Halloween

The kids all had a fun Halloween!  The boys both had parties at their schools and we also had a party here at the house.  Austin was a road, Nathan was Ferb, and Natalee was a butterfly.  Mom and Dad also dressed up, but somehow no pictures were taken of them in costume.  Raquel was a rodeo clown and Brandon was Pop Eye. 

Beatrice Ct (Beatrice is one of Austin's friends from his class).

 Ferb (From Phineas and Ferb)

Butterfly

The boys trick or treated up and down the road.  The plan was to let them go to 5 or 6 houses.  An hour and a half and 2 full baskets later, they were done.  Unfortunately, we bought 300 pieces of candy to hand out ourselves and didn't have a single trick-or-treater!!!  I think we all gained a few pounds munching on the cany for weeks!

Bloody cookies for the party...

 Eyeball punch anyone?

This pumpkin is SICK!

Nathan starts soccer

With all of the activities and sports Austin has been a part of, it is now time for Nathan to take his turn.  We started with a little session of indoor soccer.  It was just a skills class, but Nathan loved it.  He was really good too!  He had great coordination and was an awesome listener.

Natalee had fun too!  Her thoughts, "These are not cones, they are accessories silly boys!"

Nathan Starts Preschool

Nathan started another year of preschool.  The preschools are a little different here.  They are almost all parent co-ops- meaning the parents have to volunteer alot of time in the classroom.  I'm thankful that Rah-Rah is close to help take care of Natalee and pick Austin up from school so that I can help out every couple of weeks in Nathan's class.  He loves going to school and never fusses when I leave him.  Austin on the other hand is a different story...

Austin and baseball

Austin played another season of coach-pitched baseball.  His skills are getting so good!  He is an awesome little baseball player... We are hoping he wants to continue with it but we are not going to push him.

Whoa! Slow this thing down...

Natalee walks

After months of cruising and crawling, Natalee finally took her first steps.  By the end of her first week she was a pro!

Gardening... Our NOT SO Green Thumbs

So, our new house has a beautiful yard.  It is huge and is alot of work but we are really enjoying the gardening aspect.  Get this... you can actually dig a hole without days of water before hand.  This is a new concept to us desert dwellers.  We were really excited to try our luck at vegetable gardening since the property already had some fenced and raised flower beds.  And a visit from Audrey to help us get started was perfect.  The kids were all involved in the planting.  We watered the plants and they were doing so well... until the naughty squirrels got to it all.  Slowly our plants were being chomped away at.  Although, we had one head of lettuce that seemed to grow quite large.  So, we went out to the garden with our basket, picked it, washed it and made a salad.  We were all so eager and excited to eat our own lettuce.  Why hadn't the squirrels eaten this one head?  We soon found out!  We took one bite of that salad and quickly spit it out.  Apparently it was a more bitter type of lettuce and letting it grow so large made it even more nasty!  Oh well, we learned alot and have found a way to keep the squirrels out so next spring we will try it again! 

Blank slate...

Nathan helped

 Planting

Natalee helped

It looked like this for about 2 weeks before the squirrels found their new buffet!

Enjoying our new surroundings

We had quite a busy summer with our move. Once we were settled in, we started sight seeing and taking the kids to fun places around us. We went to San Francisco and visited the city, the children's museum, and the beach. We also visited Fairytale Town and another little amusement area here in town. We played along the banks of the American River and Lake Natomas. We are really enjoying the change in scenery and pace of life.

Running around at Fairytale Town

Playing on brother's bike at McNear Beach

Wading in Lake Natomas

Spinning around at the amusement park

Austin is a big first grader

Here Austin is starting first grade... His eyes are a little swollen from tears :(  He is going to a wonderful school and has a very nice teacher.  It took him a while to adjust but made lots of friends and continues to show how smart he really is.  I really hope that when he is in second grade and Nathan is at the same school, mornings will be easier for him and won't cry at the door as we all leave.

Natalee turned 1

Our baby girl is growing so fast... At 1 year of age Natalee can wobbily walk, say numerous words- including Mama now, sleeps through the night on nights that she is not teething, eats and drinks everything but really loves her spaghetti!  To celebrate her big day, we had a small family party and served yummy spaghetti and cute pink cupcakes.  It was a fun day!

Bye Bye Vegas

Happy 4th of July!

We celebrated 4th of July this year with another party at our house.  It was a blast!  Although, the end of the night was difficult when it came time to say goodbye to everyone.  The kids had a great time bobbing for apples, playing in the pool and watching fireworks. 

