Kolby and His Orioles Baseball Season Comes to an End

Kolby had an awesome season as an Oriole with Bakersfield Southwest Baseball. His coach John Hinkle was so great with the boys and he was so willing to teach Kolby and always had such great things to say about Kolby like how talented he is, what a good listener he is, how he is so willing to learn, etc. All the good things that a parent wants to hear about their child. Kolby seemed to form two good friends on the team, Sean Hinkle and Cason. Kolby played first base most of the time, but ocassionally played pitcher or shortstop. His hitting was great and his fielding improved drastically. It was so fun to watch him get so much better in a season.

After the last game we went to the park for pizza and cake and tropies. As you can see, Carson made himself part of the team. He loves hanging out with his older brother and can't wait until it is his turn to play!

Fun in the Front Yard

Just enjoying the nice summer evenings, digging in the front yard and running through the neighbors sprinklers. Kids are hilarious! And can have fun doing just about anything! If only that "fun" included cleaning up all of their messes!

Eliza's Gymnastics Wildwest Fest

Eliza has been taking gymnastics at American Kids with her friend, Addie. She loves it so much! Thursdays are her happiest day of the week because that is when she has her class. And she does pretty well. She can hold her own and has so much fun, sometimes being a little too silly out there. The gym held a "Wildwest Fest" which was similar to gymnastics meet for all of the kids to showcase the skills they have been learning. It was fun to watch and exciting for Eliza and Addie to be a part of. Recently Addie moved up to the competition team and Eliza keeps telling me that she wishes she didn't because she misses her in class. I think that is sweet though am trying to help her understand that it is an exciting thing for Addie to move up and that Eliza might soon too if we were staying here in Bakersfield.

You can see in the pictures below that they are cute little buddies. It was hard to get good photos in there for some reason and my camera died so I didn't get too many so this is it...The picture at the bottom is one of the ribbons. The girls were so excited they received 4 ribbons and a medal and a certificate showing they did a superior/outstanding job.

Kolby's Kindergarten Back to School Night

Kolby was so excited for us to go to his Back to School Night/May Dinner. It is a big deal in his school district and everyone works really really hard to prepare for it. He was so excited to show us everything. And of course we were so excited to go, especially Carson and Eliza since they think going to their big brother's school is so cool.

The pictures show some of his projects and things about him. And of course there is a picture with his great kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Freeman. The puppet he is holding is a puppet that he made of himself. And I think it looks pretty similar...He had a great time showing off all his stuff.

Mason's 1st Birthday

My little nephew, Mason (Dustin & Leslie's little boy) turned 1 and Leslie is so great at throwing fun birthday parties. Unfortunately, the camera wasn't out much so this is really all I captured. It was a fun cowboy themed party. Don't Alexis and Eliza look so cute? We tried to get a picture of all the kids in their cowboy hats but it was impossible. I know Rhiannon took some cute photos which I am going to try and track down. I was the official cake cutter...it was a huge cute cake. And little Mason had his own little cake which he loved loved loved! It was so fun to see him devour it!

Father/Son Campout in Tehachapi

It was mother's day weekend so that meant it was time for the annual Father/Son Campout. I love that weekend mainly because the boys get so excited about going camping with their dad. Carson was devastated when Geoff left for work in the morning without him because he thought Geoff was going camping without him.

They headed up to Tehachapi late Friday afternoon and got there just in time for hot dogs and burgers and the campfire with S'mores. It was chilly up there but Geoff went prepared and the boys stayed warm. They had fun running around with the other kids and going on a little nature hike. Carson had a lot of falls, as you can see from the picture of him asleep in the car. He came home with lots of raspberries on his face...poor little guy!

