First Day of Christmas Vacation

Connor got a choice of staying home with Bigi this morning or going to work with mommy. His choice- going to work with me. Why? Because he wants to ride the train. :)

Out to dinner for the twins birthday

Sisterly Love

The twins in their new birthday dresses handmade for them. ;)

Halloween 2011

I know I know. It's been awhile.  I've been super busy at work and I just feel better when I can actually post pictures with my blogs. So here is Halloween. :)

We did our usual getting together with the Bakers. The kids LOVE going trick or treating with Kaylee. Emily was following her around the entire night. Connor wanted to run to every house. The girls were holding him back. ;) This year Aria was able to join us as well.

Below:
Connor, Aria, Emily, Kaylee & Taylor
AKA Scooby Doo, Dragon, Daphne, Batgirl, Dorothy

Our pumpkins that the kids got to carve (well Mommy carved, they drew the faces. Actually, Connor drew the faces. The girls so graciously allowed Connor to. :) I tried to have them help me get the guts out of the pumpkin but they didn't quite like getting their hands dirty).

Trick or Treating down the street.

By the end of the night Emily was tired and didn't want to walk. Kaylee offered to carry her!

We had a GREAT night. Got to trick or treat for about 1 hour. That was plenty of time for the kids to get a TON of candy and for us to see a bunch of our friends along the way too. We then took all the candy and donated it to Connor's school to help kids in South America have stocking stuffers for Christmas. What a great idea and a way to get all that candy OUT of my house!!! :)

Emily's School Pictures

Having fun at the St. pius festival

Connor lost his first tooth!

Looks like the tooth fairy will be swinging by out house tonight. :)

Twins first Day at Preschool

Well today was the twins first day at preschool for the 11-12 school year. And it will be their last year at this school. Bittersweet. Kinda funny that Emily has the same teachers this year that she started out with since the school did a shake up and moved all the teachers around!

You will notice I said Emily. Not Taylor. They are split. Taylor stayed in the Precious Doves and Emily is now in the Shining Stars. When I read the class lists to them this morning and Taylor realized Emily was not in her class she said, "I don't want to be alone." Then her second reaction was "Is Isabella in my class?" (Isabella is her BFF). I looked and sadly, no she was moved to the Shining Stars as well. Poor Taylor. She was just upset and did not want to stay at school. I did find out that one of her other friends Avarie was still in her class. Plus many more that she has been in school with since the beginning so it's not really like she is alone. But I knew she would have a hard time. Will be interesting to see how she does. They were separated at the beginning of last year too for like 2 months but I doubt she remembers that much. The next few weeks will be hard for her, I know. She is the more low key one. But I know this will be good for her too. :)

Weekly Notes - 8/29 to 9/4

8/29 - Connor's first day of school. Everyone dropped him off and he did just fine! Then the girls went to the dentist and they did AWESOME!!! Hardly any crying. :) And Emily even stayed with the hygenist by herself while I sat with Taylor. Then we went to visit Jackie (the girls old babysitter) and then picked up Connor and went to Carl's Jr for lunch (his choice).

8/30 - Connor's second day of school. MUCH better than last year as he was crying when I dropped him off last year.

8/31 - Took the girls into work today. UGH. They did pretty good. Emily sure doesn't know how to control her volume though. And can't sit still. I have a feeling we'll be getting a lot of notes and phone calls from school on this girl. But otherwise she did pretty good. :)

9/1 - The girls went to Jackie's for the day so I could go to an application workshop for work.

9/2 - Picked Connor up directly after school and then headed to Grandma's house! Took the motorhome so we got to watch movies and snack/eat on the way up. Made it a much more comfortable trip. :)

9/3 - All the Aunt's and Uncles' came over (except for Mitch, Andy and Sherry). We BBQ'd at the house and had a blast playing with everyone. Uncle Phil was definitely a big hit and Evan too since he brought over a TON of toys that he gave his cousins. Included was this HUGE automatic Nerf gun that Connor had been begging for ever since he saw it at summer day camp (another boy had brought it in). Tons of fun!

9/4 - Everyone got together again and went out to breakfast and then to the trout farm. Always a hit with the kids although Taylor didn't want to fish. Afterwards I asked her why and she said because she didn't want to kiss a fish again. LOL! I told her she only had to do that the first time when she caught her first fish. Silly girl. :) Then we went back to Uncle Phil's house for awhile and collected acorns and played the flying game. Poor Uncle Phil is sore now. LOL!!

Weekly Notes 8/22 - 8/28

8/22 - Stayed at home with all the kids. Let them sleep in and we waited until the Dish Network people came and installed our new tv system.

8/23 - Kaylee came over for the day and we all went to the Krikorian free movie and watched Despicable Me. It was fun. In the afternoon I dragged the kids to the uniform shop to get Connor's bottoms for school the following week.

8/24 - The girls went to school and I took Connor into work with me. He LOVED taking the train.

8/25 - We went to the Discovery Science Museum in Santa Ana with the Ferraro's. We were there from 11am  until 4 pm. It was a fun day!

8/26 - It was Surbjit's day off so the whole family spent the day at Legoland.

8/27 - Stayed home and relaxed. The kids and Surbjit went over to Uncle Harjinder's house to watch the UFC fight.

8/28 - Bigi came over and watched the kids while Surbjit and I went on my coworkers annual "booze" cruise to Acapulco.

