One other first week tidbit!

I forgot this story...I walked into the classroom to pick Alec up on the second day of school (first full day) and he was sitting at his desk playing with a top. After hugging, I asked him where he got the top from. He answered, "The treasure chest! I let another boy have my bike at play time and the teacher saw so she let me pick a toy from the treasure chest!" AAWWWWW!!! He is such a sweetheart! I am so proud of his good heart!

Alec's first day of Kindergarten!

It is so hard to believe, but Wednesday, August 27th was Alec's first day of Kindergarten! We spent the day before getting things together and having a relaxing day so that Alec would be all rested for his first day. On Wednesday morning Alec woke up and was SO excited! Daddy was going to be going into work late so that both Adam and I could take him to school. Grammie, Papa and Brooklyn came over to stay with Aaron and Ashley so that we could give Alec all the attention that morning.

Having gone to Catholic school growing up, Adam was so excited to help out Alec getting dressed. Alec's uniform is blue pants or shorts with a belt, white or light blue polo shirt with St. Joseph logo, and solid color shoes. He picked out a Clone Wars back pack to complete his ensemble!

Alec at the front door of our house ready to go to his first day of school!

Mrs. Knapp was so gracious letting us sappy parents stand around, take pictures, and cry a little bit on the first day. Alec's seat is front and center in the classroom!
Alec and Daddy looking so sweet!

After the photo session in the classroom the parents left and went to the courtyard. On the first day of school they invite the parents to stay for morning prayers. All the students came out and they did announcements, bible reading, listened to Fr. Tim speak, Pledge of Allegiance, and then finally prayers. It was so nice to be a part of the morning and watch Alec amongst his classmates! After that they filed back into the classroom and we were free to go. I have to say, it was quite hard to walk away. Alec is such a fun kid to have around and he not only constantly makes me smile, but he is my little helper at home. It was so strange to come home and not have him there. I was not the only one feeling it though. For the entire morning (the entire week, actually) Aaron has been following me around the house needing tons of attention. He actually said to Adam yesterday, "Daddy, I five. I go to school too!!" Not quite sweetie! He misses Alec SO much and is almost lost without him. Yesterday when I brought Alec home from school Aaron's face absolutely LIT UP and he yelled, "ALEC!!!" and ran to him with open arms. Melt my heart!! Two minutes later they were fighting...so quickly back to reality!!

Alec seems to be doing VERY well at school. With all the energy we put into figuring out if he was ready to go or not, Adam and I are now completely convinced that we made the right decision! I so wanted to text Katie (Mrs. Knapp) on Thursday night, after Alec's first full day of school, and ask how he did, but did not want to abuse the privilege of knowing the teacher personally. To my pleasure and surprise I received an unprompted text from Katie that night saying, "Is Alec tired? I am! He did great today! You guys totally made the right decision!" Wow did that make me feel good! We feel so blessed to have Katie as Alec's kindergarten teacher and can't wait to see all the things she teaches Alec this year!

One other funny story...we found out on orientation day that there is another Alec in the kindergarten class so now our Alec is known as Alec H. but there is also an Alec C. On the first day of school I noticed another blond kid, same height as Alec, same body type, etc. walking into kindergarten. He was even wearing the same Clone Wars backpack as Alec. All of the sudden the child's mom called out to him, "Alec! Wait for me!" Yep, that is right, the Alec's are clones of each other!! Then, to take it one step further, in talking to Alec C.'s mom, they live in Anaheim Hills and attend San Antonio! I talked with her about her reasoning in putting her children (she has 4, Alec being the 3rd) at St. Joseph vs. St. Francis and they were exactly in line with the reasons that we had. VERY small world!

Alec did so well his first week of school and has already made a few friends. He lists his friends so far as, "Taylor, Alec C., and some other silly boys that I don't know their names yet" For the record, Taylor is a girl. Yes, the trend continues!! After such an amazing start, I am looking forward to a wonderful year!

Aaron's 3rd Birthday

Aaron's birthday was on Monday, August 25th and he turned three!! We had decided to do a small celebration at our house on Saturday the 25rd with pizza and cake and some friend and family. The small celebration ended up being about 35 people but lots of fun. We had sprinklers up on the lawn and also did a water balloon toss/fight. Although it was a bit crazy of a day, everyone had a good time, especially the birthday boy. His favorite gifts from the day were his huge fire truck, fire man dress up stuff, and his cars airplane. Daddy is working on accepting the fact that he is currently obsessed with firemen!!

On Aaron's actual birthday on Monday we had a nice lazy morning then went to the mall to walk around and have lunch. After the mall we made a visit to Grammie and Papa's house where they had a small cake for him. Once home Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Jo came over and we had dinner and sang happy birthday to Aaron and Grandma whose birthday was on Sunday the 24th.

