It's cold outside!

After having two weeks of unbelievably warm weather we have been hit hard by this "cold vortex". The highs have been in the 50s and the lows in the 30s. That is COLD, for our neck of the woods. Here is a not so good picture of the kiddos playing at the park last Thursday after school. This Thursday it was too wet and cold to go, but last week with the sun out it was a pleasant cold.

 I forgot to post Phoenix's first school picture. Here she is, our big 5 year old. At times she seems so mature and at other times she seems so immature. I cannot imagine how hard it is to be her age again.

 Last Friday we went to the Lunar New Year Celebration at the YMCA. The kids had fun in the jump houses and Phoenix enjoyed the face painting as always. She has a tiger on her face and a unicorn on her hand.

 I forgot to post a picture of Phoenix in her new dress that G'ma Susan spent hours and hours making. It is absolutely beautiful. Phoenix has been wearing it almost all of the time when she is home.

 Axel went to his friend, Kedar's, birthday last Saturday. He had so much fun playing video games for 2 hours! Apparently, he was the only kid who played the entire time. The other kids took breaks.

 A few more kids arrived after we left. You can see in the inside of the truck in the picture below. What a great idea to put a bunch of big screens and xboxes in a truck and drive it around to kids parties.

 On Monday, Daddy got bagels again. We all love bagels, and we love them even more when they are on sale!

 Here is a funny picture of Phoenix with Rubix's sippy cup. Rubix is so nice, he is willing to share almost anything.

Rubix is becoming more and more coordinated. He is making baskets now quite often. This past 3 day weekend he played for an hour at a time. 

He is starting to test his boundaries. He has started throwing tantrums when he wants something. Last night I had Phoenix and Rubix crying and whining about one thing or another. It is frustrating to have Phoenix not know by now that the crying and whining isn't going to get her the "candy" that she wanted. Poor Rubix was just refusing to eat dinner and insisted on other food. Now that he is going to be 2 next month, I put my foot down and said "no" to the fruit shake that he wanted instead of dinner. Before I was just wanting to get him any calories I could to get him to sleep through the night, but now that he mostly sleeps through the night I need him to eat the food that I am preparing for everyone else! I really can't wait until he is "food and potty trained", although I don't want to rush time any faster than it is already going. 

Rubix started riding his trike today. As you can see from his smile, he was more than pleased with himself. He rode for an hour! I was getting tired of bending over to help him steer and to help him get up the hill, but I am glad that he was having fun!

We are looking forward to an exciting weekend this weekend. Last weekend the kiddos were sick and Phoenix had an ear infection. She is finishing up her antibiotics this weekend. We will be attending her friend's birthday party on Saturday and Disney on Ice with Auntie Shannon and cousin Braylin, on Sunday. I hope to take some photos since I haven't been very good at doing so the past couple of months.

Blue and Gold dinner. Grandma Susan comes to visit!

On Feb 3rd we got together with the MIT crew at Tyler's house. Now that there is 10 kids in all Cynthia decided to have some painting activities. It just happened to be in the mid 70's so we all enjoyed watching the kids make a mess with the last hour of daylight. 

 We were the first to arrive as usual. The newest addition to the clan, Hazel, who is now 15 months had a double ear infection so she stayed home with Brenna. It was a bummer not to see them, but Mark showed an awfully cute video of her eating. She has lots of personality and is quite cute.

 Rubix had a cold, but everyone was fine with him coming over. He did really well and made it until 8 pm playing hard with the other kiddos.

 I managed to take a quick photo before Rubix and I left. Unfortunately, you can't see Josie, Zoe or Jade in this picture. They were just jumping off the couches and wrestling inside the tent. Despite the ciaos the kids and adults, alike, all had fun.

 Rubix is a silly one. This picture is blurry, but he loves to wear hats and he loves to make people laugh. He put Phoenix's tiaras around his waist and then ran around the house waiting to get chased.

This past Saturday after Pheeny's swim lesson and Rubix's nap we headed to Jack Fischer Park. We saw some fun happenings in the park, which happened to be Liam Flynn's birthday party. Because we know everyone at the party and said hello, the kiddos got to join in the fun. All three of them loved these huge soccer balls, called "bubble soccer".

 Liam's mom rented them for 2 hours. The party boys were done with them after the first hour, so our kiddos enjoyed them the second hour.

 These were lots of fun, but come with a danger factor.

 Phoenix's leg got stuck, but luckily, nothing bad came of it.

 On Sunday night Axel had his Blue and Gold dinner for cub scouts. Axel was a flag bearer this year.

 The boys had fun performing their skits and we all enjoyed a nice spaghetti dinner.

 During the parent meeting time, the kids went to another room to play. Phoenix loves the protection of her big brother. Axel is always willing to give her the love and protection she needs to get comfortable in unfamiliar situations.

 Rubix, unlike Phoenix, doesn't need much, except a few balls to play with. We had a little ball that we brought, but then the bigger kids played a live angry bird game which required lots of balls for them to knock the birds down with, which meant plenty of balls for Rubix to play with as well. He threw to me for 30 minutes straight before we had to leave to pick up Grandma Susan.

 Phoenix, Rubix and I headed to the train station to pick up Grandma, as she agreed to watch Axel for three days while I worked, as his school is closed this week. Grandma and Axel had an action packed three days of art projects (crystal and goo making, etc), hiking, and other fun adventures. Here is a cute picture of them on their hike.

