Update

I thought I'd give you all a little update on the goings on around here. The pool is at a slow pace right now because we have to put in a fence before they will finish it. They are installing the equipment (ie: filters and lights etc) but won't plaster and fill it for a couple of weeks. The fence should be done in about two weeks. We are also having a patio cover done, at about the same time. It's going to really change the look of things, I'm anxious to see how! We finally planted all the palm trees, just in time for a big wind storm to almost knock one over! I managed to get it upright again, but if the wind keeps up, I'll be back out there stomping it down again! Ugh!
As for the kiddos, they are all doing well. Hailey has not gone on the potty again, much to my disappointment. Her new thing is when I ask her if she has to go "boo-boo's or bee-bee's" she says "no, I fine!" I've learned that about 75% of the time she's not fine and has already gone boo-boo's or bee-bee's in her diaper! It's really cute to hear her say it though, man does that girl get away with stuff just because she's cute! The boys are both doing really well. They have one more week of school and then it's spring break! Jackson continues to teach himself the piano, learning the Star Wars theme most recently! Ryan is doing well in school and really is improving on his writing and learning the sounds of the letters! We've been watching "The Letter Factory" alot, it's a movie by Leap Frog that Jacskon got for his 2nd birthday, and it is wonderful at teaching the letters and their sounds! Hailey loves it too, just like Jackson did, and is starting to repeat the letters and sounds! My kiddos amaze me everyday, I just love'em!
Anyway, that's about all the news from here. We are all well and still so blessed. I hope the same is true for you! Thanks for checking in!

Cool Concrete!

That's how I would describe our new concrete, COOL! It is soooo cool! Once again I was a nerd and watch the guys who poured the concrete all day long! They probably thought I was scrutinizing their work but, really I was in awe! It was so amazing to see how it goes from dirt to this gorgeous, colored, stamped concrete! If you don't know how they get the stamped design on it, let me enlighten you. They have these huge pieces of rubber, as James described them "like big pieces of fake vomit" - only a guy could come up with that description! Anyway, they place them on the wet concrete, (after it's been "floated" and "trowled" and the stress lines have been cut etc!)and they literally stamp it down with a big metal plate on the end of a stick! They are constantly picking up the two or three rubber stamps and moving them around and stamping them down again. Needless to say it was very interesting to watch, to me at least! It's amazing how it changes the look of the backyard. It's really starting to look finished and I can't wait! The next step in the pool process is to bring in the pool equipment, which they said probably won't happen until the end of March. Meanwhile, we have to get our pool fence built and the a/c unit moved around the corner, not to mention we have some palm trees to plant! Busy, busy, busy here at the Irvine house! Hope you enjoy the pic's and get your swimsuits ready cuz' we're gonna be swimming really soon!

Ryan and our neighbor boy were playing on the rock in the shallow end and the picture to the right is a close up of the stamped concrete.

My big girl!

So my pretty, big girl did something neat the other day! She went pee-pee on the potty for the first time! Well, she says bee-bee on the potty, but still it was really cool! Both James and I cheered and clapped for her and the first thing she said was "dada canny", which is Dora candy! I told her I would give her candy if she went on the potty and she definitely held me to it! I've tried to get her to do it again, but she hasn't yet. She will sit on the potty though, which is good, and try. I would be so happy if she was trained by the summer, wooohoooo! Wish us luck and I'll keep you posted!

Attention Tooth Fairy!

That's right, Jackson lost his first tooth yesterday! It's been wiggly for a while now but he wouldn't let us try to wiggle it out. He was running around yesterday morning and slipped on the tile entry way and hit his face on the tile. He didn't hit hard enough to get hurt, but he did manage to knock his tooth out! I didn't see it happen, but he came into the kitchen with the weirdest look on his face, I didn't know if he was super excited or about to scream in terror! Then he held up his tooth and excitedly shouted "my tooth, my tooth!" He was so happy he told ANYBODY that would listen, and of course showed them, too! Everyone at church yesterday knew that Jackson lost his tooth, and so did all the neighbors! He was very excited for the tooth fairy to come and visit him, he speculated all day as to how much money she might leave him. Well, he was quite pleased to find a two dollar bill under his pillow this morning and immediately looked to see which president was on it! He's so funny! He couldn't wait to share with his teacher and classmates this morning. I just want to know how the tooth fairy does it. How does she sneak into kids rooms and manage to take the tooth from under their heads and leave the money in it's place without ever waking them up? And, how can she afford it these days? I wonder..... :-)

