All I want for Christmas

Silas lost his fourth tooth, but it's his first front tooth. He looked so mad at me when I hurt him pulling it out, but it quickly turned to joy when he saw me holding tooth in my fingers. He's hoping to lose the other one before Christmas.

Schilling Softball

Chris has been playing on his work softball team. This was his first try at pitching, usually he plays 1st or 3rd base. Their team hasn't won many games, but they have fun.

Big Girl

Keilah has left the crib behind and is now enjoying her toddler bed! She's such a big 21 month old! All she had to do was be able to communicate with words instead of screams/whines. She's actually talking pretty good now.

Sports, sports, sports

It is the season for sports, and my kids like to stay active. Here's a picture from a recent soccer game. Silas's team is ahead 4-1 and they have 4 more games left.

Keilah and Ezekiel are in gymnastics classes. Keilah does surprisingly well for her age.

Ezekiel has done well enough in his class that he has been given the okay to advance to the next class. He really enjoys it. Especially since his best friend, Braden (shown in "U" in background), is in the class with him.

School Photo

Here's Silas's First Grade photo!

Happy Birthday Kids!

My adorable boys were born 4 days short of 3 years apart, which makes September a month of celebration! Since Keilah's birthday is just 5 days after Christmas AND she's too young to understand why BOTH of her brothers are getting gifts and she isn't - we celebrated her birthday this September too. I think I'm going to make that a regular thing.

This year they got triple the special treatment. First there were cake and presents at the Rauch grandparents' house.

Then there was a fun gift for all three and...

a big birthday party at the Dugan grandparents' house for all the cousins born in August and September (+ Keilah) which made 6!

And finally, the boys got a cupcake and a gift from us on their actual birthday.

We gave Zeke 2 Lego motorcycles and Silas a skateboard.

Happy Birthday kids!! I'm so glad to have you in our family!!!

Labor Day Weekend

We had a fun labor day weekend with a visit to Chris's parents house, a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and mini-golf on the Boardwalk. Chris, his dad, and Silas also got some shots off at the gun range and Chris had a nice bike ride with his dad. Below are the kids enjoying the touch pond where they held sea stars and decorator crabs.

Most of the exhibits had viewing windows that didn't require lifting Keilah.
I couldn't use flash or it would scare the octopus, but you can still see how cool it was.

When I unpacked I set a bag of chocolates that were in my suitcase on the bed and forgot about them. When I went to find out why Keilah was so quiet (a quiet Keilah is usually not a good thing), this is what I found.