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!!!!

The Turkey Trot...

WE had fun at the Turkey Trot. The weather was perfect! It was pretty warm (50ish) and NOT raining!!! That is pretty perfect for Thanksgiving, I think. There was about 100 or so people that showed up.

Lesley and Derek, Me, Alyssa, Alexandra and McKenzie, and Richard all got there about 8:30 and we started the Trot about 9:00. I didn't time the walk (we did the 2k) but we walked a pretty good pace. Derek managed to get a piggyback for a little bit from Lesley and then later from Richard. Alexandra rode her unicycle. McKenzie pushed Lia in the stroller. Lesley and I took pictures! :)

I love this little train. Everybody was getting a little tired on the way back (it is all uphill!) so they made a little train and it seemed to give everybody a little more energy! :)

This photo was taken by McKenzie. We are a little tired from the long walk :) We were pretending to be sleeping. Lesley must have been snoring which is why I was laughing! :)

We are making salads, deviled eggs, and cookies. Mmmmmmm! :)

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Day!!!

WE are off to the Turkey Trot. Then home to bake and listen to Christmas music! (It is less than a month away!)

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

WooooHoooo!

It is only ONE MONTH until Christmas!!! Are you ready? You have to be now! It is coming sooooon. I am so excited! We are going to wait until after we get home from Disneyland before we put up our Christmas tree. I don't want to leave 4 cats in the house with a new tree.

I have to start packing and getting things ready for Disneyland. We leave one week from tomorrow! I can't believe it is almost here. We have been planning for so long, that it doesn't seem real yet.

Tomorrow is Turkey Day! We are going to do the Turkey Trot at EagleRidge in the morning. The girls and I have done it for the last 3 years I think. It is lots of fun. You can do a 2k walk (that's what we do!) or the 5k run (that's what McKenzie and Alexandra want to do this year!). It is free for kids 12 and under and is only $5 for adults and kids over 12. It is a fun time.

Look what I found when I was going through my important papers:

McKenzie wrote a letter to me. It says:

Your the best I have seen becuse, you are nice and kindandgood

I love you

How Cute is that! I love finding little letters and notes from my girls :)

Look what else I found the other day! It has been early release this week and Alexandra came home and since it was naptime in the livingroom for the daycare kids, she had to find something to do in her room. She made a hammock under the bunkbed and spent the afternoon reading! Such a cozy place to read. If they were bigger and stronger, I would totally read in a hamock!

Have a great Wednesday! It is kinda like Friday today!!

It is a Terrrrriiiffffiiiicccc Tuesday!

Everytime I try to remember how to spell Terrific... I think of the gander in Charlotte's Web.

T E double r double r I double f double I C C C.....or something like that :) Does is have two r's? Two f's? I never remember!

Alexandra goes to indoor soccer tonight. Her game is not until 7:30! That is pretty late. At least it is still only a half day tomorrow and then there is no school until next week! Which means.....tomorrow is daycare and then Thanksgiving Thursday!!!! The girls and I are going to do the Turkey Trot again at Eagleridge. We have so much fun doing it. It feels so good to get up and go for a brisk walk in the freezing cold air :) It makes you understand a little how those frozen turkeys feel :) As for the rest of the day....I am not sure yet... I am not going to stress or worry about that until Thursday! :)

Alexandra and McKenzie came with me to WECU last night to dump all of our change. Did you guess how much it was????

We turned this......

We had $234.5 in rolled coin

We had $73.74 in loose change

Into this...

$312.24!!!

This money will be divided 4 ways for us to spend on souveniers and other stuff. :)

We will be in Disneyland one week from Thursday!! We have spending money now. I just need to pack our suitcases (after I find them!) Shop for our snacks. And get on the plane! I am pretty sure there are other things to do, I am just not going to think about them now!

Have a great Tuesday!!

Another week...

Monday morning again.....another week closer to Christmas
another day closer to Thanksgiving
another day closer to Disneyland
another day closer to 2010
Crazy how time just flies by...

After my very fun weekend, Monday morning is hard! 4 out of 5 daycare kids have runny noses. I spend my day wiping one nose after another. They are all clear runny noses, but they still run. Days like this, I want a child free job :)

The girls and I are going to go to WECU to count all of our change for Disneyland! Any guesses how much we will have? The girls are very excited! (Me too!!)

Have a great Monday!

The weekend is over....

I check on the girls each night before bed. This is what I found when I checked on Alyssa! :)

Time to start a new week.

I had a super fun, very busy weekend! I had daycare Friday instead of working at the store. Friday night McKenzie and Alexandra and I went to Lesley's house for card making/scrapbooking. We mostly played with glitter :)


Making turkey's!

