No pictures this time but at least there's an update from us. :)

We have gotten through September, October and November since our last update. Happy December everyone! The kids have had a few changes around here...Namely Jackson and Taylor switched schools and Emelia learned how to walk...to well!

In September, Immaculate Heart had their annual Curriculum Night for the school. This event sets to the tone, outline and expectations for the Teachers and Parents for the school year. We already knew the expectations from Jackson's 2nd Grade class since Anthony had the same teacher a few years earlier. For Taylor in Kindergarten we were dealing with a whole new teacher but our expectations were high that it was going to be a great year for the kids educationally. Unfortunately, those expectations were not met after listening to the 15 minute presentations for each classroom. So I started looking at our other options available to us. Of course we couldn't send the kids to BASIS where Anthony is attending because they don't start until 5th Grade. And I wasn't going to pull them out of school and send them to Public School close to our home. Our options came to Open Enrollment, Another Private School or Charter. It didn't take me long to find a school that met our expectations! In October, we left Immaculate Heart and the kids enrolled in Legacy Traditional School which is a brand new Charter school on the Northwest Side of town. It's closer to Nana and Papa's house which also advantageous and being that it's Charter...No Tuition!

The kids transitioned very well. Taylor went from all day Kindergarten at IHS to afternoon half day Kindergarten at LTS. And it's amazing the amount of work the kids do in the half day Kindergarten Program. I was shocked. Both kids have homework Monday-Thursday and it's actual work! For example, Taylor has to do phonograms, read, spell, and in Math she is learning single digit addition, subtraction and working through simple word problems. The Math program that Legacy uses is Saxon Math and each grade is working one grade level ahead. So Taylor is learning First Grade Concepts while Jackson is learning Third Grade Concepts. They also have to do book reports each grading period as well as poem recitations. Taylor's penmanship has really come a long way and she writes like a little adult. She is definitely writing better than the boys!

Jackson is completely challenged in school now. He spent all of August and September in a funk and kind of grumpy when he was at Immaculate Heart because he "wasn't learning anything new". In Math he is doing speed tests in Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplication. He has learned how to tell time as well as add and subtract time (a valuable skill that Anthony still hasn't mastered) and he's learned the concept of fractions. His spelling tests consists of 30 words each week and he has to learn his phonograms also. His reading has improved and so has his pronunciation and parts of speech. He's more articulate and definitely clearer when he speaks. He is making A's and B's which is so different for him because at IHS, he breezed through 1st Grade with Straight A's. His class size is larger but he comes home so happy at the end of the day and he wants to share how his day was with the family. Again, another huge change from the beginning of this school year!

Anthony is doing FABULOUS at BASIS! I cannot say enough good things about the school and their curriculum. Believe me though, all of us adults (Tony, Me, Nana and Papa) are getting a 5th Grade education all over again. In order to help Anthony succeed Nana has taken the responsibility to create sample quizzes and exams for him. She has also taken to helping him write out notecards. Tony has pulled up all of the Math and is working every lesson ahead of time and providing us with the solution keys so Anthony can "check his homework" when Tony is away on travel. I'm the organizer/Personal Assistant of the bunch reviewing Anthony's Communication Journal (daily planner) and from his notations setting forth the schedule and calendar of exams and quizzes as well as helping him figure out which order he needs to study for his classes every night. Papa, is the moral support for us all. Hahaha, believe it or not, he's the one that tells me and Nana when we're being too hard and harsh on the kids (specifically Anthony) and when we should push him harder. It definitely takes a family to raise our family! Anthony is studying/reviewing/doing homework 7 days a week but he still maintains a positive attitude and hasn't seemed to burn out yet. He's definitely experiencing and seeing how the hard work is paying off by way of grades and strokes from his teachers at school. He's a B+ student with a huge number of A's mixed into his overall GPA! This is a HUGE change and huge boost for him from when he was at Immaculate Heart. I've definitely seen that he's grown up a lot this year but he's also retaining so much more material and seems to have a handle on his subjects and knowing when his deadlines are.

