Just a reminder that the photos are now all on Flickr and you’ll need to log in in order to see all of the pictures with people in them. Please see the previous update for information on how to sign up.

In case you haven’t already heard, Shannon and I are happy to announce that we’ll be adding one more member to our family. Shannon is due at the end of March and we are planning on keeping the gender a surprise.

I hope everyone had a good summer and I’ll try to be better about keeping up on the pictures

I will continue to occasionally post blog updates here, but have decided to move all of our photos to a family account on Flickr. The pictures that are currently on shannonmartin.com will remain for the foreseeable future. There are a few main reasons why I have decided to use Flickr for our photos:

• The ability to comment on our photos
• The ability to easily order prints online of our photos
• Security: only Friends and Family will be able to see pictures containing people
• Storage: Flickr offers unlimited storage (and we have about 30GB of photos to upload)
• Usability: Flickr offers a user friendly interface that is easy to use and navigate
• My Time: I can upload everything to one site and won’t have to worry about emailing pictures to people

Just to reiterate – you will not be able to see pictures with people until you have signed up for Flickr and have been added as a Friend or Family.

By the time you read this, I will already have sent out invites to many of you, but if you have not received one, below is the information on how to sign up:

If you already have a Flickr account, just add us as a contact and we’ll set the appropriate status. If you do not have a Flickr account, go to the Flickr homepage (http://flickr.com) and click on “Create Your Account” on the upper right-hand side.

If you already have a Yahoo account, just enter your Yahoo! ID and password. If not, click on the “Sign Up” link under the “Don’t have a Yahoo! ID?” section.

If you have any problems or questions, let us know!

My (Eric) Flickr account
Our new family Flickr account

If you would like to help support their school, there are a couple of different options:

1) Buy a raffle ticket for the chance to win a 2008 Smart Car, valued at $14,500. Tickets can be purchased online at http://www.rosevillecommunitypreschool.org and prices are as follows:

1 ticket = $10
3 tickets = $25
7 tickets = $50
15 tickets = $100
35 tickets = $200

2) Attend the auction. The auction is at the Holiday Inn in Sacramento on Saturday, February 21, 2009 from 5:30 – 10:00 pm and tickets are $50 each. Download an event registration form

3) Become a sponsor (pdf form). Details included in the form.

This is Cooper’s second (and last) year at the school and Caden’s first. We love the school and everything is stands for and hope that our friends and family would consider helping out. The money helps keep the tuition reasonable, purchases art supplies, helps out families with tuition scholarships, helps with continuing education for teachers, plus much more.

Roseville Community Preschool Background and History
Roseville Community Preschool was founded in 1962 in a single story building as a parent/child playgroup. The building had a few windows, a cement floor, and no yard and was located in the far corner of the Placer County Fairgrounds.

In 1966, one of the parents, Bev Bos, took over as director of the playgroup and turned it into a parent cooperative preschool. Over the next 40 years, the school continued to evolve as Bev obtained a degree in early childhood education. Bev is now an internationally-renowned child educator and lecturer specializing in early childhood development.

Roseville Community Preschool continues to be a parent-participation preschool. Its philosophy encourages open play in a free flowing environment and allows children to explore their limits at their own pace. The environment, inside and outside, is rich in the materials young children require to grow physically, intellectually and emotionally. Every day children have the opportunity to explore, discover and “wallow” in all of the education disciplines through their play. Parents take an active part in their child’s education by fulfilling required one-day-per-week classroom participation as well as other commitments including: school maintenance, monthly parent meetings, and fundraising activities.

The Roseville Community Preschool staff, directed by Bev Bos, has established a truly child-centered learning space based on the philosophy that:

“Experience is not the best teacher, it is the only teacher!”

They are particularly fluent in the following areas: art, science, language, music, play environments, gardening, brain development and child development.

Roseville Community Preschool consists of four half-day classes of 24 students each, with two teachers and eight parents working during each session. The ages of the students range from two-years-nine-months to six years old. Due to high demand, there is always a waiting list. The fundraising activities help to ensure that a quality preschool experience is accessible for all families.

January

• The boys enjoyed all of their Christmas gifts from 2007
• A storm caused one of our trees to fall over
• Trip to the Sacramento Railroad Museum

February

• Cooper started riding a bike without training wheels
• Caden started riding a big boy bike (with training wheels)
• Shannon celebrated her birthday

March

• The boys first trip to the snow
• Celebrated Easter

April

• Trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s (Ron and Lisa) house in Oakdale
• Trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s (Gail and Roger) house in Novato

May

• Cooper turned 4 and had two parties
• End of Cooper’s first year of pre-school
• Trip to Fairytale Town

June

• Trip to visit Grandma Penny (and family) in Colorado – the boys first experience on a plane
• Rocklin Jubilee

July

• 4th of July & kids parade
• Cooper takes up photography

August

• I got a new camera (Nikon D40)
• Trip to Monterey, Carmel-by-the-Sea and Gilroy
• Trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s (Ron and Lisa) house in Oakdale
• I took Cooper for his first bowling experience
• Shannon took the boys to the Folsom Zoo
• Shannon and Caden went to the Ridgewood Rec 50-year Anniversary
• Cooper and I met Grandpa Ron for the Oakland A’s/Minnesota Twins game

September

• Caden and Cooper start preschool – it’s Caden’s first year
• Caden turned 3
• Caden “breaks” his leg the day after his birthday

October

• Annual trip to Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm
• Halloween – they boys were superheros!