Weekly Notes - 08/15-08/21

08/15 - Today was Connor's last field trip at SDC. They went to Moon park. The girls had water play day. Taylor did not participate. They swam in the pool for about 2 hours after getting home. Definitely getting our money's worth!

08/16 - Today was PJ day at SDC for Connor and they got to watch a movie. Today was bike day for the girls. Emily brought her scooter and Taylor brought her little pink bike.

08/17 - Today was water war day for Connor. He didn't want to bring his swimsuit to school. Guess who got a call in the afternoon asking if he could get his clothes wet. Yup. Oh well. The girls got to pan for gold and gems. :)

08/18 - Today was crazy hat/hair day at SDC for Connor.

08/19 - Today was Connor's last day at SDC. They had a talent show and Connor showed off his karate moves. :) Today was also Kids Night Out at the preschool.

08/20 - Today Connor acheived his next level belt in Karate. He is now a yellow belt third degree. Then we went up to Victorville for Ashtyn's 1st birthday party.

08/21- Low key day at home all day. Attempted to take the kids to church but they were way too rowdy and we ended up leaving after 5 minutes. Yeah, no joke.

Highlights 08/08 to 08/14

08/08 - Connor had a center day at school (so he just stayed on campus). He wanted me to drop him off and for him to walk in by himself. Say what? This is the same boy that cried in the beginning of kindergarten! I had already unbuckled the twins so I told him Tuesday.

08/09 - I let Connor walk into school by himself! He was so happy. The twins were sad they didn't get to say hi to Miss Nancy.  Connor went to Clark Park today.

08/10 - Today Connor went roller skating with SDC. The girls had a trick roper show to watch. :)

08/11 - Today was water play day for the twins. Taylor participated as well today! Yeah! Connor got to go to the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana today. I also got to sign up Connor for all the fun 11-12 school year stuff and found out his teacher is going to be Mrs. Jones next year (new teacher to first grade). We then went to the OC fair.

08/12 - Today Daddy was off and we were up late going to the OC fair so he kept the kids home. They went to Keno's for breakfast and then they went to the park in the afternoon.

08/13 - The morning was Connor's yellow belt karate test. We will see if he passed next week. Then we all went to Chuck E Cheese for Aria's birthday. It was Uncle Harjinder, Uncle TJ, Aunt Debbie, Bigi, Mona and our whole family. :) The only one that didn't make it was Aria's mom. The kids had a blast running around riding rides and playing games. Then Uncle TJ, Aunt Debbie, Mona, Bigi and our family went to the OC Fair (again for us!). It was fun walking around with the kids and they got to ride some rides. Mona even went on some rides her Mom didn't think she would. Gotta love cousin peer pressure. :) Although Taylor does not succumb. LOL!

08/14 - Low key kinda say. I went to church and Emily joined me. She did really good! Then Mona got dropped off at our house and everyone went to the Gurdwara while I stayed home and relaxed. Mona then spent the rest of the afternoon and dinner with us. :)

Weekly Notes - August 1 through August 7

08/01 - Connor had super hero center day at school today. They also got to make s'mores. The girls had water play day today and again - Taylor did not want to participate. Hmmm. The kids and Surbjit were swimming when I got home. :) Then we ate dinner and then took a bike ride around the block.

08/02 - Today Connor got to go to the movies. At the girls preschool it was ice cream day.

08/03 - Today the girls got to bring a rock to school. Luckily we collected some from when we went camping. :) Connor got to go to nickel nickel today. Then Jeff, Romy, Katrina and Dylon came over so Jeff could help Surbjit work on the jeep. The kids played until almost 9pm!!

08/04 - Today was a trip to Atlantis Park for Connor. Went a bike ride/walk after dinner. :)

08/05 - Today Connor got to go to Soak City with SDC! And it was Kids Night Out at the girls preschool. All the kids went. We ended up going out to dinner with an old friend from Surbjit's old dealership and his wife.

08/06 - Karate, then Jeff's birthday party. :) The kids had a blast and did not want to leave. They swam, they jumped and they played dressup (well the girls at least!).

08/07 - Errand running day. And took Emily to urgent care because she was complaining her ear hurt (ear infection :( ) Went to Target and did back to school shopping with all the kids and Bigi. Then went grocery shopping with just the girls. Then cooked dinner. Tiring day!

Highlights - July 25th to July 31

07/25 - Today is our 13th Wedding Anniversary. :) Connor had fiesta center day at school. The girls had cowboy dress up day (although they didn't dress up). Went home and the kids were in the pool. When they got out, we went for a bike ride/walk around the block. Then two of the neighbors came over and played for about 20 minutes. It was a fun night. :)

07/26 - Today was water play day for the girls (again Taylor chose not to do it). And Connor got to go to the movies and watch Marmaduke. After I got home, the kids got out of the pool and the four of us went on a bike ride. Connor is doing awesome with his bike and no training wheels!

07/27 - Today the girls had Jessie from Toy Story come and do a skit. :) Connor got to go to Twila Reid park. New park for him as we have never been there. Went on a bike ride again. :) And Emily was taught this new thing. When you say stop - she says Collaborate and listen, emily is back with a new adventure, take a hold of me tight. (if you know Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby you know what she is doing.)

07/28 - Today Connor got to go to John's Incredible Pizza. We did another bike ride around the block.

07/29 - Connor went to Peak Park to go swimming today. Daddy picked up the kids early today and they met me at the train station. We then all went for ice cream at baskin robbins. :) After we had dinner we all went for a bike ride (well I walked).

