Thanksgiving at the Coast

We headed out to the Coast for Thanksgiving this year. We rented a house with our friends and went out to eat for Thanksgiving dinner. A little nontraditional but it was fun to do something different. The kids had a great time with their friends and it was nice to just relax without all the work the holidays often bring. As you can imagine the weather wasn't the greatest, but we hit the beach anyway. The boys of course went body surfing while the rest of us looked for sand dollars on the beach. We also had a fun time going to the arcade, shopping, feeding the seals and visiting the aquarium.  

Camp 18 where we had Thanksgiving Dinner

Here are the crazy boys (Ethan, Cameron and Jackson) in the ocean that happened to be 48 degrees! Brrr...

Gavin, Avery and Delaney finding sand dollars

The aquarium was so fun!

Set myself up for failure . . . again!

I have had my Christmas cards printed and ready to go for 3 weeks now, and they are still sitting here waiting to be mailed out. The problem? I put my blog address on them to force my hand and make me get my blog updated (which as you can see is 7 months behind). Surely, I would be able to whip out a bunch of posts while trying to get everything done and ready for Christmas, not to mention all the other 100 things I have commited myself to doing. Ugh! Why do I always set myself up like this?!? So please come back in 2013 where maybe I will have learned to say no a little more, stopped volunterring for jobs no one else will do, and as a result have blogged a little more! Merry Christmas!

Halloween

Halloween always sounds good in theory. It is a lot of work for little payout. Regardless, here are some pictures of our spooky night out! They love it so much so I guess we will keep doing it! 

Spooky theme this year. I absolutely love Gavin's smile. He is a sweet Grim Reaper!

Here they are carving pumpkins. Definitely a Halloween tradition I could do without.

Here are the trick or treat bags I made each of them this year.

Here is my mantle. Best part of Halloween - the decorating!

Family Fun Night

On Friday nights, we have family fun night. Usually we rent a movie and make homemade pizzas, but tonight we went bowling! We had such a great time. Ethan has some crazy backwards flick throw, Gavin just runs and throws while hoping for  the best and Avery kept on trying until she finally hit her first pin in the eighth frame. It was a great night that reminded me why I love being mom to this crazy bunch and wife to my sweet hubby (even if he did beat me in both games)!

Dear Blog

Dear Blog,
I think of you often and just wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten about you. I have lots of pictures and great post ideas in my head. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get my act together and actually get them posted. Please be patient with me, I really do want to spend time with you . . . it just seems that everyday life has a way of getting all my attention these days!
Fondly,
Sloane

The Sign of Too Much Laundry!!

You know you haven't kept up on the laundry when the kids can climb in the laundry chute and they poke out the top. I have got to get a better laundry system going - like maybe doing it more than once a week!

Science Fair

The past month we have been involved in Science Fair. Ethan and Avery were both participating this year. Ethan took three identical plants and fed them three different liquids (water, 7up and orange juice) and measured their success and growth. As you can see, Ethan defied scientific data and ALL three of his plants grew beautifully. Avery's project was on the pupil and how it reacts to light. She made these awesome models of the eye out of stryfoam balls. They both presented their projects to the judges and both did awesome!

Girls' Weekend

Avery and I headed down to California for a little girl time. Avery is an amazing student and has done great on her report cards, so she got to miss a couple days of school and we headed down for some sunshine and fun with Grandma and Grandpa Edwards. We went to the Museum of Art and History, the San Buenaventura Mission, shopping and hunting for antiques. Grandpa took Avery on a special date to breakfast, shopping and feeding the ducks at the duck park. The weather was AMAZING and it was hard not to go house shopping as well!

On the Airplane

At the Mall

At the Mission

Mommy and Avery at the Museum

Grandma, Avery and Sloane at the Mission

Pinewood Derby

Ethan participated in his last Pinewood Derby. His car this year was "The Jailbird". The leaders really stressed this year that the boys build their own cars, and cars from years past could not be used. Ethan made this great car all by himself. It wasn't the fastest on the track, but it sure looked cool and we had a great time. Cameron has a program on our laptop that sets up a rotation for all the cars to compete randomly and race them all in different heats. He even hooked up an amp to the computer so that there were different noises (like cars revving, crashing and it even played the National Anthem at the beginning!) playing during the races.

Lost Tooth = Big Boy

 My baby lost his first tooth. It seems like the minute they lose their first tooth, they become big kids for real. I don't like pulling their teeth, but apparently that didn't matter to Gavin. He pulled out his first tooth all by himself and earned himself $5 from the tooth fairy. Two days later, he pulled out the one next door and raked in another $4. What a big brave boy!

