Caiden's 1st Day at Kindergarten

My little boy is growing up. I don't know when it happened, but one moment I was nursing him and the next minute I turn around and he is running off to play with his friends and heading off to school.

Today Caiden took his first step down the path of a very important milestone. Today Caiden started Elementary school. We got up early, put on his first uniform, took the standard "first day of school" pictures and headed off to join the other moms and dads armed with cameras in their hands.

My little man with his new backpack and his uniform
Kiya wanted to snap a picture with her brother on this important moment (notice we didn't do her hair).

Caiden was fine on the car ride over, but the moment we actually got to his classroom he became shy and very nervous. He became quiet and just kind of sat and looked around (he's just like his mama - he has to observe first). He deposited his lunch box and backpacks in the proper containers, and then his teacher, Ms. Phillips gave him a name sticker and showed him his desk. The longer we stayed, the more nervous I think he became. So we took our cue and decided to leave and let him adjust. As we were walking out we saw his friend Derrick, and knew things would be ok for Caiden.

Even though he was nervous he still posed graciously for a picture with me :)

Caiden and his desk partner, Angelle

Caiden's desk

Ms. Phillips and Cade's classroom

Dave saying goodbye to Caiden

I did get one smile out of Caiden

But this is what he looked like when I left :(

We picked him up relatively early and decided to celebrate his first day of Kindergarten with a dinner out. We expected Caiden to be quite animated, but we found him to be quite tired. Why would Caiden be so tired?? Well no naps of course :)

Caiden said that Kindergarten was MUCH better than preschool. When asked why he said "because we don't have to nap", however I think that nap did more for him than he bargained for. :) (side note: I would SO take his daily nap for him. I miss that about school).
Caiden was excited about the class pet, a beta fish they named "Rocky", and interestingly enough the behavior chart which he has assured me that he will stay "green" (which is good). He also talked about different shaped tables that were different colors, but to be honest, I am not sure what that is all about. He said he had a lot of fun, which is a good thing :)

This is "Rocky" while Caiden initially voted for "Swimmy", Rocky and Nemo had more votes. So they took a revote with just those two names. Rocky won.

After School Caiden...notice how much more relaxed he looks...cuz he's big time now. :)

I'm not sure why he looks so sad in these pictures. He wanted me to take them. Maybe he's going for the sympathy vote. Nah...he was REALLY tired.

Caiden spins the wheel

Caiden's relaxing with his friends.
Look at the laid back Caiden with all the girls

His teacher Ms. Phillips said that Caiden is a "very good listener" and was very helpful cleaning up the classroom. She also noted that he is very meticulous as they had a name puzzle in which they had to put the letters in their name and glue them on a paper. She stated that he took great care to ensure that his letters were lined up neatly and with no spaces. That's my boy :)

Caiden's name puzzle. See how nice it is :)

Caiden's teacher sent home a green star with the following note :)

Caiden wanted to share his day with Gigi and Grammie Sue and Papa Jim. :)

I'm so proud of Caiden. He survived his first day of Elementary school and he did famously!!! I love you Caiden. :)

Happy 10 Year Anniversary!!!

Well, I'm a little delayed in posting this, as Dave and my 10 year wedding anniversary was actually back in June. However, I'm doing it now...trying to get up to date, and I'm getting closer with every post. Everyone knows what Dave's gift to me was (getting my children's book illustrated and published), but not many know what I did for Dave.

Well, I wanted to recreate the day we got engaged, but with a twist, so I surprised Dave by taking the day off, packing the car full of goodies and dropping the kids off at their grandparent's house for the day. I then gave Dave a gift that would lead us to our next adventure...sort of. I bought him a new GPS for hiking and backpacking, but one that could do geocaching. I thought that we could search for geo cache on our hike (where we got engaged) and then leave our own. Little did I know that you have to subscribe to a service and have downloaded the geocache information FIRST. I didn't do this ultra important step as I didn't want to open the new GPS as Dave likes to open new things himself, and I wasn't sure if he would like the GPS I got him.

