San Diego!!

So Dana on the spur of the moment thought we should make a quick down and back trip to San Diego to introduce her dad to Ella...of course I was on board, CRAZY!! So there we went, Dana, Ella, Shelby and ME!

At the very last minute, while we were getting ready to load stuff, Tyler decided he wanted to come too...

It was a quick trip but nice and enjoyable!! We met Nancy and Rodney. So appreciative of them for inviting us into their home with open arms.
They had such a fun pool that Shelby just LOVED and would have spent every minute in it if I'd let her.

It was unbelievable how much Tyler looks like his grandpa, guess we won't have to wonder what he'll look like in a few years. :)

United States & Freedom

Our family has taken a few days to reflect on our life the past couple weeks. One of the biggest moments of reflection came on September 11.

On September 11, 2001, Sheldon was almost 1 year old, I was at work VERY early at Albertsons and Matt was on the road with his new business. Customers and coworkers began coming in talking about all the confusion and mass destruction that we later learned to be terrorist attacks on our great nation. What a poignant memory for our young family. We were in the beginning stages of so many aspects of our lives and right before us we were watching our world collapse.

Through the past few years we have watched this great nation of ours pull together in ways we hadn't seen in my lifetime and then just as quickly return to destroying ourselves and this land we treasure so much. Our freedoms are being jeopardized every day and in the wake of it we have soldiers, loved ones and friends fighting and sacrificing for us to maintain the freedoms we take for granted every day.

Most of you know that politics and respect for our great nation are common topics around our house. In order to earn his Wolf for boy scouts Sheldon was required to write about why he thinks America is important. It brought my emotions very close to the surface to know how at such a young age he recognizes how great America is.
"America is important to me because we are FREE. We're free to go to any religion. We're able to play any sport. Black and white doesn't matter. You can live anywhere and work any job or go to any school because we have the right to choose.

You don't need to serve a king, emperor or anybody but you do need to RESPECT everybody. We're always FREE to make choices and decisions and no one can take that away. We have GREAT communities and above all we have SOLDIERS who protect us EVERY DAY.

AMERICA is GREAT because we ARE FREE."

Lexi started Preschool!

It's hard to believe she is already old enough to start preschool, hard to let her go is probably more like it. I look at her and am just so excited to see her growing up but broken-hearted that my baby girl is just all GROWN UP!
Setting goals with a 4-year old is SO different than talking about them with Sheldon and Shelby, so we just talked about what she thinks she'll be learning and doing in school. These are a few of the things she came up with:
**I'm gonna play with glue, A LOT!
**Pretty sure I'm gonna make friends, you know my best friend Taylee is coming with me.
**I'll make pretty things like Shelby brings home.
**Soon I think I'll be able to read my OWN books.
**I have a nice teacher that will help me learn LOTS and LOTS!!

Sounds to me like she's got it all figured out. We are so excited for Lexi to be starting this part of her life!! And seriously how CUTE is she??

The 1st Day of School

So once again I'm not right on top of this blogging thing...what do you do.

September 2 was the 1st day of school for Sheldon and Shelby. Sheldon is so excited about starting the 4th grade and Shelby can't wait to get back to her friends and learning.

I sat down with each of them and we talked about goals and thoughts of things they want to happen this year.

This is the 1st year Sheldon actually has letter grades and his biggest goal is to earn straight A's from here through high school! How happy is his mom...Incredibly!! He followed this goal up with being on winning sports teams and knowing that his good grades and hard work on the field will help him reach his ultimate dreams of playing ball professionally. Where did he come from??

Shelby, starting the 3rd grade, says she just wants to get better at math. (She does really well in school, so I guess she just isn't worried about grades! :)) She hopes she can make good friends and keep her friends from last year. She is very excited for music class with her favorite, Mrs. Liz, and getting back to cheerleading and tumbling.

I can't hardly believe I have an almost 10 year old and 8 year old. Time really does seem to fly by. I am so lucky to have them!!
I had to work the 1st day and Matt was out of town...they were so lucky to have Dana step in to play mom for them! :)

Shelby's favorite part of her day was being able to play with Ella in the morning!