Spring time!

Here we are in April, less than two months away from summer! Totally cliché, but where does the time go? I can hardly believe my kindergartners are almost done with their first year of school. I love kindergarten! It's so sad we won't be able to do it again. Here are some pictures of our spring so far. We've had a lot of fun, we've made a lot of memories, we've broken up a lot of fights, we've had lot of timeouts, we've had a few tears, lots of love, some dancing and lots of laughter.

The hundredth day of school! This is a big deal in elementary school now. The kindergartners got to decorate their own capes with 100 of anything. This mom chose foam stickers, it doesn't get any easier than sticking a sticker on some plastic!

OK, can I just say that having to do kindergartner readers times two has been as challenging as I expected it to be! We will definitely not get any awards for most books read. But Hudson and Brooklyn are learning a lot and we all try to take turns listening to them read. Unfortunately they almost always want mom to listen!

Once again we all ran the Almond blossom run. All the kiddos did the mile and did great. Ethan was surprised to get third place in his age bracket since he had to move up. Morgan got first for hers! It is just a fun experience to watch them run and to see their little faces light up when everybody cheers and cheers for them as they cross the finish line. I love this tradition with Kara and her kids and I hope it lasts a long time!

Ethan's fourth grade class had a classroom city where each of them had to pick a business to operate for four days. They had to sell things or rent out things or do a service for somebody and then they earned play money which they could spend at each other's stores. I was glad when Ethan and I were able to decide on a Kendama rental store, because then I didn't have to run out to every day and buy more Gatorade's for him to sell to his friends!

Sister love and the first popcycles of the season!

We had our yearly open house for K-5 and spring program for the K-3 kids. This was the first year Ethan was too old to be in the program. It is a super fun night of seeing the kids show off all of their work and their classrooms and then listening to them sing their hearts out for all of the parents. It is a special night we look forward to every year.

In January I took the girls to see Disney's Frozen on ice. It was a fun afternoon trip with some friends. So the boys got to go to their first NHL game. The Oilers were playing in San Jose so Kevin took them there to check it out. They had a great night! And even got two pucks for free!

We are enjoying our nice green and colorful backyard for a few months! Come August everything will be on its way to totally dried out!

Happy Easter!

For spring break we were able to use a cabin for four nights. It was on a little private lake so the kids and Kevin did a lot of fishing! No fish were caught, but they were persistent! There was also a canoe there that we could take out on the water. I had to earn Ethan's trust, as he didn't think I would be able to row him safely in  that canoe! Ethan also brought his BB gun up so he and Hudson and Kevin did some shooting. The boys loved the independent time to just go out and be boys! The girls loved exploring out side and riding their scooters down the steep driveway. I loved not doing my hair or make up for four days! That is a true vacation!

Kevin spent a lot of time untangling knots and getting hooks out of trees!

On Tuesday we decided to head up the mountain to Yosemite. All fourth-grade students this year get free admission to all national parks, so we figured we would take advantage of that. We have never spent much time up there with our kids, so I was really excited to take them up on a hike and show them some of the waterfalls. The falls are really flowing which is so nice after the years of drought we have had. It just so happened that the three days we were up there it was so cold! We bundled up in our winter jackets, and had to avoid some black ice on the way up to some waterfalls. But it is just such a beautiful place that we enjoyed it anyways.

First view of halfdome!

Bridalveil Falls was very cold! As we got closer to the Falls there was black ice and the trees around the waterfall were covered in ice as if it were a winter storm!

We all made it halfway up Vernal Falls to the bridge. I had forgotten what a hike that was! Our kids and their little legs did awesome. Kevin and the older two wanted to head up all the way to the top. They had to turn around when they were almost there though because of black ice and falling ice chunks. They did awesome hiking up all those steps! Hudson and Brooklyn and I just hung out and climbed on the rocks by the bridge.

These two! Full of personality and totally different personalities!

Canoeing with my boys! I love being on the lake in the morning! So peaceful and relaxing.

We did a lot of relaxing, laying around, playing games, and watching movies. It was the perfect spring break!

Then for my birthday, I convince Kevin to head out for another day of hiking and some dinner out. It was a great night!

And finally a picture of Ethan with some of his classmates who were chosen to participate in the math Olympiad. The top math students from his class were asked to go and compete against other fourth fifth and sixth graders. They had extremely hard math problems! Most of them I had no idea how to solve. I think Ethan had fun in a math kind of way. He even got the high score for his team. We were proud of him

Christmas 2015

We are well into 2016, and it has been a great start! I don't know how many readers I still have, but I do want to continue to document these memories as this is our scrapbook! So here are a few memories from Christmas 2015. This Christmas break was two weeks of travel. We decided to brave the Canadian winter, as it had been seven years since we had been there for Christmas. The last time we were there it was 40 below for seven days! It left a permanent scar on our memories so it took a while to get up the courage to head back. We were so glad we went though. It was so good to see extended family especially Kevins two Omas. We made lots of memories in the snow and the indoor water park and we survived quite nicely.

