Character Counts

Today Addison had a Character Counts Assembly. It is a county wide program called the Pillars of Character. Addison was nominated for the Pillar of Caring and then was voted on to receive the award. Addison's teacher said he nominated Addison for the kindness and love he has always shown his classmates but especially Dominic (I did a post about Dominic last year in August.) Dominic's Inclusion Aide also nominated Addison too. After the assembly I pulled Addison aside to take his picture and Dominic came over and told me I needed to take his picture too. So he joined the picture. We are so proud of Addison for winning this award. Way to go Addison.

Some See a Rainbow as Nothing More Than Light...

Others see a promise and a sign.

Eliza was in the front room and we all of a sudden heard her screaming out. No one could understand what she was screaming. I went to investigate and she was trying to open the front door. I asked her what she needed the front door opened for and she kept saying something I couldn't understand. I decided to open it to see if I could understand what she was getting at and this is what we saw


I then understood what she was saying. She was telling me that there was a pretty princess rainbow outside. She was just so excited she was stumbling all over her words that I didn't understand her at first. We all came outside and enjoyed God's Promise to us, and the beautiful blue sky, after several long days of grey and black sky and nothing but rain!

Who's the Baby?

My 2010 goal is to get my pictures in order. I have several boxes of pictures that use to be in order until one day years ago I left them out and my boys got into them and spread them all over the floor. I was crushed and spent a few hours trying to get them back in order to finally just throw them in two big photo boxes. So I set out to start seperating the pictures first by the year and then if possible in order of that year. I found some baby pictures of Nicholas and John at first thought that they were Addison. A friend of mine did this about a year ago (She was announcing she was pregnant by putting a sonogram picture of her soon to come baby at the end of all her other childrens baby pictures, and that is not what I am announcing.) But I found it fun trying to guess which one of her kids were which. There is obviously a free-bee with one of mine since I only have one girl, but do you know the rest???
VINCENT

NICHOLAS

ADDISON

and of course ELIZA

CTR Rings

This is what Aunt Jennie sent the kids this year for Christmas and they had a blast making them.


They all enjoyed picking out their ring and their paint color. I think there was enough pink on Eliza and the table to have painted all the rings, but she was having a blast and kept telling us hers was soooooo pretty.
Addison was so excited about this activity as he has been asking for a CTR ring for sometime and John and I were worried to put to much money into it for him to loose it or for him to outgrow it in a year. He is very proud of his CTR ring that he made, and doesn't he look handsome in his new glasses?!

New Nephew

John's Brother and his wife welcomed a new baby so we have a new Nephew. Yeah for us!

Ezra Steven Wilder
1/8/10
6 lbs 15 oz

Paso Robles Children's Museum

Another fun day activity we had was we went to the Children's Museum in Paso. It is a newer museum built in a converted old firehouse. The kids went with my parents one time when we came for a visit and John and I had gone out on a date so it was something new for John and I. A friend of mine from over in the Paso area called and said she wanted to go to Monterey with her sister and her family that were in town visiting, and her husband had to work so didn't want to take her little guy and worry about him wandering off since she wouldn't have an extra set of hands. So he went to the Children's Museum with us. My mom commented that Eliza and Brennen could pass off as twins and people would probably think he was apart of the family. John and I had to laugh as all 5 of the kids were playing in the ball pit and this lady walked up to John and I and said, "You just kept trying until you got a girl didn't you?" I said, "No, we just kept trying to have a baby and took what we got", and smiled at her. He did fit right in with our family and was a complete joy to watch. If she ever needed someone to watch him on a regular basis I would take him in a heartbeat.....however, I guess the 2 1/2 hour drive may not be so fun either.

Park on the Beach

You would think after all the things we had done, kids would be tired and ready to call it a day, but no, we had to try out the park on the beach.

Avila Beach

After we were done in Morro Bay we went out to lunch and then headed to San Luis so John and Vincent could use their Christmas Gift of a Barnes and Noble gift card. I stayed in the car with Nicholas since he had fallen asleep and didn't see any reason to wake him when I knew he could get a good nap in while Vincent and John were in a book store (and if any of you know my husband and son, you know what I mean!). After they got back to the car from the book store we were going to head home, but we were having so much fun that we decided to head on for more fun and go to the Avila Barn and go to their petting zoo, and then walk the trail to the beach. The Barn was closed so we just drove the rest of the way down to the beach ourselves. We walked out the pier and the kids thought it was great. That was until Eliza realized that when she looked down between the planks there was water. She stopped dead in her tracks and cried for someone to save her. She got a ride on her daddy's shoulders after that. After we made it to the end of the pier, my mom bought everyone an ice cream and we sat on some concrete slabs and enjoyed being out over the ocean.

Morro Bay

On Tuesday we had a wonderful day! We headed 1st to Morro Bay. It was a beautiful day at the coast. We went to the State Park where they have a museum of Natural History. The walkway from the parking lot to the museum was a very pretty walk. Eliza was very nervous about the walkway and when her brothers would look over the edge she would start crying and telling them to come back.





The Morro Bay Museum of Natural History was a blast and VERY kid friendly. It is a hands on museum and my kids had a lot of fun. Eliza liked listening and talking on the Rock Phones. Vincent liked reading all the information cards and trying out some of the experiments. Addison and Nicholas just plain had a great time.





They had a reptile show going on while we were at the museum so we went in. Addison was so excited when they started passing out snakes to hold. This mommy was grateful for a zoom on the camera so she could take pictures from a distance. She just wish she had the camera ready when someone started passing back a horned toad that Addison also wanted to hold so he passed the snake off to grandma. She got rid of it really fast. i am proud of her though. She didn't drop it like this mommy would have done if it was handed to her.

After the show we headed outside to look out over the bay. Eliza liked the binoculers.




There was a hiking trail at the park that took you up a small rock. the little boys enjoyed running up it.


We thought the view from down below was nice. It was even better up on top of the rock.

I even got these two of Addison that I absolutely love!


Down the rock we came.