We're Back!

Well, let's just say a few things have happened in the last 6 months! I will work on updating pictures and our family happenings soon. We had a great Christmas. We traveled up to San Jose to spend it with the Besmer and Renfer families and back down to Santa Maria to visit my Mom's mom, Nanay. She is 88 years young and is sprite as can be. We are so blessed with all 4 great-grandmas and 1 great-grandpa!

The following week we traveled to see my Dad's mom, Great Grandma Perta. The kids love seeing everyone and of course, getting lots of love and presents!

And our biggest news of 2015... yes I realize it's 2016 now, is that we moved into a new home. So the last 6 months has been dealing with all of that. Moving, renting out our old home, moving into a brand new home and making it our HOME! We love it and will update soon on our progress. It's fun having a blank slate but oh so overwhelming!

Last Day of Preschool for Violet

So, next year I will have two kids in "real" school, one in preschool, and two remaining in daycare. Violet did well in preschool this year despite being a little shy. She learned most of her letters, her numbers, and the sounds to the letters. We need to get her more comfortable with being able to tell the teachers what she knows. She loves to color and draw, especially mermaids, rainbows, and princesses.

Last Day of 1st Grade

Wow! That year went by quickly, that's for sure! Ashton learned a lot this year. He has excelled in school with little help from Mommy this year. He is very intelligent. We worked on maturity issues this year, such as, sitting in our seats, not getting up to talk to his friends, but I am very surprised how well he did. He always got >90% in his spelling tests, usually 100% and always 2-3 "challenge" words. He passed his 60 addition, 60 subtraction, and 100 plus "Math facts." He has learned to read and last tested, he was passing AR 2.6 and 2.9 levels - which to us non-familiar to the AR program - Grade level (2), month 6-9. He loves to learn about History - he loves maps and enjoyed learning about presidents. He is ready to take on 2nd grade! I'm hoping to encourage his love of reading this summer!

My Mother is a Baker - Violet's Preschool Perfomance

It's the end of the year performance time. It's going to take awhile to upload all of her songs, but this one is a fun one!

Posing Princess Violet

We spent a lot of time outside while the hubs was hard at work laboring away. I finally remembered to grab my camera and take some pictures of the kids!

She was being silly!

Ooh! That's pretty good of all of them!

Eliza loves this little car. It has survived them all! I think Ashton got it around a year old!

She wanted a a picture with Eliza!

Pretty much how Ashton takes pictures these days!

This one is a pretty poser!

Always on the move!

Oh Tim!

Drought Proof Backyard

Well, California is in one of it's worst droughts in history. Last year, we stopped watering our fairly new sod. Wahhh! I had done that when the hubs was off to Iraq, so that was under 4 years ago! But people are living without water, so we had to do our part and sacrifice! So, we have been living with dirt and weed patches for the past year and something had to be done! The hubs decided to drought proof our old lawn with pea gravel. Eventually we can put walking pavers and maybe even a picnic bench, or better yet, an above ground pool!

We had all the pea gravel and mulch delivered to the front of our house.

My pretty posing princess and Tim being Tim!

They worked hard digging up all the remaining grass patches before laying down the weed barrier.

Was Violet really working?? She's not one to do manual labor!

Our poor sod!

Watch those toes Ashton!!

Dad getting the job done!

Are all kids like this?? I turn my back and Tim is scaling the wall!!

After a week of hard work, the pea gravel and mulch transforms the area.

I started our garden that weekend. This was about a month ago. I should take a picture of how much has grown!

I love fresh mulch!

I told you she loves to pose!

Eliza Waving

Eliza is a girl of few words but oh does she love to wave! She has waved for awhile but it's so cute. She does the "up-and-down" shake her hand kind of wave. And lately has been doing the "side-to-side" way. All of which can either mean Hi, Bye, and All Done! She squeals quite a bit and can point like no one's business to get what she wants.

Oh yes! And she has some teeth! Two bottom and 3 top teeth! That stubborn fourth on her left side won't pop through!

The up and down wave!

Side to side with a raspberry from Tim!

She is so cute sometimes

Tim too!

Taco-tongue Tim! Yes he has figured out how to do a taco with his tongue and he won't stop!!