Christmas joy

Despite moving 2 days after Christmas, we had some very nice Christmas celebrations. Thanks to my MomII (ie. step-mom) who provide 2 wonderful dinner and amazing ambiance and my mother-in-law (ie. momIII) who came up for Christmas morning (with father & sister-in-law) to make the day even more special. So even though 80% of our things were packed, we had a great Christmas!
The Dugan cousins all got reindeer nose.

Opening presents with a fire crackling and comfy new pajamas from grandma.

Silas Class Presentation

Silas's teacher sent this little clip to me. It illustrates how silly Silas can be. I like that he's confident enough to put himself out there like that.

Brief Update

I'm feeling bad that I haven't been updating much lately. I've been busy getting ready for our move and for Christmas. After we're settled in Los Osos I'll post a video tour of our new place. In the meantime, here's my cozy kids enjoying a movie together.

Confident daughter

We had family photos done a couple of months ago, and I just had to post my favorite. It truly catches my confident little daughter.

Happy Halloween 2011

Halloween is such a fun time of year. Here are my very excited children in their costumes.
Zeke carved the pumpkin on the right and the black marker decorations on it are Keilah's handiwork. Silas carved the pumpkin on the right. He carved 3 sides of it.

Zeke's preschool class had a costume party the Thursday preceding Halloween. Keilah got to join in so she's in the group standing in front of Zeke.

Keilah and Zeke got to go to Silas's class costume party. They had so much fun!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Soccer Photos are in

The soccer photos are in! I think they turned out great. Coach Cory and Assistant Coach Chris have done a great job increasing the boys' soccer skills and team player skills.

Autumn Fun!

The boys have been enjoying autumn fun with their classes.

Silas's school has a scarecrow auction to raise money for their garden program. Each class makes a scarecrow. The class voted on who they wanted their scarecrow to look like, the parents donated materials, I designed it, the class stuffed it, and the garden parent and I assembled it. So here we are with Calvin and Hobbes.
Zeke's school took him on a trip to a fun pumpkin patch. He got to pet bunnies, ducklings, and other animals, brush a horse, pick a pumpkin, and become king of the hay mountain.

Camping at Morro Bay

We went camping at Morro Bay so we could check out Los Osos. The kids did really great. They especially loved feeding the fire. I don't think our campsite had any pine needles or twigs left when we departed.
We went camping with Los Osos native, cousin Matt, and his family. While in Morro Bay we took a boat ride on the bay.

Swimmer!

Silas swam the 25 m Freestyle today and we are so proud of him!
Here he is on the block on the right. After that it's just a lot of splashing water.

Silas's Big Day

For Silas's 8th birthday he got to have a party with his friends at the Rocknasium. He and his friends had SO MUCH FUN! They got to climb for over 2 hours with a 30 min. break near the end for pizza, root beer floats, and cupcakes.
Here he is with all of his good friends. (Colin, Silas, Byron, Jihan, Rockwell, Ben & Gabe)

Then a couple of hours later he was very excited to be baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Silas is an amazing boy. He is smart, kind, and enthusiastic about everything. I am so proud of him and the person he is becoming with the choices he makes every day. Happy Birthday!

Happy 5th Birthday Zeke!

Ezekiel turned 5 today!! He got to wear a birthday hat at school and share frosted sugar cookies with his class. He's thrilled with all the cards, internet greetings, and (of course) gifts he's been receiving. He's such and deeply complex little boy, I'm very curious about the person he'll grow into.
Here he is at his birthday party last Saturday. His best friend, Braden, has just dealt the fatal blow to the dinosaur pinata despite Zeke's efforts to keep it away from him. We also played several games and ate yummy cupcakes. It was a fun party.

The Lions

Zeke's cute little U6 soccer team decided to call themselves The Lions. They had such big smiles as they ran around the field. Here's Zeke scoring a goal!
Chris is an assistant coach this year. The coach, Corey, is the dad of Zeke's best friend, Braden. This is going to be a fun soccer season.

Zeke's first day of school

Zeke was so excited for his first day of Pre-Kindergarten! And he LOVED it. His favorite part was making marble tracks. He said he was afraid of the other kids at first, but then he started feeling happy. Keilah wanted to stay with him when we dropped him off. A good first day.

