The 3rd Child. And the 4th.

2/3

Sally lost her first tooth and this is the best I have to show for it.

She had a huge cavity that abscessed so the dentist had to extract.

Sadly, it was a tooth that normally doesn't fall out til like 12.

So she has a spacer in there until then.

Same procedure gets to be repeated this week on the other side.

The above picture was before putting the tooth under her pillow for the tooth fairy.

She had been sleeping in our room after waking up so much in the night cause of pain.

2/7 

I feel like I should offer Sally's Valentine labeling services to those in need.

It's her favorite.

2/7

 Friday was the 80's themed daddy-daughter dance at school.

Sally won the kindergarten hula hooping contest and those glasses were her prize.

I'm not gonna lie...pretty proud to have a hula hooping champion in the family.

 Love this picture.

Also loved this:

Yes, Justin's Facebook name is Ju Ho, "for security reasons."

He took it upon himself to locate a crimper for the occasion.

We ended up with a waver, but close enough.

 Sally won the fun weekend award.

She got to go to a very cute rainbow-themed birthday party for a school friend on Saturday.

2/8

And August's love of all things plush is still going strong.

2/8

As is his love of water.

He got good and wet during Owen's baseball assessments.

But all that wet means we got more rain. Yay!

Nothing to do with children numbers 3 and 4:

2/6 (photo credit: Lauren)

Made Danna's famous raw mango tart for a friend's birthday brunch.

It was as pretty and yummy as I remember.

The Backyard Front Porch

They really need to re-enact this picture in 60 years.

I'm doing Weight Watchers again. Last time was before I had August and it worked.

So far this is about how it's going:

- On Monday I made a huge pot of (healthy) minestrone. It was supposed to be my lunch for the rest of the week. But after perfectly healthy Owen threw it up all over the table I could barely get it down one more time.

- Tuesday I went to the farmer's market for fresh produce. I came home with Chinese food and a gourmet caramel apple. That counts as fresh produce, right?

But really, it's going alright. I reached one mini goal and that means everyone clapped for me at a meeting. Whatever love language that is, it's mine.


Back to the farmer's market.
Sally spied George and his birds and had to hold one.

Then George insisted Auggie have a turn.

Drew took this picture of a piano practice with Owen:

I finally started teaching him and Drew lessons over Christmas break. Tried Sally, too but she's not ready.

They don't love the idea of practicing, but once they're focused they do awesome.

I'm actually liking teaching them so far. I can practice w/them every day (and do the teacher duets that make the songs sound so much better). I can catch little mistakes right then instead of them practicing wrong for a week in-between lessons. Also, if they're ready for a new song mid-week we can do it, instead of them being bored w/a song once they know it.


A quick hour at the aquarium with just him:

 White trash and shirtless is better than soaking wet. Those smocks are useless.

Yesterday there was another free community event:

Family Day at the Monterey Museum of Art (La Mirada).

A. I love that museum.

B. Doing art in an art museum is cool (especially since the mess isn't at my house).

They had an Ansel Adams exhibit and one of the projects was using copies of his pictures to make a dreamscape (pictured above).

In another room we learned how to make Valentine's dream catchers.

Never knew there was such a thing.

Here's the model:

And here's Sally's version:

And here's how the boys felt about it all:

So I took them out to the little pond till Justin could come rescue them (he had been at a scouting merit badge thing all morning).

This duck picture looks peaceful, but it was not. August wanted in that water bad.

After the boys got picked up, Sally and I stayed another couple hours until it was over.

She was in heaven.

On the way out we ran through the gardens real fast. I mean, she ran.

That bright fuzzy tree in the background was full of cherry blossoms.

These two are earlybirds.
This is what they came up with this morning while everyone else was sleeping.

Safety first!


Today our stake had a special fast for rain. Not sure the extent of the drought going on but rain is needed bad.

It was awesome to wake up and see it had rained some overnight.

This morning Owen said his prayer to start his fast and minutes later it started raining again. Cool for him.


And then after church August discovered my dress.

Aside:

Some of these are camera photos and some are phone photos (like pretty much all my posts).

Every now and then I take awesome phone pictures.

Too often I take bad pictures with my real camera.

But hands down I like my real camera better.

All We Are is Random

The kids had Monday off of school to celebrate MLK Day.

I had to work.

Sarah was nice to entertain them at the high school and her house.

Then later we met at the beach.

Sarah was holding Tes and he wanted a turn.

A little illegal drive around the neighborhood.

Can't wait for that thing to be done.

100th Day of School was Wednesday.

 Yesterday Justin took the oldest 3 to Stillwater Cove in Pebble Beach to hunt for golf balls.

They found 150.

You can see the golf course in the background below.

And also please notice the floating golf ball.

They hit most of them into the ocean.

In the meantime, I was home w/napping August.

And then we went to Whale Fest.

Nobody else wanted to.

And for once, they made the right call.

It was lame.

Our stop at the library afterwards was much more entertaining.

The kids helped make a bunch of brownies for a youth fireside.

Owen got the licking the bowl honors.

Not sure how he got batter on his knees, but he hiked up his shorts to keep em clean.

And once again, I stayed home from church with sick kids.

Sally has a 103 fever.

August has a cough. 

One of his favorite things is markers.

Specifically taking the lids off of them and scribbling on the nearest thing.

He's gotten our kitchen chairs and bedspread real good.

So today I tried to teach him to write on paper.

We're still working on it (notice his pants).

Random January

They're still making these bracelets and I'm still taking pictures of them.

 Black light mini golfing was our last family activity before school started back up.

It was pretty fun, but what's becoming of me if I'd way rather go do something in nature?

Justin stuck with Sally and taught her the ropes.

The boys went crazy.

We loaded up the bikes for a ride around Point Lobos.

This was Justin's last free Friday before HIS school started.

Kind of nice being able to take off not worrying about kids (Sally).

And by kind of nice, I mean really nice.

 Last weekend the boys were sick AGAIN.

So I took Sally to this miniature dollhouse museum (in the background of the first pic) in The Barnyard.

The detail in the houses was crazy.

Had no idea the $$$ people spend on this as a hobby.

And in-between it all he turned into a little boy.

This was on a quiet afternoon with just us 2.

In-between work and Justin's random schedule there aren't too many of those.

I had brought out that washcloth to wash his face.

After I set it down, he picked it up and washed the sidewalk and then his hands.

Please bless that this cleanliness sticks with him.

Point Lobos

We finally made it to Point Lobos since moving back to the Monterey area.
It is quite possibly my favorite place on the planet.

And I've been to like 10 places.

But really, it's amazing.

We used to be able to get down on that beach (China Beach).

Sad it was closed this time.

Gibson Beach @ Point Lobos

 That little black ball in the ocean is the head of a seal.

 Just took a bite of kelp.

Tide Pools @ Point Lobos

Cute little sea star/Auggie's first time holding one.