April 2009

This month was busy. Lots of LL games, birthdays, Easter. These are my favorite pics from the month…

Kaden is so darn cute playing ball. The 4 year olds are hilarious.

Ashlyn gets a little bored on the field & has a hard time understanding she can't stand out there with her brother. She's a good little cheer leader though...and a snack bar veteran.

Scarlet literally hangs out...she's more like a team mascot.

Kaden started to get really good towards the end of the season. He's now hitting a pitch & not just off the tee.

Sometimes it was still a little boring in the outfield. I'm sure the league loved cleaning up this mess. Boys will be boys!

Of all the things my kids have been exposed to they had never been bowling until my friend Danelle's party. They LOVED it and Kaden's requesting it for his birthday this year. Ashlyn cried the whole time she held the balls because they were so heavy but she insisted on doing it herself.

This is the alphabet, A-Z. Kaden one day decided to get creative with his cars...where does Kaden's creativity lead him, to the alphabet of course. I think he's going to be an engineer or something similar. Ashlyn talks with her cars. She may be an actress. Don't let her fool you though, she's a smart cookie.

Guess we need a bigger bed. I love when everyone gets up in the mornings and we all end up in our bed.

Easter is always one of my favorite "holidays". It's such a wonderful reminder of our purpose in life. I hope my children have many wonderful memories of their holidays together.

We still matter too. Can't believe it's been 7 years since we got married. It's even crazier that we've known each other for 12 years.

Can you be an American & not have an Easter egg hunt? Do other countries do this or just ours? What a bazaar way to celebrate the day but the kids love it.

Poor thing looked so cute but hated the dress. She was a good sport but she apparently doesn't have a desire to wear silk.

This is one of my absolute favorite pictures of Ashlyn. She looks like a little precious moments doll. Too bad my corner guard is almost centered in the shot.

This picture reminds me of the innocence of a child. Kaden, enjoy it while it lasts Buddy because it's gone very quickly.

March 2009

This was a fun month. Kaden started his tball games. The kids started bonding with their new sister & also worked on finding their new position in the family. Things really seemed to get back to “normal” for us. I love & can't get enough of the new pictures from the first few weeks of life.Vaughn is amazing & can handle all 3 from the get go. They sure do love their daddy.

They feel so important helping out. Sometimes it makes more work for me but I love that they want to be involved.

The kids were thrilled when I introduced bottle feeding. They thought it was so great that they could feed her too. Ashlyn had about a 5 minute attention span. Her strengths are being charming, silly, creative, learing by observation & a real go getter...not holding still for long.

Kaden I think has gotten the most out of the bonding experience with her. He is so incredibly patient with Scarlet & loves to just get in her face & giggle. She's so tiny, cute & has a great demeanor. She is so calm & observant...a very happy baby.

Ashlyn is my most spiritual child only because she is so deep, emotional & sensitive...she really feels it. Kaden is spiritual but has more of a factual, logical approach to religion & is good at memorizing verses & asking questions, etc. I've been going to a MOPS group & Ashlyn has a class there where it reinforces what she learns at home & church. Here she's showing off the rocks that she made...I think it was David & Goliath day if I remember correctly.

Kaden is really taking to sports & the outdoors. He's really into bikes, learning to skateboard & falling off of things lately. Ashlyn's always been into that stuff so she's excited to have her brother accompany her.

These are the Never Ending Tattoos. I told the kids when we put these on not to get attached to them because they were going to come off at bath time. I took this picture right before because I didn't want to hear the tears as to where they went. We scrubbed, & scrubbed...for weeks. Finally I took some baby oil to them but they seriously didn't come off with soap & water...not even a little bit. I think they lasted close to 4 weeks.

February 2009

This was obviously one of my favorite months this year, as we welcomed our baby Scarlet into the world. We decided for sure on her name in the hospital after she was born. We had gone back & forth but once we positively decided her middle name it really narrowed it down for us. Her middle name is Rozell, named after her late grandmother. We can only hope that she’s half as sweet.We've been trying harder to get pictures of our entire family at events instead of just the kids. It seems like for years one of us was always behind the camera. So unfortunately, you'll probably see a lot more of Vaughn and I than you'd prefer.

Well this is it. I think this is one of the last belly shots before she was born. This is 5 days before the big day. It was a brutal pregnancy but so very worth it.

Even though I can't stand messes I insist on my kids making one on just about every holiday. They really enjoy it & I truly enjoy watching them having fun. Sometimes the cookies just don't look edible...I make my own.More Star Wars at our house. I don't know why I had the camera in the garage but they were dressed (or not dressed) as Jedi's who lost their hands in battle.
Finally, our sweet little princess. Scarlet was born on February 19th & she has been a real blessing. We love her so much & she makes our family feel complete.

The 5 of us. It's amazing how quickly our family has grown. We look forward to many new adventures.