I went to work on Saturday. I delivered Darin's turkey's to him. He was very happy with them. Alyssa, McKenzie, Alexandra and even Richard helped to make them. They turned out pretty cute!

Beware of the Turkey Army!


Alexandra and McKenzie came to work with me so they could take the creative writing workshop. Jay came to pick them up to take them to lunch and tell Grandpa Jerry "Happy Birthday!" He took them home after lunch and they hung out with Alyssa until it was time for them to do Open Gym at Gym Star. They love it! It is so much fun for them.


While they were there, I went to dinner with Katie. We ate at the Hearth Fire. Really good food! Great time, good food, no kids, great company!


Today was another long, fabulous day! After church, we went grocery shopping. Then.....I brought the girls home, put away the perishables, and left! Mom and I went to lunch (Olive Garden) my food was yummy, hers....not as yummy. Then we went to Goodwill and looked at books and stuff. Next up was Joanne Fabric for Christmas gift ideas. Then we were off to Walmart for more ideas and last we made a stop at Michael's. Tons of fun! Tons of shopping! AND....we were only gone for 5 hours! We were going to see Blind Sided (?) at Sunset, but it was sold out. I guess we will have to reschedule that :)

Here is our Disneyland money we have been saving and rolling and wrapping and saving and saving! I brought it all out and we have been counting it. We are going to take it to WECU and put it through their counting machine. When we get the total, we are going to split it four ways and that will be spending money for the trip. I will help McKenzie and Alexandra split it out between each day so they don't run out. I told the girls that I would buy their main meals, but any snacks or souveniers they would have to buy with this money. (I will also be packing snacks because they are eaters!!!) It is less than two weeks away!

I had a great Sunday! and a great weekend!

Have a great week!!!

Sparkly and Twinkly

That is what you get when you use glitter on your cards.

That is what you get when your rotten sister tells your daughter to "put a little on your mommy's nose"

That is what you get when your rotten sister puts more on your face.

That is what you get when you put LOTS on your rotten sister's face.

Remember....when using glitter....a little goes a LONG way! :)

Disneyland

is less than two weeks away!!! I can't believe it is almost here! I am getting so excited! In two Fridays, we will be in Disneyland! I have to start making my Disneyland books now. I want to make a scavenger hunt/scrapbook/autograph book for each of the girls to take with them. It will have questions on it for the plane ride and the down time that we have. I am not really sure how I will be doing it. It will be a surprise for me too!!

These are pictures from the Lynden Fair this year. The top picture is from the Brad's Reptile Zoo booth. They were next to us in the Kid's Zone and the girls (bottom picture) kept asking to go on a break to see the animals. They were very happy when we had a lull in the customers and they could go and visit the animals.

Aren't they just the cutest helpers you have ever seen? Makes me want to shop at Lauching Success if they were the workers :)

Have a great Friday!

(Don't forget about Sunday!! :) I am sooooo excited!)

Tonight is.....

Stampin' Up!

I have been working like a crazy lady. Making books, cards, boxes, etc....I have been having a blast! There are not enough hours in the day to get it all done! Come tonight to see how I turn all of this......

into a beautiful card! (Yes, I see that the stamped images are upside down!)

I will also have some wonderful quick gift ideas and more fun cards to show.

Have a great Thursday! I am off to craft (and watch kids! :)

Soccer was....

lousy!

The Dynamikos (Alexandra's team) had a really hard time last night. They lost 7-4 against the Metamorphisis. The other team did pretty good. They were big girls. Some of them were twice the size of our girls. They also had pretty strong kicks. But most important....they got the ball. Last night our girls did not go after the ball. They let the other team get the ball first. Hopefully next week, they will be back at it. With power! :)

Alexandra going after the ball.

I love to watch indoor soccer because it is so fast. It reminds me of a pinball game sometimes. The ball is always moving. Fast! They bounce it off of the wall, each other, the ref. Anything and everything. The field is pretty small and some of the girls are able to kick it from one end of the field to the other. That changes the ball game really quick!

Sometimes the action is all a blur!

Next Tuesday they play at 7:30 at the Sportplex. If anybody wanted to watch them. :) They play Leiweke team. Maybe the coaches last name?

Waiting on the sidelines for their turn to be called in.

