Fun in the Water

I love this little swimming hole/ pond at the Penn Valley park. We spent many a summer day there growing up. We had fun going there last week with cousins! Nolan had a blast climbing around the rocks like a turtle. He was gettin pretty brave. :P Annika loved it too! I love in the video starting at 2:47...silly girl.

At one point we were over by those metal tunnels where the water comes pouring out and into the pond. The kids loved walking across and feeling the rush of the water. They went across over and over again. Annika loved splashing in it. The water was pretty strong so I really had to keep an eye on Nolan to make sure it didn't whoosh him out. Well, as I was hanging on to Annika for a while, I realized after a minute or two I hadn't seen Nolan come through for some time. I took a look at all my surroundings and didn't see him. I took ANOTHER good look...still didn't see him anywhere. I started to panic a little. Having a lost kid is one thing...having a lost kid near water is another...I started to ask everyone, HAVE YOU SEEN NOLAN??? over and over. He was nowhere! AHHHHH! Now I was really panicking. I looked into the water where it drops off from the sidewalk to see if he was underneath. I couldn't see him. I even popped my head through one of those tunnels and still no Nolan. I handed Annika to my Dad and was seconds from jumping into the pond, fully clothed. All of a sudden Nolan pops out of one of the tunnels. AHHHH! I just had to look in the wrong one. He had walked across the road to the other side and gone through. It was partly my fault. He saw some other kids doing it and I told him how fun it was when I used to do that when I was younger...:P I gave him the idea. I was a little surprised he hadn't told me where he was going. That isn't normally something Nolan would do. Oh well, now he knows!

Happy Father's Day

Nolan's Floor Exercise

Nolan On The Beam

Nolan's Gymnastics Show

Nolan's Gymnastics Show was last Saturday. There was so much going on and several people performing at the same time, by the time I noticed, Nolan was already half way across the balance beam. Oops! Luckily, Adam took a video of it as well cuz he was afraid I would miss it. I was standing in the back trying to be tall enough to get a good video while he was in the seating area.



Like Mom's glasses? :)



Ta Da!

Sneaky!

I found a Grandma Bubbles Book underneath Nolan's pillow. I asked him why he put it there and he said it was to help him dream of Grandma Bubbles and other good things.

After he was in bed for a while, I snuck in his room and took this picture. He was trying to be sneaky with the blanket over him and stay up reading, but I caught him! :) I pretended not to and just let him read.

Bounce House

Last Day Of Kindergarten!

Nolan's last day of Kindergarten was last Thursday. Yep, I'm a little late getting all these pics up. Anyways, we walked to the park. It took about a half hour. There was a bounce house there. Nolan spent the whole 2 1/2 hours enjoying the bounce house. He loved it!



This girl below is the other Kindergartener in Nolan's class who got the limo ride, Megan.



This picture makes me laugh :)



Nolan started a game of row sham bo while waiting in line for the bounce house.





This boy in the picture below is Nolan's buddy, Drew. He wasn't in Nolan's Kindergarten class, but is in his class in church.

Gold Medal

Nolan earned a Gold Medal for his 14,000 page mark of reading. The 15,000 page was the limo ride. He was in the top 3 of his grade for the number of pages he read this year! Go Nolan!

Favorite Kindergarten Artwork By Nolan

Short Hair

I recently cut my hair really short. Like the shortest I've ever had it. I was always putting it up and it just felt gross, so I figured if I cut it short enough, I wouldn't need to put it up anymore. Well, it's hard for me to find someone to cut my hair. People just don't understand curly hair for one thing. I finally found someone by referral who did ok. Still have some spots to fix, but oh well. :P Anyways, I pretty much need to style it everyday or it'll look like a giant afro. It still looks like a giant afro, but at least it's a maintained giant afro. :P I don't look good with it straight, so I have to put mousse and other stuff and diffuse it to help it not be a frizzy curl. People are always saying, "Oh, you're so lucky you have curly hair. You can just wash it and go." Ummm, that is sooooo not true! Yes, I am grateful for curls most of the time, but you can't just wash it and go. It is a lot of work to try and look somewhat decent. And during the rainy season, forget it! :P Every day after I am done styling it, Nolan says, "Mom, it looks like you have a wig on." I'll kind of sarcastically say, "Why thank you, Nolan." And than he reminds me, "But, at least it looks like a good wig." ;)

Well, I still have quite a bit of pictures to get on here, but just haven't had much time. Hopefully I'll get to it soon. It's hard when the kids are climbing all over me, literally. I sure love having Nolan home more now!!! I really do actually.

