Matt's Lake Perris Triathlon & Family Fun

Many of you know we live right next to Lake Perris (about 1 mile) so we walk over frequently to enjoy some quiet time.  Back in October we had the privilege of having my sister in-law (Katie, Ned's younger sister) and her family to come stay with us, because her husband Matt was doing the Lake Perris Triathlon.  He is a super athlete and we are proud of him!  He did a LONG swim, a bike, and run! PHEW! It made me tired just watching!  But we were so happy they came to stay.

A funny story is the night before we went by to get Matt's bib, etc. So we walked the kids down to the water and let them soak their feet. In TRUE ASHER fashion, we had our eyes away from him for just 1 minute and sure enough he had stripped down, stark naked, and ran and jumped head first into the water (NO he does not know how to swim). Ned was laughing so hard, I had to yell at him to get our son before he swam out and drown. I didn't have my camera unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) to record this memorable outing.

Here is Matt coming out of the water

The swim just looked miserable to me

Getting set for the run...

Starting on his run (I missed his bike pictures, because he was to fast)

My beautiful niece Madison (with poppers on her head)

Tyler aiming with his poppers

Don't know who had more fun cheering on spectators and with poppers the kids, or Ned & I...

Ella and her ROCK ON fingers, don't know where she got that from, but it's hilarious!

Ella looking awfully tired after staying up WAY late the night before

Little Mason...

Coming in AFTER the run & everything... he raced with a bunch of cousins and came in 1st

Both feet off the ground, pretty impressive!

Ella, Madison & Asher cuddling up to watch a movie the night before! I LOVE this picture because he LOVES his cousins SO much and they are SO sweet to him too!

CUTE cousins!!

Kati's Bridal Shower (...& wedding)

So some of you may remember me mentioning (The Fab Five) in past posts. A group of my girlfriends (5 of us...to be exact, just in case you didn't catch that) who have been best friends since 6th grade. Yes J. High days...amazing right.

Well Kati (1 of the 5) just married my sisters, husbands, brother: back in October. I know sounds confusing right? Well my brother in-law Wes Aleman (who we love & are very close with, so basically my brother) his brother Patrick married my friend Kati.  Such a funny small world! But she married into a wonderful family and a wonderful man, so we are happy for them!

So the wedding was gorgeous, up in the Oak Glen mountains at Riley's Farm. It was a beautiful backdrop, a super sweet band, in a barn, with hot coco...it was so fun & so cute. But it was COLD (freezing actually) it was raining and SNOWING (that's a shock to us Cali folks) so needless to say I did NOT have my camera and have no pictures of the wedding.  But here are some of her tea party/shower photos from the day at Martha Green Eating Room in Redlands.

Tea & Puppets (As my Ella would say) 

The beautiful bride (to-be at the time)

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Kati & Her Mama

Heather and her Mom Donna

Academic Excellence Student of Month

We are proud of Ella for getting Academic Excellence Student of Month the first month of school. She is doing very well and really enjoys school and learning. She also loves her friends and teacher Mrs. Padilla.

 Here's the video of her getting her award, it's really hard to hear what was said, so I wrote it out since I know both my parents and Ned's both weren't able to make it:

Our Award for Academic Excellence is for a girl who has a lot to say, and has a lot to say because she knows a lot.  She is very curious, and has a lot great questions and answers.  She has had a lot of great life experiences.  

Last week we were talking about Pilgrims and Native Americans, and she was then talking about the Indian Caves in Yosemite, and wanted to know the difference between the Pilgrims and the Pioneers.  

And Mom at report card time brought a note pad to take notes on what she needed to work on with Ella and she didn’t have much to write because she is doing very well, and that award is Ella Broberg. 

Ella's teacher Mrs. Padilla, Ella (bottom left), above her pink, Mia, her adorable friends Katie (purple) & Kaitlyn (pink) & very good friend Jackson (blue jacket) all received Citizenship awards.

We told Ella that now (like her friends) she needs to work on her citizenship now. She is doing well academically, but we have had some problems pulling her card talking too often, and not heading her warnings (just like her teacher said, she has a lot to say) and this is at "at home, at school, and at play"!

I'm a POODLE

So Ella cracked me up this Halloween because my mother in-law so kindly made ALL the girls (cousins) adorable "poodle skirts".  Well I forget we live in 2011 where the 50's and poodle skirts are just NOT relevant at all and she had NO IDEA what we were talking about when we tried to explain what their costumes were. So every time someone asked her what she was going to be for Halloween she would say, "A Poodle".   We finally showed her a few costumes and explained and she was so happy, and then would say a poodle girl...

So here is our Poodle girl and Asher was Pirate for most our Halloween outings and a Monkey for the other half...

Mommy Daughter Date- Riverdance & BJs

Most of you already know how sweet and thoughtful Ned is. Really he is the BEST dad and husband a women or child could ask for!  My girlfriends even tease and call him "Our Ned" be good to "Our Ned" etc. So just to give him credit, this was ALL his idea and doing.

Ella has had an adjusting year. Starting kindergarten, mommy's pregnant, and a lot of changes which have been hard. So a few months back Ned thought it would be important for us to do special nights out with each kid, just us parent & child. So he surprised Ella and I with tickets to see Riverdance.  I have seen it and loved it, and Ella loves dancing. So on Nov. 5th Ella and I had a special date thanks to Daddy.

And a date is not complete (too Ella) without DRESSING UP! So here is our fancy date pictures!

Looking SO grown up to me lately..makes me sad!

She also has forgotten how to smile suddenly, its so funny. So I told her to think of something funny....

Exhibit A of forgetting how to smile....

I HATED all the pictures of me in them, but Ned said I had to at LEAST include one!

And here was Asher's PRETTY pose!  My boy!

Piggy had to come along on the date too...he had a napkin and everything...

At BJ's with our Pizookie

She told me to take this picture and send it to Daddy's phone, so we could LAUGH! :)
I guess she meant to make him jealous!

We had SUCH a nice time. She was Celtic dancing all night, even in front of people at the theatre (NOT like Ella). She loved the dancing and we had a fun day.  For sure something we will keep up.

Now on to Asher. (Worm catching day, any ideas?)