07/30 - Busy day. Connor's karate. Then we met the Leach family at Knott's. After that we went to Surbjit's uncle's house in San Bernardino and BBQ'd and swam in the pool.

07/31 - Low key day. Daddy took the kids to the gudwara. Then they came home and played. We still had Mona since she went with us the night before so she stayed all day and they played and swam in the pool.

Wishy Washy

Man. Can my kids get anymore wishy washy?? I don't remember that being an option when I was growing up. When I say I want one thing, that's what I get. I can't change my mind. Meal time is the worst. Do you want applesauce or yogurt? They will say one thing, and then after I've opened it, they want the other. UGH!!! Taylor is the worst when this happens. And it's also "peer pressure". If the other two chose something else, they will change their mind. UGH!!!

Weekly Notes - July 18 to July 24

7-18 Today was Connor's first day at his summer day camp. :) I had no problems dropping him off. It was Rock Star Center day and the director said they were going to bake brownies today. Yum!!! The twins had a horse jumper at their school.

7-19 Connor got to go to Nickel Nickel today with SDC. He was so excited. He also has his scooter at school to play with AND he gets to bring his Nintendo DS (although I just realized that he somehow changed it to French so I need to look at that and change it back to English!). The kids were in the pool when I got home so I joined them for 1/2 hour. Great way to cool off on a hot day!

7-20 Today the girls got to get their pictures taken with a pony. Well Emily did. Taylor didn't. Today Connor went roller skating. AND Connor said he wanted his training wheels off his bike and started riding on two wheels! He hasn't mastered it yet, but it won't be long! He is doing pretty darn good!!!

7-21 Today is water play day at the girls school. But Taylor didn't participate. She didn't want to. Not sure what's up with that chick lately. Connor was going to Clark park today. Apparantly the bus broke down at the park. Oops. They were able to get the kids back to school in cars but yikes! Drove to Santee Lakes for our camping trip!

7-22 Camping at Santee Lakes!!! We went fishing, we went in the pool and we watched a movie on a projector at our campsite.

7-23  We got Connor to ride his bike and he is doing GREAT! He didn't want to at first and would only ride his scooter but we talked him into it - and then he wouldn't stop riding. ;) Gotta love it! We went to the spraygound and went swimming in the pool too.

7-24 Came home from camping. Rode the bikes around the block (all three including Taylor which was great since she didn't ride her bike once while we were camping).

Summer Day Camp

Well, I am totally impressed with all that Connor can and will do at his summer day camp. The director is SO nice too. :) It seems like it is really small. Surbjit said he only saw 15 names yesterday on the sign out sheet. Connor was totally excited about going and getting to do so many things. He gets to bring his scooter. He brought his Nintendo DS to school today. He was SO excited to go on the bus today. His BFF from Kindergarten is also there and he said he played with him all day yesterday. I asked if he made any new friends and his reply was, "Not today. I will tomorrow." He is so funny.

He can bring money to school and use it to buy snacks/lunch at break time. And they have craft stuff that he can purchase for like 25 cents depending on what he wants to do (he was interested in making a lanyard today it seemed). So all in all, they have a lot of stuff for the kids to do and they get to run around a lot which I know he loves.  Before I know it, the summer will be over! I think Connor is having a blast. He was so excited to show his sisters around his rooms when I dropped him off today. :)

Highlights 7-11-11 to 7-17-11

7-11-11: It was Bike day for the girls at school. Connor got hot lunch and water play day at daycare after summer school today. And the kids all said I cooked a very yummy meal for dinner. (Can you tell I haven't been cooking often!). We ate spaghetti and corn and bread with butter. =)

7-12-11: It was water play day for the girls. Although it was hard dropping them off. They were tired and so the crying and I don't want to go to school started. Oh well. They had fun. Connor had a field trip to Wendy's for lunch and then got to play with his water gun at school. :)

7-13-11: Connor has his first loose tooth!!! Connor also got picked up by Monica and spent the afternoon playing with Kaylee and her friend instead of going to daycare.

7-14-11: Connor had a field trip to Tutti Frutti. He enjoyed the yogurt. :) All the kids had a rough morning complaining they were tired. Story of my life. . .

7-15-11: Last day of summer school for Connor. :) He had fun. And is so excited to start his new school on Monday.

7-16-11: Connor had karate today. Then we met the Graether family at Knott's Berry Farm. We were there from Noon until almost 8pm and then went out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was a LOT of fun. The big boys even got to go ride on a couple of roller coasters while Susanna and I took the kids on some rides. :) It was crowded though. :(

7-17-11: Low key kinda day. Took the girls to Target with me. Then the girls had their last swimming lesson. Then we went home and I went to the grocery store. And Connor kept looking for the ice cream truck. He wants to stop the ice cream truck SO BAD!!!

Summer School Ends . . . Summer Day Camp Begins

Monday is the start of summer day camp (SDC) for Connor. Today is the last day of summer school at St. Pius. Since we were starting the SDC late, the director was nice enough and sent us the policies/rules and the calendar for July this past week to get us prepared for next week. Wow! Color me impressed. I mean . . . I really didn't do a lot of research per se on where to send Connor for the summer. I was concerned what with his "problems" at the beginning of kindergarten, he would have a hard time adjusting when we started something new. Hence, I wanted to send him somewhere where he would know someone. And that is how I found his SDC. A lot of kids from St. Pius go there including his BFF (Sean) and our neighbor's daughter Kaylee. But boy - I am totally impressed with all they do and the cost.

