School! And some other stuff...

School has started here in San Ramon.  I am now the proud mother of a big {tiny} 3rd grader and a kindergartner!  It is weird.

Kadie got an awesome teacher.  We are so excited.  She gives the kids hugs every morning.  She started out as a social worker, a profession that pulls at my heart strings a bit.  She discovered that she loved teaching through that.  Her name is Mrs. Smart...how much better can that get?  Kadie is loving school and has already completed a class presentation and learned 4 cursive letters.  She loves 3rd grade.  She is also doing so great at piano.  She has already started composing her own little songs.  I think she truly has a talent, and she loves it.  We found her "thing".  Yay!

Laney has another awesome teacher for Kindergarten.  She didn't get Kadie's old Kindergarten teacher, and we were sad about that because we loved Mrs. Young.  Laney's teacher is Mrs. Mochizuki...she is Australian born, and has lived all over the world.  She seems very structured {good for Laney}, organized and fun.  Laney is having over-sensory issues with the ginormous class size.  24 kids...could become 26 through the year.  So sad.  When Kadie was in Kindergarten she was so lucky to be in a looped class of 10 Kindergartners and 10 first graders.  It was so cool to have so much time with the teacher.  Her teacher truly knew her.  I am hoping among the chaos of a larger class that Laney will be fine.  But one full week of her having anxiety attacks is getting me worried.  Every night she cries and says "There are just so many kids!"  In the morning she does the same.  It took me 30 minutes to get her to go into class on Tuesday.  We made a star chart, and for every day that she goes into class and is brave {and doesn't come back out of class looking for me and Crew} she gets a star.  5 stars gets her an ice cream cone at the ice cream store, or a prize from the dollar section at Target.  I love bribery...hopefully it works...and really it is actually just an incentive because she gets the reward after she goes to class.  I feel good about the star chart. :)

Crew is having WAY too much fun bossing me around with no one else here.  He started this new conversation thing where he starts out with "So...mom..." and waits for me to say "What Crew"...then he talks in French or something that sounds like French...although I can usually make out "Buzz, Woody, Cars, Daddy, Kadie, Laney..."  He is a cutie.  He is constantly asking for kisses, hugs, and saying "I Yuv You _____!"  He says everything like it has an exclamation point at the end.  He is so enthusiastic.

Josh is back to a busy schedule...I mean wait...He is just the same.  Busy.  But we came up with a plan where Sunday nights we choose one night that looks a little less busy in his schedule for him to come home and have dinner with me and the kids.  It worked this week!  Hoping we can keep it up.  It is so nice for the kids to see their Dad during the week.  He got awesome reviews this last year, I am so proud of him.  Senior Manager here we come!

I am busy with projects of course.  Just finished wedding invitations for my cousin.  I also painted and redid Crew's room and Laney's.  On to Kadie's room {painting}, the primary program, Waldron Family Cookbook, and Children's swap!  Bring it on September!

Leisa :)

Merry Christmas!

This last year of 2010 was one of the fullest we have known!

Crew Boy!

• learned how to walk and immediately began RUNNING and JUMPING!!!
• words so far:

mama

daddeeeee!

Dee Dee (Kadie)

Nay Nee (Laney)

Mineeeeey! (Mine)

no no no! (while pointing his finger and smiling)

awe (putting his head to the side when something is cute)

joo (juice)

ha dah (hotdog)

• Crew also knows to fold his arms in prayer and he dances to all kinds of music
• He gives the sweetest little kisses, and he has a baby doll.
• He is a monkey and climbs on EVERYTHING, and breaks most things he throws.
• Crew stole the title of Messiest from Laney, and probably also owns the title of best tantrum thrower. We will continue watching him closely in 2011. :)

Laney

• Learned to write her first name as well as f-o-x, c-a-t, l-o-v-e, n-o, y-e-s, t-o, and m-o-m and d-a-d. She leaves notes everywhere in the house.
• She is always right at my feet when I am upset about something telling me she loves me.
• Laney LOVES flash cards. Any and all kinds!
• Laney discovered the world of girly toys and things this year. She still has a special love of dinosaurs, but she and Kadie play all sorts of princess and fairy games.
• Laney has also started "crafting" with her sister after school.
• Laney still owns the title of Most Curious child, but Crew is a close match!