Thankfully, he did like the GPS, but we had to drive back to Lance's house to use their computer so that we could download information about Geocaching and ones that would be around the trail we were going to hike. We tried the geocaching, but since I hadn't planned ahead and paid for the service we got virtually no clues, and it was QUITE hard, so we just took a trip down memory lane and recreated our steps during our hike that lead to our engagement over 10 years ago.
Dave searching geocache locations
Now that we have downloaded them, we need to find them using the GPS

We saw a lot of interesting things such as salamanders, butterflies, LOADS of ladybugs, and other critters. The path along the hike was pretty but a lot has changed. They had a lot of these little cottages everywhere...with people IN them. So many that it felt like we were imposing on them, rather than escaping the concrete jungle and becoming one with nature. It was kind of sad to see how much it has changed in 10 short years.

There were SO many salamanders...here is one of them :p
and an abnormal amount of ladybugs...this is just a select few of them

Loads of these little houses popped up

Food for thought...
If you don't look at the little cottages, the view is still pretty

Once we arrived to the waterfall where Dave originally proposed, I took out the sparkling apple cider and lunch and snacks that I had packed so that we can sit by the waterfall and enjoy some time together. Time together was not to be as it seemed that EVERYONE had the same idea to come sit at the waterfall. The longer we were there the more and more people came, so we finally decided to leave the trail and move onto our next adventure.

Dave with the Apple cider

This is the site of where we got engaged over 10 years ago

Pretty eh? :P

After our hike, we moved on to the LA Arboretum. It was really pretty there, but a bit pricey for what it was. They were shooting some video or something there...of course, only in LA right? We hung out for a little while, then went out to dinner and then headed over to our final outing of the night.

There's a bird in there...can you find it?
This was unique and I was quite fascinated with this HUGE birds nest exhibit
So I took a few pictures with it

And then some peaceful shots
There were peacocks everywhere
and one even showed me his pretty feathers
Dave by a waterfall
This is the location where the film crew was

We drove to the Griffith Observatory. It had been many years since I had been and I was bummed to learn that they had taken away this laser light show that I was so impressed with. I mean, that was one of the MAIN reasons that I took Dave there (he hadn't seen it), and I wanted him to. We hung around until we saw the sun set, and then drove back to pick up the kids and go home.

What do you think he's doing?

Dave had good memories of this, so we stopped here and watched the pendulum go


It was a wonderful day :)

Sept 2nd = Surgery Day

Well I finally got my surgery date. It's September 2nd. Wish me luck and say a few prayers :)

Dean's 1st Birthday

Yes I KNOW it was in May. Yes I am aware that that was months ago, but better late than never, right? Especially after you see these cute pictures.

Dean celebrated his 1st birthday at his new pad, along with Mommy (Pam), Daddy (Jake) and friends and family. He REALLY enjoyed the cake as you can see from the below video. (it was my first with this new program, so hopefully they will get better as I learn more).

He didn't want to miss a scrap of this cake

Look at that smile. That says. I like frosting and cake!!!!

We had a lot of fun. We ate good food. Played

Kiya liked the toy
She rolled around the yard on it
She liked the balloons
And Caiden really liked the big yard...perfect for sprinting around...
Kiya had to check out the flowers to make sure they smelled as good as they looked
She really got into her smelling, even using her lips to take in the full scent :p

Opened gifts

Dean got lots of nice gifts

Hung out with friends and family

Kiya and Dean spent some quality time together (the get along pretty well)
Dean got to hang out with Grammie Sue :)
Kiya and Caiden got to hang out with Grandma Susan
Dean showed off his stabilization skills :p
Cute picture with Kiya and Dean
They were pretty cooperative about the pictures
Kiya played with papa
Dean played with friends and his new stash of goodies
I got to spend some time with the birthday boy
But at the end of the day, he will always be Mama's boy :)

And had a lot of fun!!!!