tad's tuft and ninja kicks.

something matt and i have never agreed upon is how to cut our boys' hair.

i like to grow it out.

matt would love to shave their heads.

i win. always.

tad has always had a tuft of hair right on the top on his head that is longer then the rest.

matt wanted to cut it off like 8 months ago.

i said no.

he still wants to cut it off.

and i still say no!

it is getting a bit out of hand these days though!

but i bet we could style it into a nice donald trump hairdo come halloween time if we keep it up.

the other day, we were driving out to calabasa's to spend the night with the green's (good friends we made last time we lived here, and who we loved catching up with!) when tad kicked out chet's front tooth!

literally.. kicked it right out.

chet was sitting next to tad in the car and was leaning over tad to entertain him, and tad's legs were just so excited that they kicked chetty in the face and knocked his tooth right out.

chet handled it so well. and he was pretty thrilled to be getting more money from the tooth fairy.

now he has both of his top front teeth missing and i am anxious to see how the new ones will grow in.

i had all sorts of orthodontic work when i was younger to get my pretty smile, and matt had absolutely none to get his handsome one.

my fingers are crossed that our boys get their teeth genes from him!

"i miss the snow in canada"

we are back to being a 1 car family since we moved south.

other then the first year of our marriage, we have only ever owned one car.

we were good at sharing during matt's school years, and i just learned to live without when we lived in california last time.

the past 2+ years we got to have a work truck for matt to drive, so we didn't need to buy our own.

unfortunately, we had to give that back when matt changed companies.

lame.

so the plan was to buy a new car before we left calgary.. and then right when we arrived.. and then like 4 different times since we got here.. but we've still got nothin'.

so when matt takes our car to work, the boys and i walk.

we walk to all sorts of stores, the library, parks.

today i just realized that i am in walking distance of a target! so we walked there. obviously.

i really love walking with my boys.

i love that we all get exercise, and that we are forced to chat, and that they have the time to check out the world around them.

and i have always made sure we have a wicked nice stroller to accommodate that love.

but it has been a little hotter then ideal for walking these past couple weeks for our canadian children!

hopefully next summer our boys will be a bit more used to the climate here.

the other day, while walking in the heat of the day, holden said, "i miss the snow in canada."

and i thought it was a pretty cute comment!

we're not in calgary anymore..

this morning the boys were playing 'surfers and lifeguards' with their lego men.

last week, on our walk to the park, we walked past a street that was blocked off to film something.

then, at the library, i met a young mom who is instagram-famous, and whose tutorials i have totally tried out.

matt works at a temporary office (until the one at the LAFC stadium site is ready) so he eats lunch at the universal studios crew cafeteria, overlooking the harry potter area.

we have palm trees in our front yard and 'pet' lizards in our backyard.

we have spent 2 full days at the beach, visited the griffith observatory, shopped at target, seen the hollywood sign, and have heard more honking and helicopters since we arrived then we have heard in the past 2 years!

so ya, i'd say we aren't in calgary anymore :)

we are enjoying getting to know our area.

our neighbors have all been so friendly and welcoming.

our next door neighbor even baked us scones - which seems like such a neighborly thing to do!

we live within walking distance of a handful of cute parks, a few grocery stores, more restaurants then you can even imagine, a library, and lots of homeless people.

when we were looking online for a place to live here, we often saw the word "charming" used to describe things.

matt and i liked to make fun of the usage of that word.

but, now that we are here, i gotta say it's a pretty accurate word for where we are!

charming.

the street we live on is old. a neighbor a few houses down has lived there for 50+ years, kinda old.

the houses are small and the trees are big.

tad's first time touching the ocean!.. was a bit chillier then he was expecting.

i like how this picture is 0-3 for open eyes!

see the hollywood sign in the middle of the background?

