Graduation!!

Keira graduated from Kindergarten (it's been like 2 weeks, but lets pretend I'm not that horrible at posting!) ! I can't believe the year is over already! It flew by! Keira is such a sweet little girl and it's so fun to watch her grow into a young lady. She made honor roll every quarter and never had to move her clip down once for bad behavior. Actually, she even got to move it to the very elite top row several times (her teacher said that they can go weeks without anyone moving up)! We're so proud of her!

Before school on the day of her graduation, we drove to Grandma's and Papa's so they could watch the kids and we could take Keira out for breakfast. She chose Del Taco. Go figure.

Her graduation...

She spotted her family!

She not unimpressed, she's bored. Every few line the would switch from English to Spanish and the whole thing became LONG. Next to her his her best school friend Alexa



Our whole family, Grandma and Papa, Grandma Edling, Aunt Jenn and her three younger kids all came to watch Keira on her big day!

The next day was a school assembly where Keira received two awards. One for academics and one for following the "Vicentia Values" (whatever those are). =)

Now that Summer Vacation has started she's loving that too!!

Two wheelers!

Anyone who knows Caleb knows that he was born an athlete. Any physical task and he takes it on, head first. He was my only kid to crawl by 5 months, walk along furniture at 5 1/2 months and walk at 7 month. He could use the handles to scale to the top of the fridge (for the Costco tub of licorice) the Summer after his first birthday. He'll jump off things high enough to make his mother's heart stop, he'll run all day without tiring (this is not a talent, but a curse. TRUST ME.) and has impressive hand eye coordination.

Anyone who knows Keira knows that she's 6 going on 26, will make you laugh with her grown up sentence structure and sayings, can stump her parents intelligence fairly regularly (embarrassing, but true. Her latest...Do you know how long it takes for a rock to become a mineral? Or if all minerals are elements? I do now. Thank you, Google.) and loves being the oldest (in other words, first) kid in the family. One thing that she does struggle with? Adventure. She's so, so, SO cautious of anything that may possibly hurt her, it's silly. I mean, she wouldn't climb on a dining room chair until she was about 3 because she was certain it would fall over on her. This fear can limit her when it comes to some things.
For instance, ditching her training wheels.

Caleb has been ready to leave his training wheels for months now, but I've kept them on because I didn't want Keira to feel bad about still having some on her bike. Her argument to not remove her training wheels was apparently pretty convincing because Caleb would burst into tears at talk of removing his. I was told he didn't want to hit his head and die. Not dramatic at all.

Last week I told the kids that Saturday the training wheels were being thrown out, so they better brace themselves. On Saturday afternoon Brian took the kids outside to have them remove their own training wheels and make sure their bike tires had enough air. It was a big event in our house. The little girls, Daylon and I lined up chairs on the grass and clapped and cheered. It was actually pretty fun!

 Caleb went first...

 He did great!! Two or so times across the patio with Brian holding on and he was ready to take off on his own! We're so proud of him!!

Keira went next. Another tid bit about Keira? She must have been a model in another life because the camera comes out and so do her poses. She was cracking us up.

As I was saying: Keira went next. For your enjoyment, keep an eye on her face.

Brian walked her up and down 30 plus times but she would always yell, "Not ready!! Not ready!!"!
He let her go once...

I can not tell you how much I was laughing by the end. Oh, well. We're trying again after FHE tonight. Maybe she'll have better luck then!

A Bobby in the Family

Caleb loves to dress up like Superheros, characters from movies and books, Superheros, animals, did I mention Superheros? Yesterday, he found one of the twins old Christmas hats and started to ham it up. I know he our son, but he's so stinkin' cute! Brian and I decided that he wasn't cross-dressing, but in fact, dressing up as a Bobby or Copper (being American, I'm not sure what they go by these days). We're just going to ignore the velvet stripe. =D

What in the world!?!?

Do you ever clean your house and find something that you never even knew you had? You kind of look at it and wonder, "Where in the world did this come from?". For me, this happens from time to time. It's typically some small Happy Meal type toy or other junk that the kids have welcomed into the house to join the things I need to clean.

The other day I asked the kids to pick up all the toys they had out so we could get going. Ten minutes later I come back in the room to see that while they are clean, they are taking their sweet time doing it and since we're in a rush to get out the door, I decide to start helping. I grabbed the bucket and began throwing action figures and other small odd ball characters into it. Two handfuls in and I find this toy

Okay, this is new.  So weird, creepy baby lost in thought doll. Am I right? I'm thinkin', "Man, he's ugly. Who actually thought he was cute enough to buy?" and then throw him in the bucket. As he falls, face first, I notice something else about him...

it gets better...

Why? Oh, why! Is this disgusting doll in our house?! No one knows where he came from and now my kids think he's too cool to keep him from where I want him to go. Ah. The joys of being a mother.

