Talan's neighborhood preschool

A couple weeks ago, a few of my friends in the neighborhood and I decided to start a neighborhood preschool/playgroup for our two years olds. I did it with Tay and Chase when they were about two and a half and so I decided that it was Talan's turn to have something of his own to go too. So, I made a couple of phone calls, send out a couple emails and before I knew it, it was all set up for the following week. Talan is absolutely loving it! He is SO social and loves being with his friends.

Before he left for his first day of pre-preschool. He had to have a backpack just like his older brother and sister. Chase was nice enough to share his.

Chase wanted to get in on the pictures and since this is a rare ocassion around here I jumped at the chance! Here's my 3 boys all together right before we headed out the door to drop Tally off. Talan didn't hesitate at all when we dropped him off. He walked right in like he owned the place.

Talan with his Ko-Ko and his Sarah on their first day. These kids have known each other pretty much since the day they were born. I just known he is going to have a major withdrawl once we move away from all of his friends...as are we all. Picture courtesy of Audrey. Thanks Audrey.

Dancing with the rest of his cute friends on his first day of preschool

The following week preschool was at my house. It was the week of Valentines and so I took a picture of each of the kids and let them decorate a frame to make a valentine for their moms and dads. Talan insisted on having his picture taken with one of his many swords. I think it's safe to say that Talan loves swords as much as Chase loved balls at this age. He's always asking us "wanna fight??" And when we do he makes the sound effect of the swords hitting each other..."ching! ching!"

Oh, how this kid makes me smile.

Valentines 2010

We had a wonderful Valentines this year. Here's some of the fun things we did to celebrate....
My niece's birthday is a few days before Valentines, so my brother decided to take her to a daddy-daughter disney princess date shing-dig that he knew of for her birthday and valentines, and when he called and asked if Taylor and Cort wanted to tag along; of course we said YES! Taylor picked out one of her many dress-ups to wear and I did her hair all pulled up and then they were off to enjoy a night out together with all sorts of fancy foods, pictures with the princesses, a horse ride in a carriage, and dancing til late into the night.

Chase's preschool had a super cute Valentine's party for him and the kids in his class. Chase took some superhero valentines to pass out to all his little friends there and when he came home he couldn't stop talking about the magician that came to the party. I'm pretty sure I got the play by play of each of the tricks that the magician did.

Since Valentines was on Sunday this year and everyone looked so festive for the ocassion I decided after church that we would...what else?? take a picture of the kids with the valentines that they got from me and Cort...don't they all look thrilled?? And so it goes....gotta love it. Hope everyone enjoyed this month as much as we did. I can't believe it's almost over and that March is just around the corner.

Welcome Spring!

3 months old

Our poor little Easty Peasty has not been himself the last couple of days. He has had an ear infection and a cold, his second one. I guess that's what happens when you have siblings. As a result though, he hasn't been sleeping or eating well. It's seriously so sad.
On a lighter note, he is now 3 months old and changing so fast. He is rolling over from his tummy to his back, smiling all the time literally, he really is such a happy kid, and he gave us a little teaser one night by sleeping through the night. It was heavenly. He absolutely loves his brothers and sister and smiles and coos at them whenever they are near. Taylor and Chase made up this clap, clap,...YEA! game they like to play with him and Talan does this thing with him where he pats his belly (sometimes a little too hard) and says "boom, boom, boom." As he pats and pats and pats and pats.
We sure do LOVE this kid around here.

California

The last week of January while Tay was off track, we were able to go to out to California and play in Disneyland, check out Cort's bachelor pad, (as my neighbor calls it) and spend a lot of time in the car together! There was a huge storm while we were there and it made driving anywhere a NIGHTMARE! But, regardless we had A LOt of fun, especially in Disneyland. Thanks Grandpa and Grandma! Here's some pics from our big trip.
The first day in Disneyland it rained hard in the morning for about 2 hours, we got drenched, but then it was clear for the rest of the day and we had the park to ourselves. It was AWESOME!
Us in front of Cinderella's castle. The classic Disneyland shot, not the best shot however. I left the camera in Manual mode and didn't adjust it. Oops.

Doesn't matter where we are Taylor loves to tumble. She does it everywhere. I love her passion for it.

Getting ready to go in the Haunted Mansion

Chase would follow Taylor off a bridge. I swear. It's always "Tay what are you going to eat?" "Tay what do you want to do?" And it was no different in Disneyland. Taylor wanted to get some autographs, not something I would of thought Chase would of been into, but since Taylor was....here they are with their books posing for a picture, getting one of the many autographs we got.

Just along for the ride

Tomorrowland. Cort, Easton, and Talan.

Buzz light year a favorite for everyone!

We had to get one of Chase on the C outside of California Adventureland.

Me, Taylor and Chase on Tower of Terror. I was so excited to have them both go with me. It is one of my favorite rides by far. I thought I would have to talk to them into it, but they actually said "ya let's do it." They did however both grab my hand once the ride started to go up. I love that Chase is smiling in the picture though. He is sooo my son.

Taylor in Fairyland meeting the fairies.

I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted because we were just to busy riding rides. Chase LOVED the Soarin over California ride, Stars Wars, and the Mattahorn. Talan HATED Snow White, but LOVED Peter Pan, Monsters Inc., Dumbo, and Winnie the Pooh. Taylor's favorite was Spalsh Mountain, and Easton was a trooper in the pack and slept through the whole thing expect to wake up to eat.
I have a picture of Chase and Talan in this very pouch when they were babies too, sleeping the day away. Such a great way to do Disneyland with a baby.

After our two day stay in Disneyland, we started to head up north so Cort could attend something for school. It took us 10+ hours to get from Anaheim to Monterey. It was out of control. They had highways closed from snow, and those that were open were like car lots. It was very frustrating. The kids did pretty good, they just slept and watched their shows. Me and Cort on the other hand, were at our wits end by the time we finally made it up north. What should of been a 5 hour drive took 10!

We decided to check out the Monterey Aquariuam, the kids loved it. Talan was especially in awe of the sharks.

Hanging out while Cort was at school.


On our drive home you will never guess what we ran into.....that's right traffic! Bumper to bumper non-stop for two hours trying to get up the road to Lake Tahoe. There was a grip of snow. They wouldn't let anyone through without 4 wheel drive or chains on their tires. There were all these guys lined up ready to put chains on your tires for 30 bucks. We thought it was hilarious, maybe because we had been in the car for close to 2 hours at this point and only moved like maybe 15 miles, it was like nothing I'd ever seen.


Once we finally got through all we wanted to do was to get home. But by this time it was about 11:00 at night and we still had a 8-9 hour drive ahead of us. That didn't stop us though, we drove all the way through the night and made it home around 8 am the next morning. I use to be able to pull an all-nighter no problem ten years ago. This about KILLED me! I guess I am now officially old. Regardless though, we had a great time.