A lot has happened since out last blog. I'll some up the major things and spare you the boring details. I've got a few pictures and videos to share as well.
Christmas was great!
We spent Christmas Eve at my parents home, with Adam, Kyle, Kayla, GK, Suzanna, Van, Reggie, Grandma Van, and The Thompsons (for a little while). We had a lot of fun spending time with everyone and walking the neighborhood looking at the Christmas lights. I think we had the most fun watching Santa (Kyle) and his big elf (Adam) hand out presents to the kids. It was fun hearing Santa apologize for using a big black trash bag to carry the presents in, instead of his usual sack. He explained that he had just come from the Palmdale/Lancaster area and had to take extra precautions while he was there.
For those of you that didn't already know, since just before Thanksgiving, we've been leaving with Kristy's parents to help us save for a down payment on a home. We decided it'd make sense to spend Christmas morning with Kristy's family since we were already here and because all of Kristy's brothers and sister were here too. I stayed up late on Christmas Eve and got up early to make my mom's breakfast egg casserole, and I also ended up cooking crepes. It was a nice relaxing morning and it was fun, as always, to see the girls wide eyes when they came down stairs and saw the presents that Santa had left for them. Each of the older girls got a razor scooter and same games from Santa and Cali got a little Glow Worm baby doll, which she absolutely loves.
Plum Canyon Elementary
It was taking a lot of time out of Kristy's day, and a lot of money for gas, to continue driving Nyah from Saugus all the way to Castaic for school. Plus, it didn't help that the Highway Patrol closed Interstate 5 a few times because of snow in the grapevine. They close the freeway in Castaic at the exit where Kristy would need to get off. Kristy and Nyah were stuck in traffic one morning and it took them four hours to go the last 1 1/2 miles of the freeway. Needless to say, Nyah didn't go to school that day. I digress. Because of the commuting issues, we've switched Nyah to the local school; Plum Canyon Elementary. At first it was a little difficult. Nyah's new teacher is not as sweet as her teachers were in Castiac, and the kids at Plum Canyon are not as humble as those in Castaic. But, Nyah is making friends and figuring out the new teachers system. Also, Nyah has made a lot of progress in her reading skills since attending the new school. We're so proud of her. She handled it well, didn't really complain, and it is completely evident that she has been blessed with the skill of making friends. We love Nyah.
Sade's learning to ride a bike...without training wheels.
Sade and Nyah really love riding their new scooters on the pathway that goes around Kristy's parent's backyard. Because the scooters have helped the girls improve their balance, Kristy decided to experiment with Sade and took the training wheels off of her bike. After pushing Sade around on the grass for a little while, Kristy began to give Sade a stronger push and send her off on her own. Now Sade can ride her bike across the grass and driveway, with a little push to help get her started. Now we just need to working on breaking and steering, but she'll get there.
Cali can walk!
In just the last couple of weeks Cali started walking. She's been walking along the couches for a month or two, but recently we started having her walk back and forth between Kristy and I. Now she's doing it on her own and will walk a couple steps from one couch to another, in order to get to me or Kristy. She's still only 10 months. This is the earliest any of our kids have walked, so of course it's been fun to watch.
