Rain in August

This last week has been weird weather. This summer has been pretty moderate, usually under 95 degrees, whereas we are used to up to 115 degrees in the summer. This past week though, we finally hit 108 and we were all dying! Then I looked at the forcast and saw that temperatures would be in the 70's over the weekend...yay!!!! Just what I had been waiting for! So, yesterday morning, Saturday, we woke up to wind rushing in our window and and it was soooo nice and exhilerating. We jumped out of bed, put long sleeves and jeans and the new Paul Frank socks I have been DYING to put on the boys(Kellan's first toddler sized socks...tear!), and SWEATSHIRTS on and had breakfast on the go as we walked down to the park. As we started walking, it was sprinkling! Now, any normal parent would think,"Oh, it's raining, we had better walk home." But it has been sooo hot, we were all so excited we just went to the park:) Once the sprinkling stopped, we took the kids out of the stroller and let them play for a little bit. It was so nice and cool and early enough in the morning to where Kellan wouldn't put down his sippy and blanket haha.

hanign out with daddy

sweet face baby


my monkey




showing me how torn up the flag is...i love how he notices all of the little details


slide monster


taking turns driving the "train"



Pretty much the only good that cam eout of this weekend. Duane was really sick all weekend and I was fussy. Did not make for a very good time:/...but a fresh start tomorrow!

Taekwondo

At the swim school, one of our longest and most loyal clients name is Jojo. He starting swimming with us when he was 3.5 years old, now 6, and is still my favorite student to date. He is so adorable and sweet and SO good at swimming. His parents are THE nicest people I have possibly ever met, so gracious and sweet and I am proud to call them my friends:) Jojo stared taekwondo around the time he started swimming and he has been doing soooo good. He has some national titles I believe and in such a short amount of time! I don't know how it all came to be, but the space that the martial arts studio was at had to close down so Jojo's mom worked really hard and found a space and started their own martial arts studio and call it Jojo's Martial Arts Academy. They just opened and are offering trial lessons.

Kade has been in a really aggressive police officer phase for some time now. No matter how much we talk to him about it and explain a police officers role, though he understands, it is still fun for him to act like he's an officer arresting and shooting people and roughing people up. Not only is it the officer, but the football player(Kellan gets tackled more times a day then I care to count:) also. I have decided to try out taekwondo to help channel that aggression and help him understand how we use our bodies and for what purposes, and also to respect our and other peoples bodies. So we went to the trial lesson on Friday.

Kade has a little friend named Brayden who is my friend from growing up, Kaci's, son. Kade and Bray Bray tend to wrestle. I am the anti violence, anti-guns mom and unfortunately, Kade is allll about it. The thing with him and Brayden though is that they have big fat smiles on their faces and really love to play together. I'm trying not to be too anal about the whole thing and just let him be a boy...sighhh:)

Kade was excited all day to go, but once we got there he kind of shut down. Didn't want to move, take his shoes and socks off or do anything, just watch. Now if this was a swim class, I would put him in the pool and tell him that if he was going to cry I would be leaving. Usually the children stop crying after a couple minutes when their parents aren't around and it is great for them. With this though, it's a different environment, it's not a situation where a screaming kid is welcome. After about 45 minutes of watching and me trying to get him involved, he finally became interested enough to go and play with Brayden a little bit and eventually was working with the instructor.

The kids doing their kicks. Kade sat and watched with me. I love the one of Jojo looking a me. He's always makign sure Miss Lacy is wacthing him haha



Starting to get a little more excited while he watches


Warming up with Bray Bray finally!


Yay! He's talking to the teacher AND practicing with him. I'm so excited!




This is what I'm talking about. They start out with nice hugs...don't they look sweet...


Annnnnnnd then they knock each other down haha...its so bad! but SO cute! Kaci and I were like,"Boys, no no! Be gentle and nice....Oh wait, Lacy take a picture!" hahaha


Luckily we are going to do a few more trial classes before we decide on what we will do, but it is something that he has been asking about all weekend, so we will play it by ear:)

A's Games Galore

Comcast Sportsnet, the local cable sports network out here, held an A's tickets hunt where on Twitter, they tweet out clues and you basically hunt them down to find the 50 tickets. Well, Duane was in Stockton for jury duty and got an update to his phone that was a clue that he KNEW was Stockton at the Ports stadium. So, he went down and sure enough there they were. He ended up winning the tickets.