Matt Larson Band

James and I got to go see some of our good friends play in their CD release concert together Saturday night! Matt Larson used to be our worship leader at church and Dave Pabalate has been our friend pretty much since we moved here. James has played bass with them and the drummer, Evan Parandes, many times over the years and we were so happy to go out and support them and hear some really great, uplifting music, too! They did a great job and it was really fun seeing them play and to see all of the people that came out to support them, too. We knew most of the crowd since they were all people from our church or used to be from our church! I'm also enjoying their CD. I'll try to get it on the blog so you can hear their awesome music, too!

Rad Friends!

I got to get away this weekend for a short scrap booking party. Some of my rad girlfriends got together and we stayed up late chatting, watching movies, eating yummy food, playing on FB (Carole!), and of course we did do a little scrap booking! It was so fun to just hang out with the girls, and of course Mr. Logan, too! Thanks Julie for opening up your home and thanks girls for a fun night out!

Tropical Oasis!

We got palm trees last week for our backyard! We always planned on getting some, we just thought it would be after the pool was done, not before! James had been researching them and pricing them out and when we found them at Costco for significantly less then what he'd been seeing, we went crazy! They are all Queen Palms, four of them are about 15 to 20 feet high, and then we got three 8 to 9 foot ones. We aren't sure exactly where they are going yet, but we put them in places we think they'll look good. Both of us were thrilled at how good they look and how they make it look like a BACKYARD and not just a bunch of dirt and a big hole in the ground! Next up for the pool is the concrete, or "decking" as it's called. We picked out a sandy brown color and are having it stamped with a broom finished edge around most of the yard! I'm getting ancy for it to be done and for summer to get here now!!!

Nick & Stef!

I was so blessed the past couple of weeks to get a visit from some dear friends, Nick and Stefanie! They were traveling through and stopped off at our place for a rest and a visit and I'm so glad they did, we hadn't seen them in a long time. We also got to meet their precious kids, Chloe and Carson. Chloe and Ryan are only a week apart as Stef and I were pregnant at the same time! The kids got to have fun playing together and we also got together with Uncle Rob and Katie for dinner and games one night. It was so nice catching up with them and hearing about their lives now, I can't believe we've known them for almost 11 years! We hope that they will come back very soon! We love you guys!

Playing at the park

I took Ryan and Hailey to the park a couple of times this week. Once for a play date with our friend Katie and her two boys, Tommy and Johnny. Then we went to the new park that just opened in our neighborhood, we've been waiting for it to open pretty much since we moved in! We had a great time both days and they proved to be good picture taking opportunities.

Hailey, Tommy and Ryan playing in the sand!

Hailey swinging with our friends Katie and Johnny.

Crazy swingers!

My favorite new pic of Ry-guy!
A little sibling love!

Day at the firestation!

The kids and I met my friend, Katie, and her family for a tour of James' fire station this week. It was a lot of fun letting the kids climb on the fire engine, ring the bell, and spray water with the fire hose. We also got to tour the fire station and watch James slide down the fire pole! We even got to see the guys get called out to a fire and watch them jump on the engine and roar away, lights and sirens blaring! What a great day we had, thanks Katie!

Tour guide James! He gave everyone a fire hat and a badge sticker to wear.

Learning how to hold the hose and turn it off and on!

Lounging!

Future Firefighter? Hmmmmm...

Go Katie, you can knock down that cone! Never mind that all the kids did it, no problem!

This one's for you, Kels!

So I bought Hailey a Little Mermaid swimsuit the other day and she just loves it. To the point where she had to wear it, right now! It didn't matter that she still had her Dora PJ's on and only one sock, she needed to wear her Ariel swimsuit NOW! It made me laugh and think of my friend Kelsey's daughter, Mylie, who is almost exactly a year younger then Hailey. I was looking at Kelsey's blog the other day and she had a post about how Mylie likes to dress herself in unusual combinations of clothes. In the picture she had on the post Mylie was wearing a swimsuit over top of her clothes and that's exactly what Hailey was doing! Anyway, it was a funny coincidence and I thought I'd share. So, this one is for you, Kels, and for Mylie, too!

