2009 Christmas Card

I have been bitten by the digital scrapbooking bug. I love it but it's time consuming. Much slower than slapping stuff down on the page with some stickers. Here is what I came up with this year for our Christmas card. I absolutely love "Just So Scrappy" designs so here is what I did:



You gotta love the fact too that Costco allows you to print your own designs on their blank cards. Love it!!! Might just have to do this next year as well! So cheap but yet so cute!

Hopefully in the new year I will find some more time to scrap my favorite subjects!!

Thanksgiving

For the second year in a row, I had the entire week of Thanksgiving off. what a relief. we took the motorhome out to Palm Springs and enjoyed the week out there with the kids' godparents. The weather couldn't have been nicer and we had a great time. I think I took a nap almost everyday with the kids.

Janet and I decided to do a super easy turkey dinner....we all got reservations to the clubhouse dinner that they were having. Made clean up a real breeze. bummer was, no leftovers.

Janet was great with the kids and did crafts with them and also brought them pooping turkeys. The kids thought that was great fun. I was waiting for them to tell someone that they were eating poop!!

Janet also made a run to the super walmart one day and came back with a golf set for the kids. the back part of our spot was right on the golf course and a putting green. The kids had a blast with their golf set. although, they played more like it was hockey. can anyone say "happy gilmore!"

here are some pictures from the week:

It was a great week and we all packed up and headed home on Friday. The kids and I were all sick on the day we left. We spent the rest of the holiday weekend resting and getting ready for the next big holiday...Christmas! I just can't believe how fast the year is going.

Big Boy...This Ones for YOU!!

I saw this layout and had to post it. For whatever reason, Kyle has been walking around telling us, "gobble, gobble." Guess it's a little different than, "quack, quack." They are learning about Thanksgiving at school which makes sense. I can't believe we are already into November. My how the time flies.

As we were coming home from school yesterday, I was explaining to the kids about how at Thanksgiving, we look at all the things we are thankful for. I started it off and made some statement and then Brooke told me she was thankful for her cat and dog. Too cute. Kyle hadn't quite caught on but he gave me a silly answer this morning about being thankful for a toy. We'll have to work on that one!

We are going to go to the Harvest Carnival today at their school. Don't quite know what to expect so we'll have to wait and see. Hopefully they will have plenty of stuff for 3 year olds to do.

Trick or Treating

Halloween was such a blast this year. First of all, my parents came down and went trick or treating with the kids and I. We also had the neighbors over for some traditional stew dinner before we went out. We left the house about 6pm and didn't return until 7:30pm. My original intent was to just go down the block a little bit but the kids really got into it....especially Kyle. He had told me for about a week before that he didn't want to go trick or treating even after I told him that he would get candy. He was still afraid of the Halloween decorations at night. He was fine with them during the day but night time was a whole new ball of wax. He did great! He was even saying thank you to the people who were giving him candy without any coaching from mom! I was so proud of him!! After awhile though, their bags got pretty heavy with the candy and grammy and I ended up carrying them and handed them off to the kids when they went up to a house. It was a great family night. We came back to the house to have some cupcakes that our neighbor Laurie had made, hung out with family and friends and handed out candy until almost 10pm! I will post some pictures of the night later.

Let the Fright Fest Begin!!!!

OK, so Clark Griswald has apparently given me some pointers on decorating for the holidays. As my neighbor friend Michele told me last night, "it looks like Halloween definitely threw up on your lawn!" Too funny! I have been having a blast with it. It's always fun to make the holidays special for the kids. I just really want to teach them about being together for the holidays and making it special with family. When they grow up, I want them to have the same special memories that I do as a child. Here are some pictures of the outside of the house:


Ok, so my update now shows the pictures. I have 3 large inflatable scary things. Steve put the skull on the roof and it's mouth opens and clothes as well as the eyes spin around. The horse carriage is 15' long and 7' high. Love it AND it makes noise. The archway that the kids walk through is from last year and it also makes noise which is scary. I bought a new fogger this year and it is hooked up to a timer and the fogger has an attachment tube that has 3 hoses coming off of it. It hooks up to the 3 tombstones so the fog comes out of the mouth's of the guys on the tombstones and onto the grass which is my graveyard. I have 2 motion activated ghosts that dance around, a flying reaper which has yet to be hung, a skeleton hanging in the tree, and let's not forget the talking witch on the front porch. she dances back and forth while stirring her pot. She has that scary witch voice. Loved her from the moment I saw her. I will try to take some video and add it on here. It will be hard to capture it at night as we have strobe lights strategically placed. Should be a SPOOKTACULAR good time on Halloween. Kyle was surprised tonight on our way home that trick or treating meant that he would get candy at people's houses. Gotta love kids.

Road Trip to Lemon Cove

We headed up to Lemon Cove for the weekend to spend it with Steve's Aunt & Uncle and his cousin Susan and her family. Lemon Cove is about 20 minutes east of Visalia. Steve's uncle lives on some land....Twelve Oaks, and the kids were going to have the weekend to explore.