Kadie

• Kadie became a big kid in my eyes this year which really makes me happy and sad at the same time. :) :( But mostly happy. :)
• Kadie was baptized this year, she pays tithing, and she reminds me now of family prayer, scripture study and family home evening. I even put her in charge of one lesson and she is a natural at teaching!
• Kadie's favorite thing in the world is NATURE. Anything and everything about it.
• Kadie changes her brothers diaper sometimes, she even offers to vacuum on occasion.
• Kadie is a WIZ at math and loves it almost as much as her Daddy. She rarely comes home missing more than one problem on her math or spelling tests.
• Kadie has even dabbled in jewelry design this year, and wears one of her most recent bracelets almost every day.
• She wants to be a mom when she grows up, and I think she will be such a patient mother.
• Kadie still wins the award for Most Dramatic in our family, and she can add a touch of Sassy to the mix most days.

Josh and Leisa

Leisa started a few new hobbies this year including party throwing and her Sassy Pepper blog. She discovered a new obsession with organizing, which doesn't last long with an 8, 4 and 1 year old. Instead of trying to be the perfect mom this year, she tried being more fun, and the kids voted to keep the fun. :) Leisa is also in the Primary Presidency as an intern... I mean, counselor. She now knows the secret to making it all work at church is just that...a SECRET that she hasn't discovered yet! :) Leisa wins title of Most Crazy, but a good crazy, not "crazy" crazy,

at least not yet.

Josh was so blessed to be given the opportunity to go back to what he loves again for a career. Josh is now an Audit manager with a full staff at PWC and absolutely loves it. His engagements include Twitter and Zip Realty! Somehow, he still finds time to play the Wii with Kadie, bake cookies with Laney and wrestle with Crew. We are back to our old schedule of working hard in the week and playing twice as hard on the weekend! I think Josh deserves the award of Most Thoughtful because although he is overworked and underpaid...he does anything I ask, even without the asking.

This upcoming May will mark 10 years in our marriage! And we plan on celebrating in style.

We want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope that your year to come is full of joy and happiness. We also are so thankful for all of you, and most of all our Savior.

With Love,

Josh, Leisa, Kadie (8), Laney (4.75), and Crew (1.5)

Goodbye...Hello!

Last Christmas the girls were so excited to get their little leopard gecko's from Santa.

Sassy really had a special little love for Laney.

As our first "real" pets other than fish, Santa told us that gecko's are very low maintenance and easy to keep alive. So even Josh and I were excited. They really were cute.

About 2 months ago, Laney's lizard dropped it's tail, and it was all downhill from there. Both gecko's were lethargic and wouldn't eat a thing for the last month. So we decided to give them up to a shelter that would nurse them back to health and then find good owners for them.

We saw and heard many many tears this last weekend.

Josh and I felt bad for the girls and for their gecko's.

What we weren't planning on was meeting some teeny tiny turtles at the shelter that need a new home! Kadie tried to talk me into a snake, but with all of the fiasco's with crickets this last year, I could only imagine mice and gold fish being worse. So we agreed on turtles.

Meet Freckles and Cuddle!

Now the girls are smiling again!

Let's hope that these little things stay healthy.

{Green} Halloween

The night of the trunk or treat for our church, I decided last minute to go as the wicked witch of the East, which meant I would have to be green.

Laney followed suit. She even requested a gross fake mole.

Crew was originally the tin man, but his costume was too small and showed too much diaper.

He became a last minute "Toto" with one of our older costumes from when Kadie was a wee one.

By the end of the night, being green didn't seem to excite Laney as much.

Pumpkin Patch Number Two...

Windmill Farms. It is one of those places that I take for granted, but if we ever moved I would really miss it. A little outdoor market of fresh produce from local farmers.

Every year they have a low-key pumpkin patch. But this year...they stepped it up a notch!

I am still sad we only went once. :(

Crew was in love!

We actually found pumpkins! And we got busy carving right when we got home.

And here are our pumpkins. All carved and in their happy scary Halloween glory!

Can you guess who's is who's?

Pumpkin Patch Number One...

I decided that next year, we will be treating the pumpkin patch like a park. I was so sad that we waited until just a few days before Halloween to go to the pumpkin patch this year because the kids LOVED it. Crew acted like he was at Disneyland, trying to pick every pumpkin up and running all over the patch like a mad man.

Laney put the first pumpkin she touched into our wagon.

After 15 minutes of not finding the perfect pumpkin, Kadie found a ladybug.

Crew found his M & Ms...

Laney tried to help Kadie find a pumpkin because she was taking FOREVER to decide.