These two pictures are flipped around. This was the first year I really did not have to do much to the tree. I decided to just keep it the way the kids decorated, even if all the preschool ornaments didn't end up in the back corner. 😳It is always good to reminisce about when the kids were small. We had to get the requisite family picture in front of the Christmas tree, with the promise of a goofy picture of course. Kiddo pictures are getting a little easier these days but it is still amazing how challenging it is to stand there nice and smile!

Making Christmas cookies was always one of my favorite memories of Christmas when I was little. I decided to fully tackle that this year with everybody again. It had been a few years. We had a great time and ate a lot of frosting!

Ethan read the Luke 2 story for us before we opened our presents. We did this a few nights before we left for Canada.

Our flight left mid morning from San Francisco. Instead of dealing with traffic we decided to spend the night in a hotel the night before. It was such a great way to start off our trip. The kids loved their time in their first "fancy" hotel. We made sure it had an indoor swimming pool. They also ended up having a free happy hour which was a nice surprise!

Then we made it to the frozen White North! I was so thankful to my sister-in-law who managed to track down virtually all our snow gear. I just had to bring a couple things. The snow up there was really dry and fluffy, so it wasn't good for snowballs or snowman, but we also didn't come into the house soaking wet. It all just brushed off of us. Well it wasn't 40 below, it was still pretty chilly. I think the warmest it got was 9°! The kids were rock stars though and ended up playing outside for an hour or two at a time. They learned early on that it doesn't work to go in and out of the house as much as they do at home! I told my sister-in-law that all cold-weather moms get an extra jewel in their crown since it is so much work putting on and off snow gear!

One bummer, was that Kevin's Oma fell about a week before we came up. She had to stay in the hospital as she had a broken hip. We were all able to visit her one afternoon for an hour or so. And then Brooklyn and Ethan went back with Kevin's mom to see her again. We would have loved to spend more time with her, but we were thankful for the few minutes we did have.

We celebrated with the Bodewitz side on Christmas Day. We went out to Ron and Rose's house. They were great hosts and the kids had a great time meeting everybody. Kevin and I enjoyed catching up and chatting with family we haven't seen in way too long!

We needed a new and updated family picture. The last one has Makena as a baby and Kayla is not around yet.

We got some sledding in as well. There were a few hills around Kevin's parents house that worked perfect. Daddy and Uncle Ryan even got his quad out so the kids didn't have to walk up the hill. Talk about spoiled sledding! This was definitely a highlight for the kids.

All the grandkids! This was the last minute before Ryan and Jessica left for the night. Makena was not impressed with having to take this picture! The kids sure love to being able to play with their cousins. We wish we could do it more often.

The teepee the kids and Kevin built in the forest. And a last minute picture with Opa and Oma at the airport. How is this the only picture we have with them?

And two more sledding pictures. So fun!

After two days home to do laundry and recover a little bit, we headed to Pebble Beach. We overlapped one night with Kara and her family and then were there with my parents. We enjoyed lots of beach time and a quick trip to the aquarium and just a lot of relaxing.

We got to head out for dinner one night on our own and the kids had pizza with my parents. It was nice to get away for a couple hours.

Sunday night we headed to the bag piper, which you know by now is a favorite of ours. One of the things I love about going there is sitting with other people and meeting people from all over our state and sometimes around the country. I love that our kids get a chance to talk with other adults and practice their manners and eye contact with new people. Brooklyn walked confidently around Spanish Bay wrapped in her blanket. So sweet!

We wrapped up our break with some ice skating back at home. We made lots of

memories and had a lot of fun. The kids were troopers with all the traveling but needed a few days to detox from all the extra attention.

And now the blossoms are on the trees and spring is in the air!!

Fall

Yep, almost time to ring in the new year... But first let's head back to fall to get caught up.

Kevin and Ethan went to Monterey for a quick trip to check out the Mission he studied for his fourth grade project. He did Mission Carmel. ( finished product below)

Halloween 2015... I always try to find cheap costumes that make everyone happy. They all had fun!

The girls wanted straight hair. Morgan's is pretty easy to straighten, which we actually do once a month or so. Brooklyn's was a little more challenging. She has so much and her curls are so tight!

Date night... To the school auction (super exciting, I know). From there we headed to Monterey to run the Big Sur Half Marathon, a fun tradition we have started! 

Kindergarten thanksgiving feast. A fun night of poems, songs and Bible verses from the kiddos and a yummy feast afterwards. Only the Kinders and mom and dad get to go. It's one of my favorite nights.

Huds and Brook with the other set of twins in their class. 

The whole family on Thanksgiving!

My big girl making guac and singing Chrismas songs...

This one got two fillings, preceded by three shots. She was a rockstar and was actually giggling while the dentist was drilling. The dentist was a little weirded out by that and said it was a first... We all had the giggles for a while:)

This double rainbow is evidence of the rain we are finally getting!!!

And finally Ethan's completed mission project. In the irony that is life... The kit we ordered came the day before it was due.... Long after Kevin and Ethan created it from scratch:)

Next up Christmas....