Home Sweet Home

Well, we did it! We FINALLY bought our first house!

We started funding the house last Monday and got the keys on Tues. When we first moved to California starter homes were well over half a million and we had to wait patiently for the market to move into a zone we're more comfortable with. Twice we saved for a down payment and twice we had to use it to pay off unexpected medical bills (NICU bills for our little preemies and well, Daylon). Anyway, when we moved back to California in the end of December, we moved in with my parents to start saving immediately and started looking for a house. We've known for the last couple years that we wanted to live in Lake Elsinore and we were lucky enough to snatch up a house in the Rosetta Canyon area. We LOVE the area. We put in offers on about 12 other homes and the giant bidding wars were beginning to drive me nuts. I guess everyone wants the good houses- I don't know why. :) Anyway, when the interest rates began to climb we realized we needed to change our tactics and we decided to go with a smaller house since there's less competition(in Lake Elsinore the price difference between a 3500 sq ft house and a 2000 sq ft house is about 10k. Mello Roos and special assessments is where the price adds up. Gotta love CA. ). The neighborhood is absolutely wonderful and the schools are top notch...which after our disappointment in Vicentia, is just what we were looking for! I am soooo happy! I love our cute house and can't wait for all the memories we'll have in that house. Yay!

We've been painting a few rooms and moving over the last week. I'll post pictures of the inside once we're unpacked and set up.

I know I don't post here a lot ...and when I say "a lot" I mean, hardly ever, but I have something I need to put out there.

I think I may have made a mistake.

Let me explain. Two weeks ago, my only pair of black dress shoes that I brought with me to Minnesota broke. Like broke, broke. There's not enough Superglue in the world to fix them kind of broke (not that I've ever superglued my shoes... I don't think...). They were 12 years old, so I'll cut the shoes some slack, but come on! That means I need to drag my kids out shopping. Not just any kind of shopping mind you, but SHOE SHOPPING! Ugh. No carts. Lightening McQueen crap everywhere. Those dumb glittery red shoes (Seriously. Who buys those Dorothy shoes for their kid?) that all three of my girls will inevitably ask for at some point during the trip. Not just merchandise, but open merchandise that's set up in nice rows reaching down to the floor for the tiniest kid to see...and touch. Did I mention, no carts? Anyway, I put this off for as long as humanly possible, naturally. Well, the day has come. Tomorrow is the Memorial service for Bella and I have to read part of this poem, so I should probably skip out on the black dress with brown strappy sandal ensemble. You know I'm being 100% literal when I say , it is such a blessing that today Brian was able to go shopping with me (That's a side note, I'm just counting my blessing). He waited in the car with all FIVE kids...he's seriously studly in my book...while I ran for my shoes.

I'm in Payless Shoes ( I know. I shop fancy.) scouring the shelves as quickly as I can for some black shoes that are three things:

1. cute



2. I can cram my foot inside



3. looks like my foot's not crammed inside

Not a whole lot to ask for in my book.

I did it! I found this great pair of black heels and were actually kind of on the sexy side. These days (more like the last 7 years) I would never try to pull off these shoes and go with something a little safer. They reminded me so much of something I would have worn when I was single and with self esteem (LOL! Just kidding) that I had to get them! Why not? I'm not dead! I deserve to have cute feet! Right?!......Plus, I'm in a hurry.

I get home with my sexy black shoes, excited for tomorrows wardrobe, and slip on my new shoes one more time. Just givin' them the ol' test run!

So.....I'm remembering a couple things now:

1. I'm 5'7 and Brian is 5'10. There's a reason no heel on my shoes has exceeded 2 1/2in. in 7 years.



2. Single Woman: Walks one foot directly in front of the other while sucking in your gut to keep balanced and staying focused on posture and smiles. A Mom: well, she moves forward when she walks, balancing a tot on one hip and is known for making sudden lurches to save falling cheerios and children darting into the parking lot. As far as sucking in a gut...all hope of that left after the c-sections started.


3. My body was lost in the transition to motherhood. I'm still looking for it. I'll keep you posted. Let me know if you find it. It has my face on it, only thinner and with make up. Also. It's about 5'10 due to the heels it's strutting around in.

One last thing I remembered: the service is on a lawn. Nothing like having to consciously lift each leg up out of the grass to walk. I'm gonna look g-e-o-r-g-e-o-u-s!

Now you see my mistake. Pray for me because I'm pretty sure I'm gonna eat it.

Grandkid pictures

Keira

Caleb

Violet

Sadie

Daylon

Elizabeth

I tried to send an email out to my parents and siblings of the DLC grandkids but it wouldn't send. I'm having to resort to blogger! Sorry for the inconvenience!