Our Special Day

On President's Day, Ethan and I went skiing. We had such a great time together. Cameron still hasn't been cleared for skiing on his knee, so Ethan and I got to share a special day with just the two of us on the slopes. I am so proud of what a great skier Ethan has become. You can certainly tell his Daddy has been his ski instructor because he loves to go fast! We spent most of the day on jumps at the terrain park or taking on the black diamond slopes. Crazy Boy! Here are some pics and a video that does Ethan no justice . . . his first try on the jump where he didn't get enough speed. My phone died so I couldn't get any other videos of him getting some air after a few practice runs! 

Ethan and Sloane on the ski lift

Ethan ready to get going

Recess Entrepreneur

Today I got a call from the Principal's office. Nice. Every parent loves to see the school's number on their caller id. She starts off with "I have Ethan here in my office", and I start imagining all sorts of awful things Ethan must have done to land himself in the office. Here was the culprit:

Bey Blades! Ethan and his friends take these little spinner things to school to trade with each other. They come apart and you can switch out the pieces to make the best bey ever! 

A boy named Daniel saw one of Ethan's that he liked at recess and offered him $50 for it. Ethan happily said yes and pocketed the $50 bill. Apparently when back in class a classmate said "Ethan made $50 at recess". The teacher intervened and thus the trip the the Principal's office. To Ethan's credit, he didn't go to school with the intent to sell. The opportunity just fell into his lap (isn't that what all white collar criminals say?). I tried to explain to Ethan that receiving $50 for something that costs $8.99 in stores is shady. He didn't agree - he thought it made good business sense. So I went with the "It is against school rules to buy and sell items at school" route and he said ok. I guess being sent to the Principal's office doesn't always mean what it did in the olden days!

Crabby Boys

We went to this really yummy seafood restaurant for dinner. Ethan wanted to pick a crab out of the tank for dinner. The crabs were huge so Ethan and Cameron decided to share one. The chef came out and got Ethan, let him pick a crab out of the tank, and he even had him pet it before taking it off the kitchen! It was so funny watching Ethan wrestle with his crab trying to get the meat out. By the end of dinner he was a pro at using the cracker and the crab fork. He could even get his crab dipped in the clarified butter and in his mouth before the meat fell off the fork!



Here they are getting ready to dig in!



Working hard for his dinner



Yum Yum



To Back Date or Not to Back Date

It really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who knows me well that I have commitment issues. I still write posts and then save them for days before I publish for fear that they aren't really what I want to share. Really? Then I remember that there are things that I haven't shared yet (like Christmas morning photos) that I should have and I get all crazy about whether or not I should back date my posts so that my dates are in order, but if I do that, someone may miss a post because it is further down on the posts they have already seen. I am certain that blogging isn't supposed to be this hard . . . I just have issues. Having said all that, I am posting Christmas morning (in its proper date order), so if  you are interested, scroll on down and have a look.

It Finally Snowed!

The front yard

The backyard

My kids have been dying for the snow to come. There was no snow for Christmas, no snow for winter break, and a lot of news about snow that never came! The past few days it has been snowing here and there, but nothing that has been sticking - meaning no snow to play in. Alas, the snow has arrived! Last night is started snowing hard and it was predicted to snow all night! When we woke up this morning, here is what we saw. The kids of course see "Yea, no school and we get to sled!" I of course see "No school = snow clothes on and off all day, wet footprints on my floor and not getting half the stuff done I had planned for today!".  Oh well, I better go get the camera and at least get some good pictures out of it!

Ethan getting another snowball ready

The neighbors dog, Stuart. Gavin kept throwing him snowballs and he would catch them in his mouth.

    

Avery looking wet and cold



Gavin on the sled



Half the neighborhood on my driveway





My Husband - The Poet

So here is the story: Years ago (probably before Ethan was born), I asked my not-so-talkative husband to write me a poem as a gift for something. I was in one of those "I wish you communicated more to me how you feel" moods. Then just this last week, we were talking about poems with the kids, so I got out this slip of paper I have kept all these years and read the kids my poem from Cameron. They were cracking up and, I have to admit, it never fails to put a smile on my face either! Who knew such deep feelings lurked below Cameron's surface?!?

Everything is so Big

Over the Christmas break, I took Ethan in for an eye exam. Over the past couple of months, I have noticed little things that made me think he might have trouble seeing close-up! Sure enough, he is farsighted and needs glasses for reading and computer work. Of course, this day went down as "the worst day of Ethan's entire life". He picked out two really cool pairs of glasses though - one for school and one for home. I think he looks great in them - and they help him see better! A win-win in my book. Not so much in his!