A few of the kids from the party...from left...Theresa Harvey, Ian Tobin, Cole Forquer, Brooklyn, Alec, Aaron, Sarah Fahey and Madelyn Celmer. Thanks kid-o's for celebrating with us!!!
Blowing out birthday candles!
Aaron's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake. I bought an all white cake from costco, scraped the icing off, and re-iced it in this design. Best of both worlds, yummy store cake but also a home-decorated creation!

I started a tradition this year that I take a picture of the kids as they wake up on the morning of their birthdays. Here is the very first picture of my THREE YEAR OLD!!!

On Tuesday the 26th I took Aaron to his 3 year check up with Dr. Marino. He weighed in at 28 pounds and was 35 1/2 inches long. These measurements put him in the 25th percentile for height and weight. This is lower for height, but his weight has improved! Gotta keep getting this kid to eat!! Aaron was SO excited at the appointment because he did not have to have ANY shots! Mommy was excited as well! :)

Aaron has truly turned into such a big boy this year. His speech and annunciation of words has improved tremendously and he has become less whiny and just TONS of fun in general! He is still a Daddy's boy most of the time, but every once in a while he will throw in a sweet, "I yuv you Mama!" that just melts my heart. I have to say, I was worried what this year would bring for Aaron with the addition of Ashley to our family but he has taken it so well! He is the first to run right with me to say prayers at night when we put her down, and he is pretty good at sharing his toys with her. He absolutely LOVES on her!

As I posted earlier, I was quite surprised that potty training went as quickly and as well as it did for Aaron. Now that he is fully potty trained (not even in diapers at night!!) he is all signed up to go to two mornings of preschool a week. He will be attending Yorba Linda Methodist just like Alec did, and I am pretty sure he will be in Mrs. Shuplock and Mrs. Bussire's class just as Alec was. They are two wonderful ladies and I know that Aaron will just love them! He is SO ready to go! He keeps asking me when school starts. So cute!!

Thank you, my little Bear for lighting up my life the way that you do. I love having you as my special little buddy! You are such a warm and caring little guy and I can't wait to see what the future holds for you!!

Ashley's first hospital visit...

I have so much to blog about from this weekend and week so far but I thought I would start with the hardest one first.



Saturday was Aaron's little birthday party and Sunday we had an Angel's baseball game to go to with the family group from church and it was also Grandma Hawley's birthday so it was going to be a busy day. Sunday morning I had gotten the kids ready to go and was downstairs getting stuff together while Ad was upstairs finishing getting ready. I put Ashley in her booster seat at the table (we have a counter height table) and instead of putting her tray on the front like I normally do, I pushed her chair up against the table and put the cheerios on the table for her to eat while I got stuff together. I walked away for 1 minute and turned around to look at her just as she pushed off from the table and the entire chair fell backwards onto the tile floor. It was like watching a slow motion movie. I could not get to her in time to catch the chair but just watched the chair hit the ground as I ran over to her. I immediately unstrapped her and scooped her up in my arms while screaming for Adam to come downstairs. He came down, I told him what happened and he told me to get her to the hospital as quick as I could. Ash was screaming the entire way there, but I would rather have had her screaming than have her unconscious.



We got to the hospital in record time and I rushed her into the emergency room. Just as arrived in the waiting room and was trying to get the lady's attention who worked there, Ashley started vomiting all over the place. SCARY!!! I told the lady that she hit her head really hard and they moved pretty quickly after that. There were two ladies in the waiting room who were angels and handed me wipes to clean up Ashley and the other helped me fill out the paperwork until Adam arrived a few minutes later. They got us back almost immediately and the doctor came over to check her out. They did not seem overly concerned (totally laid back doctor) and said that they would observe her for a bit and also would order a CT scan. By this time Adam had gotten hold of my sister and she came over to pick up the boys. After some pretty strong medicine, Ashley was out of it enough to lay still for the CT scan. She was so drugged up that she just kept watching her hand open and close like it was the most fascinating thing in the world! The CT scan turned out to be fine and so after a few hours in the ER they let us go home. Needless to say, we did not make it to the baseball game that day! We just came home, let Ashley sleep, and checked on her about every 10 minutes to make sure she was ok.



Tuesday was better and she was back to her normal self. Smiling cheesy smiles for pictures and getting into everything she can crawl to. I still tear up just thinking about the situation, but I was an absolute MESS at the hospital. Thankfully Adam was there and able to keep me calm. I thank the LORD that she is ok!!

Ash cheesing it up for the camera. What a sweetie!

Making the most out of summer...

