You might be wondering where we are since we've been crazy busy the past few weeks! We made it to Cali and we are pretty settled in our new place! We had to do a Home Depot run and we got a nice picture of the kids with a great view...check out the word in the background.

So far we are just loving it here. The weather has been wonderful, Tristan won't go outside without sunglasses because it's to bright for his little eyes. We made it here just in time for our new ward's trunk-or-treat and that was a fun way to introduce ourselves and let the kids play games. We had a fun Halloween with a little monkey, and 2 Harry Potters! Haydn was actually superman at the trunk-or-treat but Nana sent him a Harry Potter costume too which arrived on Halloween so he switched costumes. Here's some fun pics of the kids trick or treating. I think this is the first year they were really into it and didn't want to stop. Connor did have a run in at a house that had a haunted house display in part of the yard. He decided to go in, without asking and without a grown-up. I was getting nervous because I couldn't find him in the chaos of this overly decorated house and finally he came out but he was a little shaken up (must have gotten a good scare!) and was ready to head home. Poor kid! I felt bad for him but I was just so happy that I'd found him that we had a hard time not laughing at how shaken up he was.




Anyways, we are doing great in Cali. Connor is in school and already has some good friends. We have friends in the ward just 2 houses down so that is fun to be so close to them. I can walk to everything I need-the school, my doctor, even the hospital (no wonder we hear ambulances way too often, I'm just realizing this). I've even started potty training Tristan and we are having a little success here and there. I'll definitely post more soon now that we are more settled.

It's Officially Summer

I love June! It's just great outdoor weather. We've been working on opening our big pool for the summer but it's still in progress so I filled up the little pool today for the kids. When Connor got home from school and saw it he exclaimed, "yes, Yes, YES!!!" They had a great time breaking it in this year. Here's a few pics...

Baseball Season

The boys are on baseball/t-ball teams this Spring. It's so fun to watch them get excited about playing! They love it! They got a chance to go to a Rock Cats game with their Dad and it was COMPLETELY rained out. They get to go again later. Even Tristan likes watching their games. He wanders around playing with balls and couldn't be happier. Here's a couple pics...

Ornaments

I had the boys decorating ornaments one day and they couldn't get enought out of it. Looks like I will need to come up with some more painting projects. The ornaments turned out beautiful!

The First Snow

On Monday we were all surprised to find snow outside! The boys begged me to play and since school was delayed they went out and tromped around outside starting at about 7am! They LOVED it! It was so freezing and a mix of snow and rain was still falling so I didn't let Tristan out and he wasn't too happy about that. It was all gone by the afternoon but the boys can't wait until it snows some more.

Brothers in LOVE

Is it too cold or do they just love each other? Maybe a little of both! I just LOVE finding my boys loving on each other like this. It warms my heart!

Conversation this morning...
Me: "Haydn please finish your breakfast so you can walk with Connor to the bus." (he missed yesterday because he wasn't finished and Connor went by himself)
Haydn(nonchalantly): "No, I don't want to go to the bus."
Me: "Connor, do you like going to the bus stop by yourself?"
Connor: "Well, I like having Haydn to go with me, it's more fun."
Haydn(brightly): "Just me!"
Connor: "Well, I like everyone to go with me." pause..."I would be sad if you couldn't come with me Haydn."
Haydn: "If you are sad, I hope you get happy again Connor." Then Haydn went into high speed to finish so we could all walk Connor to the bus. Nothing like a loving brother for motivation!

Memorial Day

We started off memorial by watching a parade through our tiny town. Connor got to march with his baseball team and throw candy to the crowd. After the parade there was a memorial in the center of town to remember fallen soldiers close to home. Then there was a family fun day at the elementary school and there were bounce houses, hot dogs, cotton candy...just about everything. The boys favorite was a bouncy relay race that you can see here. There was even a fire truck there and the kids got to shoot water out of the hose. It was a fun day.