Unfortunately one of our new adventures included one to a children's hospital for a few days. Scarlet went home as scheduled only to be returned to Hoag Hospital because she momentarily stopped breathing. They transmitted her by ambulance to CHOC where she went through many tests & an IV that nobody could get in. You can see the IV that they finally put in her head after trying for probably about 6 hours at 2 hospitals with maybe 10+ people & each person doing multiple attempts. Her arm in this picture tells part of the story. She was a trooper & a strong little soul. Nothing ended up being wrong with her other than what we think was a "reflux episode" as we call them. We went through them with Ashlyn so it seemed somewhat familiar. One thing's for sure is they don't take any chances with a 2 day old.

We were so happy to bring her home. And this is what we came home to. Fortunately they are clean. Leave it to Ashlyn to brighten things up & put a smile on your face. The kids were in a bit of a funk after us being gone & then back & then gone again. I don't think they trusted that we weren't leaving again.

This is our little girl who slept quite a bit after we got back. We hadn't seen her crazy hair for days since she was all bandaged up. She has the most amazing head of hair out of all of our kids.

And what did we do a week after we got back from the hospital?...started Little League. It wasn't even 10 days after Scarlet was born that we had all 3 kids at the field & we started our volunteer efforts including me being Team Mom. It was pretty crazy. Kaden was so proud to be in uniform on Opening Day.

January 2009

It has been so much fun going back through the months looking at all that we’ve been up to. So this is not just for everyone else but me too. I love to look back & see my favorite moments & pictures…especially since I’m not good about printing them from my computer. That’s one of my projects this year.

Ashlyn is really starting to draw recognizable figures. Unfortunately, she chose to do one of her best on something we couldn't keep...so I took a picture. Maybe it's just because I'm her mother but I see eyes, a mouth, kind of sort of a head & limbs.

Kaden & me on my birthday. Can you see #3 child? At this point she still didn't have a name. We had narrowed it down to 5 names, then switched those again and again in the last weeks.

Ashlyn started a Mommy & Me ballet class. Fortunately they accepted Grandma's too because I'm not too swift on my feet even when I'm not pregnant.

This probably looks like a bizzar picture to most but it is so precious to me. I have a picture of me wearing my dad's shoes when I was little. It's amazing how big kids feel when they wear their parents shoes. The face is precious too. This is called "Anakin Skywalker when he's turning to the dark side", acording to Kaden. He calls them "mean eyebrows" & sometimes has me draw them on with eyeliner. He walks around with these arched eye brows swinging a light saber around. At this point he hadn't even seen Star Wars yet. He has been obsessed with it since he turned 4 last August & one of his grandparents bought him Lego Star Wars for his wii.

The rest of 2008

I can't believe it's been a year since my last post. I got pregnant with our long awaited 3rd child & the blog updates halted immediately. Lots has happened in our lives since then so this post is just to close out the year from May - December 2008. Then I'll work on the 1st half of 2009 highllights. Hopefully I'll be able to update monthly from here on out.
Strawberry picking at Tanaka Farms in Irvine.

My kids being creative.

Kite flying at the beach.

Kaden's love for "computer time". He discovered soda "Shirley Temple"...is it a wonder that Ashlyn discovered it at the same time?

An accident...split the corner of her eye open & went to ER just to be safe. No stitches.

Our 6th anniversary, celebrated at Balboa Island. You can see where my little munchkins were born in the background. Today happens to be our 7th anniversary.

One of many beach days.

One of many Disneyland trips. We're renewing our passes in August if anyone wants to join us.

Many birthdays & celebrations...

More accidents...she's just our accident prone child.

Kaden did so well in preschool last year. He learned so much & we were so proud of him. He still talks about his teacher a year later.

4th of July

Our kids at our old place. We sold our condo the 1st week it was listed. In this market you're just thankful, take it & find a place as fast as you can in 30 days. We are renting a house till we buy again.

Kaden & Vaughn with killer seats...they got them from Alyssa Milano.

Notice anyone special in the background? Good old Tommy.

This is crazy. We celebrated Kaden's 4th & Ashlyn's 2nd birthday the weekend after we moved into our new place. We decided to have the party that morning. There were boxes everywhere. We had to send someone to the store because we couldn't find the box with the candles in it.

Ashlyn loves animals. We live a bikeride away from a pond with ducks.

Vaughn rides with the kids all the time. He's very involved in their lives.My kids help me in the kitchen all the time...here it's stuffing shells.
Apple Picking at Oak Glenn. We also went to Utah around this time but the camera was on the blink. Kaden & Ashlyn around Christmas time. This one didn't make our holiday card but it's one of my favorites with Kaden practically strangling her.

That's it...if it wasn't for scanning through pictures for this post I don't know if I would have remembered much of last year. I was so out of it with this pregnancy & had absolutely no energy. 2009 has been much better for me.