The Princess

As the only girl of my 3 kid crew, she is definitely living up to her status as the princess. Just today she was lounging on the couch as her twin brother walked back and forth between the kitchen table and the couch, feeding her cheerios. I don't know how she managed to train him to do this, but she was giving me looks as if this is what her brother's job was and she should expect nothing less. Ashley has become quite the goofball (well, all three of them are, but she has her own unique goofiness). She loves to make faces and will imitate any that I do. In fact, Nana found this picture of me when I was little and I had a recent picture of Ashley with almost the same facial expression.....weird


Ashley is much more of the talker these days as compared to her twin brother (though he is holding his own lately, too). Favorite words include please, book, ball, baby, where are you?, all done, and oops. She will attempt to parrot most anything now, too, especially when looking at books. She loves the park, preferring to play in the sand or go down the slide. She is a major target for 3-5 year-old girls who want to play "mommy." Ashley tolerates them for short periods of time. I often have to intervene when a "mommy" attempts to pick her up and carry her off to another location. Big brother is always looking out for her, too, and makes sure the other kids know she is HIS sister.

Tyler

Tyler has been a busy boy this summer. He started by graduating from pre-school. He WOWED Mommy, Daddy, and Nana with a brilliant singing performance with his classmates, demonstrated in honor of his graduation and leap into big-boy-hood as a kindergartner. This took place in the church sanctuary at Church of the Nazarene in Atascadero (where his pre-school is located). Tyler had an amazing set of teachers, and I know he won't forget the experiences he had while learning at Little Ark.

Tyler, with his teacher, Mrs. Gail

Graduation Performance

Tyler also took two weeks of swim lessons. At the end he got to go off a big slide into the deep end. He did an amazing job (and so did his teacher, Mrs. Jana, with teaching him). He is now, officially a swimmer :-). Mommy and Daddy are, of course, very proud.



We also took a trip to Lake Almanor for the fourth of July. We had a nice visit with Nana and Papa. We went to breakfast at the Elks Lodge, watched a parade, and saw fireworks over the lake (which we weren't sure we would see due to the heavy smoke up there). Tyler enjoyed playing at the park and waiting at dusk to see the bats come out and fly between the pine trees. (You can also view pictures of me waterskiing/wakeboarding during our trip here.)



Tyler has also attended Vacation Bible School at First Presbyterian Church in Templeton, and is currently in a two-day per week pre-school summer program. In a couple weeks he will attend VBS at Hope Lutheran. Busy Boy! We will also attend El Camino Cruise Night on the 15th of August (a bunch of cars- mostly old-cruising up and down the main street in Atascadero, which happens to be just a couple blocks from us). Then Kindergarten starts on August 27. Summer is definitely going by fast.

Our New Home

Well, the kiddos and I are all settled into our new place. Even though it is temporary, as I am hoping to look into purchasing a home soon, we are enjoying the excitement of being somewhere new, meeting new neighbors, and being close to town. We are close enough now to walk to a lot of places we like to go in Atascadero, like the grocery store and places to eat and get ice cream. Our new house is a little quirky, which I think is fun. There are old wood floors throughout and it's a craftsman home, so there are fun little built-ins and unique tile-work. The kids have a play room and they love to play in the front yard while Mommy watches them from the porch. It's been hot, so we've been doing a lot of water play. Hopefully now that things are more settled, I can actually do a better job at keeping this blog going and keeping everyone updated on what the kiddos are up to. (Easier said than done :-) Ha!)


Living Room

Living Room

Dining

Kitchen

Kids Room

Play Room

Play Room

Kids Bathroom

Mom

The best thing I can say to start is THANK YOU! Thank you Mom for always being there....no matter what. Thank you for forcing me to drink yucky vitamin goo when I had mono. Thank you for being there when my children were born. Thank you for encouraging me to try new things as I was growing up until I found things that I was happy doing, and not forcing me to be a part of anything I didn't want to. Thank you for working so hard all your life to help provide for Scott and I. We were never without. Thank you for always letting me be me and supporting me in whatever choices I made, even if you didn't always agree with them or understand them. Thank you for allowing me to make my own choices. Thank you for puking with me when Aiden and Ashley were 2 weeks old.....wouldn't have wanted to do it with anyone else :-)
Thank you for being available.....always, no matter what. Thank you for your friendship and love. Thank you for helping me through hard times.....and thank you for laughing with me and being there during the good. You are an amzing woman. I look up to you every day. I am so proud to be your daughter. I love you Mom. Happy Mother's Day!

My 5K

I did it! I ran an entire 5K without stopping! Funny thing is, I still haven't looked up the exact mileage a 5K is. I know it's a little over three miles. I ran it on April 26th (Nana's birthday by the way). My time was 32 min. 18 seconds. I feel very accomplished and know I've hit a milestone with losing weight and getting back into shape. I guess I'll have to do a 10K next :-)!

Upright and on the Move!

Hi Again!

Yes, I'm still alive! We are all here, just been very busy. I am ready to get back into the blogging world, again, though. I am sorry it has been so long! It's amazing how fast time can fly :-). There's probably more to reoprt on than I can possibly blog about since my last posting, but I will try to do some updates in increments. I would like to post pictures and updates on all three kids (just need to upload pics from my camera still). It's also time to do a weightloss update (check out my weightloss ticker....it will give you a sneak peek at what I have to report :-). ). For now, I will just share a "Tylerism" of the day. Frustrated because of having to repeat myself several times to get Tyler to clean up his toys from the living room, I somewhat innapropriately told him to get his "butt in gear." An hour later we were sitting on the couch and Tyler looks over at me with a perplexed expression and asks, "Mommy, what's a button gear?"