Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We have been regularly going to the track once a week for a couple of months now. The kids love it. Axel runs his mile and the two little ones run a half a mile. 

I time and take picture :) I love seeing Rubix fly around the track with his little legs. He has broken 2 minutes a couple of times for his 400 and Phoenix has run around a 1:40 + - a couple of seconds pretty regularly for her 400 effort. They jog an easy lap after they do their 400 for time. Axel just goes out and tries to PR. He has been hovering around 6:40 for a while.

The last week of school before break included lots of fun activities. Here Rubix is holding his gingerbread house. He was so very proud. 

The kids made their own gingerbread houses on Saturday the 18th. The boys worked on the "mansion" and Phoenix had a house that she received from her school/ homeroom holiday party. 

Rubix was a good helper and Axel did most of the decorating. 

Phoenix was somewhat happy with her end product. 

The Gunnions, one of our two bubble families have joined us a handful of times at the track. Joel and Axel run the mile together and the other kids do their normal routine and then play. Here they are doing a fun "zombie" warm up. 

Axel has been working on earning "money" by doing chores. His class trip costs a couple of thousand dollars so he has been doing laundry, dishes and putting out the recycling and bins. This is working out nicely for building some responsibility in Axel and sets a good example for the younger two. Rubix asked how he can help. He chose doing dishes. It is all cute and all, but he washes them in cold water, which doesn't seem to work as well as hot water :)

I captured a cute moment where Rubix wanted to give Phoenix love and Phoenix was happy to show Rubix how the holly we had hanging, in place of a mistletoe, worked. So they kissed and hugged! So sweet!

I had to work the week before Christmas so Christmas Eve snuck up on us quite quickly. I was able to capture some cute photos of the kiddos in their new pajamas on Christmas Eve. 

We enjoyed virtual church and a nice meal together as well as watching "Elf" before bed. 

We are so blessed to have such wonderful children.

I love when they get along :)

See the cool Christmas tree they are making?

And my wonderful husband and I smiling for our camera girl. 

Christmas morning Phoenix requested to have pumpkin scones with our pumpkin lattes this year so Axel made the frosting!

Stocking time!!!!

Merry Christmas!

How we love our stocking!

Time for the big gifts around the Christmas tree. 

We were so excited!

Rubix went first and got the marble maze he couldn't wait for. 

Oh my!

Axel, all cute, in his new rain coat.

Phoneix giving Daddy the most wonderful gift of all. 

So sweet!

Phoenix loving her new books!

Axel with his new phone!

Phoenix holding the Phoenix Axel made her. 

Time for Christmas "dinner". What breakfast for lunch? Yes, a huge spread of pumpkin pancakes, waffles, breakfast sausage and fruit. We all enjoyed a change for once. We were so grateful everyone made it down. It was a horrible rain storm and took the Jolly's and Gma Susan and Gpa Brian 3 hours to get to our house and over 3 hours home. It was a short visit, but we were still grateful for them to persevere through the rainstorm to make it. 

Phoenix helping Braylin learn the piano.

More gifts!!!!

So much fun!

Thank you Gpa!

Braylin and Aya holding the unicorns Axel made them. 

Rain walk on Christmas just before dark.

Daddy's Christmas gift all up and ready to use!

Finally able to decorate the gingerbread cookies that we did not have time for on Christmas day. 

Our new little artist, miss Phoenix with her awesome new art set, thanks to Gma Sonia and Gpa Bruce. 

Happy New Year!

We played hours of games during our new Christmas Eve tradition the past few years. 

We woke up and did a cold 5.5 mile hike on New Year's day. 

It was beautiful!

We watched Raya and the Last Dragon on New Years day. What a great 2 weeks off of school!

 We are looking forward to a New Year of growth and changes as the kids continue to grow and develop. Here is to 2022!

Fall fun, Thanksgiving break

The days and weeks continue to fly by. It has been so hard working 32 to 36 hours per week for the family. It seems like there is always something that is being sacrificed. The top two things that become neglected are cleaning the house and making good meals. I have been trying extra hard for the past 3 weeks to plan and make good food because the kids are so busy with school and swim team. The kids can only eat if I have the meals prepared ahead of time, which has helped me prioritize meal preparations. 

I can't even remember the specific day that these pictures were taken, but I thought the boys looked so cute and similar I just had to snap some photos. 

If you can't tell this is first thing in the morning. Rubix refuses to wear a shirt to bed and Axel appears to refuse to brush his hair :). 

Phoenix had her first friend over in a long time. Sana and her painted rocks in the park and played wall ball against the garage. She was so happy to have one of her friends from school come over. She actually came again last weekend, but I was busy cleaning and cooking the entire time that she was here/they were playing outside, I didn't get to enjoy their playdate. 

Rubix has started playing soccer at school, so he is very interested in playing at home. 