(holden is throwing a tantrum in the background. it was embarrassing.)

all the help.

we were so so spoiled with help during our move.

our leavitt family was so helpful when we were getting ready to go - they took our kids so we had time to get things done, helped us clean our house, and helped us load our truck on moving day.

we owe them big time!

my parents were also super helpful.

my dad did a swap with the boys on i.

he flew to great falls and drove the u-haul with matt, while the boys and i flew to gilbert and then did that little(r) drive over to our new home with my mom.

my parents helped us unpack, find the appliances our house was missing (apparently that's normal in LA!), tidy, get set-up, entertain the kids.. and so on.

this move would have been a billion times harder without all the help from our family.

so, thank you family!!

my parents were with us in our new home for a week and i only have a couple pictures proving it. oops.

this is my dad hanging with the boys under our avocado tree.

this is my mom reading with the boys are our new library.

photo dump

here are some random recent pictures from my phone..

this was holden's neat idea!

sexy topless tad.

matt has been sporting fanny packs a lot lately (as seen above).

this should probably not surprise me after looking through some pictures from his teenage years as we were packing up..

this is him shopping in the little girls section with the mullet he grew out in high school (to be funny, by the way).

so gross!

tad's 2 bottom teeth. he has 1 poking through on the top too.

molly and holden at heritage park.

tad celebrating canada day.

this is one of my favorite pictures of little chet and holden. chet is just so chill as he watches TV with his arm around holden..

so it made my heart so happy to see holden doing the same to tad the other day!

first day back in america.

we decided to split up for the journey down to our new home. 

we all drove to great falls together, and then matt (and tank) finished the rest of the drive with my dad while the boys and i flew to gilbert to spend a couple days with my mom and avoid 15 hours of the drive.

we flew with allegiant, so i should have known we would have some delays.

but it was still super depressing when our 8:30pm flight got pushed back to 11:30 pm. 

tad was a total jerk because he refused to let me get comfy on the flight - every time i tried, he woke up - so i was tired.. he was tired.. the big boys were tired too.

oh well.. we made it there in one piece and had a really fun time with my mom.

our first day there was july 4th  (as if there is a better day to move to america then the most american day of all!)

that night, we got dressed in patriotic attire that my mom got for us, and headed off to a july 4th celebration.

at the end of the night there was a 30 minute firework show that the boys somehow managed to stay up to watch.

chet loved it the most.

now we are in our new home, in pasadena, and i will have lots to share about that soon!

before we left.

this is tad sitting in our empty home, just a couple hours before we packed up and left.

he is sitting on a tiny blanket, in a big empty room, playing with the couple random baby-friendly things we hadn't shoved in a box yet..

and he is still smiling!

every time we move to a new home, i kick myself for not doing a great job documenting our old one.

we have never lived in anything fancy, and have never had extravagant things to decorate our homes with, but they are our home. and they hold a lot of precious memories.

i always think it would be fun for our boys to look back and see what their room looked like when they were younger, or where they learned how to walk, or how tacky (they will think, in 20 years) their mom's decorating taste was.

this time, i told myself, 'pam, don't be an dummy. take pictures before you pack up'.

so i took a couple of our main floor...

and then i forget with the rest of our home!

dummy.

if you noticed a lot of letterboards floating around our home, it is not because i have obsessive issues with letterboards. it is because we have been working on starting up business selling them!

so get ready to buy your own soon :)

our final shindig.

we had one final shindig with all the leavitt family, before we left calgary, down in fish creek park.

we had a picnic and played games.

it was lots of fun!

6 of the 7 leavitt siblings..

19 of the 21 leavitt cousins..

soccer is over.

the boys finished up soccer just a couple days before we left town. perfect timing.

there was a big soccer jamboree scheduled for the last weekend, where the kids would receive their medals, play in bouncy houses, participate in fun competitions, and eat tasty food.

unfortunately, the saturday it was planned for was cold and rainy.. so they pushed it to sunday.

and sunday started out even rainy-er!

holden's time slot was right first thing in the morning. and we got drenched!

most of the team didn't end up showing up (don't blame them) so the coach quickly tossed the medals around the kids and we headed out.

chet's time slot was a bit later in the day and the rain kinda let up by then so we got to enjoy some of the fun activities that were planned.

again, most of the team didn't show up, so the medal ceremony was even more informal then holden's, but chet still had a fun time.