For my weekly fee he gets three - four field trips a WEEK. Granted, one day a week is going to a park but that is FUN. That is someplace new for him to go. They also go to Nickel Nickel, Build A Bear, local pool, movies etc. And I only need to send extra spending money IF I WANT. Yup - it's all included!! How cool is that?? So I know he is totally excited to start. I'll be updating on my weekly notes what he gets to do each day! That's the only way I'm going to remember all the cool things he gets to do. I'm excited for him! Now hopefully he has just as much fun as I think he will have! :)

Swimming

I wanted to update on our learning to swim progress. I guess I didn't mention last year about Connor and his screaming crying not wanting to participate in swim lessons. It was horrible. I was "that" parent. Ugh. He did much better by then end of the two weeks but freaked out if his face got wet.

Fast forward to this year. We decided he needed private swim lessons or the same thing was probably going to happen. So we did. And he did pretty good! Still was afraid to get his face wet but the swim instructor got him to and he was dunking his head up to 10 times a class! Yeah!

We decided to put a small pool in our backyard. An intex pool. It's worked out GREAT. Connor has no problem dunking his head! Has no problem getting dunked (yes Daddy does that of course.). And the girls are making progress too. If they slip under the water there is no screaming anymore! They just wipe their face off and move on. The girls still don't want to do it on purpose where as Connor will time after time but that's ok. :) It's all about progress.

Now Emily is BEGGING to be in the turtles & tadpoles class but it's for 4 year olds. Hmm. So we are thinking of doing private lessons for Connor and Emily together. Hmm. Decisions decisions.

July 4th Weekend

We had a great 4th of July weekend. It started Friday with Surbjit and the kids picking me up at work and we drove to Grandma's house. That saved us time from me having to go back home and then basically passing my work again. Also probably saved time on traffic as I'm sure traffic just got worse the longer the day progressed.

So we stopped just north of the Grapevine for lunch for Surbjit and ice cream for the rest of us (it was HOT) and then trudged on our merry way. Kids didn't really nap. The girls had fallen asleep right before we stopped but didn't sleep again the rest of the trip. We finally made it to Grandma's a little after 7pm. So not too bad. About 5 hours to get there.

Saturday we woke up and filled up the inflatable pool Grandma had bought and went swimming a little bit. We basically just relaxed and Uncle Andy and Aunt Sherry came over to visit. They are moving to Florida next month so not sure when the next time we'll get to see them will be. It was nice visiting with them for a little bit.

That night we went to the Woodward Reservoir for a fireworks show. It was actully pretty cool. I never even knew there was a body of water there. We will have to check it out another time since apparantly they have camping and picnic areas etc. As long as it's not 100 degrees outside! (Yes it was 100 every single day we were there).

Sunday we got up and headed to Wal-Mart to do a litle shopping. Went out to lunch and then headed to Uncle Phil's house to visit with him and Evan. We ended up going to the trout farm and went fishing. Man - the kids did AWESOME! Connor caught like 5 fish. One of them was 17.5" long! It was huge (and delicious!). Emily caught a couple and even Taylor - after saying no she didn't want to fish - decided to try fishing and caught a fish. We went back to Uncle Phil's and he cooked the fish up (and some hamburger and hot dogs) and we had a feast.

Monday was the 4th of July. The kids went back into the swimming pool and had a blast. Uncle Phil and Evan came over and we all had a water balloon and water hose fight. It was lots of fun. =) We caught so much fish yesterday we BBQd more (along with hamburgers and hot dogs). It was a fun day! And we even got Evan to wear shorts. LOL! (He hates wearing short. ;) ) Phil and Evan needed to go home before it got dark so we set off some fireworks before dinner. Not quite the same but you could still see the pretty colors. :) We also had some left so we waited for dark and we got to see some of them at night too. Very pretty!

Tuesday, we left around 8 am to drive home. The weekend went way too fast! Made it home in 5 hours and stopped at California Pizza Kitchen for lunch. It was Yummy!!! After lunch we all got into the pool at home and played for almost three hours!!! Lots of fun. It was a great weekend!!

Two Week Vacation

Well, I really don't feel like working so I think I'll update on my fun time I had my two weeks off.

So Connor was graduating from Kindergarten on June 7th. Summer school didn't start until June 20th so I was looking at having to take the 7th (since obviously I wanted to be there) through the 19th off. Well shoot. Since I was going to be off for four days that week anyway, I decided to just make it a full week and help out with field day at his school on Monday.

Monday

Was field day at Connor's school. That is where they basically get to play games and have fun. I decided to help out all day and help Connor's teacher with any last minute last day stuff she needed to get done. Good thing too as no one else from Connor's class came to help. :( There were plenty of parents from the other Kindergarten class but I was the only one from mine. It was actually a fun day. We got to put together the poster for the kids graduation and put together some balloons and stuff for the field day activities that afternoon.

Tuesday

It was graduation day!! We kept the twins out of school so they could go and Bigi was able to make it as well. They did a little singing, a little hand movements, and then they all got to go up to Father and he handed them their "diploma". It was very cute. =) After the graduation, Connor got his choice of where to eat for lunch. His choice - Buffalo Wild Wings. It was very yummy! Then we went to Knott's Berry Farm! The kids had a blast and we stayed quite awhile.

Wednesday

Hmm. I let the kids sleep in. Connor and I dropped the girls off at school and then Connor and I ran an errand. After our errand (we got mommy's car washed! and her ring checked) we headed over to Chuck E Cheese!! Woo Hoo! It was empty. LOL! Connor had a blast. We had so many tokens left over from the girls bday party last year, we didn't even make a dent! I bought us lunch (boy are they expensive!) and that was all I had to pay for. Then we went home and I cleaned while Connor played and watched tv.

