Slacker!

I am such a slacker. I didn't get around to writing a single post in the month of November. Now, once again I have a lot of catching up to do. The days are so busy with the kids and once I get them into bed my brain doesn't want to have to think anymore, especially if it has to use energy to come up with something interesting to say for each post. We'll try to do better.

I'll start with something funny that Luke said yesterday.
It's a Saturday morning and we're just waking up. Luke asks Matt to get him some breakfast, so Matt gets up. Before he goes he sits back on the bed to give me some hugs and kisses when Luke jumps onto Matt's back and says: "I'm in the love ball too."

That boy cracks me up!

Seth's Mad Soccer Skillz

I think I have another soccer player on my hands. This video was taken back on September 25th. That was the day Seth turned 18 months old. I'd say he's pretty good with a soccer ball.

I have one more video with him kicking a full-sized ball, but for some reason it won't upload. Anyway, he loves it. He tries to run onto the field and play with the big kids, he can't get enough. I can't get enough of watching him.

Labor Day in Vegas

Matt actually had the holiday weekend off (I'm still getting used to him being able to have time off. It's always such a great surprise and it seems to happen a lot these days. I love it!!) so we headed down to visit my brother and his fam in Las Vegas. Two other brothers and my youngest sister also made the trip out and so it turned into a Crop family affair. We had tons of fun. The kids had a great time. We adults hardly saw them because they were all having such a great time together. I wish we were closer to family and able to see them all the time. Amidst all the great talking and hanging out, there were lots of fresh baked cookies and See's chocolates, Nertz! and BYU football.

Of course Vegas is HOT so we headed to the Air Force base to enjoy the pool.

(Me, my sister-in-law Rachel, and my sis Kendra with Ryan and Julia on the laps)

(Silly faces of course have to be made for the camera. Maya, Jules, and Ashlyn)

(Caden, Brayden, and Luke)

(My favorite pic of the weekend)

(My brother Justin's family: His wife Rachel, and from left to right - Caden, Ryan, and Julia

Thanks for letting us invade your home for the weekend!)

(My brother Jared's family: His wife Tiffany and the kids from left to right - Brayden, Ashlyn, and Brinley)

(Left to right: My sis-in-law Miranda, my "little" brother Adam, and my little sister Kendra. . .

and yes, that is my very mature brother and doctor in the background with a toy lightsaber)

And here is my little fam - I think you know who we all are by now.

Had to get a shot of all the little cousins. This is only a small portion of all the cousins my kids are blessed to have. Like I said, I wish we could be closer. So much fun to be had.

Luke's 5th Birthday

On September 2, Luke turned 5!

He has grown up so much over this past year and we are so proud of who he is becoming.

Some of his favorites right now are:

Color: Blue

Dinner: Lasagna

Dessert: Cookies and milk

Toys: Bakugan and Transformers

Movies: How to Train Your Dragon, Cars, and Transformers

Games: Plants vs. Zombies, Sorry, and Sequence

Animal: Spinosaurus

Books: Transformer and Dinosaur books

Sports: Soccer and swimming

Here are some pictures of the birthday celebration. It wasn't a big fancy affair because we headed out on a road trip shortly after. But we sang happy birthday and opened some presents and enjoyed some ice cream before heading out on the road to visit family for the Labor Day holiday weekend.

Below is another little birthday party that we had with family in Vegas over the weekend. Tons of fun and another post on that will follow.

Happy Birthday, Luke! We love you tons!

First Day of school

August 18th (I think) was the first day of school for Maya and Luke . Maya started 3rd grade and Luke started Kindergarten. Here Kindergarten is only half a day, which works out well for Luke since he never did any preschool. (In Texas, Luke missed the cut off by 1 day - the cutoff being the 1st of Sept and Luke's birthday is on the 2nd. If we had stayed in Texas, Luke would be only old enough to start preK and would have to wait another year for Kindergarten. Here in California the cut off is in December, so Luke is old enough to start Kindergarten. My own little soapbox - they need to make the age cut off the same date throughout the country. So many families these days move around for work and it's confusing to have everything be so different state to state. It caused me a lot of stress in Texas because we knew there was a chance we would stay and a chance we would move to California and I wanted Luke to be prepared for either scenario which would effect his education schedule by an entire year. Anywho - it's all worked out and everything is fine.)

Here are some pics of the kids on the morning of their first day at Cambridge Elementary School.

Here's Luke waiting outside his Kindergarten classroom. At the end of the day he came out and I asked him how his day was. He excitedly told me they got to play on the playground 2 times! These are the important things in life, right?? That's my boy. Recess was always my favorite, too. Followed by gym.

Ready for our first day in the classroom.

Just look at that excited smile. As ready as I was for Luke to start school, I have to admit I was surprised at how hard it was for me to walk away and leave him there that first day. It's hard for a mom to let go and let her kid do some growing up without her.

Luke has such a great time and I love picking him up at the end of his school day and seeing that big smile on his face. He's growing up so fast.

Maya is doing great once again. Throughout her years of elementary school she has never had anything but green days. (Green is good, yellow means there was some trouble, and red is a bad day) She's so easy when it comes to school.

A funny note: Maya's teacher and Luke's teacher are married to each other. Crazy coincidence, huh?

Balancing act

On our way back from San Francisco we stopped to for lunch. The restaurant gave the kids dough to play with (I love when restuarants do this) and Seth got a little silly all on his own. I love watching his personality come out. He can be quite the little cheesball. He cracks me up every day. I love his face, especially his eyes as he concentrates on balancing the dough.

The other Giants

I am from New York and so when I hear "The Giants" I automatically think NY football team. But out here on the other coast they have a Giants baseball team. We've heard that seeing a game here and experiencing the stadium is a must. Matt had a chance to go with the guys back in July and it did not disappoint. Here's a view of the stadium with one of the most scenic views around.