Emelia...so many changes occurred for her! She turned 1 on August 20, 2011. We had a birthday party for her at New Town Buffet and most of our family and friends were there to celebrate the event with us. About the middle of September, she got up and started walking everywhere and hasn't stopped since. She had been practicing a lot with Nana and Papa and Tony and would take a few steps here and there and then crawl towards the rest of her destination. And then just all of a sudden something clicked and she was GONE! Now we can barely stop her. Her best playmate in the family is Jackson. He dotes on her and gives her everything! She's learning more words in sign language as well as she's babbling and trying to speak more. The clearest, loudest word she has in her vocabulary is...EAT! And does she ever love to eat! She can sign milk, more, and all done. We are working on please, thank you, and water. She knows that Ruby is "doggie" (although she also calls her stuffed Mickey Mouse "doggie" go figure). She knows who Daddy, Nana, Papa, Mama, Tay-or, Jaxa, and Bo (Anthony) are and knows when she's ready for a diaper change. Occasionally, I can get a "Diaper Mama" out of her but definitely the word diaper is in her vocabulary. For now, she's hanging out with Nana and Papa everyday either at the Store or running errands.

These past months the kids balanced their time between school, sports, and being kids. Anthony played Flag Football for BASIS, takes tennis lessons and has taken to online gaming with Tony and his classmates on the XBox 360. He has taken time off from TaeKwonDo and unfortunately I don't think he misses it. Jackson is now a recommended Black Belt in TaeKwonDo, he plays golf, and just finished his soccer season with his old classmates from IHS. Both boys have now taken my place in the stands cheering and attending UofA football games with Tony. It's a wonderful bonding experience for the 3 of them and I think they have a new found appreciation for football. Taylor is a Yellow Belt in TaeKwonDo and is Dancing. She will be Dancing in The Studio's performance of The Nutcracker in a few weeks. I can't wait to see her! It's amazing because she has learned so much and has gotten so much better in her technique at this dance studio. I'm secretly bummed that she's not 7 yet so we could see her perform in Disneyland. But we have 2 years for that and believe me, I'm saving my pennies for it now!

Our Thanksgiving was great, uneventful and no complaints, even though I did turn a year older. :) December looks to be equally as wonderful. Tony has one more work trip this year and then he's going to take a good chunk of time off. I am also going to do something different and take a week long vacation from work this year while the kids are on Winter Break. I think this will be a great change for all of us. Of course I do have high hopes that we'll be able organize and straighten up the house a bit, but let's not hold our breath for that to occur. :)

Jackson's Golf

This Summer Nana enrolled Jackson in golf clinics at The Practice Tee taught by his private instructor Dennis Alberts. I was off from work one morning and showed up a little early to see what Jackson was learning in class. On this particular morning Denny had someone come with their equipment that tracks the velocity, head speed and distance of the golf clubs and balls. I was able to get some nice video of Jackson's golf swing.

First Day of 5th Grade

Anthony holds up the "PEACE" sign as I take pictures on his first day of school at BASIS Oro Valley. He's so excited about his new classes, having a locker and most of all not having to wear a uniform to school.

Today Anthony was a little bit nervous and really excited for school to start. He's a 5th Grader at the middle school and the teachers have made them hit the ground running! Tomorrow he'll have a Math assessment test to see which Math class he will be in. He's so excited about his Classics/Latin and Science classes. He has 7 class periods which include Classics/Latin, Math, Language Arts, Art, Science, Geography, and PE. He's ready to learn about Greek Mythology and "burn things" in Science. :-)

Anthony is trying to prepare his clothes in advance and he neatly folded and selected outfits for the week and put them away in his old "uniform drawer" in his dresser. He knows that he'll have a lot of homework and work at night but he's ready for the challenge. He also wants to add extra curricular activities such as Flag Football, Basketball and Tennis to his already very busy schedule.

Tomorrow is his first full day of school so we'll see how he fares and how tired he is when he gets home. We'll also get to see if his level of enthusiasm is just as high tomorrow as it was today. Fortunately he has quite a few friends at school already as many students from his 4th Grade year switched over to BASIS with him.

The younger kids don't start back to school until the 24th so they are still in fun mode while Anthony has had to switch gears back to school mode. But I'm prepping the younger kids already and they know that Monday-Friday they are all "unplugged". No TV and video games at night. DS ONLY if all of the chores and homework is finished. And Computer is only allowed if it's school related. We are such mean parents around here. :)

Summer, Summer, Summer Time!

Happy July 3rd everyone! Half of 2011 is complete. But there is still half a year to go.

The weather has turned hot and sweltering...humidity yet no rain and HEAT and no shade. Fires and smoke, wind and dust.

This summer the older kids are staying very busy. I thought that I was going to keep them out of summer camp activities but I changed my mind and I'm so glad that I did. The kids are having a BLAST! They started the summer with SAFE camp at Cross Middle School. They each took 3 classes that lasted 2 weeks. Some of the comments I received from them was "This is the best 2 weeks ever", "When will we come back again", "Next time can I take xxx class?" Then Jackson had golf camp while Taylor enjoyed a dance camp and Anthony was able to sit around and do nothing. Then the kids attended TaeKwonDo camp. 4 hours of non-stop activity. That week they were tired and sore but they loved it. They will do another 2 weeks of SAFE camp and Dance camp (Tay), Golf camp (Jax), and school organization camp (AJ).