I decided to play hookie on Friday at work so we could head out the door. We waited out the traffic and piled 300 pounds of crap in the car. Thank God for big suburbans! You gotta love traveling with kids. I'm not any better as I packed the same 5 cup coffee pot we took on the cruise. The great thing about Uncle Bob and Aunt Jo's is they have little "casitas" on their property. We got the 2 bedroom on. We arrived about 2:30pm and the fun started. Uncle Bob had the electric cars out and ready to go. The kids jumped in the John Deere tractor and were off. They have a huge lawn that the kids could run around on and not hurt anything. Love it! It's so much better than telling the kids to be careful of the cars parked in the street at our house.

A little while later, Uncle Bob asks if the kids want to get on the "breezie." I have NO clue what this is. Well, it's a quad. Let me tell you, Kyle wanted nothing to do with it and of course after 2 minutes of riding it, Brooke wants to "do it by herself." The thing I love about Uncle Bob is that he is just a big kid himself and truly loves running around with the kids and playing. This is a 79 year old man who doesn't let green grass grown under his feet.
Susan and the kids arrive after she picks Bobby and Kelly up from school. They too also go to a private Christian school. It's a super hot day so we decide to head to the pool. In true fashion, we have every pool town in the pool and the kids are loving the swim boards that squirt water. Of course I am loving the fact that Susan is making margaritas and serving them up at the pool.

To the back of the pool is a pasture that has a horse named Blaze and 2 donkeys named Coco and Gus. Uncle Bob asks if Brooke wants to feed them carrots. Well of course she does. She goes over there in her bathing suit and isn't afraid to walk right up and give them some carrots. She sits on both donkeys and the horse all the while she is wearing a bathing suit.Steve brings over Kelly and Kyle in their bathing suits as well and here is Kyle standing on the fence with his water wings still on. Too funny!We decide to get dressed and go find Auntie Jo who is in the house. It was too hot for her to come out. We enjoy a great meal with family all sitting around the table talking and sharing stories. When it's time for bed, I think it was Bobby who asked his mom something and she said he would have to ask us. Well, he wanted to have a sleepover. Well, the entire theme for the weekend from everyone was, "Oh they're kids...let 'em do it!" So we said what the hell and all 4 kids piled into one room. Kelly is 6 yrs old and I believe Bobby is 7 yrs old. Of course, Kelly sacked out the first and Kyle was the last one to bed at 11:30pm at night. Oh well, it was their first sleepover and they were with their cousins having fun and watching movies.

The next day, almost all of us piled into Uncle Bob's truck to go out and see the cattle he has. I think he told us he has about 50. I am just tickled pink as we are having this good ole country family fun weekend. When we get out to the cattle, Steve and Bob are trying to get the bull....yes the BULL, to stop long enough so they can get a stick out of it's foot. The kids are in the back of the truck standing on the hay. It was a super hot day and there was absolutely NO breeze whatsoever! Plus I had told Brooke not to close the truck door and she looked right at me and did it anyway. Good thing it closed softly as her finger was in the door. It still got her pretty good and at this point she is loosing it since she was up so late last night. We headed back to the house to cool down. Susan was going to show us her and Rays house while the kids hung back. They live in a gorgeous house.Later on after the kids took a much needed nap, we all went in the pool again. I so wish we had a pool at our house but we don't. The kids love the water and are just animals in there. Good thing Ray was going to be cooking up some of his food since we all worked up an appetite. He was cooking ribs! Yummy! Before dinner, we headed out to the lawn since Ray brought out the kids' motorcycles. I think Steve had more fun on it. Brooke of course wanted to ride it by herself. It scares me that she is not afraid of hardly anything. After a superb dinner, we all called an early night as we were all exhausted for a busy day. But what a great day!

The next morning, we got up, had some breakfast and started to get our stuff together. We did fly some kites on the back lawn again and took a few more spins on the breezie and the John Deere. I even went out the horse pasture and up a hill with Brooke and was teaching her to lean forward and to lean with the bike. We packed up the car and headed home. It was a really fun weekend and we have already made plans to head back for Easter. What a great Easter egg hunt that is going to be on that back lawn!! I told Susan we'd have to get together before that since the kids had so much fun playing together!

Fall is Here

Fall is officially here so I thought I would have the blog match it. Too bad the weather is not cooperating. It is still HOT here in SoCal even though we are a few days past Labor Day. We are still hitting the 100 mark. The kids have started back to the fall session of pre-school and are already excited for the pumpkin patch field trip. The kids just LOVE school and I have a hard time getting Kyle out of there when I come to pick them up. He just doesn't want to leave. Guess it's a good problem to have. Halloween is already out in the stores and we already have our Halloween costumes. Brooke is going to be....wait for it....BIG SHOCKER.....a monkey and Kyle is going to be a spider. Which he pronounces, "sphighter." They came in the mail and I let them try them on and now they want to wear them all the time. Too funny. Hope everyone had a great 3 day weekend and hopefully somewhere they are enjoying the fall season!