Last Days of Summer-2010

Yeah yeah yeah, I know I'm way behind (surprise surprise). Just a couple pics of our last few days of summer...seems like an eternity ago.

This was the last day of summer vacation. Lily, Connor and two of our neighborhood friends loved having monster water-gun fights in the front yard. This one lasted about two hours and my kids slept like the dead!

The week before school. It was gorgeus outside so we headed to the beach. Not sure if you can tell by the look on Con's face, but the water was FREEZING!

Lily and Logan sitting in their homemade "pool". This is something Lily loves doing. We go to the beach and dig out a big pit, when the tide comes in it fills with water and Lily calls it her pool. We didn't have Darrin's muscle with us, so our pool is pretty small, but they still enjoyed the novelty.

Things that Make Me Smile:

No pictures for this post. I was thinking about how this blog is basically the closest thing I get to a journal, so I thought it might be a good idea to put some thoughts down that weren't just pictures. Lately there's a handful of things happening around here that just make me smile. In no particular order:

1. Lily and her church purse dilemma. She has a small little bag that she takes to church with her Book of Mormon every week. In true Lily fashion, she also feels the need to take a pet with her. The rules for the pet are "if it fits into your bag, you can take it". This hasn't been a problem since she has about a gazillion little puppies that fit perfectly. But she's been getting more and more daring with her pet choices. They began peeking out of the bag little by little, each pet bigger than the last...until last week I walked by her room on Sunday morning and she was diligently trying to cram her stuffed "Thumper" (ya know, the rabbit from Bambi) into her bag. Thumper is over a foot tall and really, his little bum just barely fit in the bottom of her bag. His entire torso and big ears were sticking up out of the top. But Lily looked up at me in the most triumphant manner... I almost let her take him.

2. Connor's morning "cartoons". Most kids get up and eat cereal while watching cartoons. Connor gets up, eats cereal and watches "Quick Pitch" on the MLB network. For those of you who are wondering "what the heck is that"-it's the non-ESPN version of "Baseball Tonight". He is AWESOME!

3. Lily's morning "cartoons". Lily never complains that Connor is watching "Quick Pitch". She just goes downstairs with him, eats her cereal and reads....the Marvel Encycolpedia! Even more confused? This is a thick book that contains the pictures, stats and stories of every Marvel Comics character...from X-Men to Fantastic Four. She is AWESOME!

4. Music music music. My kids love music (and good music too!). Both of them are literally incapable of doing anything that's not accompanied by music. So whenever they are doing ANYTHING in their room, from getting dressed to making their beds to doing homework, even if it only takes 2 minutes, they absolutely have to turn on their cd players. It's not odd to wake up at 8:00 on Saturday morning to the strains of Julian Plenti, Interpol, Postal Service, Broken Bells or David Gray. They are AWESOME!

Purple Thunder!!!!

Okay, we're gonna give it a try! Lily is playing on a real soccer team this year. After doing the little developmental program earlier in the year, she still wanted to play and asked if she could play "on a real team with uniforms and a name". So here we go. They had their first practice last Friday and she wasn't a total wreck...but more importantly she was having so much fun. She's such a different kind of kid than Connor, who has to be absolutely perfect at everything he does. She just goes out there and tries and laughs and has a great time, it's just awesome to watch her. The girls voted and named their team "Purple Thunder", you gotta love it. I'll keep you updated on her progress as they start playing games in a couple weeks.

Purple Thunder! Be very afraid!

Sassy little soccer player with her brand new yellow ball from Grandma and Grandpa. Yellow is her new favorite color and she was so excited to have a yellow ball.

The difference between boys and girls soccer?...the hairbow of course. Look at that adorable bow made by the team mom. They might really stink but they'll do it in style!

Botanical Gardens

Last week, Connor went to go spend a couple of days at Auntie Devyn's house with Logan while he's visiting. They spent their time doing a bunch of boy stuff. So Lily and I took the opportunity to have a girl day. We went with my friends Vanessa and Sara and their kids to the Quail Botanical Gardens in Encinitas. We had never been before and were really excited to check it out. We had a great time adventuring in bamboo forests, watching the "frog show" (that's what Ella called it anyways) in the little lily-pad pond, picnicing in the rain forest and exploring the secret garden. I know we didn't even see all the different areas and I was still blown away by how gorgeous it all was. I can't wait to go back.

