August Adventures

Once upon a time, a few friends and I met up at the park down the street. It had been sprinkling, but the storm seemed to be moving away and it was delightfully cool for August. We even responsibly checked the doppler radar to confirm that the storm was moving away from us. All was fine and dandy and the kids enjoyed frolicking in the drizzle. Then the rain. Then they became a bit concerned when it worked its way up to torrential downpour. We were stuck under the gazebo in a full blown monsoon, and the winds were picking up to the point where none of us were actually dry in there anymore, and half of us had tiny babies. Luckily two of us have husbands who work from home that came to rescue us. 

 

Isaac might as well have been straight out of a swimming pool. He thought it was great fun. 

Eventually the clouds parted, making some great afternoon weather for prickly pear picking! Annie is doing gymnastics this year and loves wearing her leotard around. 

I had the tube held in the up position by a rubber band attached to the handle while waiting for it to get up and going. Unfortunately, the rubber band touched the hot metal and melted. This resulted in about a quart of steaming magenta juice spilling all over the kitchen floor and under the stove before Isaac came to alert me of the catastrophe. 

Documenting Isaac's scrabble phase. Breezy, Mimi, and Aaron all played lots of good scrabble games with this guy. It's fun watching preschool kids get so excited about letters- it's one of my favorite phases. 

Annie abruptly started reading chapter books! She could read well by the end of Kindergarten, but would get tired of it and needed emotional support to get through a whole book on her own. Seemingly overnight she decided that she can read much longer books by herself! "Super Narwhal and Jelly Jolt" was her first. I try to keep interesting non-fiction books stocked in the car for the kids to read. 

We took a trip up to Madera Canyon with Joanna and Rayne. Ethan and I worked hard to capture this awesome shot. Ethan is such an adventurer. I love it almost all the time, the exception being when he taught Isaac how to use our peach tree to climb onto the back wall. Now he's prone to escaping or inviting himself over to the neighbors back yard (which lacks a peach tree so he can't get back).

Natural waterslide mode!

Wild, wonderful.

Back to School

The first day of school was 10 days after Felix was born. I was so grateful to have my mom in town to help the kids get up and going in the mornings so that I could sleep in with Felix! Aaron waited to take the rest of his paternity leave until after Mimi left. It was glorious having so much help around. 

The school busses come so early! Annie's comes at 6:27 and Elliot's is about 10 minutes later. Annie had Mimi and then Aaron walk her to the bus stop for the first few weeks, but now she happily walks by herself. 

First day of first grade for Annie! She's in Mrs. Vartola's class.

She was brimming with excitement and feeling super cute! She was excited to have some friends from last year in her class and was excited to meet new friends. Her current best friends in her class are named Nellie and Ellie. 

Elliot refused to hold the board and gave me his favorite completely vacant look when I started taking pictures. 

This one's cute at least! Elliot is in Mrs. Leachet's 4th grade class. 

One week later, Isaac started preschool with Miss Leah! He adores it. His favorite day of preschool so far was when they did a playdough restaurant. The kids took turns being the customers, waiters, and chefs. He also had a day when they learned all about the life cycle of frogs. He's been growing leaps and bounds over the past few months!

Isaac rides his strider bike almost a mile to get there every Tuesday and Thursday, usually with the Ashcrafts coming with us. 

Mimi took each of the kids on a date while she was visiting. Isaac's was lunch at Culver's.

Elliot opted for the cheesecake factory.

Annie's date was to Claire's at the Mall. Boy does Mimi know what these kids like!

Overall all of these cute kids are thriving at school!

Felix's First Month

 It is so fun having a baby in the house. Felix never lacks siblings wanting to hold him or begging me to pump some milk so that they can feed him a bottle. 

How handsome is this little dude?

We think he looks a ton like baby Aaron in the picture above. 

Mimi was devastated that Felix thwarted her plans to be here when he was born. She very kindly sent us a charcuterie package with all sorts of scrumptious savory bits to enjoy! Here's our first picture as a family of 6, taken as a selfie while enjoying the charcuterie. Mimi did make it out when Felix was 1 week old and stayed for 3 weeks. More on that later!

It is so tender watching Elliot dote on his baby brother. He quickly made a sign to label the Felix corner, complete with tied on paper clip hooks to hold his accessories. 

What accessories, you might ask? Naturally, every baby needs a pacifier... and a minecraft sword. He also has a wee little dumbbell made out of tin foil to build those baby muscles. 

In addition to being Felix's accessorizer, Elliot is also his chief photographer. Most of the early pictures and videos we have of Felix smiling and eventually laughing were taken by Elliot. 

I took a stab at newborn photography, aided by a ridiculously big bowtie and the cute basket that the charcuterie came in. 

Looking dapper? Or perhaps just confused?

Yeah. Confused. 

He was trying hard to eat this scarf that I put him on. Look how delightful his arm rolls are! 

This one is my favorite

Or maybe this one. He's so stinking cute!

He had a ton of hair at birth, and it kept growing like crazy. Soon his mohawk reached about an inch! 

My friend Becci gifted Felix a set of superhero onesies. The hulk one is our favorite. 

Sometimes being angry wears a little guy out. 

Here's the family that came out to show their love at Felix's baby blessing. Mary's family came down from Gilbert, Mom Blood came to visit for a week, and my Dad flew out to join mom. 

Max and Morgan came from LA to meet baby Felix! They brought their juicer with them, which led to the best afternoon my kids have ever had. They took the kids to store and let them buy all sorts of produce, then took it home to make mix and match juice flavors. Delicious!

Their car ended up having major troubles on the drive here from LA. They had to deal with mechanics the whole time they were here. It turned out that it would cost more than the car was worth to fix it, and it wasn't safe to drive back to LA, so they had to speed buy a car. They found a great deal on a hail damaged car in Marana that they could drive home. I was so impressed that they managed to be fun while dealing with all that stress!

I can't overstate how much joy Felix has brought to our home. We are all so, so in love with him.