Silas's first day of school

I love that I can take his picture from our front door and his school is in the background. He is so excited for second grade!

County Fair

We went to the Woodland County Fair today. It's a good farm community Fair with lots of livestock, local booths, and fun rides. The lines were non-existent and the boys got to be on the rides by themselves. Keilah's rides were a little more popular.
We walked around and signed up for drawings, looked at the animals, went on a few rides, and dripped soft serve ice cream down our fronts because we couldn't eat it fast enough. It was a fun afternoon.

Cub Scout Silas

Silas has entered the world of scouting. He's so excited, it's cute. He's already got the Cub Scout Promise memorized and can't wait to earn his Bobcat badge. I love that boy's enthusiasm!

Reunion Crowd

Here's the picture of MOST of the people that were at the reunion. Ashleigh and Chris aren't in it because they're at urgent care getting Chris stitched up and Emily and Evan aren't there because Em was putting the tired boy to bed.

Computer generation

She's 2-1/2 and she plays PBS games on the computer, navigates Chris's iPhone with ease, and is learning to select her favorite Netflix instant watch shows through TiVo. Crazy!

When in Utah...

Since we were in the Salt Lake area, we made a stop to Temple Square.
How lucky for me that my baby brother, Phil, and his wife, Heather, happened to be in the area and joined us for lunch!!! What a great end to a great vacation!

Batt Family Reunion in Utah

Next up was a family reunion at the Brighton Chalets in Brighton, Utah. What a beautiful area!!

We got to see several moose on our hikes.

There were pictures taken of the WHOLE family crowd, but I don't have a copy of those yet. We also went to Park City one morning for some fun sliding and coastering down the ski slopes. We had such a nice time! Chris went mountain biking a couple of times and injured himself pretty good the day before we left. He has 4 stitches on the inside and 6 on the outside where he split his knee open landing on the rocks. His leg is full of deep abrasions too. He's so excited to have scars to remember our trip by.

Sierras at Graeagle

We started August with a weeklong adventure. The first couple of days were spent in the Sierras in a little town called Graeagle (pronounced gray-eagle). We stayed in some "cabins" that had a common pool and spent most of our time there. But we did take a beautiful hike into the mountains.

The cousins had a blast together!! Here they are in their pajamas. They look ready to sleep, don't they?

Welcome Josie Rauch

So we had a mini-family reunion to welcome the newest member of our Rauch family. Little Josie was born July 2nd and made the trip to California at 3 weeks old, so we had to go see her!
Of course we all had a blast. Here's the kids' table. Josie's daddy (Tim) still sits there.

We had lots of races around the driveway.

Chris brought the little red car for even more fun.

Swim Meet 1

Silas had his first racing experience today. He swam 3 races: over-under (they swim perpendicular to the lanes), 25 m back stroke, and 50 m freestyle. He placed 2nd, 4th, and 3rd respectively. He would have gotten 3rd in back stroke too if his arm hadn't gotten hung up on the lane dividers. Here he is at the start of the freestyle race - 2nd lane in.

Family Visit

On Saturday, July 9th my mom, step-dad, sister & niece arrived from Fort Wayne, Indiana to stay for a week. My niece is about 4 months older than Keilah, and they became instant friends.

SUNDAY: Here we are at church with Keilah and Izzy in match dresses and sharing toys.

After church we went to my sister, Holly's, house for a BBQ and swim.

MONDAY: Everyone relaxed, recuperated from the drive, and got to know each other better.

TUESDAY: Holly's clan came to Davis for some fun at the park, a BBQ, and playing around.

The little ones enjoyed rides on grandpa's scooter.

Lounging on the hammock with grandma.
WEDNESDAY: We went to the Davis Farmer's Market. There is a pedal powered carousel here. The balding guy sitting at the entrance is actually pedalling to make the carousel go around.
Silas rode the pig, but he's too big to just sit there and ride.
THURSDAY: We went to the Sacramento Zoo and Fairytale Land. Of course, these were the most interesting animals.

Fairytale Land royalty.

FRIDAY: We went to Muir Beach and discovered that July is awefully cold for the beach. But the kids had a blast playing in the sand with their aunts and cousins.

SATURDAY: They all left for Idaho to see my baby brother and his wife graduate from college.