Grandma took Axel to the new dollar store that we have a couple of miles a way. They got all kinds of fun things like the balloons you see in this picture. We all had a lovely Valentine's Day where we showered each other with love. 

I finally replaced the broken pencil sharper and Axel got to sharpening the pencils right away. The tooth fairy came and brought Axel 5 dollars on Valentine's Day as well as he lost his 5th tooth on the 13th. He woke up saying how loose his tooth was and then half way through changing Rubix's diaper he said, "my tooth came out." What a big difference from his 1st tooth. He lost the bottom right hand tooth, which became loose just 6 weeks ago. I am starting to think that I should take him to the orthodontist like his dentist recommended to figure out what they are going to do with his small mouth size and big permanent teeth!

Rubix was sooooo tired on Valentine's Day. We went to bed a bit late and he had a rough night the night before. I took this picture and did a bunch of things in his room without him making a peep. I had to wake him up to get to work on time, but enjoyed watching him sleep for a few minutes. 

Today we are catching up on chores and Grandma is safely home. We are looking forward to the long weekend. Axel has a birthday party and Phoenix is working hard at swimming as she is trying to move up to the next level by mastering her "rollovers".

Axel gets 3rd in Pinewood Derby

Last week I captured a cute video of Rubix climbing on the slide. It amazes me how much he is growing and maturing. He is still a bit timid, but I love when he does venture away from Mommy. He has had a rough year so far with virus after virus. He is fighting another cold and struggling to sleep with his very congested nose. I hope he gets over it quickly and doesn't come down with another one for awhile.

Last Sunday Axel had his Pinewood Derby. It was questionable whether he was even going to participate. He really didn't want to make a car and have "extra stress." However, he came around and worked really well with Daddy. He was able to do most of the work himself, except the big initial cutting.  His car is blue again. He wanted blue and gold, but we were not able to borrow paints, so I purchased just the light blue he wanted. He colored the side cut outs red with permanent marker. The process was significantly smoother this year than last year and they were able to get it done over the course of just 4 nights with only 1 trip to the Scout store.  

Axel really did not have any expectations of doing well and stated that he really did not want to go to "Districts". It was a very long day for him and he was really upset that they had to drill out 25+ holes in the bottom of his car to make weight. Everyone had to shave off some of their car to make weight because we think the scale was off as Axel's was 5.01 before the race. Anyways, that was last year. This year Axel's car was about the same weight. He won a few races and came in second in a few races and third in a few races. Here is one of his 9 heats. 

We were all pleasantly surprised with how well Axel's car was doing with much less fuss over making it this year. His car is the third one from the left.

It appeared most of the pack did a great job at making their cars faster so the races were much closer this year. 

Rubix was very interested in the car races and watched intently for 45 minutes. They took a break for cake which then averted his attention to the basketball hoops. He had so much fun shooting baskets with Daddy. Daddy loves playing with him! 

 Here is Axel with Mike, the Pack leader, receiving his 3rd place trophy.

 Here is Pack 505 with Andrea, Axel's Den leader, on the right and Mike, the Pack leader, on the left. They are husband and wife with three boys in the Pack. Next year their oldest twin boys move to boy scouts, so it will be interesting to see who will be the Pack leader.

Phoenix and Rubix were able to run Axel's gold car from last year after the races were over. They had a fun time participating as well. 

Axel continues to participate in the weekly basketball clinic at Harker on Saturday mornings. There is just one more week left. He had pajama day and another Eagle buddy day, where his two 10th grade buddies spend 2.5 hours with him, yesterday. I am not exactly sure what the activity was this time, but he brought a book from home for his Eagle buddy meeting. 

We finally finished Phoenix's application to Harker (which means Keith finished doing are taxes too) and now we have the waiting game. We should know by mid March what school she will be attending in the fall. Phoenix continues to thrive and her reading is coming along quickly. I am so impressed and happy for her. She is in a really big art phase right now. She says she wants to be an art teacher when she grows up. She is constantly drawing and making books. The cool thing now is she puts words to her pictures so she feels more accomplished in her book making/writing!

Daddy is in a VERY stressful time. Linear Technology is officially gone and he works for ADI now, which means lots of changes. Now that the first year is over, complete integration is underway. This means changes to groups, finances (significant drops in pay for all LT employees) and potential layoffs. They are projected to move in November of this year to a fancy high rise building in San Jose and sell LT's buildings in Milpitas, which will be the final goodbyes to LT. My heart is so heavy for all of the men who put their heart in soul into making Linear Tech and growing it over the past 35 years. It was such a reputable company and it is so sad to see everything that Keith has worked for slip away right before his eyes. By the time the transition is fully complete in 3 years nothing will be the same. I would be lost if I were in his shoes and Kaiser got bought out by another company and we had to change everything about the way we practice as clinicians. I pray that God will direct him where he is suppose to be and that Keith will have peace wherever he ends up.

We are looking forward to the Super Bowl tomorrow and the Olympics starting next week. We really need some relaxing time as life has been very busy.  Go Patriots! Oh, if the Patriots win again Keith is buying Uggs! Don't ask me why. I am not sure I quite get the connection, but don't be surprised if I post a picture of Keith in his new Uggs! (that is, if the Patriots win) Happy football watching!