Milestones

In the space of one weeks time we hit three milestones for the kids in our family:
1) Nathan started to crawl (now he is a little moving machine)


2) Megan had several days in a row of successful potty training (YAY - she was pretty quick). This is one day when she wanted to try and go potty before she took her "rest." I came into the bathroom within a couple of minutes and she was falling asleep on the toilet.


3) Caelan learned to ride her bike without training wheels (I knew she would be able to get it fast once she decided she wanted to...and she did. Got on the bike and rode off).

Del Mar Fair

We headed down to the Del Mar fair last week. What a blast. We saw Monster Trucks, Motorcross Riders, and real Transformers in a show. We also saw "The Music of Abba" - a very fun music group singing Abba songs. We saw elephants, lots of livestock animals (and the kids even got to pet and feed some of them), ponies, pig races and a garden show. We rode lots of rides (carousel, huge ferris wheel, airplane ride, mini roller coaster, spinning rides, teacup rides, jungle train, high swings and little boats). Ben has grown into a ride-lovin' boy (much different from his last roller coaster experience at Disneyland - which he did NOT like at all). This time he loved it! Megan also wanted to ride every single ride (she was a little too small for some of them). We ate a HUGE delicious Mexican Funnel Cake (huge pile of churros with chocolate and whipped cream and strawberries) - YUM (and big enough to feed 9 people). We had lots of fun!

The past few months.....in photos

Caelan's 6th birthday


Caelan's last dance recital (pretty cute dance to "How does she know" from Enchanted)


Ben and his cousin, Logan. Logan came to stay with us for little over a week. Great fun! These boys has a blast together.


Cute girls. These are homemade dresses made by Grandma Dick and Aunt Jenny.


Our little "Nathy Pants"

Birthday Fun

I turned 28 this month. Holy Smokes. Only two more years before I hit the big 3-0! My actual birthday was pretty mellow. I had a delicious Brownie Sundae (which is making my mouth water as I write this post). Then two days later we got two free tickets to Six Flags Magic Mountain from my dad, so Sean and I spent a fun day at the amusement park. I used to go there often when I was a teenager, and I would ride the roller coasters over and over again. I went again a couple of years ago (it had probably been 9 years or so since I had last een) and I realized that my stomach isn't quite as strong as it used to be. I got sick three times while I was there. This time was better. I was actually happy to stand in some of the lines - it helped settle my tummy down before getting on the next ride. I made it the whole day feeling great (just one time that I realized it had been too long since I had eaten, so I did and I was fine). Man, those rides have come a long way since I was a teenager - lots of fun. We had a blast, and it was especially nice to have a day together with my husband (just him and me). Thanks Honey for a wonderful birthday date with my favorite person!

Goodbye House on Broudy Dr.

Well we officially said goodbye to our house in Kingman. Sean has been working with my dad since February in CA, and so he was down there a LOT and I was in Kingman with the kids. It was tough to be away so much, so we knew that once Caelan was done with school we would make the move to CA. So we did. We are currently staying with my family in Murrieta until we know for sure what area Sean will be working in and therefore where we want to be for a while. We think it will most likely be here in Murrieta, but we shall see. Anyway, we got everything together to move the week after Caelan finished school. We ended up getting a storage unit in Kingman (MUCH CHEAPER than CA) for all our stuff, and then we drove down to CA. We drove back to Kingman with my dad's huge van and a trailer to get the stuff we were going to take with us(beds and clothes and such). And then we said goodbye to our house. Even though I knew this was a good move for us it still was tough leaving that home behind...especially with all the work we put into it. I really love that house (and I think there is even more of a special feeling about it because it was our very fist home (that was ours)). So we are onto our next adventure. Good times.


Dear 1820 Broudy Drive,
I'm sure going to miss you. I'm going to miss the huge Mulberry trees in the front yard and the view of them from the living room window, and Caelan is going to miss climbing way up into their branches. I'm going to miss the wide open living/family/kitchen area where we did lots of good old "living." I'm going to miss the red master bathroom and the handprint painted border in the kids room. I'm going to miss the huge fireplace and the wood floor in the kitchen (that we laid ourselves). I'm going to miss the ceiling fans in EVERY room. I'm going to miss the workshop in the backyard (and so is Sean) and all the storage in the garage. I am going to miss the circle driveway and the apple tree in the backyard (that the kids would pick tiny apples from in the Fall). I'm going to miss the roses in the front yard and the fence around them (that Ben broke part of when he put the Galaxy in drive one day and rolled down the driveway). I'm going to miss the huge kitchen counter and the little shelf around the kitchen cupboards. You've been a good house for us, and I'm going to miss walking into your doors every day.
Love,
Tera


PS. We did end up renting that house...only one week after we got all the keys and such to the property management company. YAY!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my Mom's birthday, and I didn't want the day to pass without making sure I recognized it in some way. So, here's to you MOM! Love you.

De-Junking

I LOVE to throw stuff away. Seriously, it brings great joy to my heart. I think it stems from living in a fairly small house with 8 other people growing up. We just didn't have enough space to save all sorts of random stuff. When Sean and I got married I brought about 2 boxes of "stuff." We've moved 8 times in the 7 1/2 years we've been married (with another one coming up in the next month or so) which is a little tiring, but also a great chance to de-junk. I'll admit I don't love the packing and cleaning and such that comes with a move, but I love to clean out ALL of my stuff and get rid of things I don't use. Plus, I use my moves as a measuring stick: if I haven't used something since the last time I moved - I get rid of it. I remember when my dad got remarried, and they were moving from their two separate homes into one house. I went down to CA to help, and I was just in "throwing-away" heaven. Man, I was tossing things left and right. I've been doing a bunch of that again, but this time I decided to have a little yard sale before I take all my stuff to the local church thrift store. I've never had a yard sale - EVER (not growing up, not since I've been on my own - NEVER), but I was getting this big accumulation of "stuff" in my garage, and I thought, "why not?" So this morning was my first day (I've noticed that here in Kingman everyone advertises for yard sales for both Friday and Saturdays, so I followed suit). To my surprise we actually made an okay amount of money for a couple hours Friday morning. One of my favorite parts was when I was putting all the stuff back in the garage, and only about half of it remained (YAY for getting rid of stuff). We'll see what tomorrow morning brings. Kind of fun!