Happy Birthday

to MCKENZIE!!!!!

My little doodle bop turns 8 years old today!

This little girl is growing up just way too fast! My little baby is not so little and not such a baby :)

She is totally adorable and full of attitude! An interesting combo some days. Her best friend is still Emily. They have been friends since they were three and went to preschool together.

McKenzie's plans for this birthday are a little different from past years. Usually her and Emily go to the purple slide McDonald's and then to the Children's Museum. Last year they went to Build A Bear instead and used their Gift Certificates from Christmas. This year....They are going to Jump Around Fun Zone and McDonald's. Jump Around has 4 or 5 inflatable jumpy houses and slides. I have a gift cert. for them that I will use.

Have a great last day of 2009! I will not write again in my blog until next year because I will be very busy the rest of this year! :)

Enjoy the rest of the year!

Homemade Snuggies

This is the homemade Suggie that Katherine made for Dexter. It is very hard to make a snuggie for a tall person, but I think Katherine did a pretty good job :) His arms will not get cold. At all. I was sitting down on the floor and looking up at him so the picture is more extreme than it probably would be. I still think that she did a fabulous job!

FAmily

Here is the most normal-est family picture of everybody today. I am excited that we were able to take a picture of all of us! It is very rare now with us all working different shifts and some of us (Mikey!) living so very far away! :) It took a bit of bribing, arm twisting, and duct tape to get them all to stand in some sort of order and smile at the camera, but we did it! :)
I love my crazy family!
Have a Merry Christmas! It is off to work tomorrow!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

We are having a very Merry Christmas! The girls were up at 6 AM!!! I made them wait in their room until 7am. Then they opened their stockings and then we all opened gifts. They were very excited with what they got. I have to say that the favorite was the Wii. Jay's dad got it for everybody. We have been playing that for most of the morning. We all had to make our Mii's. That was fun. You get to create your own character that plays the game. So far we have bowled, boxed, golfed and took the Wii Fit challenge.
The Wii Fit Challenge was fun. It gave you a test on speed, staminia, and balance. You played baseball, tennis, and bowling. Then it weighed the results and guessed your age on those results. I was 38! That made me happy :) I have never used the Wii before and I was younger than my children who have used it! Alyssa was 39, Jay was 40, McKenzie was 71 and Alexandra was 74!
We are having a fun day! Later today we will be going over to Lesley's for Dinner.
Enjoy your Christmas!

Christmas Jammies

These are the Christmas Jammies the girls got this year. They are not feetie jammies like they wanted (especially Alyssa!) but the stores sold out of their sizes really early! So I chose these ones instead. They were very excited to get them. I think they are pretty cute! :)

Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas Eve! Tomorrow is the big day! YIPEE! Christmas is here! The stockings are hung, the plate of cookies is ready for Santa, the reindeer have their carrots, Santa has a glass of milk and water along with two letters, most of the gifts are under the tree. We are just waiting for Santa to fill their stockings and leave his presents under the tree. I think I will go to bed now so that he has plenty of time to come :)
Have a Merry Christmas Eve and a Merry Christmas tomorrow!

It's a Cats' Life!

Merlin is such a cat! You can do almost anything to him and he doesn't really care. Alyssa bought this hat and scarf at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney. She tried them on Merlin. He liked them. :) He kept them on for a while before he started twitching his ears and trying to get the hat off. He left the scarf on for quite awhile! Crazy cat!

It's a bird

McKenzie looks a little like she is doing karate or something. These jammies are finally in the wash! She wore them EVERY SINGLE NIGHT for a week and a half! I finally remembered to grab them when she went to school and wash them.

OUCH!

This is the end of the balloon they were kicking. Brian would hold it up and they would try to kick it. It looks like it would really, really hurt! Only Alexandra and McKenzie were doing it. Alyssa said no way! So did I! :)
Oh to be that flexable again!

December

Papa came down to exchange Christmas gifts and he got to play with the girls for a little while. They kicked a HUGE balloon that Alexandra had in her magic kit. They got wore out! Lots of fun and they slept well! :)

Christmas is coming...

