Grandpa Harold's Visit!!

A few weeks ago, my Grandpa Thune and Auntie Karen came to visit for 5 days to attend the funeral services of my grandpa's younger brother. Though the reason for the visit was sad, we really looked forward to having them with us. Its an extremely rare treat to have my grandpa here in CA. The boys soaked up all the time they could with their Great-Grandpa Harold. :)

This was the moment we'd been waiting for...our first glimpse of the man and his daughter who travels with him. Double bonus for us!!

They came straight to our house for dinner and the boys were beside themselves. Kyle was super excited to show Grandpa Harold his carrier he got for Christmas. It was so fun to capture this moment as Grandpa explained what it was like to fly his F6 Helcat off of the Intrepid during WWII.

The boys were glued to the man. They completely understand by now, that all the family who comes to visit end up leaving way too quickly and they've got to squeeze every minute of their time and attention that they can! :)

Just for fun, we took them to Rudy's work to see where my mom gets her treatment.

Grandpa still golfs (mostly just 9 holes).

Rudy loves this guy and can't believe how well he is doing both physically and mentally at 96 years old.

We are so thankful for every time we get to spend with him, especially for the boys' sake. I'm glad they'll at least have these pictures with this stud of a man. :)

We love you Grandpa Harold! And lots of love to Auntie Karen as well! We missed you before you had even left. :)

Our Miss Rene

On Tuesdays and Thursdays Miss Rene comes over for a little over 3 hours to pick up Kyle from school and watch the boys until I come home. When we all first met her, she reminded us so much of the boys' GG and Rudy thought she was a mix of GG and his Aunt Cindy. It's so true! She's a wonderful gift we are so happy to have found. This is no small thing in our minds. Finding someone you trust with your children can be difficult and I've always been so extremely thankful for the chance my boys had to be with my mom and then Miss Esther. I knew they were not only cared for, but dearly loved. 

I wanted to highlight this new time in the boys' lives as this is our first year where they are spending almost all of the week at home. (Gavin comes up with me on my 3 hour Monday mornings and stays at my mom's house with Miss Zoe, who is Miss Esther's younger sister.) I'm so grateful they can continue to be together and in our home with our same after school routine whether I'm there or not. We're still really enjoying Rudy's flexible schedule and that he is with the kids for more than half of the days I work and gets to drop Kyle off at school or attend events there. Both Rudy and I enjoy walking/biking/scootering to school with the boys. Good memories for sure.

But back to Miss Rene. She was a former preschool teacher who has older kids and wanted to find something that would provide a little income and where she could be around littles. Essentially, we've got a win/win situation. I appreciate her motherly intuition with the boys and how she treats them. She has been great! One of the favorite things the boys enjoy about her is that she comes with a new and different craft idea every time. The boys make, bake, paint, and create thematic crafts that correspond with the holidays/months. For example, in November, the boys made Indian vests out of our paper bags and threaded the pieces of the jacket together with yarn. She taught them a chant they still say at the dinner table. :) In December, they made, rolled, cut, and baked dough ornaments of their handprints, candy canes, trees, etc.) In January, they made puppet snowmen.

Below are some shots of our kitchen wall decorated with January/February themed crafts. I love that Miss Rene lets the boys do all (or for Gavin, mostly all) of the work themselves. I also appreciate the variety of materials. They were painting with heart cookie cutters, cutting snowflakes (Gavin LOVES to cut things!), using chalk to draw snowmen, etc. The boys have recently gotten a kick out of making service vehicles (fire truck, police car, and I hear an ambulance is coming...). It's so fun to come home to the boys eager to show me what they made! This is such a fun memory-in-the-making for them!!

 I loved this picture of Kyle's snowman (and such a cute police car, while we're at it)...

 And then seeing Gavin's "snowman!" :) :)

Kyle taught me how to finger knit after his lesson from Miss Rene, and we went to our local craft store to each buy some yarn so we could knit together. After a lot of physical play outside, this is just the thing to mellow out and relax.

Thanks to Miss Rene, our kitchen wall has never looked more full of such fun! The boys were so excited about their Cat in the Hat's today. Check them out in the first pic with Miss Rene. So darling and full of personality. :) Time to take down February and anticipate what's next with March!

Kindergarten's Lunch with a Loved One

One of the highlights of this school year is that Kyle goes to school close to home and on any given day either Rudy or I are available to volunteer or attend his school performances/parties/special events. I love it! If I'm working, I know Rudy can make it, and vice versa. I know Kyle appreciates it and it means the world to us to be there. 

Recently, the Kindergarten Team threw a "Lunch with a Loved One" time out on their inner courtyard grass area. I surprised Kyle with food from his favorite restaurant, Ruby's. I also called his Auntie Michelle just to see if by any chance she could take a longer lunch and come up. She happened to be working from home that morning and was just minutes away. Here are some shots of Kyle finding out about these surprises. :)

 You are so loved, Kyle Martin! :)

Da Boys

Wrestling Daddy is just what these Martin boys do. I love it. For the most part, there are no tears...just lots of squeals and grunting. :)

Brothers on Bikes

Gavin really wanted to ride a big boy bike, so Rudy got Kyle's first bike down and the kid has been riding like crazy ever since. :) Today, we took our longest ride...a mile to Kyle's school (one way). What a trooper he is, trying to keep up/race his big brother. :) It was so fun for me to run quick and grab my camera to capture this first moment where both boys were riding bikes together. If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram you've already seen the pic where they are posing for me. So cute! I'm working on getting that picture on here. Will have to update this post when I do.

While we're on the topic of brothers, I couldn't resist adding a few pictures of our night time routine. Each night, after brushing teeth, I find the boys like this. Kyle enjoys reading to his little brother and Gavin soaks up all the time he can being his brother's side kick.

Good-night boys!! :)

More Family Time!!

If there's one thing this family loves, it's getting to see family! :) We had a great Monday get-together on one of the Presidents' Day holidays. Everyone had the day off except for Rudy, so while we missed him, we enjoyed meeting my cousins and their kids at the almost halfway point, my parents' house. It was great meeting our newest cousin Cole!! He's such a sweet baby who went along for the ride so beautifully. Thanks, Mark and Lisa, for making the effort and spending a precious daddy's day off with us!!

 Cousins in the playroom

 Cousin Luke

 Cousin Chase

 This wooden marble roll toy has entertained so many kids, including myself and my cousin Mark when we were young ones. How cool to see our kids now playing on our toys.

Can't wait to see you guys again! xoxo

Nebraska Cousins

Hello again! For those of you who enjoy reading our updates, I'm sorry for the long pauses. While I'm waiting to solve a computer/photo problem with all recent pics, I'm going to go back to January and get us caught up with some of the special memories we made.

I really haven't been taking many pictures while out and about and the ones I have capture very little of what we've done, but I guess they are better than nothing. Early January, we had the pleasure of having my cousin Jamie and her husband Ryan come out for a visit while on their way to San Diego for their 5th anniversary get-away. Our first stop right off the plane was a walk through Laguna Beach's pretty cliffs and down to the sand area. Kyle was in school so Gavin got full reign over chasing the birds away. Great exercise for the little guy!

Cousin Jamie is a gift to this earth and all who know her. Love every second with her.

My sister agrees, and spent quite a lot of time with us while they were visiting.

Michelle even babysat for a great deal of Saturday so we could go to our local wine country in Temecula for some wine tasting. That was a fun experience and the views were quite beautiful. The wine was delicious, too.

All too soon their few days with us were over and their presence was just a memory. I think Gavin asked for "that girl" for about a solid week before realizing she just wasnt going to be coming back any time soon. :)