Shane's Graduation

Graduation has finally arrived--WAHOO! Sometimes it feels like it took forever, but other times we cannot believe that it is over! We ABSOLUTELY LOVED Shane's program, his rotations, living near 3 of my brothers, being in Southern California, and meeting such awesome friends & neighbors. We wouldn't change these 4 years for anything!!!

Here are some highlights from graduation...

Jayden & I were able to Hood Shane.

Shane & his dad.

Shane's mom.

Shane's & his parents.

Shane's sister Tera & her family.

Hugging Grandma Christensen.

Shane's Uncle Jay and his family.

My parents.

Our little family

Thanks everyone for coming...it meant so much to us!

Shane's buddies from school.

(James, Alex, Richard, & Shane)

Our good friends & neighbors, the Reeves. We miss you guys!

Congratulations Shane!!! I am so proud of you and all of your hard work! I love you!

Celebrating Shane's graduation at Benihana's...we LOVE that place!

Jedi Training & DARTH VADER!

On our very last visit to Disneyland :( we took Jayden to the Jedi Training Academy. We dressed him in his Darth Vader shirt hoping that he would get picked as a Jedi Knight and IT WORKED! Jayden was so excited!

Our Jedi Knight

Because Jayden was the smallest kid they put him right next to the Jedi Trainer for a little extra help.

Practicing his moves.

Jayden was so excited to be up there he was having a VERY HARD TIME LISTENING, so the Jedi Trainer had to help him often.

Waiting to fight Darth Vader.

He was so little the robe was all over the ground.

Our "little" Jedi (about 6 in from the left).

Here is the BIG FIGHT:

We love the part where Darth Vader stands over Jayden and Jayden just looks up at him for a few seconds without doing anything. We asked him if he was scared and he said he wasn't, but as you can tell he was definitely in shock!

Busy Crafting...

Claremont Young Women, Apron making night!

An apron I made for Tia.

I made this shirt for Jayden's birthday.

So...another reason I haven't been a good blogger is because I am becoming obsessed with making things. Thanks to all of my crafty friends for the fun ideas...otherwise I would have no clue what to make. Here are some of the fun things that have consumed my days and nights.

San Diego Vacation

We spent our last 2 months in California enjoying the surrounding areas. Shane was finished with school & tests, so we had a blast visiting many places. Thanks to my parents & their time share, we were able to spend a whole week in April visiting San Diego...THANKS Mom & Dad..it was PERFECT!!!

Here are a few pictures of the places we visited. It was awesome...Shane got in FREE to everything we did. I'm really starting to like these military benefits!!!

SAN DIEGO ZOO

Our silly little man.

The bus tour of the zoo....a definite MUST DO!

Here are the kids feeding the giraffe's. This was our favorite thing we did at the zoo.

Look at that tongue!

RUEBEN H FLEET SCIENCE CENTER

Jayden wouldn't stop playing with this bouncy ball thing. There was air blowing out of that hole which would blow the ball all over the place.

Dad & Tia drawing on the sand wheel. The kids had a great time exploring many things at the Science Center.

USS MIDWAY

We toured the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier.

Shane can tell you the name of every single aircraft. Don't even ask me...I thought they were all called planes :0

VISITING THE BLACKS

These are our good friends, The Blacks, from our BYU married ward. We miss you guys!

SEA WORLD

We love rides!

The Stingray that hit Jayden in the face (Jayden is the one on the left in the light grey sweater under Shane's arm)...the poor kid couldn't stop crying.

Love the Shamu show!

This is our favorite part of the dolphin show...

Here's a "volunteer" giving the dolphin high 5 or something.

Then the "volunteer" falls in.

Click on this picture to make it bigger...the audiences faces are hilarious! This must have been their first time seeing the show. I about had a hear attack the first time I saw it! The volunteer turns out being an employee and it is all part of the show...ha ha!

The kids watching a whale.

THE BEACH

Jayden and his castles.

"Oh...what should I do?"

Tia decides to collect rocks...

...and rocks...

...and more rocks!

Collecting rocks is "SERIOUS" business!

I couldn't help but take a picture of her cute little ruffled behind.

Jayden loved the water.

Thanks Preston for letting us borrow your wetsuit!

Yeah to Potty Training

With a little peer pressure, dad being home all month, and the RIGHT timing....Potty Training was a piece of cake THIS TIME! Potty Training for Jayden started back when he was 20 months old (he is now 3 1/2). There were times he would go without any problems, but then there were months of fighting us, so we stopped MANY times and waited for him to be ready.

FINALLY our little guy was ready and went from diapers to underwear in 1 day (no pull-ups). I know it wasn't anything we did....he was just ready this time! It did help using the fact that his friends Preston & Brayden and his two cousins Aspen & Sage are potty trained....a little positive peer pressure doesn't hurt...right?! This is probably too many details, but letting him stand up to pee has helped a ton...he hated how long it would take to sit down and go. He likes to get in and get out. He doesn't complain as much now that he gets to stand up.

Way to go little dude! We are so proud of you! Jayden has even inspired Tia to start trying. She went 3 times last week. I hear potty training girls is a little easier...hopefully I didn't just jinx myself by saying that!

Stay Tuned....

Sorry I've been slacking on my blogging. We have been busy preparing for our move and living up our last days in sunny California--so sad to leave :(. Just wanted you to know that we will be up and blogging again soon! We are shipping all of our stuff to Japan on Monday and we will be in Utah by Wednesday, so we will update you on everything then. Love you all!

Nursery...Here I Come!

Tia is 18 months old and can now attend Nursery at our Church. This means she can go to her very own class instead of trying to sit through the adult lessons (with us) without getting into trouble or making too much noise. Here's Tia on her first day of NURSERY with a crumpled up cube she made on Sharing :) She wasn't too happy that I was taking a picture of her, but she stood there long enough to let me snap one. Neither of our kids have had a problem leaving us and going to Nursery-it's a good thing, but it's also sad that they are so independent and don't care that we are not there :( Oh well, we know they still love us!