Brothers and Sister

I feel very blessed to have 3 kids that love each other. I rarley worry about what they are doing together and a majority of the time they are playing together and taking care of each other. This is not to say I don't have days when the boys are at each others wits or little sister is not getting in their way and pulling apart her brothers lego creation. We are a normal family and have good days and bad. I'm just happy I have more good and less bad. :-)

Current Family photos

Okay, so I haven't blogging lately and I have a lot of catching up to do. For example, I did not blog Cmaeron's last day of school or the father field day they had at his school or the bowling pictures we recently took or... I can go on. I do want to blog about CAmeron's last day of school but now it will be out of order and I hate that. I like things to be nicely organized and in place. I guess I'll have to get over it and do it anyway.
Anyhoooo.... here are a few current pictures of the Watkins Familia. I must say we are a cute family. hee hee.

swim goggles

Chris and I decided to put the kids in swim lessons this summer. Cameron is a pretty good swimmer but Tyler needed a little more practice and self confidence. Tyler was used to using a swim suit with a floaty chest and he would not swim without it. He was afraid he would drown if he took it off, and he probably could because he wasn't a good swimmer yet.
Tyler agreed to swim lessons and off we went to get them evaluated to find out what levels Cameron and Tyler would be in. After thier evaluations, a few days later poor Cameron had terribly red itchy eyes. I took him to the Dr. and she thought it was an allergic reaction. I had no idea what he might be allergic to until I thought of the chemicals in the pool, at least, that is what I can trace it too. So to help Cameron continue the lessons we bought him and the rest of the gang goggles. They had to model them for us here. Enjoy!

blogging

yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know I don't blog often enough.

Sunny Day

I think these pictures were taken in mid February when we had an unusually hot week. My neighbor and I thought winter was over and summer was here early. I remember we had a few day in the 90 degrees. My kids felt the heat too and wanted some water playtime. Cameron, Tyler and Mikaela had fun making mud pies and playing with the water hose. Don't worry, the kids played on the lawn or near the ivy hillside, the water did not go to waste.

Student of the Month

Cameron receives STUDENT of the MONTH!
We are so proud of Cameron. It was a surprise to him too.

All smiles. Congratualtions buddy!

ok ok!

yes I need to blog. I have moments captured on my camera that need to be blogged about and shared with family and friends. But all this takes time! It not an easy 1-2-3 task it usually goes something like this.

1. turn on computer
2. place memory card in slot
   
3. look at pictures
4. oooo and ahhhhh
5. crop, enhance and play with other enhancing gadgets
6. open blog
7. think, think think of what I am going to write
8. add a picture here and there.
9. somehow lose picture or what I've written
   
10. start all over
11. kids surround me wanting this and that. Mikaela starts to play with the keyboard while she is on my lap then starts to cry because I move her hands out of the way and say "no no, mommy is trying to blog"
    

I could go on about the steps it takes but you get the picture and I know you've been there done that.
So, this is my pitiful excuse for not blogging lately. Pictures to come soon. I promise.

Tyler's Disney Birthday

Happy Birthday Tyler From Mickey Mouse!

This year Disneyland is celebrating birthdays by allowing guest to visit Disney for free on their special day. Since we have annual passports, Tyler was given a gift card for the value of a child ticket (value $59). We thought that was great. For the first time in his life he could get off a ride and go to the store and buy whatever he wanted. He ended up with a treasure box from Pirates of the Carribean that has a Pirate hat, tlescope, Pirate booty, pirates map and other fun things. Later we went to Astro Blasters (buuzzlight year ride) and he used up the rest of the card there buying a Astro blaster gun, and and Buzzlight year light toy spinning thingy, and of course to round it off, some candy.
Thanks Disneyland!
Cameron and I can't wait to go on our birthdays so we can have fun spending our gift cards. Too bad for Dad, his birthday is a black out date. :-( No freebie for him.
We'll just have to share the wealth. ;-)

Happy Birthday Tyler!