Then school will start for Anthony a few weeks after that. The middle ones go back to school later in August. Emelia in the meantime has learned how to crawl and pull herself up against the furniture. She's babbling more and although she doesn't want to cruise the furniture yet, she has tried turning and letting go of the chair or sofa she pulled herself up against and tried to take a step. I think walking will come very soon.

Staycation, Vacation or Sickation?

Friday 5/27/2011: After picking up the kid's report cards from school we ate lunch and left for Scottsdale. We arrived at the Scottsdale Links Resort and settled in. The room was nice and the pool was okay. The property is small and quaint, nothing like what we stayed in last year but clean and large enough for our family. Emelia hit a huge milestone learning how to crawl!!! Jackson and Anthony were lying on her blanket on the floor playing their DS and they had set them down for a minute, well guess where she headed towards. And she accomplished her goal, crawling about 6 scoots towards both of them.

Saturday 5/28/2011: We woke up and ate breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts. This is a huge event for us because we currently don't have a Dunkin' Donuts anywhere near our home (yes, we savor those little things). Then we went to Sea Life Aquarium at Arizona Mills. The Aquarium is small but still packed full of Marine life. I'm glad that Tony got us all-day tickets for about $10 each through work because we went through in about 45 minutes. The kids completed the quiz cards so that kept them occupied for a little bit. We then went to eat lunch at The Rainforest Cafe and after getting my eyebrows threaded (I needed some "momma pamper time") we went back for another tour of the Aquarium. Then we headed back to the timeshare and ate ice cream and watched Justin Bieber's Never Say Never movie. I enjoyed it very much. Hahahah, yes, I love the Bieber!

Sunday 5/29/2011: We woke up and went swimming in the pool. Even Emelia. The kids had fun and we all enjoyed the small splash pad they had there as well. Then after showering and changing, Tony and the kids went for a visit with their grandparents while I logged in for work.

Monday 5/30/2011: Memorial Day! We love and Thank our Troops home and abroad!

Tony and I got a wild hair and decided it was time to take a drive and get out of Arizona. So we packed up the car and drove up to Las Vegas! We left around 8:30am and I was able to log in at 11am and work while on the road. We stopped in Wickenburg, ate lunch in Kingman and made it to Las Vegas by 2pm. We stayed at the house and made plans to leave to drive up to Ventura, CA. on Tuesday. However after gassing up the car, we decided that staying in Las Vegas would be better. All of us are a bit congested from allergies and we need our rest. Plus...we are on vacation and really have no set plans. It's very relaxing and after being in a car for 6 hours, I'm not entirely jazzed about waking up again and driving for another 6 hours so staying in Las Vegas until Thursday suits me just fine.

Tuesday 5/31/2011: Tuesday, we wake up somewhat leisurely and still completely congested...me and the kids anyway. We met my mom and Aunt for Dim Sum (YUM) and then headed out to the Las Vegas Natural History Museum. That killed about 2.5 hours of time for us and it was a nice little museum. Then we went back and had dinner at King's Fish House at Green Valley Ranch (again...YUM)! And then spent the rest of the night hanging out at the house.

Wednesday 6/1/2011: OMG! I woke up with a huge sinus headache and body aches and could barely move out of bed. So me and the girls stayed in and lounged around while the boys went out for breakfast and a movie. Thank goodness for Kids PBS that played ALL DAY LONG! Sometimes the "electronic babysitter" is a good thing. Taylor was still congested and Emelia was cranky so the 3 of us stayed in our pajamas and vegged on the sofa. Finally after sleeping pretty much all day long, my body aches and headache went away. And after cleaning up, we headed out to the M&M Store at MGM. We all got our share of different color and flavor M&Ms. I have to say that those Dark Chocolate and Pretzel M&Ms are YUMMY! Then we headed back to the house, did laundry, packed and went to sleep.

Thursday 6/2/2011: We woke up, packed the car and headed to Mandalay Bay for Brunch Buffet. That buffet is decent but the service was not too stellar. We got seated in an area where our waitress was at the end of her shift so we basically had NO service for the last 30 minutes of our meal and were the only ones in that section. It was kind of strange feeling but also nice because the kids were getting loud. Then we headed back to Phoenix. We stopped off in Kingman, drove through Wickenburg and went straight to Dinner in Scottsdale at Chick-Fil-A. From there we went to The Container Store and purchased some items for travel and home organization and back to the Scottsdale Links we went.

