Tatum's new ride

I know I've been seriously slacking with posting lately (except for these past few days of course). So hopefully these will hold you over for awhile. Before we moved, we gave Tatum's old bike to Aunt Theresa's mom (they have tons of grand kids in their family to pass it on to) and since then, she's been really wanting one. She learned how to ride without training wheels on her brothers bike and it hasn't been fun taking the training wheels off so she can ride his tiny bike and then putting them back on so he can (every 5 mins. lol). Tatum doesn't officially turn 6 until Thanksgiving Day, but being that we now live in Flagstaff and there's a pretty good chance that there will be snow on the ground, we decided to give her her bike now so she can get some use of it before it's too cold/snowy for it. My dad and Kay went in on it with us and she absolutely loves it! Thanks again Grandpa and Grandma Jones!!

(Oh, and I added music again, so you can scroll down to the bottom to pause it if you'd like). :)

Video at Grandparent's Day

I took several videos and saved two for you. The first is a little long, but keep watching since the 2nd one is the cutest (and the shortest)! The whole thing is around 2 mins. Just wanted to share with you. :)

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Grandparent's Day at Sechrist

Tatum showing off her skills on the playground at recess. She comes home with calluses on her hands everyday.

A mom came up to me (her son is sitting to Tatum's right with the tie on) and said, "My son talks about Tatum everyday and says he wants to marry her". Tatum is definitely not into boys yet which is fine with me. I know I had a crush on a boy in kindergarten that lasted about 4 years (he came to my wedding). And so it begins...

And a few more...

I love this picture of our kids with the Leopold's kids that I just had to post it. These kids get along so well together and we absolutely adore their parents.

At the Fall Festival at Tatum and Corbin's school. I don't have too many pictures since I was working a booth for awhile and then Corbin had a meltdown shortly after, so we had to leave early.

Corbin with his best buddy, Ben Leopold (he asks everyday to go and play at his house). It's so nice since they only live about 5 mins from us.

Open house night at Corbin's preschool. He was showing off his Science lab skills for us.

Finally, some pictures :)

My dad and Kay came to visit us a few weekends ago and we headed off to the pumpkin patch. We ran into Tatum's friend, Brian from school.

Our first time driving a tractor.

Yeah, I was crazy joining in on this fun.

Brian's bug birthday party. I can't believe how brave Tatum was (although she wouldn't touch the cockroach..which I really don't blame her).

Just like like the stick bug on A Bug's Life!

Looks like I'm not the only one who got mom of the year award at school so far...

Just because they are celebrities, does not mean the rules change for them. I am happy to report that Pirate Booty is not banned from Tatum's school. Veggie Bootie is her favorite (and mine too) :).


During a recent visit to The Ellen DeGeneres Show, actress Courteney Cox-Arquette dished on the “big summer” she just enjoyed with husband David Arquette and their daughter Coco Riley.
Birthdays aplenty (Coco turned 5, while Courteney turned 45) and an anniversary (the couple’s tenth) were celebrated, but now the family-of-three has moved on to bigger and better things: Kindergarten! “There are a lot of rules,” Courteney notes. “I mean, so many rules you can’t believe it.”
“You can’t bring certain snacks because other kids are allergic. You can’t wear certain clothes because, I’m not sure, they’re too risqué? I’m not sure. And, you know, Coco loves to dress up.”
Prior to the start of class Courteney attended a conference for parents where the rules were unveiled. “It’s an amazing school, but … David was out of town, we’ve been known to be late, and the lady was like, ‘I’ll say this: it’s very, very important for you all to be on time.”
When David returned from New York City the next day, he was anxious to handle Coco’s dropoff himself — but Courteney didn’t have a chance to debrief him on all she had learned. “He’s like, ‘I was a little late,’” Courteney recalls. “I said ‘How late?’ and he goes, ‘Fifteen minutes.’ ‘What time did you get there?’ ‘9 a.m.’ I said, ‘No, you weren’t 15 minutes late. It starts at 8:20 a.m. You were 40 minutes late!’”
The bad news didn’t end there, however! David went on to reveal that he dressed Coco in a spaghetti-strap top and packed the banned snack Pirate’s Booty in her lunch, as well.
“I said, ‘David, that’s three rules!’ Our communications went through a breakdown, but we’re gonna get through it. We’re going to get expelled.”

Once again, another pictureless update

Our lap top's battery completely died and since we are still in the process of buying a new desktop and ordering a new battery, I have to use my in-laws computer. I don't use it near as often as my own and obviously don't upload pictures on here, so another reason why my updates have been so scarce...and pictureless.