Phoenix really wanted to paint her nails a few weeks ago. I am not sure what happened, but before I could start painting them, Axel was already at it. 

Axel is such a sweet big brother. 

The final product!

The kids have been loving using the dominoes for everything except playing Dominoes. Rubix was proud of his creation. He is primarily using them to build "marble mazes". 

For Thanksgiving we had the Worden's over for an early Thanksgiving meal. Phoenix and Axel were fantastic helpers in the kitchen. 

Here we are tight before dinner. 

We had yummy pumpkin pie and fruit for dessert. 

The day before Thanksgiving, we headed to Sacramento. It was Gpa Brian's birthday so we enjoyed a walk to the park and Mexican food. 

Happy birthday Gpa!

Thanksgiving we enjoyed a relaxing day with Gma, Gpa and Great Uncle Dave. Gma and the kiddos worked on arts and crafts while Keith and I got to go for a bike ride. 

We rode to Folsom Lake. The lake was very low and it took us a lot longer than it use to. 

We were able to snap a quick photo before heading back to Gma's house. 

Thanksgiving, Italian style, dinner!

We managed to go to the park on Friday before heading over to Auntie Shannon's. 

All 3 generation of girls!

The kids had so much fun seeing cousin Aya and Braylin. 

We had a very long 3 hour drive home on Friday, but it was worth it. I didn't mention, but on Thanksgiving Gma and I stepped out to visit GG (great grandma Goldstein) (who was at a rehab center after breaking her right hip).

I forgot Gpa Brian's birthday gift in the refrigerator. Axel found it and asked if he could have some. I decided to take a picture to show Gpa Brian the present that I mentioned that I completely forgot to bring him. Oh well! I guess it was the thought that counts!

The kiddos are on there last few days of school before the holiday break. Axel has 4 days of finals starting tomorrow. I get to volunteer in the classroom for Phoenix's holiday party on Friday and the kids have a swim meet this Friday. I will have to find time to update you on the kids swim teams and other news that has happened since Thanksgiving. I should have more time since tomorrow is the last night of bible study fellowship until January, which means I have 3 weeks to catchup on work and personal stuff like blogging!

 

Happy Halloween! End of the Cabana season and Beach Whale swim practices. First rain of the season!

It has been a fun season of swimming on Saturday mornings with Daddy, aka, Beach Whale swim team. He has run fun practice meets for the kids and given out ribbons for their times/PRs. The last practice of the year ended with a 500 yard free style race and fun drills where the kids swam with one arm or leg in groups of 4 or in trains of 6. It was such a special gift to be able to run Saturday morning swim practices. 

Daddy had to leave to Florida to take care of Gpa Paul. He had a productive visit and hopefully, Gpa Paul will be motivated to get strong again. 

Here is Daddy reading to Rubix before he left for his red eye on Saturday night, 10 days ago. 

On Sunday last week we had the biggest storm with the highest wind speeds and rain fall of the year. It was a little scary, having not seen winds and rain like that in such a long time. We went out for a walk in the "calm" of the storm. It took us 50 minutes to walk 2 miles because of the 30 mph winds at times. We loved seeing water flowing in our creeks and .....

Beautiful rainbows that filled the sky!

It may have been the same 3 rainbows, but they seemed to be in different locations. 

We even harvested our last pumpkin in the rain. 

Our little pumpkin patch!

On Friday the kids were able to wear their costumes to school. This was a tough year to get the kids to decide what they wanted to be. After much contemplation Rubix and Phoenix decided on vampires and Axel created his Pi napple shirt and mask. 

Axel has been running again, once a week, for the past month. He ran his best mile of 6:57 and then 10 minutes later did a 400 yard dash with his buddy Joel. Amazingly he was able to PR at 1:19, just one second behind Joel! I was shocked at his effort and ability to push himself on already tired legs. 

Saturday night we carved pumpkins and watched Hotel Transylvania. 

It is exciting to see the kids able to do more on their own (except Rubix) who I did not allow him to use a knife. 

Here are the kids all ready to go trick or treating yesterday with their pumpkins in front of them. Rubix's monster was adorable. Axel's pineapple was so fitting with his costume and Phoenix's cat was surprisingly really good. I was impressed at her artistic ability, even with a pumpkin!

We spent the evening with the Gunnions. The kids managed 2 hours of trick or treating and we were able to go to the neighborhood of the house we bought and say hello to our renters. 

I couldn't pass up this cute picture of Axel!

Today we managed to sort our candy and pick out a few to save and enjoy. The rest go to the military men and women through a donation that Harker does every year. 

 The kids are trying out for different swim teams over the next few weeks and they are deciding on what swim team they want to join. We will see which one they decide and if all of them or just one or two of them decide to take the next step in their swimming journey. They did well at their first try outs tonight. More to come.....