Thursday

I love my job so much that I decided to take Connor in to work! (ok. not so much but at least this way I didn't have a TON of e-mails to return when I got back in the office. Let's just say after three days I had 83 e-mails!). But another bonus is Connor loves taking the train. =) So we took the Metrolink into work. He lasted longer than I thought he would but after 4 hours he was ready to go home. So we did. It was enough for me to get some stuff done so that was good!

Friday

I let the kids sleep again. Took the girls to school and then went home and cleaned the house. Oh so fun!!

Saturday

Connor had his karate class. Then we got to swim in our new pool!! (The story on how we got it and the pain in the butt it was from Toys R Us is going to be another blog post!!!) This kids love it. Now that's it's getting consistently warmer we should hopefully get to use it more. =)

Sunday

Nothing too exciting today. Just chillin' out.

Monday

We all went to Disneyland!!! We got there right when the park opened! It was perfect. Didn't have long to wait on the first 3 or 4 rides. Taylor wouldn't ride anything. :( And two of the things she rode (Alice in Wonderland & Pinocchio) she made me cover her eyes the entire time. :( She didn't even want to ride It's a Small World! WHAT?!?! This child I swear! But we all had fun. Connor and Daddy got to ride on some rides while I waited in line with the girls to see the Princesses and the Fairies. :) Taylor wouldn't get her picture taken with the princesses but did with Tinkerbell. You can tell who her favorite is. ;) We ended up staying from 8am until close to 6pm. I think that's great for all three of the kids considering no naps where taken. The one GREAT think about Disneyland - Connor broke his brand new toy that we bought him right before we left the park (well Emily broke it for him). We went back to where we bought it with the receipt and they gave us a new one!! Woo Hoo!! I had read that Disney would do that (even with balloons if they get popped) so I guess it's true!! Way to Go Disney!

Tuesday

Taylor had another ear appt with the ENT so I dropped Emily off for an hour at school and took Taylor and Connor to the appt. Poor Taylor did not like getting her ears check. When she was done I asked her what she wanted. She said, "I want my Emily." Ah! Afterward, we went and picked up Emily and the four of us went home. The kids played in the pool and we just hung out at the house.

Wednesday

Again, I took Connor into work. =) He loved the train but didn't last as long this time and wanted to go on the train again. I did get some stuff done but wasn't as productive as the last time. LOL! Then we picked up the girls after nap time and went home and went swimming in the pool again. =)

Thursday

It was all about running errands today. =)

Friday

We all went out to breakfast and then headed over to Knott's Berry Farm for the day. It was quite crowded because of all the end of year school field trips. But we got to ride on some rides and stayed from about 11 - 4. We figured we needed to go home and let the kids rest because we were going to Pirate's Dinner Adventure with the whole family (minus the Aunt's who didn't go). It was a blast! Both Connor and Mona got to go up on the pirate boat with a bunch of other kids. It was too cute! And even Uncle Harjinder and Uncle TJ got roped into carrying pirate treasure to the top of the ship. =) It was a cute show and all the kids liked it.

Saturday

We took the kids to the Four Wheels Parts off road show in Ontario. It was pretty cool to see the big trucks but there really wasn't much to look at. Went home and relaxed some more.

Sunday

It was Father's Day! The kids got to give their Dad their presents they made at school which he loved.  And Surbjit got to relax (well as much as you can with three kids! LOL!)

So that was my two weeks in a nut shell. =D I get to look forward to another two weeks at the end of August. But this time - I have Connor one week and the girls the next. Will be FUN!

Connor - Karate

I've forgotten to mention that Connor started a Karate class. This session just ended last week and I'm happy to say he moved from a white belt to a yellow belt. =) Very nice. He had originally said (the second to last class) that he didn't want to do it anymore but he has now (since getting his new belt) said he wants to do karate more. Hopefully his willingness continues. . .

Buffalo Trip Pictures - April 2011

Click here to view these pictures larger

Why not to let your children play with rocks . . .

We had a washer mal-function last night. Apparantly one of the kids had a rock in their pocket and it got loose in the washer. Ended up getting in between the drum and the outside and was just big enough that the drum wouldn't spin. Ugh. Surbjit was getting ready to go to bed and we hear BANG - CLACK CLACK CLACK. We go look at the washer and it's supposed to be spinning but isn't. We had to take the entire washer apart to get it out. Then we had to put it back together. After getting it together we turned it on so we could see if we put the seal on good so it didn't leak and wouldn't you know. We didn't put the door latch on right so the door locked and wouldn't unlock! Ugh. So after searching online I found out how to unlock the door and we fixed the door latch and everything appears to be going ok now. Ugh. Needless to say we started all this at 9:30 and didn't go to bed until almost 1am. :sigh:

Summer School

Well summer school started this week for Connor. Today is day #2. I will be interested to see how the morning went. Especially since I left him sitting in the innercourt by himself so I could catch the 8:09 train out of Norwalk. He seemed fine. Hopefully one of his friends showed up shortly after.