Splash!

Yesterday and the past few days were stormy weather. Today, the sun was finally out again. It wasn't the warmest, but Nolan wanted to do something summer-ish. I blew up the kiddy pool. It took FOREVER and my cheeks are still hurting from blowing so much. I spent more time blowing it up than they did playing in it, but oh well. They had fun splashing in the freezing cold water.

When it was just about blown up I told Nolan to go ahead and change in his swimming shorts. He came out with them on and his shirt still on. He said that he wasn't going to take his shirt off til right before he got in the pool otherwise "it would be immodest and that would be a step down!" :P A couple of weeks ago for FHE we talked about choices and how when you make good choices it's like climbing up the stairs and when you make bad choices it's like climbing down the stairs, etc. So, ever since then he's been very conscious about making sure he doesn't start "going down the stairs."

Baptism

On Saturday we went to a Baptism of a man who was in our older ward. His wife has been a member forever and they have 3 young kids. The man has been coming to church for a long time, but just hasn't decided to be baptized. Well, he finally did and it was a wonderful experience. It will be so exciting to see how his family is blessed from his choice.

Nolan loved seeing him be baptized. He was amazed at how quickly the man was in and out of the water. That's the part that scares him. I told him, his body just needs to be completely under and than he can come right back up.

On Sunday, they announced in Sacrament Meeting, another person who would be bapized this weekend. I wasn't really planning on going, not even sure who it is. Nolan heard and said, "Oh good, I get to see another person be baptized!"

Nolan was asked to give a last minute talk in Primary on Sunday. He chose to talk about Baptism. He did a great job! The ladies told me they love Nolan's talks because he is so confident up there as he speaks. I had someone from Primary come in Relief Society and tell me what a smart boy I have. During sharing time they talked about the Restoration. They asked several questions that were even too hard for the older primary kids to answer, but Nolan was raising his hand to all of them and knew all the answers. I'm so grateful for all our wonderful family and teachers who help me teach my children. Nolan is like a sponge and soaks up every little thing right now. It's so much fun to watch him learn and grow!

This is Nolan's last week of Kindergarten. His teacher told Adam that she was so glad we decided to move him on to 1st grade, she realized she had made a mistake especially when she was going over his report card, seeing all 3s and 4s which is great, or advanced. Who knows if we really made the right choice, but kind of funny listening to his teacher say she was wrong. She has been such a great teacher for him though and we love his school! I found out recently that the principal is a member of the Church. I had a feeling he was...

I guess I should say a few things about Annika now. :) She is at such a fun age as well. For the last few days she's been FINALLY a happy girl again. For the past 2 or 3 weeks before that, it was miserable! Constant crying, screaming, or fussing. Always wanting to be held, but still crying, screaming, or fussing. I didn't know what to do for her. She was teething like mad and there's really nothing you CAN do. She has lots of teeth now. The 4 front top and 4 front bottom and 4 molars. The day she started being happy again, it was AMAZING! She was such a different little girl.

I love having little conversations with her. She loves to point to things and babble and I say what it is and than she kind of thinks about it and we start it over again. I love how when I'm doing something and I'll hear her come up to me and say her little sweet words and I'll look at her and her head's kind of tilted to the side waiting for my answer or for me to say, "Oh, really?" Or something like that. She'll stand there until I say SOMETHING and than she's ready to be on her way again. Annika loves her big brother. I'm excited for Nolan to be home more this summer because Annika plays so much more when Nolan's in the room.

Lately, when I have a haircut coming over I'll ask Nolan if he'll "babysit" Annika upstairs while I'm downstairs cutting hair. I put on the monitor so if he needs anything he can talk into it. Even though I can hear him pretty well without it. :) It's kind of like being a fly on a wall cuz Annika doesn't really know what's going on, but is perfectly happy with Nolan watching her, yet I can still listen if she needs me or something. Annika doesn't do as well downstairs anymore where she can see me and see that I'm giving someone else attention, but as long as I'm not around she's just fine with playing with the toys and stuff. :P Oh well. Nolan's happy cuz he gets a little money each time to add to his mission fund. :)

HeeHee

Nolan loves to play games on his Dad's cell phone any chance he can get! Well, we went to Adam's work today and Nolan picked up a regular cordless phone and asked, "Does this phone have any games on it?" :D

Battle Wound

This is kinda gross, but he's a boy...he's gonna want a picture of his battle wound. :P It just keeps getting bluer and bluer. I didn't realize how dark this picture turned out til after we got a new band-aid on. So, I'm sure they'll be a better one soon. :P