Tyler Turns Five!!!

Wow, I can't believe another year has flown by and my youngest boy is now five. He had a great time at his birthday party. He kept telling Dad and I how he LOVED his party. He would randomly tell us "mom, this is the bestest party ever. " I'm happy he enjoyed himself. We had a great turn out of family and friends.
Tyler choose a Star Wars theme this year. He didn't want to dress up in costume but did wear his shirt for the party. A few kids came in costume and gear. It was a little scary watching the so many boys play with their toy Light Sabers but no one was hurt.
The kids also played on the play ground and in the "fortress". They ran around the property and entertained themselves. It turned out to be a beautiful, great day.


On Tyler's official birthday I took him to Baskin Robbins for an ice cream sunday. He thought it was fantastic. Two scoops of ice cream, strawberry topping , whip cream and a cherry on top. He was in heaven. yum yum
Cameron was happy to tag along. As you can see he is happy he got to participate in the celebration.

Christmas in California...again

Our first Christmas back in California has been great. NO snow to shovel, or ice storms to deal with. NO below freezing temperatures or wind chill penetration through every layer of clothes that you have on. NO more frozen fingers, noses and toes. Those days are over, done, finished and in the past. Hello to my warm, sunny Christmas' again. the Christmas' I love and am used to. If I chose to have a white Christmas the family could drive up to the mountains and enjoy it there and then drive back down and enjoy a mild winter. What can I say. I was a total wuss in NY. My body was not used too those cold, hard winters. And I don't think I would want to get used to them. Off my soap box...here are some pictures. :-)

The family at Disneyland. We took the kids to see Santa and enjoy the Small World lights. As always they are spectacular.





Cameron and Tyler thought it was neat to see Santa's Reindeer. This was actually the last night to see Santa and his crew before he took flight back to the North pole.

All I want for Christmas....

If you read the previous post, you would know getting to Cameron's Christmas performance was a task to tackle. As you can see we made it and he got to sing with his class. The show was nice and all the school grades performed well. We had a definite perk this year that I thourghly enjoyed, the show was outside. It was a brisk evening but some friends shared a light blanket with us and we were pretty cozy.
Cameron is not much of a singer. He doesn't like to sing, so to see and hear him actually sing was a bonus. He even sang in the van on the way home. What a delightful surprise.



Sorry for the blurry picture.

I think this was when his class was signing Silent Night.

Chaos with Lotion

The day was going great. The kids and I did our chores, ran our errands picked Cameron up from school and got home without a hitch. Tyler was being great and we had a wonderful, normal day. Nothing out of the ordinary happened... until 45minutes before Cameron's First grade Christmas performance. That's when my night got crazy. I started rounding up the kids for the performance, getting them fed, cleaned up and in the van. When I noticed Mikaela was being very quiet. That is never a good sign. I go to check on her and there she is in the bathroom with moisturizer all over the counter and smeared in every place possible on her face. I had to laugh and take a picture. It was one of those moments. So, I took the picture and tried to clean her up as quick as possible, when I realized the water had been shut off on our road. Ughhhh , how was I going to clean her up. I couldn't take her to the Christmas performance looking like this! Luckly, I still had a small trickle of water coming out of the down stairs bathroom and I was able to clean her up. She was very fresh and well moisturized. I guess watching Mom every morning put lotion onCameron and Tyler's face prompted her to do such a thing. Anyhow, the night got worse after that, short story... Tyler threw a fit, traffic was terrible on the way to the performance. They were doing road work and had to detour and once we got there I had to park in the great beyond and Cameron decides he had to go pee. I told him to run to the school and we would catch up. Fortunately, he made it to the bathroom on time and made it to his classroom before his class went up to perform. Pfeww. Oh and where was my Dear husband during all this? He was at work and said he would meet me at the school. When he saw me fly by taking Cameron to the bathroom, he said something like "what's going on? you look like a chicken with it's head cut off" hmmm let me tell you what happened.....and I begin to tell him the events of the night.