He seemed to have a good day yesterday. And we got the field trip plan for afterschool daycare. My goodness! They sure do get to do a lot of cool things! Today they were going to walk to Fuddruckers for lunch. Tomorrow they are going to walk to Wienerschnitzel for lunch. Thursday, they get to walk to Peak Park and go swimming in the pool. Friday is a day back at school with a Movie. The following week the get to have squirt gun/water balloon/baby pools at school. Tuesday is a walking trip to McDonald's. Wednesday is a walking field trip to Fosters Freeze. Then Thursday, they get to take the city bus and go to Chuck E. Cheese!! Wow. So much fun to do.

We don't have the schedule for the last two weeks but I'm sure we will get it next week sometime. Wow! I hope is having fun today at Fuddruckers!

I am a HORRIBLE . . .

horrible blogger!! I need to get in here. Not only did I NOT write about our trip to New York. I haven't written about our camping trip for Memorial Day Weekend either. Or shared pictures. :sigh: There is just not enough hours in the day to do all that I want to do.

Connor is graduating from Kindergarten on Tuesday! Wow. Where did the time go?? We have decided to send him to summer school at St. Pius for their four week program. This way, he can work on some things he is struggling with and hopefully help him to retain some of the information that he needs to retain. I will also need to continue to work with him over the summer on writing, reading, math etc to keep him fresh. He has a habit of forgetting things if we don't keep practicing and I don't want him to do that.

After his graduation on Tuesday he has no school (or daycare) until 6/20. So . . . I am off for two weeks. :sigh: It's a good thing I have an understanding VERY supportive boss. So hopefully I'll be able to tell you tales of what we do. :) I have lots of plans. =D

The girls are doing good. I'll save them for another post but I wanted to share a story the preschool teacher told me yesterday about Emily:

Miss Tracey was eating a corn muffin and Emily was standing next to her and kept asking if she was done. Miss Tracey was like not yet and kept eating the muffin until all done. As soon as she took her last bite, Emily closed the container in Miss Tracey's hand that held the muffin and said she was throwing it away and walked to the bathroom to throw it out. After about a minute, Emily hadn't come back so Miss Tracey goes in the bathroom and there is Emily. With the container open and she is LICKING the crumbs from there. Geez! You'd think I didn't feed my children! And this is after Miss O sent me a picture the day before of Taylor and Emily eating her blueberry bagel. I swear, these girls are mooches!! It's a good thing they are so darn cute or I don't think they'd get away with it. LOL!

At the hotel pool

Great-Grandma & Emily

Our First Plane Trip as a Family

Well, tomorrow we leave for Buffalo to go visit Great-Grandma, Ace, Grandma D, and Aunt's, Uncle's and Cousins! Wow. This will be the kids first time flying on an airplane. I get mixed reactions depending on the day and how tired they are LOL! I haven't flown since 2004 so it's been quite awhile for me as well. :sigh: It will be an experience!! Hopefully a good one. Wish us luck! I'll try to post pictures of our trip as we go as best I can. ;)

Weekend With Grandma

We went up north to visit Grandma this past weekend. Well, it was more to pick up stuff of my Dad's that she no longer wanted but we got to visit too. =) We even got to see Uncle Phill, Aunt Susan, Uncle Rob, Aunt Sue and Uncle Steve. The kids loved seeing them all! It was a very quick trip. We left Friday afternoon and got there at midnight. We came home Sunday and got home around 5pm. Like i said, quick trip! The kids loved seeing grandma and the dogs and their aunts and uncles.

Next up . . . Flying to Buffalo.. . . Pray for us! =D

Spring Open House @ Preschool

Last night was the spring open house at the Twins preschool. Since the girls are in the dance class that they offer there they were doing a short performance before we go to visit the classrooms. Yeah - well - all the girls EXCEPT mine did the performance. It went something like this:

Ran into the teacher Miss Stacey who introduced herself to me and then said she would take the girls to put on a little costume, get lined up and go to the stage. After they perform, the will go sit with us in the audience. Yeah well, they had different ideas. Emily immediately says "I don't want to". So I said I would sit with her and walk down with her and be with her up until they are on stage. Still "I don't want to". Taylor "I'm not gonna cry for you Momma." She gets dressed in the little tutu and hair piece (picture is on our camera. I need to download). So I sit with them and try to talk Emily into it for 30 mins. Finally I bribe her that she can have cookies if she will get the outfit on and dance. So she agrees.

I get her in the outfit. She has her cookies. Miss Stacey has them sit down in a line. Immediately Emily starts crying "I want you to sit next to me". I said no, I'll sit behind you. She calms down. Then it's time to stand up and hold hands and Emily won't hold anyone's hand but mine and is crying hysterically. Fine. I'm not going to push you. So we walk down the aisle (the girls including Taylor holding hands, me and Emily following). We all sit down in the front and wait for the girls to go on stage. They go up - except for Emily. Taylor does go! Yeah! They get ready to perform. They each are walking across the stage doing some foot pointing. When it gets to Taylor's turn, she starts crying uncontrollably "I want my Mommy". So off the stage she comes. And that was the end of the dance for them. The rest of the girls finished and danced with no crying. Ugh. Oh well. I guess performers they are not. :sigh:

Connor's Dentist Appt

I was a little apprehensive about Connor's Dentist Appt. You know, his track record hasn't been so good. We started out playing it up and making sure he knew I was taking him. The morning of the appt when we were getting ready to brush teeth, he looked at me with sad eyes and said, "Mommy I don't want to go to the dentist." Feeling a breakdown coming on, I quickly assured him it would be ok. Crisis averted - for now.

