Christmas Day

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas this year! Ours was very nice and relaxing. We spent the morning together opening presents and playing with our toys. We then went over to my parents house to open more presents and eat a big, yummy lunch of prime rib, honey baked ham and lots of other delicious food! My aunt, uncle and cousins were there as well as my uncle Roger from Minnesota. The house was also filled with three dogs. My aunt's dog is a terrier mix named Rambo, my uncle Roger's is an australian shepherd named Thule and my parents golden retriever, Maddie. The doggies were all so good.

Amanda opening some presents.

Amanda and her doll she got from Grammy and Poppy.

Lauren and her new bike from Santa.

Papa and the girls.

Blake and his big nerf gun.

Kaylee, myself and the kids with uncle Roger.

The three dogs- Maddie, Rambo, and Thule.

Blake and Lauren very intrigued watching Amanda feed her Baby Alive doll. It's kind of creepy the way it moves it's mouth.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we went over to my aunt and uncles house in Trabuco Canyon. Before we got there we met them at my cousin Kirsten's, horse stables. She owns a horse named Rascal. All the kids got to ride Rascal around the stables. They even got to help feed him and Amanda brushed him. After spending some time there we then headed over to their house for dinner.

Blake thought it was pretty cool.

Amanda now thinks she wants horse back riding lessons.

Lauren loved it! This is her first time on a horse and she has been waiting for this day.

Amanda and Kirsten

All the kids. They are growing up so fast.

The girls and their dolls in their new, matching pajamas.

One last picture before heading home.

World of Fantasy

Last week we went to go see the Disney on Ice-World of Fantasy show at the Honda Center. My kids have never seen a Disney on Ice show before so they all really enjoyed it. It kept the attention of all my kids the entire time. Our family went, my sister and her family went (minus Jack) and we invited Amanda's friend to go too. The show was very good and I'd definitely recommend it!

Holiday Fun

The past couple weeks have been very fun and busy, which is why I haven't been able to post anything. All of the kids had their school Christmas parties last week. Lauren performed in a little singing show with her class at school. It was so cute. We also went caroling with Amanda's Daisy's around the neighborhood, went caroling at an assisted living home here in Fullerton with Blake's cub scouts, went to Amanda's Daisy party and then to the Nutcracker Ballet, went on a field trip to the Kellogg House for Amanda's class and made lefse with my dad's side of the family. All of these activities were done last week. I don't know how we made it through it all, but we did and now everyone is off school for two weeks and enjoying hanging out at home, playing with their toys and being "lazy."

Lauren singing in her Christmas show at school.

Getting ready for lunch.

The Kellogg House is a Victorian style house built in 1898. Here is Amanda ringing out the clothes after washing them.

The inside of the house at the top of the stairs.

The kids dressed up in old fashioned clothes.

One of the performers from the Nutcracker Ballet.

Amanda and Amanda at their Daisy party.

Caroling with the Daisy's.

Caroling with the Cub scouts.

Hugging and visiting with the older people at the home.

Lauren and Emily making lefse and playing with the flour.

Blake and Max in his crate, Max's crate that is.

Irvine Christmas Train

On Saturday we went to the Irvine Park Railroad Christmas Train with my family and my sisters family. We have never taken the kids here before because the prices for everything is outrageous. But I got lucky and won tickets off of one of my favorite mom websites. I got 5 tickets to ride the train (costs $8.00 per person) and 13 activity tickets ($4.00 per ticket). That's a $92 value!! The kids all had a great time and nobody even cried this year seeing Santa. They are growing up too quickly. Here are some pictures of the evening. The quality of the photos aren't great, something was wrong with my camera and I think there was a smudge on the lens.

Sitting in the sleigh and we even got all the kids looking at the same time.

The kids decorating Christmas cookies.

Silly kids

Blake had his city cup finals this weekend and they got all the way to the end and lost the final game to an undefeated team all season. Oh well, they came in second and the kids played great!

Blake and one of his coaches (dad).

Happy Thanksgiving

Last week we had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We went over to my grandma and grandpa's house along with my sister and her family and my parents. Other family (aunts, uncles, and cousins) stopped by later in the evening for a visit. My kids were off school that entire week so we got to hang out with our cousins (ages 5 & 7) who were visiting from Chicago. We went to Atlantis Play Center in Garden Grove. This park brought back a lot of memories from my childhood. I use to love this park and my kids had never been, so I thought it would be fun to take all the kids. This is an older park, but it is all enclosed and the kids can run around and play on the equipment and structures. They all seemed to have a blast. Blake can't wait to go back again so you know it was a hit. The coolest part is the old dragon slide. If you bring wax paper you go even faster down it, but the kids were doing a pretty good job flying down the slide without any extra help. That night Blake got to spend the night at my grandma's house with the boys and my grandpa took them to Dave and Busters. My kids are very blessed to be able to have a set of great- grandparents alive that can still drive, are very active, and healthy. My great grandpa even works as as substitute teacher in the Santa Ana School District almost daily. He likes to work and will probably do it until he physically can't. Anyways, we all had a great week last week and Bryan and I even did an all nighter on Thursday night to Friday afternoon shopping with all of the other crazy people out there. It was fun and we got a lot of good deals and saved a lot of money!

The first family picture was with my parents and this one is with my grandparents.

Amanda catching Emily and Lauren as they go down the Dragon slide. You can't tell from the picture but it is a lot taller and wraps around a couple times.

Blake crashing at the bottom of the slide.

Playing on the shark.

Climbing on the sea serpent.

The kids thought they were sitting on King Triton's lap.

Eating lunch

Bryan, my mom and grandma.