So, for the last couple of months, we have been trying to squeeze in as many A's games as possible, because they had to be used before September. After we went to a bunch of games and took large groups of people too on Friday, we still had 7 left over before the weekend. So, we decided we would take Kade for some Mama and Papa time on Saturday. We had SO much fun with him. We took him on BART which is the commuter train to the Bay Area. It was his first time and he was sooo cute about it. He really is such a special little man. He is so smart, so in awe of everything around him, so sensitive, so beautiful, so....I don't know how to explain it. So full of life. I am really glad we got to take him for some time with us.

Then on Sunday, we tried to give them away on Facebook and no one went for them, and we found out that Kade's favorite player, Gio Gonzolez was going to be signing autographs before the game, because it was Hispanic Heritage Day. So, there we went again. We ended up leaving last minute so missed meeting Gio, but Kade didn't notice. He was stoked about the train again and eating his hot dog:)

It was a busy weekend and I don't think I ever want to do 3 games a weekend again, but we did have lots of fun and it's been such a good summer being able to enjoy Duane's favorite past time, the A's!

This is the first game we attended this summer, they were $2 tickets so I jumped at that! Nice little date night:)




Ok, this one is hilarious. It's the first date night we had in like...a year. No really, not kidding. We were a little bit giddy to get out of the house!!!



This game was some awesome seats my mom bought for Father's Day for Duane previous to the ticket win.We were right behind home plate and got to meet the players and get lots of stuff signed, basically Duane was in heaven. It was also 70's Throwback night, so the A's wore their 70's uniforms aka BRIGHT YELLOW. The promotion upon getting in the coliseum was a free Joe Rudy jersey, hence the bright jerseys:)



This is a game we took Duane's family to. It was a day game, super hot and I got burned bad! I always forget to put sunscreen on myself, but slather my children up, will I ever learn?! I of course, forgot to take pictures, but we were walking through the tunnel and Duane and Kade looked so adorable. Kade is wearing another jersey they gave away that day:)


This was this last Friday. We took a group of Duane's friends from school, we tailgated and our best friend, Catherine and her daughter came with us too. Duane and Catherine are die hard A's fans, so they are really cute with their maching jerseys...let me just remind you of a certain picture really quick...

Ok, now that we're past that, here are a couple of pictures from that night...I'm just gonna prpare you, I couldnt find my makeup...yeahhh...that's how often I wear it:)



These ones are from Saturday night, my favorite game yet.

Walking out the door to go to the game!

Kade and Daddy on the BART

Kade is a little unsure about the train at this point, but SUPER excited.



My favorite picture of the night.



I didn't take any pictures on Sunday, because...well, I was kind over the games haha. It was a day game and I made the mistake of wearing a black shirt and dark washed jeans...yeahhhh, I don't know what I was thinking haha

So, that's all of them I think, we had a blast and Kade and Duane especially enjoyed the games. I'm really just there to cuddle with Duane when it gets cold and watch Kade get so happy. He now knows all of the players names and the chants/songs that go along with each player haha...wow, sucha mini Duane!

Children's Museum

We love going to the Children's Museum in Stockton. Kade, especially love it. There is a fire truck, helicopter, ambulance, police car, police motorcycle, tractors, bus, a "grocery store" and much much more. Kellan is just to the age where he can enjoy it too. Hoever, I do not recommend taking 2 children, one of which wants to skip straight through to the emergency vehicles and the other who just wants to play with anything with a steering wheel or a ball, when you are spouseless and it's nap time....yeahhh...bad call Lacy. Both kids going in 2 different directions every 5 seconds and appoximately 5 meltdowns later, we actually did have fun:) We went with our besties, Rachel and Hailey, probably one of the last things we will be able to do until they leave us and move to Utah...sniffle sniffle.

A Year Ago

I was just thinking about how much has happened in the last year.

We moved on the 15th of last August from our home in Lathrop to our current home in Tracy. We had originally moved there when Duane was working in Livermore. Rent prices were about $300 cheaper a month and there was still a train station nearby(Duane was taking the commuter train). Our lease was up that August and a lot had changed. Duane had been laid off about 9 months earlier and had just started putting weight back on his knee from his second surgery, which made it so that he couldn't work. I had started working in Tracy for my sister's swim school, because she really needed some office help and Kade was going to preschool in Tracy too. So, back to Tracy we went and moved into another house that my sister's landlord owned and was trying to hurry and rent out. We ended up renting the house for $200 less than any other house in the area(b/c of the best school district in Tracy). We love our house and don't plan on moving for another year, or until Duane finishes school.

Kellan got his own room. He was 3.5 months old and we were SO ready for him to be an independent baby! He had been sleeping through the night for 3 months so it was fabulous to have our own space back!

