First day of school...

Today was the first day of school for all of the kids!! I was sooo not ready but the kids were actually pretty excited! Pat and I took Aubrey and Julia to school like we do every year. I was sad this morning not taking the "first day of school" pictures in front of the big tree at our old house!! This is the first year in 11 years that we are not at our house on Wrangler. :_(( Aubrey is starting 5th grade and Julia is starting 1st grade. It was weird not walking Daniel to his classroom! It is hard to believe that he is old enough to be at the middle school and starting 7th grade!! Patrick is a senior this year and Emily is a sophmore.

Time truly goes so quickly! I was telling Pat last night that in 5 years when Michael starts Kindergarten, Corey will just be home from a mission, Patrick will be in college and already have served his mission, Emily will be a sophmore in college, Daniel will be a senior in hich school, Aubrey will be a sophmore in high school, and Julia will be a 6th grader. WOW!! Our lives will be that different in just 5 years! 3 kids gone from home. I am trying to enjoy everyday! For now I will just try to keep up with everything! I know I will miss this craziness one day!!!

Jazz hands...

I LOVE Show Choir!! I never knew how much fun show choir could be until my kids got involved in it! Our kids come from a long history of family being in show choirs at Bonita Vista High School. Pat's sister Helen, was in the very first Music Machine (the boys and girls group). Pat's brother Mike was also in the Music Machine and Pat was in Music Machine!! My kids have grown up hearing about Music Machine and wanting to be in it!! Every year our little town of Bonita has a big festival called the "Bonita Fest". Music Machine and Sound Unlimited (the all girls group) do a big performance there. My kids have always LOVED watching it! As little children they would watch and admire the kids in the groups.

If you don't know what "show choir" is I will give you a brief description...it is a group of boys and/or girls doing choreography while singing. Out show choirs travel all around Southern California to competitions, which are called "Festivals". At these festivals, each group performs their "set" to be critiqued by a panel of judges. A "set" is the group of songs that each choir sings. The costumes, singing, dancing, and even the stage decorations are amazing!! The sets are like mini-musicals. They are soooo fun to watch!!

Well, so far, 3 of 7 kids have been in or are in Music Machine or Sound Unlimited. We would love it if all 7 of them ended up being in show choir! Every year the groups go on tour somewhere and usually participate in a National competition. We have been to New York City, New York, Austria, the Czech Republic, Nashville Tennessee, and this last year we went to Florida! Both groups did really well!! Emily's group, Sound Unlimited took 1st. place in the Women's Division and Patrick's group, Music Machine took 2nd. place in the Mixed Division.....at a National Competition!!! Whaaahoooo!

These pictures are of Emily with Sound Unlimited doing their "set" for the competition in Florida! Emily really loved being in Sound Unlimited this last year!! She auditioned and was selected to be in Music Machine for her sophomore year. She is very excited to be in Machine but she will really miss being with all the girls in Sound!!

These are pictures of Patrick in Music Machine. I love that Patrick is such a well rounded kid!! He is an athlete who plays football and baseball, but is also in the show choir! I LOVE it!! Patrick has been working hard to learn the guitar. In the picture below he accompanied a friend who was performing. He also sang some harmony on the song. He has taught himself this song and many others!

By the way...the song "Purple Summer" that is playing on my playlist is one of the songs that Music Machine did in their set this year. It was my favorite song in their set...the harmonies in the song are really beautiful and the way they perfromed it was really touching!!

School awards...

Ok, so I should have posted these pictures 5 weeks ago, but they were on my father-in-laws camera and I just got it yesterday. Aubrey and Julia both recieved an award at school. They were very excited and so happy that their big brother, Patrick got to be there! Pat and I were very happy for them!

Patrick, Aubrey and Julia with their awards.

Julia standing on stage with her classmated that also received awards.

Me and Aubrey.

Patrick and Aubrey.

Julia and her Principal, Miss Jones.

A fun all-star year!!!