Are you ready? Christmas Eve is one week from TODAY!! That means Christmas Day is one week from tomorrow! 8 days! One week and one day! I can't figure out the hours or minutes...I will ask Alexandra when she gets home! :)

I have my home made items left. I think the girls and I will have a Santa's workshop area in our house next week! Set it up and create, create, create!

Tonight we are going to bake and finish homework. I work tomorrow and Saturday.

Have a restful, relaxing, peaceful Thursday!
*Remember: If you don't get it done, you are the only one that will know! :)

School is on time...

It feels like a heat wave out there at 45 degrees! Last night when we left for AWANA, it was 33 degrees, when we drove home a couple hours later, it was 45! Almost all of our snow is gone. We still have some in the yard, but most of it is all gone....just a memory :)

My girls are a little tired because they actually have to get up and get ready for shcool on time! Hopefully my day will go a little better now that we are back to a regular routine. Even if it is only for today and tomorrow! I will take what I can get!

Here is another picture from Disneyland. I really have to order prints so the girls and I can make our Disneyland Scrapbook. That is going to be our main Christmas gift, if I get my tushie in gear and order the prints! :) I have my 40% off for Michael's so I can get the scrapbook. I happen to have lots of paper :) So all I need is to get the prints made. Then we are all going to work on the Scrapbook together. We can each make pages of our favorite memories there. Together time and a gift! :)

The natives are getting restless.....I have to go get the duct tape :)

Have a great Wednesday!

Again!!

Two hours late....again! You would think I would get so much done with having school two hours late. Not so....I think it works the other way. I still have my girls at home, plus all the daycare kids, and it seems the morning just goes so slow. Then before I know it, I have to take kids to school, fix lunch (McKenzie has lunch 20 min after school starts!) for the daycare kids, take kids to preschool, naptime (my favorite!), then pick up and my day is almost over!

I hope the rain comes pretty quickly to wash this snow away. I also hope it stays warm and does not freeze. The freezing rain we had last night was not fun! I was able to drive ok. I didn't slip and slide tooo much, but it was NOT fun to drive in it. I did have lots of fun shopping though! I was able to get most of my list checked off. I just have stocking stuffers and Santa to finish up. And then all of the homemade stuff. Since nobody knows about the homemade stuff, they won't know if I got it done or not. They may be getting gift certificates for their homemade item in January!

Have a great Tuesday!

Can you tell what McKenzie's favorite animal is?

Did you guess elephant?
She bought this outfit at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney. I bought her the little elephant in her hand. This is Tuki the elephant. She loves this outfit and she LOVES elephants! She is always on the lookout for elephants. Elephant books, toys, stuffed animals (she would get a real one if I let her!), clothes, and anything else she can find.
She is just too cute!

Two hours late...

That is when school starts today because of the ice on the roads. Not because of the snow, there's not that much of it, but the roads.....pretty icey!

This is Alyssa last night singing her song, Trust in me. She really did a good job. Very quiet. She needed to step up to the microphone. :) I am proud of her for standing up in front of everybody and singing. I would never do it! :)

This is Alexandra as Grandmama Mary. She had a headset on this year so that people could hear her without messing up the microphone. She is loving drama. At school and at church, she has come a long way. She used to be so shy and not willing to talk in front of people. Now she is taking lead roles and loving it!

McKenzie was Young Elizabeth. She did very well also. She is speaking up more (in a good way!) and is more confident in front of people. She is still pretty shy, but is doing so much better.

This is most of the Sunday School class doing the Christmas Play. Great job guys! I loved that the wise guys wandered around the sanctuary "following" the star before they found baby Jesus!

Have a great Monday! Stay safe on those slippery roads!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

....as long as I don't have to drive anywhere!
I love the snow. The way it turns the world so beautiful and white. The sparkly flakes falling from the sky.
I don't like the ice and slush that comes with it. We only have a couple of inches on the ground, but it is hovering right around the freezing mark and I am afraid it will turn icey! It was pretty icey this afternoon on the way home from church.