While they were having a great time camping, Eliza and I headed down to Valencia to my mom's house. We were going to have a girl's weekend. Auntie Wend and Ellie were in town and we were so excited to see them. Well the fun girls weekend turned a bit chaotic. We didn't sleep that night, as we were all squished in one room and boiling hot so none of us woke up too chipper in the morning. Eliza, whom I thought was going to be so excited to go shopping with me, wanted nothing to do with it but I had to drag her around anyways cuz there were some things I need to look for while I was down there. She just wanted to stay at grandma's and play with her cousins so once we got back there, she got to do that and all was well. It was a crazy weekend though with Wendy, Grandpa Ambridge in town with his special friend, Heidi in the hospital, Grandpa having to go to the hospital, and Mason't 1st birthday party...all within a 24 hour period!

Back to the boys...after the campout they went to Kolby's baseball game then headed down to Valencia to party with us!

Announcing another baby

So Geoff had a great idea of how to tell the kids that we are going to have another baby. He wanted to do a scavenger hunt for family home evening. So it was pretty simple but the kids had so much fun reading the clues and searching for something. The clues took them to a baby bottle, a baby onesie and then pictures from the 10 week ultrasound. They were so excited, especially Eliza. She has been telling me for a long time that she really wants to have a baby sister. We assured her that she will have a baby in the house, but probably not a sister. At least that's what the dr. said at the 13 week ultrasound and my pregnancy has been just like a "boy" pregnancy for me. Luckily I think Eliza will be ok either way...she will just be a true princess with 3 brothers! So we'll be having a Thanksgiving baby. We are excited to have #4 and to have our family feel complete!!!

A funny sidenote is that just recently (I am actually writing this in June), Kolby told me that he knew we were having another baby before we told them because he saw me talking to whitney and kevin when we were at their house and he saw me point to my belly when they asked if we were going to have any more kids and then he saw me mouth that we still hadn't told the kids. I can totally see that happening...Kolby is always observing everything. He keeps me on my toes. I asked him if he mentioned it to anyone else and he said no. So i guess he is a good secret keeper. But he assured me that he was excited when he heard the news.

1st Day in the Pool

It was the beginning of May and we were came home from our trip to Utah, where we had been freezing our buns off because it was between 7 and 50 degrees the entire time we were there, and it was 85 degrees in Bakersfield, which really felt like 100 after being freezing all weekend. So everyone, except me, thought they should test out the pool. It only lasted for a few minutes, but they all did get in and revel in the beauty of having a pool right in our own backyard!

Trip to Utah for Uncle John's Wedding

This was one of the craziest trips ever. We were so excited to be going to Utah in the Spring because usually in May the weather is so beautiful, the mountains look so pretty and Utah is a wonderful place to be. Well, the weekend of John & Tara's wedding, May 1, was not so. It was snowing! The pictures below show the kids when we stopped for gas somewhere along the way and it was snowing and they were in shock. We drove through snow storms to get to Utah at the end of april! The video I took shows it much better, but I hate posting video on here, as I've stated before, so maybe someday you can see it. It is cute to see their excitement. Of course they were ready to get their snow gear on and go sledding. Too bad we forgot the sleds in CA where it was 80 degrees. And there we were in Utah and it was 33 degrees upon arrival. Brrrr!!!

Our trip was fun, though spending time with the grandparents and going to the wedding. Tara and John looked great and seemed so happy to be getting married! We had fun of course taking our trip to BYU and bowling with the kids. Everyone loved it, except Carson who was more interested in checking out all of the video games. BYU was crazy because we were there the same time as Women's Conference, but we still braved the bookstore and bought everyone some new BYU attire. They always love that and we are hoping it brainwashes them. :-) Just kidding.

Saturday was spent getting ready for the wedding, going to it, going to the reception and delivering all the gifts to the newlywed's apartment. The kids had fun running around and playing on the stage and making up their own games. Oddly enough, they were really the only kids around the entire day.

Sunday we went to Church with Geoff's mom and then we spent the afternoon with Whitty and Kevin. We had a blast with them...they were so good with the kids and catered to their every desire. They made them cookies and smoothies and popcorn and their backyard is awesome...they have a basketball court, a trampoline and a playground. Needless to say we all had some good playtime together and Whitney and I kicked Kevin and Kolby's booties in a game of basketball. I think everyone decided they want to stay at Auntie Whitty's house next time they go to Utah. Thanks Whit and Kevin for being so great!