Cousins are the best!

As I mentioned in the previous post, we had the great pleasure of going to Las Vegas to visit Grandma and Grandpa McPherson. The added bonus was Jen and Abby and Aubri were there as well. Lily was in heaven playing with her cousins, they like playing dog almost as much as her (although Abby often chose to be a cat instead). They played games, went swimming and just hung out with each other. Darrin, Jen and I caught a couple movies together and had such a great time! I had my camera with me...but didn't take it out of my bag until an hour before we left town (I'm a thinker!). So I only caught these two pictures...hopefully Grandma and Grandpa got more.

Lily and Abby checkin out the 3D tv at Forum shops.

Connor, Lily, Abby & Aubri in front of the Atlantis statues in the Forum shops. We had just watched the little show about the destruction of Atlantis, which is very loud and has lots of fire. Aubri was not very thrilled with it and really just wanted to go home...can you tell?

Connor & Lily 2010 pics

We went to Las Vegas to visit Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Darrel a couple weeks ago because Jen and the girls were also in town. We had so so much fun spending time with the McPherson family and Lily had a blast playing with her cousins. They live way too far away (frown) and need to move back out west immediately! While we were there, Chelsea kindly agreed to take some photos of my kids. I was on a time crunch because Connor was scheduled to have 4 teeth pulled as soon as we got home and I didn't want him to look like the toothless wonder for his photos. Of course, Lily had to smash her face jumping over the couch a few days before we left and popped one of her front teeth out!!! So she has that awesomely awkward toothless look going on right now. But Chelsea is brilliant and managed to take some awesome pictures and I love them!!! Here's just a few of them:

Another year bites the dust!

In true DeEtte fashion, this post is over a month late, but I will stick with my previous argument of "better late than never.". The kids ended another year of school (the first for Lily!) and it couldn't have come a second sooner (at least for Connor). Lily had a great year in kindergarten-she's smart, fun, social, well-behaved and just a generally awesome little girl. They had an adorable kindergarten graduation ceremony, where they wore little crowns with their names and sang some songs for the audience. Then they were all awarded certificates of graduation, that had a little picture of them wearing a cap and gown (so stinking adorable). She was so proud and loves to tell everybody "I'm a first grader now." She can't wait for next year!

Connor also had a great (in his own way) year! He was a 5th grader, big man on campus and loved his status as such. As is his usual, he excelled academically, and made us more proud than we thought was possible. He never ceases to amaze us with his capacity for learning and growing. And along with all that "giftedness" comes all the personality traits that tend to be a bit taxing for us mere mortals to deal with. We're assured by the pros that he exhibits nothing but normal behavior for a gifted child, but I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that we some times wish Connor was a bit more average...hahaha. Because he skipped a grade earlier in his school career, and hasn't really caught up socially, physically or emotionally, we decided as a family that he would repeat the 5th grade next year. We all realize that this is going to have many challenges for Connor, for us, and for the school (they're not happy about it!), but we feel very strongly that this is the right choice for Connor in the long run. Connor's not completely thrilled, but he totally understands our reasoning and is on board and prepared to have a great 5th grade year (again!).

We're looking forward (and are actually halfway through) to the summer. We have a lot of fun plans that include: baseball camp, swimming lessons, music lessons, soccer, the beach, a trip to Vegas and just hanging out with friends and having fun! Here's a couple pics of their last day of school:

Every year on the last day of school, we go eat lunch (or dinner) at Ruby's on the pier. Our kids LOVE Ruby's milkshakes more than breathing.

The cutie-patootie in her graduation procession out of the classroom.

Lily sitting with all of the other kindergarten graduates. What a precious little lady!

Connor completely bored and ready to go home at the 5th grade advancement ceremonies. Darrin and I affectionately refer to all the school award ceremonies as "the mediocrity awards". In their effort to be PC and not make anybody feel bad, they basically give out awards to anybody who's achieved "at grade level" standards. It's ridiculous. They have different levels of awards, but won't actually give out an award for straight A's. I feel like it devalues the kids who are truly exceptional, not to mention making a HUGE deal out of "achievements" that aren't actually achievements at all. Do I sound like a total elitist snob? Oh well.