Let the water fall!

So the waterfall and all the other rocks around the pool are done! It looks awesome! We actually made it a fun play in the mud day for the kiddos, so we could be outside while the two guys built the waterfall and placed the rocks. We wanted to make sure it looked good and they were where we wanted it. I didn't need to worry though, because these two guys were so good at their job! They made it look so great and made it look easy, when I know those rocks were super heavy and it couldn't have been easy lifting and maneuvering them into place! Next step is the concrete, which I can't wait for! I am so excited for it to be done so I can go in the backyard and NOT sink into the mud on the first step! They are going to form it tomorrow and then have to get an inspection from the city, then they will pour it next week, probably on Thursday! I took some pictures, of course, of the rock work and the kids playing. Enjoy!

Haileyism's caught on video!

So, as I promised, here is Hailey saying some of her cute words! The only problem is that when she sees the camera she wants to take it from me! I think this video turned out okay though, so enjoy my cute little baby girl! I know I sure do!
PS. Don't forget to scroll down and pause the music so you can hear the video! :-)

Skatin' the pool!!!!

Okay, so ever since we decided to put in a pool James and Jackson have been dying to skate it! Well, the wait is over! The boys skated the empty pool a couple of days ago and of course I took some pic's to commemorate the occasion! It wasn't a very smooth surface and the deep end had about a foot of water in it from all the rain last week, but they managed. I think they had fun, what do you think?

Pool Tile!

So the tile is done! It looks awesome, I think. They did a 6 inch tile all the way around the pool and then did the little tiles on all the steps and benches. They delivered all the rocks yesterday for the waterfall and around the pool. They should be building it all tomorrow, so I'll have more pic's this weekend!

Sweet Boys!

I just have to brag about how sweet my boys were this morning. I was upstairs getting ready to take them to school while they were downstairs eating breakfast. Ryan came up to tell me I couldn't come down for a few minutes, that he'd tell me when I could come back down. About 5 minutes later, Jackson ran up and said to come downstairs. When I made it down to the table, there was a hot cup of coffee ready and waiting for me! They said that they heard the coffee pot beep, saying the coffee was ready. They found a coffee cup, poured the coffee, got the creamer out of the fridge and put some in, and even cleaned up the mess they made! How awesome is that!??! I was so proud of them that I didn't have the heart to tell them I had already poured a cup for myself and had taken it upstairs with me! I sat down and enjoyed my perfect cup of coffee with my sweet boys!

Haileyism's!

So Hailey has been learning new words everyday and some of them are so cute, I just don't want her to ever say them correctly! Some of my favorites include:

Doll-doll = Doll or baby

Dor-dor = Dora

Bobby = Spongebob

Boppy = Grammy ? Go figure?

Huh? = okay so it does mean Huh? but she says it soooo cute!

Jacksie = Jackson

Wy-wy = Ryan

Boo-boo's = Poo poo!

Bee-bee's = pee pee!

dis = which I think means this, she uses it for everything and it takes a long process of elimination to figure out exactly what she wants!

I know there's more, I just can't think of them all. I'll try to get a video of her saying some of them, especailly the Huh? becasue it is so funny! Anyway, I just love listening to her talk and I don't want her to change!

New Car!

That's right, we got a new car! Okay, so Hailey got a new car - a Barbie Jeep Power Wheels - to be exact! A co-worker of James gave it to us this week for free! Pretty cool, right!? Hailey loves it and thinks she can drive it, but really she just runs into things, or if we can turn the wheel just right and make her hold it, she goes in a circle for awhile! The best thing is to have someone drive her, so we invited a couple of neighbor kids to try it out with us. That's Hudson driving the Barbie Jeep with Hailey and her brother, Jett, driving with Ryan in his Cadillac! Oh, and if you ask Ryan the Barbie Jeep is not just for girls, it is also a boy car, too! It's pink and BLUE, not purple! So cute! Jackson however, wanted nothing to do with a Barbie Jeep. He DOES think it is pink and purple and just for girls! Kids are so funny, aren't they!

Hailey and Hudson had fun until they started fighting over the Barbie phone! Notice how they both hold it upside down to their ear!