November

• Trip to Fairytale Town
• Thanksgiving

December

• Trip to Novato/Petaluma for Noah’s 1st Birthday
• Trip to the Flower Farm Inn to get a Christmas tree and visit Santa
• Grandpa and Grandma visit with Cousin Kiana
• Christmas!

It was a very busy year, packed with a lot of firsts and new adventures. We’re looking forward to a great 2009 and wish all of our friends and family a very Happy New Year!

Cooper was soooooo excited for Christmas this year – he had a very hard time going to sleep Christmas Eve and was up at 4am Christmas morning. Despite all of our talks about waiting for the entire family, he snuck out to see if Santa had come and then ran into our room announcing that he had!

It was fun watching how they each opened their gifts. Cooper would open one and then play with it for a while before opening the next. Caden tore open each one and then played with them all afterwards. It is fun to see their personalities come out in different situations.

Here is a video of Cooper and Caden getting their “first look”:

The rest of the Christmas videos are on YouTube.

Our gallery is now up to date with everything that happened in December:

• Trip to Novato and Petaluma for Noah’s 1st Birthday
• Trip to The Flower Farm to pick out a Christmas tree and visit with Santa
• Gingerbread houses, Christmas goodies and decorating our Christmas tree
• A visit from Grandpa Ron, Grandma Lisa and Cousin Kiana!
• The Frenches Christmas Party
• Christmas Day

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

PS – Congratulations to Molly and Steve on their engagement!

They include a trip with Grandma (Lisa) and Grandpa (Ron) to Fairlytale Town in Sacramento. Growing up in Sacramento, I went there quite often as a kid, so it is always fun to go back.

More November and December pictures coming soon!

Pumpkin Carving: The boys carved their own pumpkins this year. Caden just hacked away and was very proud of his work. Cooper on the other hand got frustrated and wanted us to help him. It’s fun to see their different personalities at work I carved the WordPress logo (the software that runs this blog) into a pumpkin and it ended up receiving a lot of attention from the WordPress community. [Pictures]

Halloween: Shannon made some awesome super hero costumes for the boys; they were Super Cooper and Super Caden! Despite raining all day, the rain subsided just long enough for us to get our trick-or-treating in. [Pictures]

Other news: the day after Caden had his splint taken off, Cooper woke up in the middle of the night with a 104 degree temperature. Then, the next day, he had a really bad cough – turns out he has croup. In recent days, Caden has had a high temperature as well, but no sign of a cough…yet!

Photos: I finished adding all of our photos from September and started adding photos for October.

Sept 3rd was the boys first day of preschool, Cooper’s second year and Caden’s first! What a milestone! The boys go three days a week, so Shannon has two days each week to enjoy a couple hours of quiet

Here’s the traditional first day of school pictures from the last two years:

Then on the 13th, we had the friends and family over to celebrate Caden’s birthday. Shannon made an awesome snake cake and the party was a blast. Here are a couple pictures from the party:

Then, on his birthday, we had a small family party. We had Caden’s favorite, In-n-Out and even put a candle in his cheeseburger! Caden got so many great gifts, but one of my favorites was a big-wheel – it brought back a lot of childhood memories.

Which brings up to today…after all of the excitement that September has brought Caden, today was a tough day. This morning, we took the boys to a nearby park. I had planned on reading the newspaper while the boys played, but decided to join them on the playground. I took Caden down one of the big slides, which he was apprehensive about, but I convinced him to do it. The ride down was a little rough and both of Caden’s Crocs were torn off on the way down. Regardless, he climbed right back up to the top of the three-story slide and begged me to take him again.

Going against my intuition, I conceded to a second trip. Despite my best efforts to keep him safe, on the way down Caden’s leg got jammed somehow and I heard a pop/snap sound as we went around one of the turns. I immediately knew something was wrong and told Shannon that we needed to go to the hospital.

We raced to the emergency room with Shannon sitting next to Caden trying to console him during the (what seemed like forever) drive to the hospital. After two rounds of x-rays, we got the bad news – he has a buckle fracture on his left tibia, right below his knee. Because the break/fracture is on a weight bearing bone, the doctor said that he needs to stay off of his feet for 4-6 weeks!

He just turned 3, started school, got a new big-wheel and now is being told that he can’t walk, run or ride for the next 4-6 weeks!!! He’s in a splint right now and will most likely be getting a cast on Tuesday. A big thanks to the Frenches for watching Cooper during the 4 hours we spent in the emergency room and for lending us the wagon that will now be Caden’s main living space for the next month or so. Cooper has been such a loving and concerned big brother – but I think all the attention on Caden is tough for him.

The gallery has been updated with August and September pictures. Here are a couple of Caden with his “owie”.

So, wish us luck over the next few weeks and pray for sleep and quick healing for Caden. I know it is going to be so tough to keep him off of his feet!

Last year, I took Cooper to visit a Twins / A’s game with Grandpa (my Dad). Although Cooper isn’t quite old enough to really “get” baseball, I thought it would be great to try and catch a Twins / A’s game every year as a tradition.

This year Cooper did great and we left around the 7th inning with the Twins winning 8-1! He was very tired and passed out just minutes after we left and slept the entire way home. Here are pictures from our last two trips:

While we were at the Twins game, Shannon took Caden to Novato for the anniversary party. They had a great time and got to visit with all of the people who have lived on the street over the years.

It’s weird when we split up like that and take the kids different places, but everything worked out. The kids were completely thrown off by our adventures and it took them a week or so to get back on schedule…but what else is new