Dropped the twins off at preschool and then took Connor to eat donuts for breakfast (yeah I know, but I've promised him if he gets a rainbow everyday of the week, I'll take him for donuts on Friday. So far it's working!). Ate our donuts at the donut shop which was an even more special treat and then headed to the dentist. He was fine all the way until we had to sit in the chair. He still did ok. Didn't like the chair going back. The hygenist then says we need to take xrays. He's never taken xrays. Well, he took xrays but he was completely sedated so I doubt he remembers. Then waterworks started. After getting him in the xray chair and getting the xrays done, we asked him - was that so bad? His answer, No. Yeah! Went back to the chair and laid down. The hygenist brushed his teeth but he wanted nothing to do with Mr. Thirsty. Maybe next time. ;) Then the dentist came in and checked his teeth and declared him cavity free. =) Yeah!!! So all in all - 200% better than any other time he has gone to the dentist!! Hopefully it only gets better from here.

Connor at the dentist

Our new playset

The kids love it and want to play on it every day. Too bad we are having rainy weather right now. :(

Camping

We went on our last desert camping trip for this season this past weekend. :( Connor will be sad. He really enjoys riding his dirt bike a lot! Which is good. We will have to plan to day trips on some weekends so he can get some more riding in. Anyway, it worked out good because Connor had no school on Friday so we left early Friday morning. Got out to Stoddard Valley around 9:30am. Found out the first place we were going to camp was filled with trailers and motorhomes because there was a race going on that weekend. Whoops! So back up plan, we went to another spot. No big deal and it worked out great. There weren't too many people camping around us and we even got to go watch part of the race Saturday afternoon.

Friday was beautiful! We had been debating on whether or not we were going to go because of the weather. We were suppose to have a big storm coming in. They did push it back to Sunday so we decided why not. Let's go. Like I said, Friday was beautiful! It started getting windy about 1 or 2 pm but the sun was still out so that made it ok. Our friends got there Friday afternoon and we all just hung out, played outside and enjoyed. Saturday was not so great. Lots of clouds, lots of wind and a little cold. The kids didnt' mind it that much. Well, the girls didnt' like it (especially Taylor) but they did ok. We did play outside. We even managed to take a short ride to the race track so we could see the cars racing by. We were by the pits though so they weren't going that fast. Maybe 20 mph. We also ended up watching lots of movies. ;)

Saturday night the wind kept me up some of the night it was so bad. We were up at 6:30am packing up to leave. We ended up leaving around 9:30am and it's probably a good thing we did. We hit some strong wind on the way home and some rain but nothing like it was at our house in the afternoon. We were actually able to beat the storm home and unload the motorhome before the brunt of the storm hit our house. Whew! So we got to enjoy a camping trip, and miss most of the bad weather so we were lucky.

Our next adventure . . .Flying to Buffalo in April. What was I thinking???? ;)

Happy St. Patty's Day

Emily at preschool

Emily

Connor - Basketball

I've been such a horrible blogger I know. Connor started basketball a few weeks ago. This is his last week. He wanted to play so bad. He was super excited to start. However, that enthusiam has waned. :( He actually had informed us a couple months ago he did not want to play t-ball again. But he wanted to play basketball and then he wanted us to sign him up for karate. So we signed him up for basketball. Yesterday he informed us he didn't want to play any sports anymore. Huh. He even asked if we signed him up for karate. When I said no, he said good. Oh well. He does a lot of goofing off and not really paying attention anyway. How did my son become the class clown??

Wow - Has It Been That Long??

I've had requests to write in my blog. =) SORRY!!! I update little status' on facebook mostly. I should copy and past them here to keep those that aren't on Facebook updated too. ;) Like has been busy. But with three small kids, when isn't it. LOL!

I took the twins to their second ever dentist appt this past Wednesday. Taylor got right up on the chair and didn't cry. She didn't want to be there but I think she wanted her nails painted more. =) Emily on the other hand started crying the moment we walked in. They looked at Taylor and then at her chart and said, "this is Taylor? Not Emily? " I said yep. They switched on me. The last time we went Taylor was hysterical and Emily was perfectly fine. Ugh. They just LOVE to do that to me. No cavities that she can see but it's kinda hard when they are upset. They do have staining on their back molars so they may develop cavities back there (what Connor had) so we just have to wait until they are old enough to sit still to get sealants put on or until they get cavities and we sedate them to get those filled. :sigh: Meanwhile, we keep brushing like mad and no chewy candy or gummies!!!

This past Friday Connor's school had Family Movie Night. We all went and saw Despicable Me. I didn't find that movie that good but it was hard to watch and answer the questions Emily was asking and opening M&Ms and juice boxes and keeping the girls quiet and watching where Connor was sitting (he sat with his good friend Sean). Oh well. It was fun for all of us and I can see a year or two, where they will all sit with their friends and I'll be free to socialize and/or watch the movie.

I'll try to update more. I know it doesn't take a lot of time. Even if it's just a sentence or two. I can't believe it's been a month since I posted. I was doing really good there for awhile. I'll try to do better. =)

I Guess a New Post is in Order

My last post was quite sad and I just have not had the energy to come in here and post again. But I really don't want that post at the top of my blog anymore. But I should tell you about the viewing and things. Let's see. We told the kids on Sunday about Grandpa dying. They didn't get it. (I know they still don't get it because this morning they were talking about Grandma and Grandpa's house. :( ). Then Monday night we drove up to my Mom's because they were doing the viewing on Tuesday afternoon. We had the viewing and all the family was there except for my brother Andy who is in Arizona right now working. A couple of family friends came as well. We let the kids see Grandpa. I was expecting a lot of questions from Connor but he didn't really say anything. He just kept wanting to look at Grandpa the whole time. Taylor did her own thing and stayed back with Grandma most of the time. I asked her if she wanted to see Grandpa and she was like no. Emily. Well, Emily is Emily. And she was asking question after question after question. I wouldn't get one question answered and she'd be rattling off another questions. Sometimes, the same question. It was almost comical I had to laugh at one point at her.