Kade started preschool. He started 3 days a week at a preschool here in the development called TLC. He loves all his teachers, his friends, and comes home singing songs and telling us things that we never even imagined. Like singing, "Skidamarink" or "Months of the Year." He is such a smart boy and at 2.5, just really expanded everything from his knowledge to his vocabulary. He is still there and will be switching over to the California Headstart Preschool Program next week. He will be going 5 days a week and I am kind of sad about it. I'll miss my little lovie! He is excited though, of course:)

Duane started school in October. It's hard to believe he has almost been in school for a year already. It has gone by so so fast and hopefully the next6-12 months go by just as fast so he will be all done! ;)

Kellan had just started sitting up by himself, eating rice cereal, able to go in his jumparoo. GOSH, this kid is so big now!

I thought I would just include some little pictures of how "baby" my men were!



I am positive that this next year has a lot in store for us. We will celebrate our 5 year anniversary, Kade will be turning 4, Kellan will be turning(cringe) 2, Duane will be done with his AAS, start school for his CCNA cert, starting a job search, we *hopefully* will relocate, and we MIGHT have a CONVERSATION, just a conversation then about expanding our family:) I can't wait to see what all it brings:)

cell phone photos

So often, I just take out my phone when something is quickly happening that is just so adorable i cannot resist. The majority of my very favorite photos are on my phone, so I thought I would just add my favorites...but there's a lot! because im kind of in love with them:)

one of my favorite pictures of kellan. this just absolutely embodies every ounce of love that is Kellan


my favorite part of the day. when duane comes home in time for bed time on tues/thurs nights, he is just the best! he does bath time, bed time, story time, rocking, singing, everything. REALLY just the most amazing father and his kids adore him.


i took this the other day, because kellan was just intently watching his brothers every move and i just love it so much!


ok really...love him:)


bouncing his zebra and thinking its hilarious!


i took this picture and cried because i realized that Kellan is now a toddler. isnt that sad? this was in june i think. hard day!


Duane's dad got the kids a slip n slide and they LOVE it! i was surprised that kellan even enjoyed it, but my water babies had wayyy too much fun!


one of our park days. the kids love it so much, we try to go as often as possible when duane is home in time. this is like RIGHT before bed time but we really wanted to spend time together with the kids!


this is when we went to see toy story 3! i despise character tees and such and this was the cutest one at target that they had that wasnt too obnoxious. once i realized it matched a button down he had, i was SO happy! doesnt he look excited waiting for the movie to start?!


this is my best friend since kindergarden, breanne, and i. she is the only non-mom friend that i still have from pre-baby days. and i wouldnt have it any other way. she adores my kids, will offer to change a butt, hold a screaming child while in a restaurant, laze around the house with me instead of going out on a friday night, and sit and knit with me on the couch. she is the best! anyways, she came with us to toy story 3 too! the kids love their auntie brea!


i love this picture. kade was asleep and kellan and i were hanging out in the playroom and he was sooo cuddly. i just love this baby!


this summer, like every other season, we had some sicknesses. this is my snot nosed baby cuddling with mommy. i just love how sick he was this day and how happy is he to be with me. <3 him!


my baby, all curled up in bed with me. yes, i said baby. dream killers.


this was the bout of kade's sickness. breathing treatments every 4 hours...no fun for an active 3 year old!


my honey all ready for church. can you tell he likes baseball?


this was a hard day. after lunch, i put kade down for a nap asap. well he decided naptime was not his idea of a good time and basically had a meltdown. kicking, screaming, hitting meltdown. i basically cried all the way up the stairs putting him in his room. the second i laid him down and talked it out with him, he was my sweet baby again. he flashed me these smiles and i just remembered that he is only 3. and he is my sweet precious boy and all was forgiven:)


this is kade, oh...im sorry. i mean, buzz lightyear. he insists on being called buzz sometimes. this day, he had just finished all his salad and asparagus and was showing us how big and strong it made him, buzz lightyear:)


the lovins at target, our favorite. haha...dont you just wanna smoooosh their faces?!


<3


kade and duane....their bond is so special and strong. they really are best buds. there are just no words for all of the love i felt as i took this picture!


we went with all of duanes family to an a's game. kade loves baseball and duane loves the a's....a lot. haha


funniest picture ever. gosh i love this boy!!!



Ok, so sorry for how sporatic these posts have been. I've just been trying to squueze a few months in quickly so we can move on. I think that's all the pictures, but we'll see:) Expect me to keep it regular ok?! No more seasonal blogging!