The Lyon's Den

We have had a lot of changes in our family, in the past few months. We sold our house (which had an offer on it within a week of listing...thank goodness!)!! And we moved in with my parents. Aaron starts Chiropractic school on July 6th, at Life Chiropractic College West, in Hayward, CA. We have found a nice LDS family for him to rent a room from, while the kids and I stay with my parents. We're very blessed to have a family who is willing to take us in when we need help. While we've been here (since the beginning of May), we have celebrated 2 birthdays; Aaron turned 31, and Brielle turned 1, (I'm afraid the attitude came with it)!!! Kelman finished Kindergarten and had a very successful year. The boys all started swim lessons; but the twins switched to a different class which starts next week. Aaron has been very busy with school and still has 2 online classes to finish up before July. If anyone is a pro at Physics or Biochemistry, let us know! He is excited to start Chiropractic school and I am eager to get things moving. I have just been busy keeping up my new website, which I am going to take a break from because it took a lot of time. I think it was pretty successful for the short time I ran it. I made a little money, met some new people, and got some great deals. Now I'm working on focusing on the kids this summer, and get them learning some new things before school starts in the Fall. We're getting Carter and Brechin ready for Kindergarten! Yay for them and especially yay for me!!!! I've also been working on some weight loss for the past several months and have done fairly well. I've been a little stuck this past month, but I'm hoping to pick it up here. Brielle is cute as ever, and adored by everyone. She isn't the chunk she once was. She has gotten taller, and slimmed way down. So much that the DR. is a little concerned about her not gaining weight. She's just petite. About 2 weeks ago, we went on a nice vacation to the Bay area. We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, went Whale watching (got sea sick), we went to a cute little place called Gilroy Gardens (you should look it up; it was PERFECT for our little family), spent some time in San Francisco, and went on a Jelly Belly Factory Tour. All in all, it was a great week! We're excited for an upcoming Stubblefield Family Reunion in July, and are eager to see everyone!!

Brielle's 1 Year Birthday Picture

The Strawberry Shortcake Birthday cake, for our Strawberry Shortcake

Brielle's new baby doll, that she had to just KISS!!

Opening presents!!

Kelman in front of some of the falls at Gilroy Gardens

Brielle's favorite ride at Gilroy Gardens!

The Golden Gate Bridge in the background

The family at Lombard Street; the crookedest Street in the world (?)

Aaron wrestling at the Mechanical Museum at Fisherman's Wharf in SF

I know it looks like I've been a bad blogger, and it may be true; but I have started a new website that takes up all my blogging time. I blog several times a day at http://cleverhousewife.com. Some of you may be familiar with it already. I started this website as a way to help myself and others to start saving money. I inform others of all sorts of freebies and good deals online, and at your local stores. I hope you'll all stop by and you may even find something helpful. I actually even have a giveaway going on right now that you're welcome to go and enter. I'm giving away a cute St. Patty's Day shirt and a box of Lucky Charms. You can enter HERE.

In other news... Aaron has decided to go to Chiropractic School. He is working like crazy right now by going to 5 different colleges to get all of his prerequisites done by July. He is hoping to start Life Chiropractic West College in July. We're very excited about this plan and look forward to the adventure; well, parts of it. Kelman is doing well in school and is learning to read. I even go register the twins for Kindergarten tomorrow. I'm so excited!! I just hope the teachers can handle them. ;) They are little busy bodies who don't pay much attention to what I have to say. Carter and Brechin crack us all up and they always have tons of bumps and scratches that make it look like they've been in a cat fight. They have to learn things the hard way. Brielle is crawling now and is as cute as ever! That's us in a nutshell.

Here is a video of Brielle around Thanksgiving. She was crackin' up at the dog licking her arm, but even more when the dog would cry or squeal. My cute little doll baby! Aren't baby laughs just so cute?

Yes, I admit it; I've been a bad blogger. It's been over 5 months since my last post so I won't torture you all with all the details of those months. Here are the highlights.
August
The start of school for Kelman (Kindergartner) and Aaron (pre Masters)
The first month of school was great for Kelman. Way better than I expected. After the honeymoon wore off, there began to be only a few little anxieties. He is VERY particular about what he wears to school and will not go in the classroom wearing just anything. I've learned this the hard way. He is at the top of his class academically and behaves pretty well, but could be better. We're workin' on it.
School for Aaron has had it's positives and negatives. Psychology and Physiology were excellent and he did very well. Chemistry however, not so much. He'll be taking that again this next semester, but we just found out that his professor won't make him retake the lab. Yay. We'll take what we can get. He loved all of his professors and hopes he feels the same this next semester.
September
Brielle learned to roll over!! She started getting longer and only slightly thinner. Still a chunk. I don't think anything else really happened in September.
October
Our annual trip to Bishop's Pumpkin Farm; always fun. Brechin and Carter turned 4 and are even getting a teensy bit easier. (Knock on wood) And of course, Halloween. (Pictures to follow).
November
A trip to Apple Hill with Grandma Stubz. Brielle is sitting up and has beautiful long red hair (for a babe). Grandma Hawley (my grandma) turned 90 and we had a huge birthday bash with extended family, including a fantastic variety show. Thanksgiving. Aaron and my 7th anniversary. And I turned 26 (I think that's how old I am now). This was probably our busiest, but most fun month. I got to see all of my siblings and almost all of my nieces and nephews. Such a blast!
December
Kelman turned 6 AND lost his first tooth. Brielle got 4 teeth and developed the nickname Sissy Lou (which my mom and I heard for the first time at Apple Hill a few years ago, and loved). Busy Christmas planning and shopping. Many blessings. Santa brought many presents for our family and my mom and dad (at our house). We had the Nativity reinactment and Chinese Food on Christmas Eve, with my brother Jared and his kids. Those pictures are on my mom's computer. Aaron and Kelman have had lots of time off and we're enjoying eachother for the most part. Aaron has many projects he's been doing and more still to come before the next semester. I've been keeping busy with couponing and bargain hunting. I think I've been doing pretty well at trying to keep a normal lifestyle while sending Aaron off to school instead of work. I've learned a lot, and our food storage is doing great! I'm still teaching piano lessons and even start two new students this week.
Now it's off to the New Year!
Enjoy the pictures in Chronological order, with some videos mixed in.
Kelman's first day of school


Hopefully Aaron's last first day of school


Brielle at 3-4 months


Carter and Brechin - 2+2=4?