Corbin: I'm proud to say he wears underwear at night now and has been for some time. He has had a few accidents along the way and that's primarily due to his bladder "issues". I've taken him to a few doctors including a urologist and no one knows why the kid says his pee pee hurts and he has to pee all of the time. He's had blood work, numerous urine samples and even an ultrasound of his kidneys (we go in again on Monday for a more thorough ultrasound). I really don't know what the deal is since everything keeps coming back negative.
He has also started attending Tatum's school on Mondays and Wed mornings. He is in the special needs preschool program next door to Tatum's classroom which she loves. He receives speech therapy on those days. They have two special needs programs there. One for more typical needs such as speech delay (which is where Corbin is) and one for more severe needs. There are only 5 kids in his class with one teacher and 4 aids (not to mention his speech therapist who comes in on the days he's in class). So that is really nice! We went to his other preschools open house last night and saw all of the neat things he has been doing. Mrs. Jackie had the kids draw a picture (Corbin's was all scribbles of course) of what he sees outside and he said, "Motorcycles go boom, boom, boom and loud". Daryl and I were cracking up at that since he's been obsessed with motorcycles lately for some strange reason. Other than his bladder issue and small speech delay, he's really doing well.

Tatum: Tatum has joined a Daisy Girl Scout Troop at her school with a few of her friends. I was a Brownie and a Girl Scout, so it's only fitting that she does this as well :). Tatum has FINALLY learned how to ride without training wheels. We just got a bike trailer and will take the kids out occasionally (although I can't keep up with Daryl since I'm such a whimp on the bike). I have a feeling this won't last too long since Corbin is now pretty eager to ride without the training wheels on as well. Tatum is also reading really well. She's in the top percentage of her class with reading and everything else you would expect from a kindergartner. Her only downfall is she is always in a hurry to finish her work, so she can be a bit messy (so her teacher says), but I'm definitely not going to look down on that as long as she's excelling and not getting into trouble (which she's not...must be a girl thing lol). :)

Daryl: Just started on-line school last week and is doing really, really well. The guy is so book smart and if only I could steal just some of those brains I would. He painted this house with his uncle and cousin last week and then had 3 assignments all due and had pretty much one and a half days left to complete them and did. :)

Me: Am finally starting to really adjust to our new life. It was definitely pretty hard at first, but now that my brain is finally starting to work again (in school mode) and I am making friends, it's making things much easier. The people here are super nice and the weather is just starting to get cold (we have the heater on in the basement now and it's been on for a few days). I've talked to a few neighbors about how the electricity will go off for days in the winter and your just stuck since no one will plow the road back here...I'm really just trying to block those thoughts out of my head since that sounds like no fun.

Another Update (sorry no pictures this time)

While Daryl has been waiting for that company to call him (pretty much blowing everyone else off since they really didn't have any work for him anyway), he made the decision that maybe he should just make the most of his time while we are here and go back to school as well to finish up his degree. He has pretty much decided to stay away from anything construction related and has enrolled at Rio Salado online for the remaining of this semester taking accounting, a business class and another one..I think Psychology..not sure though... So in addition to helping me with my online Math class (which I am SO glad this is the last semester of that), he will be doing that. He's really thinking along the lines of Hotel Management..but he could still change. He's just too smart not to go back and do something else. Next semester he will have a pretty full load along with myself at CCC (he will eventually have to transfer on to NAU). We have been approved for financial aid (our special circumstances was approved) and he will now apply as well. We are definitely doing things backwards as far as marriage/family and going to school, but at least we are finally now doing it. He still may try and pick up something very pt, but we figured out our bills and what we need to live and we should still be fine despite everything. I know many of you have been curious as to what we are doing or are going to do, so I wanted to give you a brief update. Hope this answers any questions :)).

Oh and I forgot to add that that company decided to "finally" call him the day before he enrolled at Rio saying they just couldn't pay him what he was worth and didn't think they'd have the work for him come winter, but really wanted to hire him..but just couldn't. The guy who interviewed him didn't even have the gonads to call him, he had the guy from the Phx office call. Fine for us...this ended up working out well and I know that God has a plan for us and I really feel now that school is in "his" plan :). It also works out nice with the kids and organizing our time around school and around them not having to leave them at daycare for 40+ hrs a week while we are in school, since we can schedule classes at various times (or at least that's what we are hoping for).

Fair Time!

This was our first time at the Coconino County Fair. We have been looking forward to this for a few weeks now and our friends (the Moreno Family) have been wanting to come up, so we figured this would be the perfect opportunity to have them up. The best part was the livestock. There was a HUGE rain cloud over us the entire time, but only dripped a few times (but soaked our neighborhood). So we really lucked out!

This is Corbin's "smiling" face. He almost looks a little creepy when he does it lol. He's definitely not as photogenic as his sister. It's either this face, frowning or just looking in another direction altogether lol.

This is what our van read on the way home from the fair at 7pm. There was snow on top of Snowbowl as well..the pictures were just a little too blurry to post.

The girls first sleep-over.

Corbin enjoyed taking the boys (Max pictured) for some driving time. Corbin is now "officially" potty trained. He has been day trained for a while now, but night trained for a little over a month (Tatum didn't night train until 4 1/2, so this is awesome). He had one accident up here at night in his pull-up, but tell him he can't go driving the following day if he goes pee in his pull-up that night and that has really worked like a charm!

Eating kettle corn at Art in the Park (love it)!

Tatum is a hula hooping Queen now!

Finishing off our visit at Oregano's for lunch :)