Story time

I love story time at the library. If you don't attend your local story time with your preschoolers you should. Today started the new year and Ashling and I went to story time. Our library is small only one room. It is dark, with no windows and there aren't that many books. They close the library for story time because there isn't room for more than one activity at once.

Today the teacher had them come in and find their names. They then traced their names and put them in a box. They learned about transportation including walking, riding a bike and cars. This year we will be going to Europe and first we need to get to the port and we went by car. It is amazing because the library is like free preschool. If you can't afford preschool this is the next best thing. They sang songs, practiced taking turns and then created their own car craft. Yea for story time!

Prop 8 and a busy week

If you don't live in California you may never have heard of Prop 8 and even if you live in California it may not be that big of a deal to you. But it is to us who live in California. We are starting to eat, drink and breathe Prop 8. And since it may take all our money we really are going to have to eat and drink it. So I thought I would give you your own healthy serving of Prop 8.

Prop 8 is the proposition to protect marriage on the California state constitution. It says that only a man and woman can be married. I think it is weird that we need to have this put on our constitution. Don't you think it makes sense? I asked Ali and Ashling who gets married and they knew. A boy and a girl. But somehow our corrupt society has decided any two living, breathing organisms should be able to marry. I hope we have the courage as a society to stand up for some morals now before it is too late. I don't want it to be after my first grader has to learn in school that marriage doesn't mean anything.

As California liberal supreme court judges decided to overturn a decision already made in California to only allowed a man and a woman to marry we now have to try and pass the law again. It is not doing as well this time and needs all the help the prop can get. Everyone I know is calling, walking the streets and donating money to help it pass. If you are interested and out of state you can donate too because everyone knows that whatever happens in California will carry over to lots of the rest of the country.

Anyways on to other things.... This has been a very busy week. I am tired. Soccer practice, grocery shopping, cleaning, driving to preschool, appointments, story time and the like have kept me busy. I can't believe I still have 17 weeks to go in this pregnancy. I would like to be done now! My best news is that finally after visiting 10 quilting fabric stores I found the fabric I want to make a baby quilt out of. As soon as I can buy it I will be busy quilting too...

My multi-colored calendar-confessions from a new soccer mom

I feel that my role as a mom is changing. I used to care completely for Ali and Ashling all day, every day. I was pretty much the only one responsible for their care. I got them ready for the day, taught them everything they learned from using the bathroom to learning their letters and played with them all day. Now I have a new role. I am a soccer mom. What is a soccer mom? It is the mom who is responsible for driving their kids everywhere. A soccer mom no longer needs to dress her kids and feed them their food but instead must buy the right kinds of clothes and pack the right things in lunches. A soccer mom is not the only adult in her kids life but now shares that life with a teacher, a coach, a dance teacher and for me, a primary teacher. I take Ali to school, take Ashling to school, pick up Ashling from school, pick up Ali from school, take Ali to soccer practice, parties, friends houses, and soon to dance practice. I even find myself taking Ashling more places than just school as she enjoys friends houses and story time.

So I now have a multi-colored calendar. Ali is orange, Ashling is green, I am blue and Cameron is yellow. I have some color on all of my days and many of them are a rainbow of different colors. In a matter of weeks I have gone from not needing a calendar to needing one with multiple colors.

I actually love my new role. I am always going somewhere and now I do not feel trapped in the house with nothing to do. I get to meet lots of neat parents and people I would never get to meet if I wasn't driving my kids everywhere and waiting for them. I enjoy their independence, do not mind never having to change their diapers and I still get to tuck them in at night and cuddle them on my lap. I love my daughter reading to me on the couch where she still sits on my lap and letting her pick out my clothes because she knows what is in style better than me. For now they may think they are big but they are still my little babies.

On another note- Ali had her first soccer game on Saturday. It was a learning experience. She had never played or watched soccer before and only had two practices. She was a little unsure of what the whole point to the game was but she tried to keep the ball away from the green team. The problem was the green team had some excellent players and they kept scoring goals. If you look at the picture of Ali pouting that is the problem- another score for the green team. (It is good that we don't keep score in under 8 soccer because otherwise I would have to report the score to you!) Her big play was getting the ball away from a girl about to score! Go Ali!

Ashling's first day of Preschool

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Ashling started preschool today at Apple Tree Learning Center. That is the preschool that Cameron's sister, Erin, owns and it is down in Highland. Ashling was very very excited to preschool. She kept asking me, "Mommy is it today?" I had told her that today we got to go and I guess that she didn't really know what today meant. We went there and she found her name on her basket (she can now spell her whole name,) and put her backpack in the basket and sat down on her own little circle. She did not fuss or cry like so many of the other kids. She just calmly said goodbye. She enjoyed herself and came home with an A covered in Apple stickers. I went shopping by myself to Costco and bought whatever I wanted without anyone asking me for this or that. I am going to enjoy the 4 months of time to myself on Tuesday and Thursday before the baby comes.

Disneyland!

On Labor Day we decided to go to Disneyland. We hadn't decided one way or the other so Cameron woke the girls up by asking them if they wanted to go to Disneyland. They did. We actually spent most of the day at California adventure. We wanted to go on the new toy story ride and got there right before the park opened. But we didn't notice the long line was forming so soon and by the time we noticed it the line was over an hour long. (Season pass holders do not normally stand in any line for that long.) We decided we will try that ride another day. We rode on the merry go round and then Ali and Cameron went on California Screaming. Ali did not like the ride and came off crying. She said it made her tummy hurt. She wanted to go on the Orange Peel swings and so they went on that. (We were able to walk on all these rides.) We then went on the jelly fish ride which is a very mild up and down ride. Ashling reached a milestone this time as she is now 40 inches tall so she can go on a lot of the rides. We rode on the rockets and then went on California Souring (with our fast pass.) We got another fast pass for Grizzly river run for Ali and Cameron. After that we went to the Brother Bear place and Ali base jumped and rock climbed while we watched her and ate lunch. They went down the slides. Cameron and Ali went on Grizzly river run and Ashling and went over to Disneyland to wait in line for the other rockets. After we all went on the rockets Cam and Ali went on Space Mountain and then we saw Honey I shrunk the Audience. (FYI do not take little kids to this show as it is very scary for them. This was more scary to Ali than California Screaming.) We were then very tired and hot and we decided to call it a day. It is nice to have season passes and go home whenever you get tired.

Sunday Dinner

Grandma Sue and Papa finally are home from Alaska! We had to wait all summer but they came home on Friday afternoon. The girls were very excited to see them and look forward to spending the night there this Friday. In the meantime we had a family dinner on Sunday. Chalon's family didn't make it due to stomach viruses but everyone else came. I made cafe rio pork and had a burrito bar. Grandma Sue and Papa passed out lots of presents for everyone! It was a nice relaxing afternoon.

Tile Work

Cameron tiled our upstairs bathroom this weekend. We decided on a layout and it was very involved. Cameron had to cut most of the tiles but we were very pleased with the work that he did. Here are a couple pictures of the results.