Today McKenzie and Alexandra had their Christmas program at church this morning. They were good! They had all their lines memorized and did well. I was able to just watch them during the second service, but I heard the first service was just as good. I love watching the younger kids during performances. They are so cute! :)
Tonight Alyssa sang with Richard and his family in their Christmas program/talent show. She did very well. She was not very loud, so you really had to pay close attention to hear her, but when you did hear her, she was good.

I have pictures (of course!) that I will try to upload and put on here tomorrow, but right now I am very tired and I still have a lot of work to do tonight.
I hope your Sunday was super wonderful!

Disneyland Tree

I like this picture of the girls in front of the HUGE Christmas tree at Disneyland. This tree was super, duper, tall! I have a picture of the four of us in front of it, but the person taking the picture zoomed in more and took the picture the other way, so you can't see how tall the tree really is. I may post it later, but I don't like it as much as this one.

The countdown is on! Christmas is TWO WEEKS from TODAY!!! Are you ready? You have 14 days until Christmas day!! Stocking Stuffers? Presents? Baking? Last minute gifts for those people that drop over and give you a gift that weren't on your list? :)

I am sorta, kinda ready. I have lists made, ideas in my head, most supplies ready, I just need some more time! :)

It is now time to get ready for school and work. :( No rest for the weary! (and I AM weary!)

Have a super great fabulous Friday!!

Mary Poppins

I was so super excited to see Mary Poppins! Julie Andrews is one of my very favorite actresses! (I know this isn't really her!) I think I was worse that the kids, stalking these characters! I kept saying, "Let's go girls! There is _______! We have to go stand in that line now!" They played along with me :) and stood in the lines and got their pictures taken and autographs in our autograph book. I think they had just as much fun as I did! :)

We made it to California! This picture was taken as we were walking out of the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, CA. It was about 9:30 at night and we had been traveling since that afternoon. They don't look very tired yet, they are on super excited mode! On the trip on the way home, TIRED!!! After we got home, I put McKenzie and Alexandra to bed at 8pm and they were asleep before I left there room! Very tired, but happy, girls!!

Disneyland

Here we are on the first day. We had just walked through the gates and it was warm and very sunny! Right after this, we started to walk down Main Street and had our pictures taken with Pluto, Mary Poppins, Cruella DeVille, and Dale. I think we also saw Goofy then too, but he might have been later. After 3 days of getting there when the park opened (8AM!!) and not leaving until the park closed (12AM!!! (that's midnight, not noon!)) everything is a little blury. I have to sort out my pictures and compare them to the list that Kendy kept and then I will have a better idea of what we did. :) Not that it matters, what we did and when, but it was fun!

We're Back!!

Here we are outside of the parks (Disneyland and California) standing by the A in California. Alyssa wanted to stand by the A because it is the first letter of her name. :) I just liked Goofy hanging off of it!

I already miss the warm weather down in California! We left Monday morning in the rain! The taxi driver said that was the fourth day of rain this year. It was warm rain though. The weather stayed in the 60's for most of the trip. Not super warm, but not cold. Not like this weather. Freeeeezzzzzzing cold weather! We left on Thursday afternoon with 29 degree weather and we come home with about the same. I think it feels even colder. I believe the weather has gotten down to the teen's at night. Freeezzzzing!

We had a Magical time! :)

There were late nights, super early mornings, and long days, and we LOVED every minute of it!

Getting on the plane in Bellingham. It was a smaller plane and it took us to Seattle where we took a different one to Orange County, CA. This was McKenzie and Alexandra's first trip on an airplane! They loved it! McKenzie was full of questions....lots and lots!

I was planning to go back in about five years with McKenzie and Alexandra. They have decided they don't want to wait that long, they want to go in the spring! I told them that we can start saving again and go in about three years. The Disneyland fund has begun! :)

We spent all day Friday in Disneyland. We watched a couple of little programs, and rode rides. My favorite one was Splash Mountain! We rode that one 6 times that day! :) It was the warmest day. We wore capris and t-shirts and were able to dry out pretty quick. A couple of times on the ride the line was so short (nobody was in it!) they let us just go again! We also did quite a few other rides.

