So Cal Visit

I am really pretty ticked with blogger right now. SOOOOOOOOOO these are out of order and all a mess and I am upset and both my big kids are being terribly naughty so I would say this blog post was a bit of a failure.... hope you enjoy.

We went down to visit my brother and sister and cousin Maria on Sep 17th. It was great to see them and hang out. Dave and Rach had a soccer tournament that weekend so we were able to watch them each play two games. Dave has and injured lower ab muscle so he probably should have been resting but the selfish part of me was thankful he played because it is so fun to watch him play. The big sister in me cringed every time he kicked the ball hard or went into a tackle hard. That is just my natural reaction when I watch Dave and Rach play which is funny cause they are both bigger than I am. It should be interesting to watch my kids as they get older...

here are some pictures of Rach playing soccer. Evidently Nick didn't take any pictures of Dave, not sure if he likes rach more (jk jk ) or if Dave is more interesting to watch play (doh) anyway... We had fun watching the games. Dave played in both even though he was hurt. Both the boys and girls teams killed the teams they were playing. Dave had a SICK shot from about 25 or so yards out that he scored and Rach had some good chances. Anyway... we had a great trip.

we went to Santa Monica beach twice. The kids loved it!

this boy was not built for cold water. You can see each of his muscles flexing, lol. His love for the ocean was almost enough to get him past the "you might as well go in now" level but he didn't make it :)

behind again...

 well I didn't take a chance to post last week and I have some pictures to put up but I don't have the time right now. I am sorry if you came to take a peak and you were bummed, so until I find the time here is a picture of our cute little baby. She is getting so big! We went to the Dr. last Thursday and she is 15lbs. She is a great baby and I am super thankful for that. I think she might be getting some teeth but we will see. Over the last month she started loving her toys, she loves to play with her feet, and she sticks her tongue in and out of her mouth. It is kinda funny. I absolutely love when babies play with their feet. I just think it is super cute! The Dr. also said "you can tell she gets talked to a lot because she looks right at you and try's to talk back." She certainly hears a lot of words with brother and sister trooping around talking ALL the time :) She loves to have conversations. She also knows who mom is and is starting to cry or voice her dissatisfaction when I walk past her chair and don't pick her up. As endearing as that is, I hope she doesn't keep at it. This momma can't handle the pouty sad crys and evidently my baby figured that out :) She is such a mellow baby that people always laugh and Nick and I when we say she isn't happy when she is just complaining or making this grunting noise. She is just mellow so to us that is her unhappy. We sure love her and are so thankful she is a part of our family.

Funny little baby

Catching up

We were able to go out of town last weekend to visit my brother Dave, sister Rachel, and cousin Maria and it was great! I miss those three a lot. I plan to do a post all about that but I am still behind in a few of my other post so I need to catch up. I kinda feel like that has been how my whole week has felt, just a few steps behind. Honestly I think I feel like that most of the time. I think it might have something to do with having 3 children 4 and under, I don't know... just a guess :)
Our kids are doing great. The girls and I got a cold /cough thing that has been hanging on and hopefully is clearing up.
William and mom are trying to make headway in preschool. When I focus on it he does really well. Their little minds are sponges and that is good and bad! Allie will randomly yell DANG IT or say that's stupid! I usually try to hide my laughter and inform her we don't talk that way. She is a little chatter bug and tells us about everything. Over the last month she hit another level of communication where she doesn't just tell you something but completely converses with you. For instance I asked her to get Nick up the other day and she said "Ok mom I get daddy you stay here" she wanted it to be very clear I wasn't suppose to help get daddy up. She makes me laugh. It hard to explain communication because she has been talking in sentences clearly for a long time but it keeps developing and changing. She is also super busy all the time. She continually gets into trouble for making messes and when I am cleaning one up she is making another. She also doesn't like when things don't go her way. She will throw down what she is holding and pout. She doesn't like to be told No but than again who does. I have been thinking about James 4:1 lately that talks about why we fight. It is definitely a principle I need to work through all the time. My momma tells me "I know you don't want to hear it but she is just like you when you were little"  Being a parent is a lot of work! God is faithfully showing me my sin and weakness right along while I try to deal with my kids. It's overwhelming! than I remember He is faithful! I don't have to try to raise my kids in my own strength. Isn't that reassuring! That was kind of a rant but has been on my heart lately so there you go.
So here are the pictures...

here are some pictures from soccer picture day and also from our first game at the parade.

Wills team

 Kate

 our first game

the parent tunnel. The kids LOVE these tunnels

Wills getting his pictures taken

seriously when you ask this kid to smile for the camera this is what you get?!?

there is the cute little boy I know

the end :)

Soccer parade

Auburn Soccer league does a parade of all the teams through down town Auburn. I guess one of the benefits to being a young momma is I totally remember doing this when I played in this league. Kinda fun... So it was cold busy day for us because we had the parade and than we had a little soccer game and we also had a Thornton family reunion. The wed before the parade it had been like 105 degrees and than this day was 70 and lightly raining. It was beautiful! I think it crazy how drastically the weather can change though.

Here are the pictures from our parade

the kids banner

Kate and Wills

Number 10 and number 2

The team name is Rock Stars ( this wasn't our choice but majority of some sort ruled on this one) so the kids brought guitars and drum sticks whatever was rock starish.

watching the craziness

Becca and Karissa who actually have blue Jerseys now.

Charity sporting her "captains" coat

The girls parade "float" their team name is World cup girls. On the top of the truck you can see a stereo hooked up and everything. Their coach goes ALLLL out, seriously!

my brother Dan is their assistant coach so he road in the back

Tom chucked a bunch of candy in their trailer and they went crazy!

I wish i had taken a picture of Dan's soccer sandals because they are still cracking me up! They straps were soccer ball print and the base was "turf" so funny.

Gav and Nate's team

bounce U

we went to bounce U with my Aunt Lisa who was able to visit from Hawaii and some of our local cousins. Here are a few pictures. Allie needed a lot of mom's attention so I wasn't able to spend that much time with the ladies or taking pictures or holding my baby... Thankfully she was getting lot's of love from the other ladies. busy busy...

silly Allie! picking her nose

this is Matthew he is super sweet. He is 9 months old now and has down syndrome and is such a blessing to our family!

little Autumn

Risa

Kate

Lisa holding EmmaJane and Matthew

Harper came with us since his momma had just had little brother Becket

you had to climb up this to be able to go down this big slide. Wills needed help and gave up and than tried again and we were half way up the first time when he started crying and got upset and scared... we came down and than tried again and even though we had a few meltdowns we did manage to get up. It was pretty hard for him the first time. i think it would have gotten easier but he was out of time. Harper zipped right up the thing. It was impressive climbing.

Melissa, Lisa's daughter

it was tiring and fun. we got lunch together after and my kids were beat.