February is over!

Honestly, I've never been more happy to make it past this month. February has been pretty blah. Lots of sickness going around. Very little schoolwork got done. The weather has been fairly nice but for someone used to having seasons, 60 degrees and sunny everyday gets a little boring. We did spend a day at Disneyland. A morning at Santa Monica Pier. But there were only 2 highlights during the month of February.
#1 celebrating Bailey's 3rd birthday. How can she be 3 already? She had so much fun with friends and a bouncy castle she didn't want the day to end. She is our sweet and precious little girl!

#2 Leap day - which happend to be the day Devin was promoted to Lt. Col. His parents flew out for the ceremony. It was really nice and we enjoyed the day with friends and family. I am so proud of him! I hope to get more pictures posted but this will have to do for now.

A new pet.

Well, we did it. After a lot of begging from the kids we finally gave in. For the last 6 months we've spent many weekends visiting shelters, adoptions and doing internet searches. Despite Devin's love for bigger dogs (labs in particular) we knew in our current home a large dog just wasn't a good idea so we had been looking for something in more of a medium size. We had also preferred an older dog in hope of being housetrained and less hyper but were worried how a young to middle aged dog would be able to deal with our kids. You know the phrase "you can't teach an old dog new tricks"? When considering getting one from a shelter we don't really know their behavior or their past. It could be hard to retrain  over any aggressive behavior.We would have hated to pick something and have to return it to a shelter. So we decided puppy or very young dog was the best way to go. Last week I found an ad on Craigslist for the most adorable Mini Australian Shepherd. Based on it's size and knowledge that this breed is supposed to be good with kids, it didn't take much convincing to get Devin to drive the family up to Malibu to meet him. He was a Christmas gift to someone who was not going to be home enough to take care of him and so decided to sell him. So on January 2nd we became the new owners of this little guy we now call "Brumby". If you've seen the movie "Man from Snowy River" you've heard the term brumby which refers to the wild horses. We thought it fitting in reference to his breed and also that he can get a bit hyper. The kids just love him to pieces. We all do, though there are times I think I should never have given in.

Christmas 2011!

I'm a little late getting this post up but finally here are the pictures from Christmas! We had a great holiday season with fun activities, vacation from work and school and fantastic weather. It felt a little odd for someone from Colorado. Like we were celebrating Christmas in the middle of summer!

Our Tree!

Our house with lights!

Teagan made a gingerbread train.

Austin made a gingerbread sleigh with reindeer.

I actually made some Christmas cards this year!

We went to Disneyland to see the Christmas decorations! Here's the princess and her castle. :)

Small World ride all lit up!

    

Santa definitely made a stop at our house!

New Pajamas!

Teagan was very happy with his new Thomas movie!

Star Wars!

She loves Tinkerbell and Minnie Mouse!

Dollhouse and furniture from the grandparents!

TEN ON....THURSDAY

December 29, 2001

Today marks our 10th wedding anniversary and with that I thought I would try to list what we've done or where we've been for each of them! A lot has happened in 10 years so some anniversaries are a bit fuzzy and we can't quite remember them.

#1. Devin surprised me with an overnight trip to Cincinnati and a fancy dinner on a riverboat. 2002

#2. I was pregnant with Austin and we spent Christmas in Albuquerque with family and probably went out to dinner somewhere. 2003

#3. Don't really remember this one. :( 2004

#4. I was pregnant with Teagan at the time and we left Austin with my parents.We spent a night at the Hotel Monaco in Denver where we each got massages and went to a nice dinner at Willie G's Seafood. 2005

#5. We left the boys with my parents and went to downtown Colorado Springs and did one of those spa packages that included dinner and champagne, massages and pedicures. 2006

#6. Our little family of 4 spent a few days over our anniversary at in indoor waterpark in England and then visited Warwick Castle and Stratford-upon-Avon (the home of Shakespeare). 2007

#7. I was pregnant with Bailey and after Christmas our family drove to the Isle of Wight for our anniversary/New Year's. We spent a few nights at a holiday resort in a cabin where we could cook our own meals. We played games and went for walks. This one was very memorable because I had a terrible sinus infection and I discovered Austin had gotten headlice and we couldn't find a drugstore on the island that was open for the whole week. 2008

#8. This one is fuzzy too. But it's likely we had a babysitter and went to dinner. 2009

#9. Our first anniversary apart. Devin was finishing his thesis in England while we in the States with family for the holidays. 2010

#10. Our good friends/neighbors are babysitting all the kids so we can have a date night! 2011

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Tae Kwon Do

The boys had their first Taekwondo test this week. They passed (with some help) and will be getting their yellow belts next week. They are loving it but the 40 min drive each way twice a week is wearing on me. Wish it was closer. Oh the things we do for our kids!

The month of October was super busy for us. Not only are we back full swing into school, we have also added regularly scheduled activities for the boys.

Austin has started cub scouts and has already earned several achievements and went on his first camping trip with his pack. Austin is enjoying getting to know some other boys his age and some of the silly things they do in pack meetings. Teagan gets to tag along to the meetings and field trips, which is helping him learn some of this to be ready to start cub scouts next year. 

The boys are attending a weekly Bible study with memory verses, games, and crafts at our church. Another way for them to get to know other kids their age as well as the outside help of Bible teaching and memorizing verses!

The boys have also been going to TaeKwonDo classes which they are really excited about it even though they are quiet, unfocused and lack the strength and flexibility for those kicks and stretches. My boys are not big team sports enthusiasts so I'm thinking this will be good for building their confidence without the competitiveness and also for learning respect and discipline. We are currently working on using "yes sir" and "yes ma'am" more at home since it is emphatically encouraged/demanded of them in class. I hope to get some good pictures of them in class soon!

Now just to find something for Bailey. I was thinking tumbling or martial arts along with her brothers but she has expressed a desire for dancing classes. She likes to spin in circles and say she is dancing. She also periodically asks Devin or myself to dance with her. She may be tough and fiesty but she is definitely a girly girl.

We finally fulfilled our promise to the boys to go to Legoland which is something they have been asking for daily since moving to California 9 months ago. They had to complete the school year and wait until summer was over before we could go. We spent 2 days there and had a blast. Definitely a good place if you have a younger kids. No super scary fast thrill rides which are not a particular favorite of my boys yet and Bailey was too small for only a handful of rides.

We enjoyed a short visit with my parents and saw Griffith Observatory, Santa Monica Pier, and went to a pumpkin patch. It was too short but we were glad they could take the time to come for a visit.

The kids got to dress up this year for halloween and go door to door in our neighborhood. Austin wanted to be a transformer and chose Iron Hide and Teagan wanted to be a ninja. Bailey of course chose Tinkerbell  her favorite!

The weather here is getting cooler and we now have more clear crisp days where we can see for miles across the ocean and enjoy beautiful sunsets.