Torin's birthday!

February 9th- my baby has turned 3! It was a very happy/sad day in our family. He is getting bigger and smarter everyday. It's hard to believe how fast he has grown out of the baby years! It seems like just yesterday he was a sweet little baby, but at the same time it seems like he's always been with us! Quite a strange phenomenon that is! Another strange phenomenon around here is that I seem to take WAY more pictures of him than the others. I think I'm trying to reverse the curse on last born! I also think he is just crazy-photogenic and he just keeps posing for me! It's awesome, I love it :-)! And yes, it probably has something to do with having a nice digital camera and just being able to snap away to my hearts content...

We had a monkey party for him with some of our closest friends. He LOVES monkeys, and he was thrilled with all his decorations and his 'monkey cake!'

I think his favorite gift was a special 'hand-me-down' puppy from Zach

January

Here are some misc. pictures from January. The highlight of the month was probably recieving our new pet Julien! The boys love him, and I have to say I do too! And there are some other pictures of the boys just being boys... Gotta love chocolate fondue! Kaleb and Torin like to sleep together sometimes- I found them like this one night and thought it was SO cute! My 5 boys

Julien the leopard gecko!

Zach's Birthday

Sorry I haven't updated for so long! A lot has happened since November! I just lose track of time I guess... Let me start with Zach's 11th birthday! My little boy is growing into a man! I can hardly believe that he is almost as tall as me, and growing more mature and handsome everyday! He wanted to have his 'annual' boys sleepover with 5 of his closest friends again. We had to cancel the first party because we had the stomach flu in our family, then we almost had to cancel it a second time because Zach was really sick with a horrible virus, but he recovered in time! 2 of the boys couldn't come on our make-up date, so we ended up celebrating it again 2 weeks later for them! All in all, Zach had at least 3 very fun birthday celebrations!

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas in Oregon with my family! We even got to see a bit of snow, and found a place to go sledding. Here are some pictures...

Our annual stop at a gas station in Mt. Shasta to play in the first sighting of snow!

The boys on Christmas morning- waiting to see what Santa brought! Yes, we make them wait until we are all up and together (to get pictures of course)- we are mean parents :-).

Thank you Nana!

Torin loved the presents!

Just what he wanted!

Sledding with Daddy!

They built a 'mossy' snowman with Papa!

Zach won the Turkey Bowl!!!!

Way to go Falcons! It's official- they had an undefeated season and concluded it with a shut-out at the turkey bowl for a score of 27-0! Their season scoring total was 248-25! They only had 4 touch downs against them the whole season! Sorry, I know it sounds like I'm boasting... but well, I guess I am! I am very proud of my Zachary and what a great adventure this was for him. He has grown so much this fall through this football program. We are all thankful for the great opportunity for him to play... and now we're all grateful that it's over :-). We are looking forward to a relaxing, Thanksgiving week! Here are some pictures from today's game.

We love our sports!

I just have to brag right now about a couple great things the boys did! Kaleb scored his first 2 goals in his game last week and led his team to a 2:1 victory! It was so exciting- he hadn't scored yet this year and he pulled in 2 in one game :-)! We were very excited. Unfortunately Justin missed it (he was working at Zach's game), but Mema was there to see it! Here's a picture of the first goal...

On another great note...

They have a new play for Zach where he gets to recieve the ball! So far he's just been blocking on the offensive line, but now they have a passing play for him and he's SO excited! They only run it on the extra point conversion, so he got 1 chance to catch in their last game and completed the pass! He was tackled right away and couldn't make it to the end zone, but we were so excited that he caught it! I was so nervous for him! They were playing a really good team that was their biggest competition for 1st place, and we won 6:0! Hopefully Zach will get more opportunities like this soon- he was really excited about it! I didn't really get a great picture of the catch, but here's a picture of him getting tackled, and another one from that game (he's #51)...

It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game...

... at least that's what they always say- but I couldn't resist updating you on the boys' latest scores! Zach has been loving football. He is currently playing on the offensive line as a blocker. I'm so impressed with the level at which these kids are playing! They are amazing! I'm beginning to see why so much practice was needed! Today we travelled to Napa- we had a leave our house at 7am with all the boys! It was exhausting, but the games are so fun!

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9/6: Clayton Valley Falcons (Zach) vs. Antioch (won 12 to 6) 9/13: Falcons vs. Napa Saints (won 25 to 6) 9/20: Falcons vs. Solano Mustangs (won 33 to 0) 9/27: Falcons vs. West County (won 33 to 13) 10/3: Falcons vs. San Leandro Crusaders (won 6:0)

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Kaleb's having fun in soccer, and may just be our most aggresive player so far! Although, he does love clowning around on the field too!

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9/6: Blue Flames (Kaleb's soccer team)- won 3 to 1 9/8: Blue Flames- won 1 to 0 9/17: Blue Flames- won 2 to 1 9/20: Blue Flames- won 6 to 0 9/27: Blue Flames- won 2 to 1 (great job Kaleb!)