I love this picture of McKenzie and Eeyore! We were able to see lots of Characters. We had our pictures taken with them and were able to get most of their autographs.

Saturday, Alyssa and Kendy slept in and then went shoe shopping for Alyssa. Her feet hurt her pretty bad on Friday and she needed new shoes. Alexandra and McKenzie and I were at Disneyland by 8:00 AM! Crazy!! We rode a TON of rides before Alyssa and Kendy got there around 2:30 - 3:00. We shut down the park that night also! LONG DAY! The time went

The girls and I went to Toon Town on Staurday before Alyssa and Kendy got over there. We had our picture taken with Donald. We had seen him earlier the day before, but were not able to get pictures of us with him. The next day, we were told that he is pretty hard to get pictures with, because he is not out very often. That made Alyssa sad because he was the one she wanted her piture with the most and we didn't see him again.

We went to California Adventure on Sunday. We started there because we hadn't been there yet. We went to Soaring over California first. Fun ride! We all really liked that one. Then we saw Lightning McQueen and To-Mater. They were so cool, however, they would not "auto"graph our books for us! :)

We had a super fun time! I will get more pictures ready and share a few more over the next few days. I am uploading them to Costco.com right now and will email the password to a few people to see all of the pictures. :)

Have a great Tuesday! It's back to the real world for me!

DISNEYLAND!!!

WHOO HOOO!!!

Today is the day! I am 93 1/2% packed. Camera's are ready, food is ready, clothes are ready, carry on's are almost ready, and spending money is ready.
Girls are up, Alyssa is off to school, the girls are getting ready, and I am on the computer. I should be getting ready for the day, but I thought I would update this one last time before vacation.

Have a great weekend!!! We will!!! :)

Tomorrow! Tomorrow!

Disneyland is tomorrow! It's only a day away......

Yippeeee!!

I got the suitcases out of the garage....

and this is what I found!

I guess I forgot to tell them that I bought them a ticket and they could ride on the airplane with the rest of the passengers. They didn't really have to ride in the suitcases! :)

My plan today is to finish up the packing and make a list of everything that we need from the store. Then tomorrow morning, I will go pick up anything that we don't have. I thought that was easier than shopping, packing, shopping again because I forgot something, repacking because I needed something I had already packed, and then shopping again because we used or lost whatever I had just packed.......

Packing once and shopping once seemed easier. We will see what happens :)

I have to remember that California also has stores. We could probably buy stuff down there!

The cats are trying to sneak in the suitcases. "Hey Molly, I think they are going to notice that you are in there!" says Merlin

In other random, unrelated news....Alexandra has been practicing jumping over her leg. I know, I know....crazy! What made her want to do that you ask....good question! Richard can do it, showed her how to do it, and asked if she could do it. Wellll.....that was all it took. Alexandra practiced and practiced. She landed on her face a couple times, she ran into the doll house that was next to her, but she kept trying and she did it! She has more misses than jumps, but she can do it! She is a determined girl. You give her a challenge and more often than not, she is all over it, and won't give up until she has succeeded!

Off to do daycare and pack some more!

Enjoy your Wednesday!!!

Happy December!!

Today is the first of December! That means that we leave for Disneyland in TWO DAYS!!!

I am super excited! It is starting to feel real now that it is December. I got the suitcases out of the garage last night. I even opened them. But that is all. They are still empty. Today I will get the summer-y clothes out and pick out a couple outfits. And find the swimming suits. And figure out spending and food money.

It is time to continue on with my day.
I have already....
Washed a load of laundry
Done a load of dishes
Change a stinky diaper
Fixed breakfast for 4 kids
Reminded the daycare moms about this week (like they could forget!)
...and this was all done before 8 am! I am not even going to post my to-do list for today!

Have a great Tuesday!!

PS. Soccer is at 6:40 at the Sportsplex tonight!! I have AWANA so I won't be there :(

I did it!

