we had :

R2C2 (Rod and Rose Cristales)

 

Lycaon (Brian and Sarah Woolf)

AVATAR (Reed & Carly Sorenson)

 Black J's (Us)

 We had a BLAST playing lots of fun games. We laughed so hard we cried! It was a great night.

We played:

Breakfast Scramble

This Blows 

 Face the Cookie

Bottoms Up

High As a Kite

Defying Gravity

Movin on Up

Marbles Grande

Separation Anxiety

Check out the slide show to see some of the fun we had!

Havasu

Havasu was a BLAST as always. It was a little bit tough with a baby again but all in all things went great.