Easter

These are our Easter pics! We had a GREAT weekend. We started off Sat. with a town Easter egg hunt followed by watching Conference and playing games. On Easter we woke up to Easter Bunny loot and then did our traditional Easter breakfast (explanation here Easter). Then we did an Easter egg hunt in our yard. We took a nice walk in between General Conference sessions and after the final session we had a nice ham dinner and read some Easter books.

Today's Stories

It's so nice to wake up and find your boys being friends! Haydn loves to let Connor read to him sometimes. Haydn's been feeling really under the weather lately, it was just so nice for Connor to cuddle up with him and read a book.

When I heard Tristan making noises after a nap, I went to get him out of his crib and found this. Percy has never gotten in there before and I have no clue how he did but after Tristan waking and pulling his ears and hitting him hopefully he won't go back.

Fall Fun

We've been having a fun last few weeks. On Veteran's Day Scott took the day off work and we spent it at the zoo which was a real treat. At home we've been trying to spend every half warm day outside playing. We had a lot of raking to do since we live on a .75acre lot. The boys were more than happy to help with the raking as long as they could jump in the leaves afterwards...what help!






We've been riding bikes a lot since Connor learned to ride on 2 wheels like a pro. I even got a bike trailer so I've been giving the kids rides too.


Tristan loves to watch his big brothers play. He likes being outside a lot. He doesn't even mind me bundling him up. He's so talkative these days. He doesn't laugh much, instead he does delightful squeals of joy. It's super cute!

Updates

Haydn is definitely a rambunctious 2 yr old. He's full of life an energy and he's the clown of the house. He's a great caring brother. He's a good listener and pretty obedient...just gets distracted easily. He's a little smarty too. He can count to 12, and knows all the colors. He loves to color pictures, especially trace his hands. He's finally grasping potty training fully I think! YEAH! He'll come to me and say, "I need to go potty and get a lollipop!" Whatever works buddy! He wants to be a baby elephant when he grows up!

Pennsylvania Vacation

We just spent a fabulous week in Pennsylvania. Scott had a conference there and my aunt Monica lives there so we went to visit with her and her kids. It was quite the adventure. We went to Six Flags and started off going through a drive through Safari. We got to drive right next to all kinds of animals. A giraffe even licked the top of our car. It was seriously awesome!!! We had fun riding roller coasters too. The kids spent most of the day in the Wiggles area of the park that had tons of kids rides. They LOVED it and managed to stay up til about 10pm before giving out. Nate and I were the only ones BRAVE enough to ride the Kingda Ka(the tallest fastest roller coaster on earth)! It was so fun. One day while Scott was at the Conference and everyone else was working or in school I took the kids to a cute little village where they had a scarecrow festival going on. We looked and all the scarecrows and then stopped off in a little arcade area they had there. That was fun too. Our favorite was the spider scarecrow and Snoopy killing the crows too. We took a little hike down to the river that runs right by Monica's house too. We had to climb down a bunch of rocks to get there. The boys liked climbing it so much they would have done it all day if I let them. The last day of the conference the kids and I waited for Scott to be done in the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia. It was an awesome children's museum. Anyways, I chose some favorite pics of our trip and here they are for your enjoyment! Thanks again Monica for letting us come and making the trip so special.

What we've been up to...

The other boys have been keeping busy too. After Grandma Beckie left, we got brave and went to play with our friends in a nearby lake for playgroup. The boys LOVE playgroup and were sad we missed in for a few weeks after the baby came. We've gone to the park a couple times. More than anything we've been swimming in our pool. Connor has REALLY gotten brave and can now swim the entire time without waterwings or floaties and now he can even dive under to pick things up too. We did a fun project last week where we painted rocks for our garden and made rock paperweights which we sent as a surprise in Daddy's lunch today. The boys liked painting and Haydn quickly found that it was just as much fun to paint himself as it was the rocks.