Alli's First Cross Country Meet

This year {to Mommy's great delight!} Alli decided to run cross country for her school.

I could not be more excited!!!  

My dream is that all three of the little fish will LOVE running as much as I do 

{or did before the three knee surgeries!} 

Thankfully, it is off to a great start as our Pink Fish loves to run and has really enjoyed practicing with her team at school twice a week since school started.

The whole family was super excited to watch her first meet this afternoon.

It was held at Bellarmine Prep and there were TONS of schools and kiddos participating.

So cool to see all the children excited to run!

We LOVED her uniform shirt, which says "Lord, watch over me today as I run".

Thanks to the bright yellow {and her bright pink shorts!} we had no trouble spotting her :-)

Although there are lots of kiddos on her team, they broke it down by gender and grade.

These four friends did such a great job running and cheering on one another.

Alli did such a great job running 1/2 a mile and finished strong ~ her smile was priceless!!!

She was so excited to get her ribbon and snack at the finish line :-)

Of course, she was happy to pose for pictures with her cheering section . . . 

Way to go Alli, we are so proud of you :-)

We are looking forward to many, many more years of XC meets!

Alli's first day of 2nd Grade!!!

After a fabulous summer vacation, today was the beginning of the 

As much as we all enjoyed our summer break, these three munchkins were pretty excited!

No more sleeping in, but then again, our kiddos think 7:30 is sleeping in so it's not too bad ;-)

All three were excited to get up this morning for school, of course, only Alli actually starts today!

It is so hard to believe that our sweet baby girl is now in 2nd Grade.  

Where did the time go???

She was happy to see her lunch packed and backpack ready to go when she came downstairs.

She requested ham and cheese frittata, apples, cheese, and bunny grahams for lunch :-)

She was a trooper taking pictures during breakfast and the annual tree pictures.

Then there were more pictures at school too . . . love that she loves having her pic taken!!!

She has her good buddies in her class and is super excited with her teachers!

She sat right down and got started on her word search.

All smiles when the boys and I left.

I cannot wait to hear all about her first day of second grade!!!

It's not even 10 and her brothers have asked 

at least 15 times when Alli will be home ~ they miss their big sis!

Guess we're all excited for her to come home :-)

Hop on Pop

This weekend, we had the pleasure of spending lots of time with Great Pop!

Making for some very happy little fish :-)

Since Barbie Gramma and Grandpa were off with friends, and Uncle Z was busy,

we got to spend the weekend with Great Pop and we had a blast doing it!

 As soon as Daddy got home from work on Friday, we headed over to his place for pizza and playing.

 The kiddos were having such a great time that they went to sleep pretty late.

Of course, as soon as they got up, they immediately headed down to see Pop.

In fact, every time we went looking for the boys, we usually found them snuggled up with Pop!

It was beyond precious and we are thrilled they have this time with their Great Pop.

Sunday afternoon, we took the kiddos to Wild Waves for rides and swimming.

All three munchkins had fun on the rides.

 And loved when they could all ride together :-)

 While Alli and Daddy went on the ferris wheel, the boys rode space ships.

I couldn't believe they were both big enough to go alone and didn't want/need Mommy.

It was a hoot watching Lukey up there, who was always a bit higher than his big bro.

He was waving and grinning nonstop!

After exhausting the rides, it was off to the pools where the kiddos had fun swimming and splashing.

The wave pool was the biggest hit but given that both boys had colds, we decided to head home early.

Back to have dinner and play with Pop so no complaints out the little fish :-)

What a fun weekend with special memories.

Diapers are a thing of the past!!!

This incredibly adorable little man is now a proud member of the big boy undies club!

Although he is still two, Lukey desperately wants to go to preschool in the Fall just like big brother.

Eli's school agreed to put him in the 3's class despite not being 3 because they saw how ready he was this year as he begged to stay in school with his big bro each day BUT the caveat was that he had to be fully potty trained.  I truly thought this would be a deal breaker but we explained to Luke that if he wanted to go to school (he does!), he had to go big boy potty.

I planned to start it in August but the Wednesday (July 23rd) after we got home from Disneyland, 

I got the crazy idea that I might as well just give it a try then so on went the undies.

So I couldn't turn back, I had Eli take all of our diapers down to our neighbor for her little guy.

We decided to use the 3 Day Potty Training method with Luke since we had a deadline.

It definitely took longer than three days but in less than a week, he figured it out!

We tried M-n-Ms as the potty prizes with little excitement but he was all over stickers.

A friend had given us a bunch of Toy Story Stickers and Luke found them July 28th.

When he asked if he could have one, I said sure when he went potty.

Well he was all over that!

Beginning that morning, he would come running to tell me when he had to go potty.

He is even staying dry all night now :-)

Who knew that printing out a picture of Buzz Lightyear and putting stickers on it could be so cool?!?!

The ultimate potty prize was a big Buzz Lightyear toy just like Eli's from Disneyland.

Lukey finally earned that this week and the boys LOVE playing "big Buzz" together.

Although it is hard to believe we are done with this "baby" stage, the diapers will NOT be missed.

We are all so proud of our big boy!!!

Fishing with Uncle Danny and Cousin Kyle

This little man was so excited to go fishing with his Uncle Danny today,

even better was that cousin Kyle was going too!!!

The trip was made even better by Uncle Danny getting him his very own Spiderman fishing pole!

The pole worked great at catching little fish and only had to be fished out of the lake once itself ;-)

Last year, after seeing the little fish cooked up, Eli was convinced Uncle Danny stole his fish,

so this year, Uncle Danny suggested they clean the fish together {at our house!} so Eli could see how small they really are after being cleaned and cut.  Eli loved the idea so I agreed ~ yuck!