On Monday of last week we decided to take a trip down to Corona Del Mar to check out the tide pools. As you can recall in an earlier post, the beach is not a favorite of my two youngest children. This day was no exception. Aaron did not want to be put down the entire time we were there, and Ashley was just happy as a clam in either Adam or my arms. Alec had a BLAST checking out all the sea creatures (mostly crabs) and playing in the waves. He even brought home a small shell collection! Despite the non-excitement from Aaron and Ashley, it turned out to be a wonderful day. We spent the morning hopping from rock to rock finding all kids of neat things. I just need to remember for next time...sunscreen on the parents is a must...not just on the kids...ouch!!

We found a nice couple that were there taking pictures and asked them to take one of us. We feel so blessed to live in a place where we have access to the Pacific Ocean and are able to go and enjoy so much of God's beautiful handy work!!

I did not want to skip over this...

...but at the end of June Aaron was potty trained!!!

I had decided that once bible camp was over that we would start potty training Aaron to get him ready for preschool in the fall. I did not want to wait until his 3rd birthday because I did not want to cut the timing too close...plus I was SO sick of changing two kids diapers!

Aaron was quite hesitant at first and did not like sitting on the toilet at all. I just set the timer for every 30 minutes and made him sit down and try. There were a few accidents along the way, but by day two and three he finally got it. He was so stinkin' cute...every time the pee would start to go he would look down at it and say, "There it goes again!!!" He was so proud!

Poop has certainly been a bit more of an issue, but that is to be expected. He finally has it down now but there were a number of pairs of underwear thrown away those first few weeks. I have learned that the secret to a "regular" child is 1/8th tsp. of Benefiber in his morning milk and he is ready to go in about a 1/2 hour! I just have to be careful and not give it and then leave the house. Yikes!

I am so proud of my little Air-bear! He is getting so mature and is communicating so well. He is even protesting his name recently! If I call him Air-bear he will sometimes say, "No, my name is airwin michow hawey!!! Melt my heart.

Aaron playing the guitar in his underwear!
What a BIG boy!!!

Also...

Ashley is OFFICIALLY crawling now. It is so cute to see...untill she crawls over to something that she should not be touching. How do you babyproof a house that has little boys toys all over the place? Do I need to take away all legos and small piece toys until she learns? I guess so. Sorry boys!!

The Beach

So, at the beginning of the summer Alec, Adam and I sat down and made up a summer adventure list. I never posted it on here because I am a lazy bum, but here it is...

- Take a long walk (done)
- Ride bikes (done)
- Go to the pool (done...MANY times)
- Disneyland (done)
- Camping with Dad
- Angel game (done)
- Tour of Angel Stadium
- Bowling (done)
- Beach (done, see below)
- San Diego
- Discovery Science Center
- Oak Canyon Nature Center

Not too ambitious of a list for us. To date we have done most of the things on here with the exception of a few that will happen in the next two weeks.

It has been a crazy summer between bible camp and swim lessons so we had not gotten to the Beach Day yet. Well, Adam was out of town this last weekend attending Pop-Pop Hawley's 90th birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY POP POP!!) in New York so we had to keep ourselves busy here. My parents took the boys on Saturday down to their condo in San Clemente (beautiful beach town about 30 miles away) to spend the night. Ashley and I went bowling on Saturday afternoon with Aunt Amy and Uncle Chris and had a nice quiet evening. Sunday morning Ash and I headed out to meet up with the crew in San Clemente. We met up with my parents and the Carson Family (Allie, Jason, and Brooklyn) for church and then went to the condo and onto the beach.

As I previously mentioned, we have not been to the beach this year. Aaron was so little last year that his favorite beach activity was to eat sand. Lovely. Alec was just getting interested in the water last year so I was curious to see what this year would be like. Well, it was interesting to say the least. We finally set up all our gear up on the sand and Alec made a bee-line for the water. Papa stayed down there to watch him. Aaron was just having fun playing in the sand. After a while I asked Aaron to take a soda down to Papa. He marched down to the water and handed it to him. Just as he did, a small wave came in and washed over Aaron's feet. You would have thought the water was burning him by how much he FREAKED OUT and screamed!!! He HATED it!! He came running back up to us and refused to get anywhere near the water for the rest of the day.

I decided to go down to the water with Ashley at one point. I was holding her in my arms as I got down to the water and just then a wave came and washed over my feet. She also FREAKED OUT!!! All because a wave hit MY feet, 5 feet below where she was safely in my arms. SERIOUSLY?!?!!? She did not let up until we went back up to the blanket again.

We were planning on a few trips to the beach in the next couple weeks before school starts, but I am guessing that is not a good idea. How can I watch two kids who are afraid of the water, while one last one is in love with it?? Maybe next year?? :)

Ashley at 10 months old...

is FINALLY almost crawling and a little sharp tooth poked thru today!!

Ashley is turning into such a big girl right before my very eyes. More on her later, but I at least wanted to get this written down today so that I remember when it actually happened!