Kadie always wants every moment and item in her life to be absolutely perfect.

Then we found the CORN PIT.

I wish I had one in my backyard.

The kids played and played and played!

Crew attempted the tunnel with success!

Crew also tried climbing on a fence for the first time and succeeded at that as well.

What a go-getter!

And the slide was the end to our show.

Sadly we didn't even end up with pumpkins from pumpkin patch number one.

It was on to the next!

Costume Day

I am a little behind posting these, but school costume day was my favorite this year. There was just something really fun about sending my second grade Dorothy and her little witch sister off to school with their lunches and backpacks.

Kadie loved the parade, and was looking kind of grim and worried (scanning the by-standers for any sign of mom) until she heard me yell "KADIE!". She was all smiles after that!

Kadie and her little tin man.

Kadie is Eight!!!

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Originally Kadie asked for a Wizard party, as in Wizard's of Waverly Place because she wants to be Selena Gomez when she grows up. I had no CLUE how to throw a wizard party. After Kadie saw WICKED sI thought that a Wizard of Oz themed party would be fun, and Kadie agreed.

One stipulation, Kadie wanted to be Dorothy.

So we threw an Oz themed costume party in July!

This was part of the set up process that left my arms extra toned! (I wish).

We put ruby red shoes under our garage door like our house had landed on the wicked witch of the east. And we had a yellow brick road that led up to our front door into Munchkin land!

The kids also had to walk under a rainbow

and enter Munchkin land.

The party started with a few different activities for the kids when they arrived!

My sister Alex was painting faces, Glinda the Good witch was here to take pictures with the kids, and there were supplies for rainbow witch bead necklaces for the kids to create!

We ended up with a witch, 2 Dorothy's (Kadie was one), a Lion, a Munchkin, a member of the Lollipop Guild and even a Glinda (Laney)!

Kadie dressed like Dorothy, with a fancy crown that said "There's no place like home".

She had sparkly red shoes, and even a tiny Dorothy figurine necklace.

I think that she felt just as cute as she looked!

I got the amazing tree from a garage sale! The tree is an actual Wizard of Oz decoration, one of the creepy trees from the movie. It was actually the best garage sale I have ever been to, and I miss it. I should have snatched every Wizard of Oz item that they were selling, but I had no idea months before that I would be throwing a themed birthday party.

Outdoor Fun!

We made our own potions using sand art potion bottle necklaces.

Layering the different sand in the bottles made unique designs for all of the kids.

They even creatively named their potions things like...stinky feet potion, witch cackle potion, and turn-you-into-whatever-you-want potion.

Broomstick Races!

This was originally a "filler" game, which we ended up using while waiting for our wicked witch to arrive. It actually ended up being one of the best games. The kids loved running around cones while acting like they were flying on a broom.

Melt the Witch!

My brother Nick agreed to dress like a wicked witch and allow the kids to throw countless green water balloons at him. I don't think he knew he would be also be asked to wear a dress, wig, green paint on his face, and have children pulling and tugging at him for 15 minutes.

I would dare say it was the scariest 15 minutes of his life.

Munchkin Food

When it was time to eat cake and pizza the kids were surprised with Munchkin pizza and treats as well as rainbow cupcakes that a friend of mine told me about on Family Fun. The food was so cute and yummy looking even you wouldn't have been able to pass it up.

Present time!

Pending a pre-party speech from my mouth to Kadie's ears about opening presents slow and making sure her friends knew she liked and appreciated all of the gifts, I was a little nervous.

It helped this year to have her own little place set up for the very occasion of opening gifts.

Needless to say, Kadie absolutely adored each and every present that she received.

She was all smiles...ear to ear!

The Sweets Shop!

This was definitely the highlight of the day.

The moment the kids arrived they could see the Sweets Shop set up and immediately were all asking when they could "shop" for their treats. After all games and activities and presents were done, it was the turn of the party-goers. There was SO MUCH candy set up before anyone got there. I don't think there were more than maybe 30 pieces of candy left over by the time everyone went home.

Laney as "Glinda" the good witch, waiting for her candy. :)

All of the preparation paid off, and I think I almost had as much fun as Kadie at the party.

I hope she remembers it when she gets older. It was so much fun to make it her special day!

Where was Crew Boy during all of the chaos? ASLEEP!

He slept the ENTIRE time like the dream child he is,

only to awake to tiny pizza, cupcakes and balloons.

The End.

Next up for Kadie...BAPTISM!