But there was NO way I could refuse this sweet little face!

So my kitchen smells fishy and scales everywhere since Eli was in charge of scaling the fish.

He took his job so seriously and was beyond excited to be one of the big guys.

What fun!

Little brother was none too impressed that he was not invited this year . . . perhaps next year.

Uncle Danny is such a great uncle and these kiddos are so lucky to have him!!!

San Diego Visit = F.U.N, fun!!!

It may have been 2 years since our last visit, but you would never know it by these two!

Seriously, they picked right back where they left off, as did the rest of the crew.

How adorable are these 7 cuties?

As a comparison, here they are the last time they were all together . . . 

They look so little and Lukey wasn't even born yet!!!

We have had the greatest visit with the Lynch family the last couple days.

Rather than try to do everything, we stayed at their house and played in the pool, 

having THE BEST time!!!

All three of the kiddos LOVED the pool and so did their parents!

There was a ledge that Lukey thought was the kiddie pool and he had a blast.

He even called it "Lukey's pool" ~ of course they built it just for him ;-)

 He finally jumped in and swam with Mommy.  I even got him to practice kicking, crab walking, blowing bubbles, floating on his back and jumping.  Woo hoo!!!

The girls were all so excited that I got in the pool they insisted on taking a picture :-)

As it turns out, Eli is quite the little fish and loved jumping in and diving.

He and Abigail played for hours diving for toys and jumping.

The kiddos got in the water first thing this morning and didn't get out until almost dinner time.

Lukey wanted a snack and then crashed while eating it by the chair ~ too cute!

After dinner, Mrs. Lynch was sweet enough to make brownies for Eli ~ he loved the attention!

Big sis thought this was pretty great too!

After all the swimming and fun, Eli crashed HARD after dinner.

The kiddos didn't miss a beat playing together this morning . . .

 Though they were not quite two the last time they saw each other, you would never know that by the way they took to each and played together all weekend!

Could these big sisters be any cuter???

Alli's joyful face completely sums up our weekend visit.

Thank you for an AMAZING visit Lynch fam!!!

For more San Diego pictures, check out our photo site.

Jurassic Park, Fisher Style

All three little fish are very into dinosaurs right now, just take a look at the sandbox . . . 

Love watching their imaginations at work!

Beach Babes

It has been a fabulous beach season already!

The G Fisher Fam LOVES spending the night at the beach, 

and the little fish finally sleep well out there, all three sharing a room :-)

One of our favorite parts of our time out there is exploring outside together and NO technology.

Our cell phones get NO service out there and we LOVE it!

Last Saturday, after G got home and Lukey woke up from his nap, we drove to Treasure Island.

We all got in our swimsuits and headed to the beach.

Mommy was very slow to get in the water, but just when it looked like Daddy would start swimming first, Mommy dove in and the whole family swam to the dock.  Alli and Lukey LOVE swimming and being in the water ~ Eli, not as much but he was a trooper.

Daddy and Eli decided to explore on the beach, while Mommy, Alli and Lukey stayed in the water.

Once you're in, it feels great!

The pictures are blurry but provide proof that Mommy really was playing in the water!

Luke was a hoot, for the longest time, he had his legs in the water kicking but then decided to hop up and lounge, kicking Mommy and Alli in the process :-)

While on the beach, Daddy taught Eli how to find tons of little crabs under rocks ~ very cool!

The next morning, all three munchkins went right back to the beach to hunt for crabs.

That evening was interesting as we forgot Lukey's binky but he told us it was okay.

While we were on the raft, he told me and Alli, "it's okay, I can suck my thumb."

Well, he didn't suck his thumb and didn't go to sleep until 10pm but he wasn't upset.

Alli, being the great big sis she is, snuggled him in his bed for a long time, which Luke LOVED.

Eventually, she was so tired, she went up to her bunk and we pulled Luke out to snuggle.

He fell asleep in Mommy's arms and did great the whole night ~ YEAH!

After breakfast and beach fun, it was time to head to church.

Such a perfect and peaceful beach trip!

Books, Spinning and Chocolate

Need I say more???

After VBS today, we went to the library to pick up some books the kiddos had on hold.

We got there about 15 minutes before the library opened so we walked over to "dizzy" park.

The three of them LOVE spinning :-)

Since we were going to the library, no arguing when I said it was time to go ~ score!

After getting the books, the kiddos said they wanted ice cream and I decided to say "YES!"

{Note that this gave me super cool mom status for the afternoon}

We walked to the new public market and found ice cream.

Alli is her Mommy's girl . . . choosing vanilla, while the boys wanted chocolate.

As we were getting the ice cream we ran into two of our favorite people:

Pastor George and Norma, we were all thrilled.

After visiting a bit, we headed back toward the marina to enjoy the ice cream.

Needless to say, Lukey got a tubby as soon as we got home!

Fun afternoon!!!

The Dock is in!!!

Thanks to Daddy's amazing attitude and willingness to swim at night :-)

In order to get the dock in the water, the tide has to be really high, which was happening around 8pm!

Luckily, he had some cute little helpers to help push the dock.

But he was on his own in swimming ~ Barbie Pop Pop stayed in sweats.

Good thing Daddy is such a good sport!

 Alli was waiting on shore with a towel for her Daddy, then it was time for s'mores, which were enjoyed by all but Lukey, who was VERY tired by this point ~ way past bedtime!

Ready for another great beach season with the dock!