beautiful california weekend

Kyler had a cross country meet in california last month. I seized the excuse for another trip to cali to bask in the sun at the beach. This time I got to bring these two beautiful people.

This is a little bit more realistic. Ha!



I was so glad to have the chance to spend some quality time with these two together. So often I get to spend time with the younger kids together or the older kids together or our whole crazy crew, but to have time with just Kacin and Layla is pretty rare and I will forever cherish that weekend. But I also hope that it was the beginning of many more happy adventures together!

We drove on a friday and headed straight to the beach and grabbed dinner and watched some street shows.

Our theme song for this trip was "Beautiful People" by Ed Sheeran. So we took a lot of "beautiful" photos and videos just like this one:

Truly. Most of our pictures are with our trying to look weird faces. Silly and awkward faces come more natural for us anyways. ;)







The sunset!



And this moment alone is why I wanted to go on this trip (no matter how blurry this picture is!). I wanted these two to have happy moments to bond with each other, and I loved watching it happen.



The next day we headed to the beach with Jenny. We brought leftover pizza and she brought dried broccoli florets. We all contribute in different ways.



We had a blast in the sand and water.



















After our day at the beach, we drove to Norco for Kyler's cross country meet. so many runners there! Such a cool experience.


















We spent the next morning back at Huntington Beach before we drove home. I made my kids walk much further than they wanted to walk with me. But they survived because they can do hard things. And then we had plenty of time back in the sand and the water before picking Kyler up and heading back home.





A beautiful weekend with my beautiful people.

fall break little things

What I love about a long fall break is that we have time to go on vacations and trips, but we also have plenty of time to hang out at home with each other, friends, and cousins. The little adventures are just as grand sometimes.

We met up at the splash pad one morning.

Brinny discovered daddy's ties.



And spent lots of time with her baby dolls.



We had a nice visit to the zoo.







Layla took lots of pictures on my phone while driving around town.





We went to a missionary call opening for our dear Aizlynn. So excited for her to go to New Zealand!





We met up with a favorite friend at Uptown Jungle for some fun.



Eric surprised us all and shaved his beard.
And there was lots of fun about putting on the armor of God during our family night lesson.

proud to be an american

A friend of ours just became an official U.S. citizen. How cool is that?! We got to be there at a surprise party for him. He walked through the door in his US Flag shorts suit and that just set the tone for a pretty sweet night. 

Celebrating his citizenship was a good reminder to stop and appreciate something that I take for granted so often--what a privilege and beautiful responsibility to be a citizen of the united states of america and to enjoy so many great freedoms and opportunities here. 

God bless america.

jumpoline

Brinna’s most requested activity is jumping on the trampoline. 

Except when she says it she asks to go on the “jumpoline.”

I like her word for it the best. Let’s get jumpoline in the dictionary.

Oh, and when she’s not asking for the jumpoline she is requesting her swimsuit. Or just putting it on herself.

life resumes after fall break and the start of some psychology and early childhood discussions

The kids went back to school today after over two weeks off for fall break. I love this modified year round schedule. I love having my kids around and all of the adventures we have during these breaks. But I, also, love when school starts up again and we can resume a daily routine and I can catch up on things that get pushed to the side.

We are still surrounded by camping gear and laundry from the last few days of break. Vacations are a lot of work. Yet totally worth it.

Tonight at the dinner table I held part two of a series of human and early childhood development and psychology that I am teaching my kids. When I was getting my degree in early childhood education my favorite classes were childhood development and educational psychology. I had a thought last week that it would be fun to teach my children about something that I love and I find fascinating. What an advantage to them to learn some of these things early on in life. So I taught my family home evening lesson last night about Maslow and his theory about the Heirarchy of Needs. 

Then tonight we started our discussion of Eric Erikson’s stages of social/emotional development.

We talked about these theories and how we see them in ourselves and others, especially noting where our little Brinna is in her development. I am so excited to continue our discussions and introduce them to Vygotsky and Piaget and other aspects of childhood development!

arizona science center

we had one more week with our science center membership so we visited twice. Once with some of Brinna’s friends and moms and then again with Layla’s class on a friend trip.

“Children think not of what is past, nor what is to come, but enjoy the present time, which fee of us do.”

-Jean de La Bruyere

some work and service

Usually when Perry hears the words "work" or "chores" it sends him into a tizzy. Yes, like many people, work is something he likes to avoid.  However, we recently found a job that he loves to do. He gets so excited when it is time to clean the pool. He loves to scoop out the leaves and scrub the sides (as best as he can). E was out of town last week and he was so proud of himself for doing this job for dad. Our evenings are actually cooling off so it was a pretty pleasant time for both of us to be outside working in the backyard.



Perry also made cookies to give away. I can not even say how much I love seeing him working on a project like this, especially of his own accord with a happy attitude. Layla helped him make cards then they delivered them to some of our neighbors.

Perry also received an award at his school’s kindness assembly. He was chosen to receive the award for the quarter by his teacher. We are all so proud of his thoughtfulness and kindness to his peers and teachers.