I managed to post something every day in November! I wanted to see if it was possible for me to post something each day, and I made it! :)

I am working on my "to pack" list and I am checking it twice! Any suggestions on what to pack? Any souvenier requests? :)

Here are some more pictures of Thanksgiving. It was a great time.

McKenzie got a hold of my camera...she is a little paparazzi in training! I am so proud of her :) She went around and took at least 5 picutres of each person, in rapid succession! I think everybody was seeing white flashes of light for awhile!

I was able to take a couple of pictures myself, but I think only a couple. Katherine was trying out my little camera because she is looking to buy a new one. Michael tried out both of my cameras because he was sitting next to me! :) Grandpa Bob watched most of the pictures being taken, and I think even took a couple. I think he took this one of McKenzie and Katherine.

McKenzie took this one of mom and Joyce. As I was taking pictures and looking at everybody who was here on Thanksgiving, I realized that in Feb. there will be FIVE generations! We will have to get a picture of that! (of course!)

Have a great Monday!

packing....

Well, we are not really ready to pack yet, but I will be doing lots of laundry so that we will have clean clothes to wear! :) I am sure everybody will be happy with that :)
I also have to dig out some of our summery clothes in case in gets warm. It is usually around 65 or 70 down there this time of the year, so we will be bringing at least one pair of capris.
I have been online looking at Disneyland websites. Some of them are so cool. I was able to find one with the schedule of special happenings while we are there. So we can preplan some of our special activities.
We have a ride to the airport (Lesley) and a ride home from the airport (Katherine), so that part is taken care of. I am going to have the girls pack their carry-on bags today, because they are so excited to start packing and this way they can pack and unpack to their hearts content without messing up the real packing! :)
I have to round up addresses to mail postcards to while we are down there. And bring postage.
I have to get some easy to pack snacks.
I have to make sure my cameras and phones are charged up (and bring chargers with me) and my camera cards are empty!

Wow! Lots to do! I should probably not be on the computer :)

Have a Fabulous Sunday!! :)

Saturday

What do you do when it is a stormy, rainy, windy, blustery Saturday?

You have a jammie day and bring out the doll houses!

I have to work all day today so McKenzie asked if she could play doll house.

I said "yes!"

She was soooo excited! The doll house people and furniture are kept in a bin under their bed and they can play with them anytime. The house and stable are kept in the top of their closet and they have to ask me to get it down for them.

We leave for Disneyland in 5 days!!! :)

Have a great Saturday and stay dry!

Black Friday

I didn't get up at the crack of dawn this year. I had to work from 10-6 so I thought I would get a little extra rest before shopping and working. I left about 8am and went to Target. They had a couple of things I wanted and I had a Target charge card :) I was able to get the couple of things I wanted and I only had to stand in line for about 20 min or so. After Target, I went to the Family Christian Bookstore. I remembered I had a $20 gift certificate :) plus their coupons! I got a couple of cd's for $5 for stocking stuffers. I still made it to work on time too! :)

My cameras got passed around quite a bit. I am not sure who took this one! :)

I had a great Thanksgiving yesterday! Super yummy food! Fun family! No fights broke out! :) Grandpa Bob came down yesterday for 8 days. Him and McKenzie were so funny! I think he got a huge kick out of her. She was wearing her beautiful purple Christmas dress and she kept walking by him and smiling. Or she would walk behind the couch by me and look at him and smile. They kept sneaking in hugs and smiles most of the night! Totally cute! :)

McKenzie and Grandpa Bob :)

McKenzie took my camera for a bit. She was going crazy! (She learned from the best! ) She took this one. I like it! :)

Michael and Katherine were there. Mom and Dad, Me, Alyssa, Alexandra, and McKenzie, Lesley and Derek showed up, and Joyce came after she got off of work, and Grandpa Bob came down. Richard was there for a few minutes. He came by to pick Alyssa up for a movie. They went to go see Blind Side. It was supposed to be a very good movie. It is about football and it has been sold out almost every showing! Mom and I went to go see it on Sunday, but it was sold out. We will get to see it soon, I hope.

Have a great Friday! We leave in less than 1 week!!!!