Friday 6/3/2011: We got up, packed the car, checked out of the timeshare and met my cousin for breakfast at Chompie's. Then we went to IKEA to get some home organization ideas. Of course we ended up finding less expensive/comparable items at IKEA that we had already purchased at The Container Store. And since we don't have a Container Store in Tucson, we drove ALLLL the way back up to North Scottsdale from Tempe to make the return. I think it was worth the drive up and down the 101 freeway to save about $100. Then we headed back to Tucson and drove straight home. We unpacked the car and rested for about 30 minutes before heading out again to see the production of Annie Jr. A few of Anthony and Jackson's friends were in the play and we had already purchased our tickets for the show. We had a really nice time and the kids did awesome! I'm thinking of trying to get my older 3 involved in their production of Aladdin Jr. next year.

Saturday 6/4/2011: This was a nice rest day for us from all of the driving. The boys woke up and helped Tony reconfigure their beds and clean out their bedroom. They must have purged about 3 bags of toys and clothes. We ended up taking those purged items to Goodwill and ate lunch at Bubby's. Then we went to run errands. The older kids stayed at Nana and Papa's house for the night and Tony and I went to eat sushi and then went home and cleaned out the kid's study desk area. We must have thrown out between 4-6 yard sized bags of trash/papers and junk. Tony and didn't sleep all night as we were measuring rooms and drawing up plans to give our interior a "Marana Gray Family Extreme Makeover". Our plans include making more room in the formal living room for the kids to each have their own study area. Revamping the playroom so both the boys and the girls have their toys in there. Exchanging the girl's room and our office and redoing the family room. Our goal is to have the study area completed by July and the rest of the house completed by August before the kids head back to school.

Sunday 6/5/2011: Back to reality for momma! I had to head back to work and we had piles of Mount Washme waiting for us. Tony even had to log in for work since he got the call on Friday that he was traveling starting on Tuesday afternoon. The kids start summer camp on Monday and our life gets put back into constant motion again. No rest for the weary in these parts!

7 months, almost 5 years, 7 years, almost 10 years...

The kids have grown up and are growing up so fast these days. Many changes are ahead of us and my little babies are now getting to be big kids. Time is a blur because it's speeding by so quickly, although there are those days when I wish I could take a Mulligan and have "do over".

For example, Emelia is already 7 months old and has 2 bottom teeth. She's not yet crawling but she's rolling everywhere. She's only rolling to her left side. She can't quite make the transition over to her right but she's working on it.

Taylor will turn 5 this week. That means a few things, we've been back in Tucson for almost 6 years and soon I'll have a Kindergartner (ok, in August, but that's still fairly soon)! My little girl is no longer a little girl. She's going to be a big kid!

Jackson is Mr. Sports. Tae Kwon Do, Golf, Soccer, Swimming. Next he wants to try playing Flag Football. I can't believe that 1st Grade is almost over for him. And he's undergoing a massive growth spurt. I think he's starting to hit his growth stride (FINALLY). I've been purchasing him new shoes every month and half for the last 6 months! But I can't keep extra meat on him because he's so active. He's still in transition between being a little boy who plays with toys all the time and becoming a more serious little man.

Anthony is going to be 10 in May and will be starting the 5th Grade at a new school. It's a tough school, very academically focused. But even he's starting to become a "tweenager" and getting interested in clothes and music. He's already got his eye on the cool shoes he wants to wear next year, we bought him a bunch of clothes on clearance that are "in" and he now wants to graduate from carrying his books in a backpack to using a messenger bag. OMG! My boy is almost as tall as I am as well. I guess letting him loose to attend a school that doesn't require a uniform will help bring out and define his own personal style and interests. Fortunately he hasn't completely been lost to the dark side of video games and still does Tae Kwon Do, Tennis, Basketball and Swimming!

This Summer will go by so quickly. I'm kind of happy that the kids are taking a break from summer camps and will be at home more, but then a part of me thinks that the 6-8 hours that they would normally spend in camp might be spent with everyone fighting with each other over the TV. I do have grand plans to keep them busy with some sort of school work. For Anthony, he's going to read and work out of the Saxon 7/6 Math curriculum. For Jackson, he's going to work on penmanship and read. For Taylor, she's going to work on learning to read and penmanship. Emelia...let's just hope she starts to crawl/walk and roll right.