Sunday, October 07, 2012

July in California

 Our first day unpacking Daddy decided to wrap Andrea up as he unwrapped our entertainment center. Super cute.
 The girls are so cute. They are at the age now where they can play together. I love it. They were both halfway underneath Andrea's bed playing and laughing.
 So, supposedly San Jose has beautiful weather so no one has air conditioners, well this summer it was really hot. In fact, the same temperatures as Utah, but we have no AC. Needless to say it was insanely hot in our house and unpacking all day in that heat didn't make it any better. So, we bought a kiddie pool to try and cool off. Mom and the girls all got in the pool every day! :-)  Andrea loves putting on her own sunscreen. She learned this from her cousin Leah when they put sunscreen on together in Utah.
 Cooling off in our kiddie pool!
 Mom never gets to play the piano anymore, but I love the fact that my girls like to play the piano.
One of the days that Steve took the Bar Exam Mom made home-made pizza.  Andrea decided to share some of the dough with Rachel.  Mom was so busy getting dinner ready that she didn't realize Rachel and her walker were completely caked in dough.  Super cute, but took hours to clean up.

We had our friend Brad Lowe come and stay with us while Steve and Brad took the Bar Exam.  It was a lot of fun to have our first visitor in our new home. Hopefully the boys did well. We will find out in November.
 we tried to take some 6-month pictures of Rachel in front of the oleander bush in our front yard.
Oleander blossoms are toxic.  Don't let your kids eat them.  Rachel didn't seem to care though.  Fortunately she was fine.
 Beautiful Rachel Marie at 6 months!
 Rachel LOVES the sand.  This was our first family trip to the beach.  After 2 hours of driving and another what seemed like 2 hours searching for a parking spot, we finally made it to the water over in Santa Cruz.
 Andrea would not touch the water....or the sand....made for an interesting day at the beach.
 Rachel LOVES taking baths! She lays back on her back and kicks her feet as fast as she can and splashes everywhere.
Andrea needed a little incentive to start learning how to make good choices, so we decided to start earning money for a Barbie Bike. She painted and decorated her own money jar and earned one quarter every time she did something good such as be nice to Rachel, be obedient, clean up, be helpful, etc.  She could also lose coins if she made bad choices.  It was awesome. She really did work very hard to earn that bike and it was a good way to teach her about choice and accountability.  She earned that bike and bought it with her own money in just less than two months.  She took her coins to the bank and traded them in for dollar bills, then we went to the store and she paid for it herself. Good job Andrea. Now we need a new incentive..... :-)

July was a good, exciting, and very tough month.  We absolutely love our new house! It has a beautiful interior, absolutely wonderful neighbors, and it's perfect what we need right now. It was so exciting to start out on this new adventure and learn all about a new place in the country. However, our house was really hot and Steve went to work right away, so I was unpacking in the heat and trying to accomplish something each day while taking care of two beautiful, but busy little girls. The first week I got everything mostly put away or at least in the room where I wanted it to be, the second week I worked on the garage and yard, the third week I worked on decorating. We took 3 trips to IKEA and a bunch of trips to carpet stores, but we finally found some rugs, curtains, and curtain rods for our home.  Now it feels like a home.  I only got a little home sick and towards the end of the month, but overall, I think we are doing pretty good.

Saturday, October 06, 2012

Manti Adventures and the 4th of July

 Aubrey and William came and stayed for a month with Grandpa and Grandma Barclay so they could be in the Manti Mormon Miracle Pageant.  That meant lots of fun and business and Grandma and Grandpa's house. They decided to have a lemonade stand with real lemonade made from real squeezed lemons.  They also made a lemonade slush that just happened to fall out of the freezer on one occasion and spill all over the floor. :-) A very busy, but very fun day. Andrea had a blast helping them. She even earned $5 that day. The kids made way more money than I ever made in one day from a lemonade stand.
 Mom was making scrapbook pages for her drill team reunion and Rachel was having a blast pulling all the little pieces of paper out of the garbage as she put them in.
 Grandpa's favorite time with his girls.  I think they really enjoyed it too.
 There were tons of fires in Utah this summer including one by the cabin in Fairview. This picture was a fire in the Mount Pleasant Indianola area.  We watched it burn as we went to the drive in movie with Ken and Lindsi.
 The kids had a blast jumping off the couch onto the pillows. Look at this awesome action picture.
 The kids also loved climbing on the hand rails. Not particularly loved by the parents.
 Look how cute all of these kids are playing together. They had a blast together.
 Andrea and mom did swimming lessons again this summer. Andrea loved it. She's doing her seal walk in this picture. She was fantastic at everything except going under the water. She's still not too big of a fan of that.
 We went swimming one day with all the cousins.
 Rachel loves the water. She gets so excited when she gets in the water.
 Andrea and Leah had a blast together! They absolutely loved having a week together. They got into everything, including Kayla's clothes and high heals like in this picture, but they were always so adorable.

 The kids are playing red light green light. They were having a blast.
 Leah Lou. She is so adorable.
 Eventually Red Light Green Light turned into tackle William because he cheated. :-)
 Having more cousin fun together!
 We were a little exhausted at Landon's baby blessing, so Camille was enjoying a nice makeover from all the little girls.
 We stopped to say hi to Matt and Melanie on our way back. Here's Mario, I mean Steve enjoying some time with Colette. :-)
 D'Enna is trying to reach for Andrea's food in this picture. Cute little D'Enna will take food from anyone and everyone. In fact, the night before the 4th of July while eating dinner. She ate from almost every kids plate. :-)
 They love their cuddle time with Grandpa. Rachel, Grandpa, Landon, and Andrea
 I was trying to sort through and clean out my room, so my mom wouldn't have to do it when they move, so while down there we found my mom's wedding and other dresses, so Camille did a little fashion show for all of us. 
 Elliott is great with babies. He had fun holding Rachel.
 We had so much fun at Markell's Grandma's house on the 3rd of July for a BBQ and Gunnison's fireworks.  We ate, played games, and watched fireworks. It was a lot of fun.
 Grandma and baby Landon. So precious.
 Our cute little family watching fireworks at Markell's Grandma's house.
 Camille tried to make glow in the dark bubbles using a glow stick and bubbles. It kind of worked. It was something she found on pinterest. :-)
 Our Manti 4th of July Celebration. Each dad made an awesome rocket for their kid(s) to launch. Here's Ken making one for Gunner
 Scott making one for Casen.
 Daddy making one for Andrea.
 And Tyson making one for Landon.
 The launching mechanism was pretty awesome. I'm pretty sure Steve and the boys will make one for one our family reunions.
 The races. Steve, Scott, and Brad raced in the open race.
 Mom and Andrea in the 3-legged race.
 Aubrey and William in the 3-legged race.
 Super cute Rachel is 6 months old today!
 Andrea and Leah searching in the haystack for coins.
 Andrea and Chancho at the park.  It was pretty fun trying to take Chancho with us to get ice cream and such. Andrea wanted to take him everywhere, but it was a little hard with so many people.
We got to go swimming with the Peacock family and friends. It was awesome. We had the entire pool to ourselves (50 People), but it was pretty much just our family in the water it was a blast! We got to go on the slide, have splashing games in the lazy river and such. It was so much fun.

We watched fireworks up on the temple hill. What a perfect 4th of July with family. We were so grateful to be able to spend time with almost all of my siblings at the same time before we took off the next morning and moved to California. I look forward to when it happens again. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for letting us stay at  your house and live with you for a month and a half. We loved every minute of it.