there was never a more misfit team then the tigers - the timid kid, the punch-throwing kid, the slide-tackling kid (no matter how many times he was told it was against the rules) , the kid who always wore dark sunglasses, the kid who showed half way through the game/practice every single time, the talented kid, and the kid whose jersey fit him like pooh bears shirt and who always kicked his leg so high he kicked other kids in the head.

i swear they could make a movie about this team!

i am excited to get the boys back into soccer soon.

chet is a kindergarten graduate.

i can hardly believe that chet is all done kindergarten.

of course i am happy that he is done because that means it is SUMMER!

but, at the same time, i am sad he is done because that means he is onto first grade next year.. and that sounds so old.

our little chetty is growing up.

chet had an AWESOME experience this first year of school.

he loved going to school, he had an amazing teacher, and he made some really nice friends.
he especially liked riding buses to field trips, when the school had special hot lunch days, book fairs, recess, choosing books to bring home from the school library, and days where they did show and tell.
some of his best friends at school were diesel, griffin, and aiden.

i loved looking at all the crafts chet completed this year when he brought them home on the last day.

we are so proud of chet for all he accomplished this year.

on their last full day school, the kindergartners got to go swimming, have an outside pizza party, and have a magician put on a show in their classroom.
pretty great last day, huh?!
holden, tad, and i joined in on the swimming and pizza party.
i thought chet might want me to be there to help him, but he totally didn't need me!
he went off and swam and ate with his friends.
it was bittersweet.
i kinda wished he needed me, but i sure loved seeing him be so confident in himself and seeing him being silly with his buddies.

we were very sad to say goodbye to red deer lake school when we moved.

chet, me, chet's teacher (mrs. ozimko), and the teacher's assistant (mrs. parsons) were ALL crying when i picked him up from his classroom on the very last day of school!

we sure hope we can kind a new school here in pasadena that will live up to red deer lake.

chet is getting scammed out of 2 weeks of summer this year because school starts up 2 weeks earlier in california then it did back in alberta.

he doesn't mind. but i bet he would if he were a few years older!

first day:

last day:

holden's 4th birthday.

holden got to have his birthday party with one of his favorite people, chase.

we let the boys pick the theme, and they chose dinosaurs.. so dinosaurs it was!

marci made a fun dino cake and cute party favors, matt carved a watermelon into a t-rex head, we organized a couple dino-themed activities (the most unsuccessful ones were courtesty of pinterest. thanks pinterest.), and the boys thought it was awesome.

i didn't do a very good job of documenting the party (i plan on stealing marci's professional grade photos one day!), but here are a couple for now.

that holden is a cutie.

he sure has his super nasty moments but, 97% of the time, he is such a sweet little guy.

he has a handsome smile that is, oh, so contagious.

i love his laugh that comes right from his gut.

holden loves to work and be helpful.

he is independent.

he is a messy eater.

he loooves gum and candy.

he could eat a whole watermelon, if we let him.

he is creative - he comes up with the cutest lego creations and draws the loveliest works of art.

holden is such a kind big brother. he never runs out of patience with tad and is always willing to share his most special things with tad.

he is actually good at sharing with everyone. one of his birthday gifts was $25 (a $5 bill and a $20 bill). when holden saw that he had 2 bills, and chet had none, he immediately gave 1 to chet. he even gave chet the bigger one! haha so matt and i fixed that real quick.

he is a supportive little brother. holden is always so happy for chet and is always up to play the games chet creates.

he is ready to play the moment he wakes up, and plays hard all day.
he touches everything when we go to the grocery store. drives. me. nuts.
he loves to be outside.
he doesn't mind getting a little dirty.
he is a total wimp with cold temperatures, like his mother!

he can be kinda cheap with his hugs, but he is a really good snuggler when he's in the mood.

he hurts himself daily hourly. 

he likes to ride his bike, build lego, do crafts of any kind, bake, go for walks, learn new things, and read books.

his best friends are his brothers and his fellow little cousins (chase, molly, penny).

he will forever be the middle child in our family.
HOLDEN IS FOUR!

i know i say this every time our kids hit a new milestone, but i honestly can't believe he is 4.

i can remember him joining our family like it was just yesterday.

holden is a very special part of our family.

i am so happy he got to have a such fun party to celebrate his big day!