Well, Parkview beat us tonight! :_( But, we played a good game and the kids had a great time. Daniel had soooo much fun this year in Little League! All-Stars was the icing on the cake!! He enjoyed the kids he played with, he played well, and he had a lot of fun!! I have to say it makes me sad to think that Daniel is done with Little League. We have so many great memories over the last 12 years at SVLL!! First Patrick and then Daniel! If Michael plays ball, I guess we will be back there in 5 years!! Pat is hoping!!! Here are some pictures from the winning game against Parkview yesterday. The smile on our faces says it all!!!

who's on first...

Baseball is so much fun. I know, we are a crazy baseball family...we can't help but love it!! We are in All-Stars right now with Daniel, and are having a blast!! Where we live we play Little League. There are 6 innings in a game and it is double elimination. We are 4-1. We played Eastlake first and the score was 8-0(Daniel had 1 home run). Second was Imperial Beach the score was 12-0 (Daniel had 2 home runs!). Our third was against Parkview and we lost 8-1. Parkview is a great team and they are hoping to go all the way to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA. Fourth was Lucky Waller and we won in the bottom of the 7th inning 4-3. The fifth game was again against Parkview!! We WON 10-7!!! OH MY GOSH!!!!!! That is so huge!! We played so well!!

The game ended in the bottom of the 6th. Parkview had rallied in the prior inning coming back from 10-3, to it now being 10-7. There was one out with a guy on 1st and a guy on 2nd. There is a guy up to bat with Luke, who is HUGE and a homerun hitter in the batters box. So the third batter hits a hard live drive...Daniel dives to his left, stoprs the ball. He then runs to 2nd, tags the base, and fires to first for the out and a game ending double play. Yeah Daniel!!! It is so fun to watch him play baseball!!!! He plays with his whole heart and then some!! So because we have each beat each other once, WE HAVE TO PLAYVIEW AGAIN!!! They are tough and they will have Luke their BIG pitcher tonight!! Anything is possible in Baseball...keep your fingers crossed for us!!!

Julia can't wait for the tooth fairy!!

Julia lost her 2nd bottom tooth today!! It has been loose for a couple of weeks. This morning it was loose enough to pull, so she asked me to pull it out. She put it in a zip lock bag (I don't have one of those cute tooth fairy pillows) and has already put it under her pillow. At about 11:00 am she tells me she wishes it were dark outside so she could go to bed...I am thinking why would you want to go to bed now??? She never WANTS to go to bed...I was a little slow, so she said, "Mom, so the tooth fairy can come see me!" Get with it Mom...is what she should have said. After Julia had lost her first tooth Pat said to me, "Why is it that little kids look so darn cute when they loose a tooth but adults look soooo bad?!" hahaha...SOOO true!! Here's a couple pics of the 2-toothless girl!

boo hooo!!

I am sooo sad because we lost our game tonight to Parkview! We lost 8-1. Daniel had a great defensive game but didn't hit as well as I was hoping!! No home-run this game!! Pat was disappointed, but handled it well. We have another game on Saturday. If we win we will go the the play-offs and we will have to beat Parkview twice to win district. That would be very tough to do, but weirder things have happened!! By the way...did I already mention that Pat is the manager?? He would sure love to win district!!

baseball, baseball, baseball...

I lOVE baseball! Daniel was selected to be on his little league all-star baseball team...and the games have begun!! We have played 2 games and our third game is today. We won the first game 8-0 against Eastlake. Daniel hit a homerun!! Our second game was against Chula Vista American and we won 12-0...Daniel had 2 homeruns in that game!! His second homerun was a 3-run shot that was a walkoff!!! So in 2 games he has had 3 homeruns. He is having a blast and it is so fun to watch him play!! Our toughest game will be tonight against Parkview. They are really good...they think they will make it all the way to Williamsport PA for the Little League World Series. We will see about that! I would love to beat them tonight!! They are really good but, we are pretty good too!! I will let you know how we do!! Keep your fingers crossed for us!!!