Student of the Week(s)

A couple of weeks ago Kambria was the student of the week. The kids school has an outdoor Friday Flag Ceremony every week where they parents can come if they want and they do all sorts of nonsensical things like introduce fundraisers and announce the students of the week. Well, I went and took a picture of Kambria and she was selected during October which was deemed "Responsibility" month, so she was selected for showing that quality (which Kaia thought was hilarious). This week Kaia was selected from her class and this months theme is "Caring" which I think is hilarious...just teasing :) Anyway, last night Dave put the pressure on Jaxon and said he better get is soon and then all the Butters' will be represented. He looked all overwhelmed by the pressure last night but, this morning he woke up and told me he was going to be student of the MONTH! I love that kid!!!

Move over everyone else!

There is a new BFF in town. Not only have we been jogging together we decided to take part in a pumpkin baking extravaganza! I have captured the moment twice and I am now sharing it with you. Objects might not appear as delicious as they are in real life but just take my word for it. I'm not going to lie, making the pumpkin rolls was quite the undertaking since we decided to quadruple the recipe...I wouldn't recommend doing that (although I would recommend the recipe if you are interested in "dazzling" your friends - that's what the recipe said at least. I love you Mel :)

I GOT A JOB!!!!!!

For all of you that haven't heard I finally got the chance to interview and I nailed it!!! I am super excited :) It is at Loma Linda University Medical Center on a unit where people who just came out of ICU are that need heart monitoring. I should gain a lot of great experience. The RN to patient ratio is only 1:3 and that makes me very happy too :) I am so excited to be able to start my career as an RN. School was insane but I think that finding a job was even crazier so I am very happy to have not only found a position that would entertain the idea of hiring a new grad, but the perfect one! Thank you for all of your prayers on my behalf - I know that you all made a difference in our lives as we have been struggling through this transitional time!

Family Pictures

Okay, so we decided it was time for family pictures....barf! So of course the first thing was to choose a photographer and luckily there is an awesome one in our new ward so I was very excited to test her skills on my super spunky family :) Next was where to do it. This was a toughy!!! We went with beach since we just moved to California and thought that it would be fitting. Now for the really difficult part....what do we wear!!!! Ahhhhhh....okay, so I didn't want us to all be match"ing" but I did want us to match - does that even make sense. I looked at a ton of pictures of others (kinda stalkerish) and decided that most beach photo ops looked sort of bland for the Butters. I decided that we would be sort of rainbow like - very bold and fun. I think they turned out great and I can thank my new friend Alisha Hammond enough for capturing our sweet family :)

Halloween : O

I hope everyone else had as much fun as we did this Halloween! My sister Jennifer and her girls came here from Sandy for the weekend. We went to see This Is It (the Michael Jackson movie) - which was AMAZING!!!, had lunch at a German restaurant (just Jen and I), took the kids to the ward Trunk-Or-Treat and chili cookoff (which I won the spiciest :), and last but not least took the kids Trick-Or-Treating!!! They all had a great time and I even got Dave to dress up! Jonston was Yoda, Justus was Spiderman, Jaxon was Anakin, Kambria was a bunny, Kaia was an Eskimo, Imani was a pirate, Seneca was Snow White and Dave and I were an early 60's Ma and Pa :)

You probably thought I gave up.

Surprise!!!! I'm blogging :) I hope you haven't lost much sleep without my blog updates to keep you cozy at night. It is just hard updating so many different things. Anyway, the big news is Dave is still gone, I don't have a job and we still haven't sold our house in Massachusetts!!! Oh wait, that's all the bad news...boo! The good news is, I love our neighborhood (I've realized that I am quite great at making friends), the kids love the school, the ward is awesome and the weather is perfect! And I saved the best for last, Dave will be home in two weeks!!!!
I am actually going to Paris with my sister and her daughter and leaving the morning that Dave gets home. So, as usual we will be like two ships passing in the night (or day in this case - and at the Ontario airport). I am sooooo excited I have never been before, and I always have fun with my sissy and Imani :)
Oddly, not much has happened since we have been here. Kaia is already full swing in gymnastics here. I just signed Jaxon up for a Chess Club ;), and Kambria is the life of the neighborhood! I have really enjoyed my time home with Justus and Jonston and I am so grateful that I have had this weird gap in between school and a job to spend watching my two boys grow up before my eyes. Jonston is probably the fastest crawler I have ever seen (and I've seen some mad crawling in my day), he has 6 teeth - bites everything, and is standing up on the furniture and trying to maneuver. We bought a fish tank about a month ago and he LOVES the fish! It is the only time he sits still, he just stares for like 5 minutes at a time (which is like hours in baby time)...so cute!
Well, I hope everyone that we left behind in Mass is doing well without us...we miss you and we will never forget you! Oh, I forgot to mention that I am the Cub Scout Bear Den Leader ....you can all stop laughing now, and start praying for these poor little boys. Ha ha ha...I'll figure it out :)

Here we are....

Ok, so this picture is not one of ours, our camera is still in Massachusetts....... However, on the way to the kids new school (about 1 mile away) this is basically the view. We live in Temecula, Ca. For Dave it is about an hour commute in the morning and about an hour and a half in the evening to and from work @ Camp Pendleton. Janine is waiting to find out when she can take her RN Board, but she did manage to graduate with HONORS on May 26th! Kaia is going to gym at SCEGA and is having a really good time. Jaxon is going to test out his skills at football. Kambria wants to take piano lessons, and Justy wants to watch the movie Cars all day. Jonston is rolling all over the place and it is only a matter of time before he is crawling. We really miss our friends back in Mass and it still doesn't feel real here in Cali. The weather is quite nice and we look forward to wearing shorts all year.

San Diego here we come!

So if you haven't heard yet, we are moving to San Diego California! Dave will be there for May 1st and the rest of us are following on June 1st. It's exciting and exhausting news. Between now and then I have to finish school, pass my board exam, and sell the house. Needless to say blogging is not at the forefront of my "to do" list. Here are some pics for your enjoyment. I got a cute shot of my four boys, one of Kaia in her "get-up" from her last competition that had a Western theme (I made the chaps for all the girls on the team :)), and then one of Jaxon wearing Kaia's mustache, and one of Jonston in his Bumbo seat. He loves it already! And since Jonston looks so cute in it, I'm including a picture that I look horrible in.

Kaia's meet on 1/10

Kaia competed level 7 last weekend at the Fred J. Castor meet at Westfield State College. She scored a 9.6 on beam which was the highest score of the entire competition and placed 1st. She scored 8.7 on floor, 8.6 on vault and 7.75 on bars (two big mistakes on bars so she wont let me post them). She placed 9th all around and loved every minute! I can't say the same for Kambria and Justus who had to watch the whole thing. Here are 2 links to videos of her on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yxfbbrJsiE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UPe6QLAAlA