First Day of Preschool

Lilliana's first real day of preschool


She's in the "begindergarten" class. The classroom is really neat. It has a swing in the middle of the room, a playhouse with an upper level, huge play yard out back, and multiple class pets. It's really a neat program. I'm so glad Lilliana is able to go to this school. She is very excited to go to school each day. I think this will be good training for Lilliana when it's time for her to go to kindergarten next year.

The Incident

The day before Lilliana officially started school was quiet the busy one. She had a lemonade party at school to meet her teachers, the other kids, and get to know where things are in her classroom. It was a great introduction to her new school. Luckily there are a few kids at this school who were at her old preschool so it makes the transition a little bit easier.

Now onto the incident. Later that afternoon a friend asked me to come over to her house so that she could pick-up one of her kids from school. One of her other kids was arriving by bus any time and someone needed to be at home. So she asked me to be there. So my two and two other kids hung out at her house while we waited for the bus. The kids went out to the backyard to play. Not more than 3 minutes later Lilliana starts crying so I go outside to check it out. She's holding her head and just ask she starts to walk to me, blood starts to drip from her hands. She of course starts to freak out. I get her inside and grab a bunch of paper towels to help stop the bleeding. And wouldn't you know it right at that minute the bus arrives!! I'm starting to sweat bullets now! Ok I tell Lilliana to hold the towel to her head and I rush out to get Ryan. My son Mark follows me outside and starts to freak out when he sees me get on the bus (thinking I was leaving without him). Ryan is now also crying. Ok grab Ryan and bring Mark back inside. Back to Lilliana...she has a one inch gash in her forehead. This is gonna need stitches. Oh did I mention this happened with a metal golf club. Yes she was kneeling behind one of the kids when they wound up to swing the club. OUCH!! Anyways I had walked over to my friend's house so I grab my phone and call Jim. Luckily he was working from home so I told him to get in my car and drive it over here so I can take Lilliana to the emergency department. I get Lilliana loaded up and off we go. There is no one in the emergency department - YES! They take us right back and have a little look. Since it's on her face I request that a plastic surgeon stitch her up. Ok no problem we just have to wait a bit. The surgeon is seeing patients at her office and will be here in about an hour. Dr. Lynd arrives and we get Lilliana ready. They had to strap her in the papoose board so she wouldn't wiggle around. Lilliana didn't really appreciate that. Dr. Lynd was very fast though and she was done in less than 5 minutes. So my little baby now has 2 stitches under the skin and 8 on top.

Here's a picture of it from the next day:

Old friends

Last night some old college friends and I got together for dinner. It was so much fun to see everyone and their kids. It was neat to see mini Kat's, a mini Katie, and mini Liesel's. I couldn't have asked for a better evening. Thanks Kat for coming into town so we finally had an excuse to all get together :) Also thank you Eliason's for letting us invade your home.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK

My sweet baby boy turns 2 tomorrow. He had his birthday party yesterday with our family. I can't believe it's been 2 years now. Everyday he gets a little bigger and a lot smarter. His vocabulary is growing too. It was so cute to hear him say "Thank you Grandpa" when grandpa gave him a balloon to play with. He's a little boy now, not a baby. Peter and Jonathan (the twins) made an appearance as well and both Mark and Lilliana just loved having them here. Mark just could not wait for them to wake up and kept pointing to their eyes, willing them to open.


Mark is our little chef, so for his birthday he got a small kitchen. He played with it all afternoon and all this morning before we left for church. He didn't even want to nurse this morning he wanted to go cook breakfast instead. Lilliana seems to really like all the play food as well. When we got home from church this afternoon this is what I saw...

I think the kitchen and food are a hit!

Dress Up

Whenever Lilliana's friend Sarah comes over they play dress-up. It's so fun to see the crazy outfits they come up with. Mark got in on it too (he is wearing a spider halloween basket...)

Gilroy Garlic Festival

In all the years that I have lived in the San Jose area, I have never gone to the garlic festival. So Friday afternoon Jim says let's go! OK sounds yummy. So we pack up the kids and head on over. Since we went on Friday it wasn't super busy and we didn't have to wait in any lines. They had all kinds of delicious food to taste. It was a good thing we came hungry - I wanted to try a bit of everything. We even tried the garlic ice cream. Now I must say it wasn't BAD - but it wasn't great either. Mark liked it though so he got to finish it :) They had a neat place for the kids (although in my opinion there could have been more room allotted to the kids area). Lilliana and Mark both got cute aprons and Lilliana and I build a small sail boat out of wood. Then Lilliana had lots of fun going on all the kiddie rides they had. Mark got to play in the bounce house. By then the kids were getting tired so we decided to call it a day. But before we left we got some ice cream cones - the kids both really enjoyed these...

Russian River Vacation

Our family went on vacation this summer to the Russian River up in the Sonoma area of California. We had a wonderful time. The kids an I stayed in a cabin at the Odd Fellows Recreation park in Guerneville. The place is made for families. There are all kinds of activities for the kids and also things for adults. We played at Piggy Park, swam in the river, dug in the sand on the beach, caught tiny fish, did crafts, played games, roasted marshmellows, listened to live banjos, went to a kids carnival, just had a great great time. It was truly a very fun vacation that we will talk about for a long time.