Halloween Highlights

Mario, Luigi, Wario, Princess Peach



Apple Hill


Variety Show with my mom and sisters - Aren't we talented?


Thanks Grandma Lyon for our cool pillowcases and dolly, and thanks to our cousins for our fun jammies!


Brielle found some bath toys in her stocking

Santa brought JUST what I wanted....a DS!!


We LOVE Nerf guns!!!


I'm just checkin' out my new toy.


Just a cute new video of the twins.


Happy New Year!!!

Lots of things have happened since my last post. I've also got a lot of pictures to show.

First off; Brielle has gotten BIG!! My first chub-o-luv. All of my boys were very average in size, but not this little girl. She has got ROLLS!! I love it too. She's an eater and she likes to be held a lot. She's not a great napper because she won't let anyone put her down and I don't have time to just sit and hold her all the time. She is however my best night sleeper as far as babies go. She does not by any means sleep through the night, but she'll have a good 5 to 6 hour stretch of sleep most nights. Too bad I'm not asleep for all of it. Her hair doesn't seem to be changing colors much either so I'm guessing it will be pretty red. We're going to get some professional pictures of her soon.

Next up - Kelman did a summer program at the Elementary school he will be attending for Kindergarten. It was called Smart Start, and was to prep kids for their first year of school. He did well and made some good friends. We were very surprised to find out his best friend was a girl. He's always been very anti girl/ girl things. They even got in trouble for holding hands sometimes. Very cute! He did still have some anxiety with drop off, but hopefully that won't last long into the school year. He starts the 17th. He's such a handsome little school boy.
As for the twins; they're still obsessed with Batman and Superman. We're kind of trying to break them of it because they throw many tantrums over the issue. I'm trying to get them interested in some other cool things right now - any suggestions??

Now for some BIG news.... Aaron is no longer employed. It's been quite the struggle to find out where we want to go from here. His construction company just wasn't able to stand this economy anymore. We feel like it's about time we get out of construction since this is the third job we've been through in the five years we've been out of school. We're trying to get Aaron into some prerequisites this Fall so he can apply for the Physical Therapy program for Fall 2010. Not going so well because all the classes are currently full. He's just going to have to show up the first day of school and hope people drop so he can get in. Wish us luck. Or if anyone has any other great ideas for a career choice that would suit Aaron, let us know.

Since Aaron has had so much vacation time we decided to take a nice long vacation; which we've never done (we kinda decided we would just be poor later). We ended up going to Idaho to visit Aaron's family, which had been a couple of years since we did that. We also took many day trips including going to Yellowstone. Our first stop was in Twin Falls on our way to Idaho Falls. We let the kids get some wiggles out at a Bounce House Arena type of place. They had a blast and it was the perfect thing for little boys who had been couped up in a car.




Our next adventure was going to the sand dunes around Idaho Falls. Aaron's brother Doug got to come with us and the kids had a great time with him. Unfortunately the sand was very hot on the feet so we didn't stay too long. Got a few pictures though.
Check out the cheeks!





Here's a random adorable Brielle picture


After a couple of days we headed to Yellowstone. The kids weren't too interested in all there was to see, but we still had a good time. They really enjoyed looking for all the different animals. We got fairly close to some elk and that was exciting. No buffalo though. =( We got to see old faithful; unfortunately we had to wait an hour and a half for it because we showed up right after it went off. We also went to the paint pots and saw a bald eagle.
Old Faithful

The paint pots - lots of hot stinky air

I got bangs!



Pretty scenery


Next we went to Aaron's cousin's cabin for a night. Aaron taught the boys to fish on his cousin's pond. It was beautiful up there and we loved every minute of it. Thanks Bob and Sandy for letting us stay!!






The next thing we got to do was meet up with a great college friend and let the kids play in the sprinklers together. I had fun visiting with you Kandis and wish we had pictures!! Can't wait to see you again!
Our next adventure was getting to go boating with Grandpa Lyon. We got to visit with Aaron's sister Kristie and her cute family at the lake. The boys got to see their daddy ski, and Kelman even went in a tube with Aaron.


The twins with their cousin Dallen


When we weren't going anywhere, we hung out, ate good food, and went to many garage sales with Grandma Lyon. We appreciate you putting up with us for so long and loved our stay.



We decided to drive home the Boise way, which added time but more adventure. We scheduled a train ride through Horseshoe bend with a Hogwarts theme. It was called the Frogwarts Express. This was right up my kids' alley. They dressed up as wizards and learned magic tricks while on the train. It was a great time. Everyone thought the boys were so adorable and looked like the Weasleys. We even had strangers taking their pictures. Some of the pictures are on a disposable camera which has not been processed yet - our camera died.



Kelman thought he was more of a dementor

This was the last of our adventures before we headed home. Now we're just getting done whatever house projects we can afford while Aaron has unlimited time. Wish us luck in our next adventures - school and poverty. =)