In AWANA news...

last night was the Food Drive. It was the boys against the girls. Teacher Maggie told the Sparkies that the "Boys are going DOWN!!" The girls took that and ran with it! That is all my girls could talk about. We took a couple cans of food. The girls won. By a lot! The boys total was 41 cans/boxes of food. The girls total was 109 cans/boxes of food! Commander Zach said maybe we should divide it up by percentages...I told him their were only 4 more girls than boys last night. He could divide it up anyway he wanted, girls would still win. We are having another food drive in December, I told him the boys would have their chance then. We shall see what happens in December! :)

Have a great Wednesday! The weekend is coming!

Random Tuesday Ramblings

Alyssa...up and ready to start the day!

I have a very busy day today!

McKenzie and Alexandra continue to get up pretty early in the morning. Not at 6 o'clock anymore, but they are usually still out in the livingroom before 7am when daycare gets here.

McKenzie...up at 7....not so ready for the day!

They are tired, but they are up.

Can you find Alexandra? She is reading under her scooby blanket!

I have a full day of daycare today. I have all my kids....all day long. Xander doesn't have school, I have Celisse, I have Brandon & Marcus all day, and Logan is here. I will take Logan to school today at 12:45....but it will be a full, long, rainy day. I will have to use my creative powers to find something to do!

Tonight is indoor soccer for Alexandra. So far they have not lost. The first game they played the Blue Diamonds and the score was 9-3. Last week they played The Ferocious Cows and the score was 4-3, it was a very good game. I like it when the scores are closer. They were a pretty good team. Tonight they play the Metamorphosis...we shall see what that score will be. Alexandra's team is the Dynamikos...it is Greek (or Latin) for power! They have a very powerful team! :)

AWANA is tonight. We are having a food drive. I think it is the boys against the girls. I will have to scrounge around my fairly empty cupboards to see what we can donate. Then maybe afterwards I can just shop the food drive for my groceries :)

Last night I was stampin, and getting ready for Club on Thursday night. I made this cute little basket out of a pillow envelope die. I just glued the ends together to form a circle, then I wrapped paper around it and made a fancy handle out of a scrap of paper. It turned out so cute!

This is the Christmas journal that we are going to be filling out this year. I got the Christmas Jingle Scrapbook kit from Stampin' Up! and have had so much fun with it! I used some onboard for the book base and then covered the pages with the paper from the kit. I added some of the stickers to decorate the covers and the pages inside. For the inside, I just cut some of the cardstock to fit the inside pages. Totally Cute!!! I am very excited about it!

These next two are a couple of cards that Lesley and I made. Actually I made these ones :) She came over the other night and we played with a disappearing magic something or other snowflake technique. It was so much fun! I could totally make these for my Christmas card this year! They were that fun and easy!

Can you see the little white button in the middle of this snowflake? I thought it added a cute little touch.

I am off to continue my day! Enjoy your Tuesday!!!

Did you sleep last night?

I sure had a hard time. It was WINDY!!! I thought for sure a couple of times my house was going to be lifted off the ground and travel to OZ! Either that or all of these trees were going to land on my house. It was really windy. I like listening to it when I am safe and warm in my house. Maybe during the day. AT night.....not my favorite thing to listen to.

My voice is much much better! I can talk....it just sounds like I have a frog in my throat. I am not complaining though!

I am excited for next Sunday, the 22nd!!! Plans?? Not sure yet! Lots of ideas....movie? crafts? dinner? shopping? lunch? rent a movie? SEE...lots of ideas....any suggestions? :)

Have a great Monday!

Windy, Blustery Day

Today is a windy, cold and blustery day. It is a good day for baking, which I would do. Except that I used all the eggs in our french toast/scrambled egg lunch that the girls wanted for lunch. Very yummy lunch. Can't bake now. I may look through my cook books and stuff and see if there are eggless goodies I could make. If I had planned ahead, and new it was going to be blustery out, then I would have made a crock pot meal. There is nothing better than a warm, yummy smelling house because of goodies baking! Unless you are reading a good book while your children are baking! :)

What is wrong with this picture? :)

Since I probably won't be baking today, I went through some summertime pictures. I found Mother's Day 2009. Fun day!! Smore's. Trampoline. Fire (in the fire pit!). BBQ. Fun. Laughter. Sticky fingers (from the smores!). It was a lot warmer that day than it is today! :)

Grandma Kaye and McKenzie Kaye :)

Alexandra doing flips on the trampoline. McKenzie in the background protecting her head in case Alexandra fall on it!

Have a great Sunday!

Day two...

of no voice. I am tired of no voice. I feel fine...I just can't talk. It makes work a little harder. I can't answer the phone & customers can't hear me. The more I talk, the more my throat hurts. My girls are ok with me not talking :) I am not.

