First Day of School

This week was "Back to School" week for us. School started this Wednesday. Eliyana began 2nd grade and Caleb is in the pre-K program at the preschool. Caleb misses the Sept 1 cut-off date to start Kindergarden by only 3 days. He would have probably been fine to start this year, but we didn't think it was necessary to push for it as he is very happy in preschool. On Wednesday morning at 6AM, Caleb was up and begging for us to bring him to preschool! Eliyana is enjoying 2nd grade and getting to know her new teachers. They both had a good first week. We are getting adjusted to the new routine which comes with the school year. The children love "routine", so its been a good change.



Last Saturday we visited the Wild Animal Park in the morning and checked out Dino Mountain where they have life size, realistic moving dinosaurs. The children liked the dinosaurs from a distance. They were afraid of the the one that spit water and the T Rex. It was all I could do to get the children to sit in the stroller for this picture with the T Rex dinosaurs behind them!

Disneyland

We survived our all day trip to Disneyland on Tuesday and even managed to enjoy ourselves quite a bit! We tried to have low expectations of the day and how well behaved everyone would be without naps. The children did really well. And Gideon, who we were most worried about, was incredibly happy and easy. He loved the rides. With shoes he is 35" which gets him on most rides. He was even able to ride the Matterhorn and a mini-roller coaster in Toon town. Here are some pictures from our day. Our biggest mistake was taking Eliyana and Caleb on Space Mountain as our first ride at Disneyland. Josh and I didn't remember it being so fast and dark. They were not impressed and the rest of they day we had to convince them that the next ride was not dark or scary.

Outside of Disney's California Adventure Park. We had a parkhopper ticket so we could get into both parks. California Adventure is geared more toward older kids but we were able to find plenty of fun rides for the children and it wasn't as busy as Disneyland that day.

Exploring Tarzan's treehouse:

Eliyana, Josh and Gideon driving a car in Autopia. Eliyana got the steering wheel but Josh had to push the pedal.

Gideon catching 1 of his cat naps during the day. The other one was spent in my arms while we were waiting to get on Pirates of the Carribean.

Happy Birthday Eliyana!

Today is Eliyana's birthday. How can our little girl be 7 years old already?! We will be going to Disneyland on Tuesday for her birthday instead of having a party this year. We'll have a couple of the neighborhood girls over for cupcakes later this afternoon, but not a real party. Here's a picture from the day she was born.


I took this picture the other day during Eliyana's rest time. She is allowed to read during rest time since she hardly ever naps anymore. But on this day, she was reading along with many of her stuffed animals.


I love Craigslist but it can be dangerous because you can find so many good deals there. When we first built the treehouse we thought it would be really fun to have a slide out of it. But after discovering they cost around $200 just for the plastic slide part, we quickly passed on the idea. . . until we found one for $30 on Craigslist. So the treehouse, just got even more exciting for the children.


It's been a good few weeks. Josh accompanied us to the beach last week and it was much easier for me to have his help. We also took a trip to the zoo yesterday and checked out the new Elephant Odyssey section.