Travels

The summer was filled with lots of visits and trips before the big move.  We got to spend alot of time with Grandma and Aunt Carin and the kid's cousins.  We also got to visit with Grandpa and Grandma Noli.

A trip to Phoenix for Cousin Christopher's birthday

Raquel and the kid's first trip to the Grand Canyon

Sedona with the family

Aunt Carin came to hand deliver early birthday presents for Natalee's birthday

Visiting with Tata

The Grand Canyon with Aunt Carin and Cousin Hailee (and Grandma)

Nathan smelling flowers in Sedona

Aunt Carin and the baby girls after a photo session at the mall in Las Vegas

Enjoying some beach time in Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara visit with Grandpa and Grandma Noli

I know this post doesn't do all of our travels justice... We really love our new place but miss half of our family.  We had a great summer visiting with everybody before the big move though.

XOXO

Big changes!

When Brandon began his job at Motion Industries we never would have imagined how things would turn out for him.  Here we are almost 10 years later and it is time for his next big step.  He has been promoted to a branch manager!  I couldn't be more proud of him.  He works so hard and does all the things he needs to do and then some.  Unfortunately/Fortunately, with this promotion comes a relocation.  We are moving to Northern California!  We always knew Las Vegas would not be our permanent home but it has kind of grown on us and now that we have plans to leave, we are finding it difficult to say goodbye to our friends, our schools, our parks, our home, everything and everyone we have made a part of our life for the past 5 years.  And due to the state of the housing market, we are going to hold onto our home here and rent it out a while.  It seems weird that we will own a home we will never again live in.  The good news is we put it on the market and it rented within the first week!  Whoooo- that is a big relief!  So, the harder part was actually finding the area we wanted to live in near Sacramento and then finding a house that we wanted to call home for a year or so until we could better figure things out.  Natalee and I made several trips and Drea drove over from San Rafael to help us out.  Finally, after searching and searching... it truly was exhausting... we found a quaint little house that rests on about 3/4 of an acre.  We are now excited and things are falling into place as the moving date approaches... only 2 more weeks and Orangevale, California will be our new home and place to begin our next chapter in life.

Our new backyard

Happy Birthday Drea!

Natalee and I got to visit with Aunt Drea this year for her birthday!

Memorial Day Camping in Duck Creek 2010

We made another trip to Duck Creek, Utah this Memorial Day to meet up with our friends and camp out.  It was such a blast!  We actually stayed the weekend before Memorial Day and into the week, came home a few days for Austin's last baseball game of the season and to get everyone better (Brandon, the boys and Natalee all came down with a horrible cold!), and then went back for the actual weekend of Memorial Day.  Some highlights of the trip...

Brandon tipped the rhino!  Thankfully, no one was hurt... and the rhino was barely scratched.

During the week, we woke up one morning and everything was covered in snow!  It was so beautiful... and the great thing was it all melted off by the evening.

All of the riding... If we weren't out on a ride on the rhinos, the boys were piddling around camp on their friend's quad.  Austin was actually big enough this year to really handle it by himself and really enjoyed it.  Nathan was his pit crew!

And Natalee had a great time too!

Thanks Grandma for letting us borrow the motor home for the past year.  We have had some great times and made some lasting family memories.

Another milestone...

Austin made it through his kindergarten year with ease!  Although he still had his days, even at the end where he wanted to cling to me and stay home, he did it.  He is soooo smart and blew the marks out of the water.  We are so proud of you smart boy!

Nathan turns 4

Nathan is now 4 years old... Definitely not my baby anymore.  He is growing up so quickly it seems.  This past year he has developed a complete infatuation with Nascar and Jeff Gordon.  He loves to look at pictures, watch races, play races with cars and running, and he loves to draw race tracks.  He has also completed his first year of preschool.  He is so independent and never even cried when I dropped him off.  He has a great sense of humor and is completely hilarious.  He is going to be the jokester.  He also has different accents- he has only lived in Las Vegas his whole life but he speaks as though he was born and raised in Boston, sometimes and New York other times.  He has such a sweet nature about him and loves his brother and baby sister with all he has.  I love his random "I love you's" accompanied with a genuine hug and kiss.  He has the physical skills of a six year old because he tries with all his might everyday to do the things his brother does.  If I had to describe Nathan in one word... Loveable, or maybe Silly, or maybe Sweet, no maybe there isn't one word!

My three loves

Austin age 6, Nathan age 3, Natalee, age 8 months