I am going to go make another hot cup of tea with honey, put my darling daughters to bed, and read a good book. Maybe a hot bath would help! Hmmmmm, couldn't hurt! With bubbles, and a yummy smelling candle....

Have a great night!

Happy Friday the 13th!!

As I published my last post, I saw that not only was it Friday! It was Friday the 13th!!

Have a great one!

Yeah for Friday!!

Hip Hip Hooray!! Today is Friday!!

Which is not really any closer to the weekend for me since I work weekends too! That's alright. I enjoy looking forward to a different work.

Yesterday after school, the girls and I went apple picking with Lesley and Derek. We went to Sm'apples for the last of their apples. They were only $.20 a pound!!! It was pretty dark by the time we got there at 4:45 but we could see a little bit. We only picked for about 20 min. but I got about 40 lbs! It cost me $8......for 40 lbs of apples!!! Such a deal.

While we were there Lesley and I decided (ok, really it was me) that we both looked good enough for a quick photo shoot! We got a few pretty decent pictures. Nothing stellar, but decent! And I am ok with decent!

We got some pictures of the kids too, but it was pretty dark. Hard to take pictures.

We had a great time and got some good apples.

Today is going to be a busy day!

I get to go to work at Launching Success.

Alyssa gets to go down to Renton after school with the Band/Colorguard for the football game.

That means that Alexandra and McKenzie get to go somewhere else. McKenzie will be at Emily's house (of course!) and Alexandra will be going to Maddie and Bella's house for a sleepover. That means from the time I get home from work untill Alyssa gets home from the game.....I am by myself...AGAIN!!! That is two times in one week that I will have the house to myself for at least two hours!!! :)

Tonight I will be working on cards for club next week. Lesley came over last night and we worked on the magic snwoflake card. Turned out sooooo cooool!!! I will have pictures of some of the completed cards tomorrow!

Well it is off to school I go. Alexandra was invited to participate in the Math Olympiad at school and they meet on Friday mornings at 8:15! I am excited for her. Math is not her strong subject and I am proud of her for going outside her comfort zone and trying it anyway! She will be good at it.

Have a great Friday!!! Stay dry!

I love days off!

Alexandra practicing headers this summer!

I had the best day off yesterday!!! I enjoyed getting up when I wanted, staying in my jammies ALL DAY, doing not much of anything, and not having to go anywhere!


I woke up around 7:30 but I didn't get out of bed until 8:30. It was so nice! I sat on the couch and read a book. We had doughnuts for breakfast.


McKenzie had spent the night at Emily's on Tuesday night after AWANA's and she stayed there until about 4 o'clock.


Alexandra went over to Maddie & Bella's house at 9:30 until her paper route at about 2:30. Richard came over at 9 to take Alyssa shopping for clothes. She got a new winter coat that will fit her and if I am lucky, maybe I will get it when she is done! :)


That means that from 9:30 until 12:30 when Alyssa came home, I had the house to MYSELF!!! No kids! It was quiet, calm, and wonderful!


It was such a beautiful sunny day out, I felt a little guilty about not getting outside things done. But I got over that pretty quickly! I really enjoyed my day off.


For dinner, Alyssa said she wanted taco's. I told her that was a great idea. She could get the meat out of the freezer and let it defrost. She did that and I promptly forgot all about it. So, around 4:30 Alyssa comes out of her room (she was cleaning it) and goes into the kitchen. Pretty soon I hear dinner being made. She asked me a couple of questions, but that was it. She had the girls clean off the table and set it. I just went into the kitchen when it was all ready and sat down to eat! What a great end to a fabulous day!!!





I hope your day was a wonderful as mine!





Enjoy your Thursday!!

Happy Veteran's Day!

Thank You

to all the Veteran's that have served our country....past, present, and future!

I was digging through my pictures online looking for pictures of Mikey and this is what I found. Michael and Katherine on Dec 07 I think. They are pretty cute!

Have a great Wednesday!! I am! :)

We love books

We love to read books. We like to listen to books. We like to check out books from the library. We like to buy books from Book orders and Book Fairs. We really love books!

I like to start reading to and looking at books from the time a child is born. We learn how to hold a book, how to listen to the book, how to read the book. My goal is to raise happy readers that love to read and love to learn!

My girls now ask me for books and when I tell them, "We are out of bookshelves. We will have to go through your books at home and donate some if you want new books."

Their reply: "Buy a new bookshelf!"

I don't know where we would put it though....my walls are pretty full! Eventually, I would love to have a room for library books. I have lots of books that I love to read. I like to check them out from the library too, but sometimes...I want to read a book and not wait for it to come in at the library.

Have a great Tuesday....and go read a good book!!!