James is on the potty

Over the weekend James began telling us when she needed to go potty. I was a little surprised, but he made it every time. I was hoping to wait to potty train him until we were in a better schedule, but he keeps asking to go potty so we decided to start potty training him.

I took him to the store this morning and he picked out skittles and M&Ms to earn as treats, plus we got him pull ups & some flushable wipes. We are just going to ask him if he wants to go potty every half hour, and see how it goes. We did an intense three-day method with Alec & I didn't like it.

Kindergarten!

Alec's first day of kindergarten was yesterday. He was SO ready & excited.

The morning was crazy, since it was my first day teaching this fall, he still had swim lessons in the morning & I wanted to squeeze in a run at the gym. We were running so late in the end I had him eat a fruit & nut bar in the car for lunch. Poor guy. We made it on time anyway & he got to walk up with Cannon, whilst I got James & Evy out of the car. The kids line up outside, but Alec kept trying to sneak in the classroom.

His teacher asked, "are you Austin?"

His friend Logan replied, "no, he's Alec."

Alec added, "I'm Alec Russell of the Russell family."

I was sure I was ready for this, but I actually teared up & had a hard time. Luckily, Alec didn't & didn't see me get upset. I'm so proud of him! He had a huge smile on his face after class! I asked him if he had fun & he said, "yeah, except when we played the listening game, I don't like that game."

He wasn't too excited to do homework this time, but James wanted to while his big brother was.

His afternoon kindergarten is 11.40-2.10, which means early lunch for us now! His teacher had me bring him in last week for 15 minutes while she assessed where he was, which I thought was great of her (outside school hours). Paul was able to attend the open house as he'd taken Friday off, which means he got to see the classroom and meet his teacher also just before we drove to Utah.

Bethany's baby blessing

Paul took work off friday, so we could drive to Utah. The kids did great in the car again, we had rented some movies from the library for them, so they were entertained. I sat in the back row with Evelyn to keep her happy.

When we arrived on Friday, the boys were thrilled to use the zip line in the backyard. Then we let them run around and sprayed them with the hose. It was so much fun to be in a backyard with grass again!

Saturday morning we took the children to the church history Museum. They loved the kid area. Fishing off of Nephi's boat, and especially the computer games. Paul and I walked them over to Temple Square for a minute and near some fountains by the mall. The fountains were a gut with my water-living boys. Then, Paul had to help my brother-in-law move their things, so the kiddos and I spent the rest of the day playing mostly in the backyard again. When we eventually got the kids to bed, we were able to play games with my siblings and their spouses. I think Telestrations was the most fun!

Sunday morning was the blessing and then we drove home. It was really fun to stay in one house with all of my family.

Mr. Responsible

Alec has been going through a fussy phase lately, but I've found that added chores & responsibility both distract & please him (he loves earning things). So, after his 'morning routine' (get dressed, make his bed, say his prayer), I expect him to put a bib on James & get breakfast for him. We've also added picking up dog poop as his latest chore. James helps by pointing out the poops for Alec, then they water the plants for me. Score!

He's even taken to cracking open pistachio nuts for his little brother (their current favorite snack).

3 Months Old!

Evy finally hit the 3-month old mark which means she can chill in daycare with her brothers whilst I workout. Total bliss. She seemed to do great-helped in part by the fact that one of the ladies held her the whole time!

She's kicking her legs more strongly now-in fact, she actually managed to push herself off the ottoman one day. :( she's holding her head up great & sleeping 9-10 hours at night. Super happy little girl, especially after feedings!

Family Vacation in California!

Although we were planning to go to Colorado for a week, we had to change plans and head west to California for a long weekend.


Friday night we were able to stay with some friends, the Jenkins, who will shortly be moving to Japan for three years. The boys were excited to run around and play with their friends and spend Saturday at Mother's Beach with them. It's actually on a small island, so the boys took advantage of no waves and ventured as far as they could while walking. This beach was really fun, it also had a playground for the children and a grassy area nearby. Clearly, this added up to an awesome day for the kids. After a full day with the Jenkins, we drove up to my grandmas house for the night.





Sunday we attended church with my grandma, she's Episcopalian and attends St. Martin in the field. It's pretty nostalgic for me, because she's been going to the same building since I was a child. She was doing a reading at the service, so we send the boys to the kindergarten playroom with the teacher while Paul & I attended the service with her. Evy was fussy, but otherwise it was really nice. We were too tired in the afternoon to go anywhere, so we organized grandma's boardgames and then went to dinner with grandma & Aunt Jerri to Maggiano's.



Monday morning we happily headed out to our regular beach in Malibu again. It seemed to be an animal day! when we arrived, there was a pod of dolphins swimming back-and-forth we got to watch, then a seal swam up near us and popped his head out of the water! We got to watch the pelicans nearby diving for fish and Alec got to go touch a lobster, that a fisherman had caught and was releasing. So fun! Grandma held Evelyn for me a lot, so Paul and I were both able to build sand castles with the boys. Alec was mostly interested in making friends with the children nearby and James kept wanting to see how high he could jump off the bluff nearby. eventually we went back to grandma's house to watch some more Olympics and relax.



Tuesday morning we set off slowly, washing the last of the laundry and slowly packing. We were able to meet up with the Jenkins once more at travel town, a free train park. Poor James got stung by a bee there, but daddy pretending to spit out the venom made him laugh and feel better!