After the viewing the family all went back to Mom's and we looked through old pictures and ate food (there was a TON of food). That night, Surbjit and the kids drove back home and  I stayed the rest of the week with my Mom. Surbjit then came back to pick me up Saturday night and we arrived home at 5am Sunday morning. He was cremated and the actual funeral is going to be a couple of weeks down here in Southern CA where his plot was purchased years ago after his first wife died. So all the family will be coming down here. Hopefully all seven of the children can make it. It appears they will and we will get to have one last picture with all seven of us in it. One thing we never could accomplish while he was alive.

On a more ironic note - My Dad's 75th birthday happened to be the day of his viewing. He had told my sister that he wanted to have a big party for his 75th birthday. How ironic, he sort of got his wish. We were all together!! LOL!

RIP Dad and Grandpa

Richard Young 1-11-1936 to 1-7-2011

You will be missed by all. Love you!

Weekly Notes - January 3

1/3 - The Start of me doing a 9/80 schedule at work. Means i'm not home until 7:15pm now. Poor Surbjit. But the kids did ok today.
1/4 - Connor was CRYING because he wanted to see Bigi this morning. Then he cried when dad picked him up because he picked him up first. Then he cried after I got home because he wanted to see Bigi. Not sure why he is so emotional today. Geez!
1/5 - Bigi came over in the evening and spent time with the kids.
1/6 - Emily was crying uncontrollably for me when I left her at daycare. I can;t wait for this phase of Mommy Mommy to be over with!!
1/7 - Received very bad news that my father died today.
1/8 - It just doesn't seem like there is much to write about it right now. :(
1/9 - Emily and Connor went to church with me. We told the kids about Grandpa passing away. They don't get it. The girls especially. I don't think Connor gets it either.

Organization

With three children and a husband living in a 1200 sq ft 3 bedroom home, we need to be organized. We are not. ;) I am going to attempt this year to get organized and I am going to TRY and keep my progress updated here. I mean why not? This is my blog. I can do whatever I want with it right? I'll of course still keep you updated with family (although I haven't been doing a great job of that lately have I?) but in addition, I'm going to do a few other things as well. =) Hopefully you will enjoy seeing my progress LOL!

Laura over at Org Junkie started a 52 weeks of organzing challenge. I'm jumping on board! I kinda sorta missed the first week as we are to show our progress every Friday and today is . . . FRIDAY. Oops! But hey, I'm posting about getting on board. And I'm making my plan today. I think that should count. ;) Now I just have to get better about taking before and after pictures. After pictures are easy but doing before pictures . . . I gotta remember. LOL!

So stay tuned!!

A LONG Update

Geez. It's almost been so long, I don't even know where to begin! That's what happens when you take two weeks off of work I guess. I never really got to sit down. Let's see. Connor had two weeks off of school so I took those weeks off. The first Monday we ran around and did last minute Christmas shopping and then went to the movies and watched Unstoppable. Since it's about a train i knew he'd like it and he did. =) His second movie theater experience. ;)

Tuesday I wanted to go into work for a few hours to finish up a project and check e-mail and phone messages. Plus I knew Connor would love taking the train in. Boy was I right. We stayed at work for about 3 hours. I introduced him to some coworkes and some friends. Of course while we were there all he wanted to do was go back on the train. LOL! Even watching a movie (I brought the portable DVD player) didn't entice him! Oh well.

Wednesday, the twins were off as well as Connor so we finished packing and waited for Daddy to get off work. Once he was off work, we headed to visit Grandpa and Grandma in Oakdale.  Trip wasn't too bad. We are lucky the kids do fairly well while traveling for a long period of time. We stopped once to eat dinner and that was it. We then spent Thursday - Monday there. Christmas was nice and Santa even figured out we would be there and left their presents at Grandma and Grandpa's. ;) They had a blast playing with all thier aunts and uncles.

We came home Monday. Traffic was a joke when we hit Los Angeles since we left too late and hit downtown during the commute home. Woops!

Tuesday, I took the the kids to Knott's Berry Farm and we met up with Dylan and Melanie there. The place was a MADHOUSE. I've never seen it like that. It was like Disneyland but since it's much smaller it seemed even more crowded. In the 4 hours we were there we went on 3 rides. That is so not usual. I hope it's not like that again!! We also realized that a storm was coming in Tuesday night we decided to leave to go on our camping trip that night instead of the next morning. That meant while I was at Knott's, Surbjit was busy getting everything ready, which he did. We then left Tuesday night around 9pm.

We ended up camping Wednesday through Saturday. Weather was horrible for the most part. COLD COLD COLD. It barely got above 40 degrees. The wind was blowing like mad on Wednesday. It was in the 20's at night. Needless to say me and the girls were in the motorhome a lot of the time. It was just too darn cold! They would want to go out. I'd bundle them up. They would walk outside and then turn around and walk right back! But overall it was fun. We did get out on Friday. If it wasn't so cold that would have been THE perfect day. Since we came home on Saturday we got to relax on Sunday which was nice.

Maybe I'll be better at posting updates in 2011. =)