Trunk or Treat

This year we decided to head to OC and go trunk or treating with Grandpa and the Grandmas....

The kids were loving their costumes...Karyl of course loved the fairy theme, and Freddie loved his red racing team outfit (he thought he was Lightening McQueen and who were we to crush his dreams??).

Even Nicole got in on the Halloween festivities with her pumpkin outfit...luckily she is so tiny that this 0-3 month costume still had plenty of wiggle room!!!

This was the best I could do as far as a group photo...Have you ever tried to get 3 kids to stand together for a picture, they NEVER all look at the camera at the same time!!

Grandma and Grandpa won the best decorated trunk award...there are even spider webs on the side of the car with big plastic spider. The kids loved helping decorate and it was fun to be festive!!

Had to get a back shot of Karyl's costume...she loved the wings!!

Finally, he poses...quick - bring the camera!!!  This costume had a cute red hat but Freddie's head was too big for it!! He's got a oval shaped head like Daddy that is too big for most headwear geared towards his age.  After his surgery there appears to be plenty of room for his brains to grow, so big head = success in my books!!

They were playing Charlie Brown's "The Great Pumpkin" and Freddie decided to sit and watch it...I swear, he is just the cutest thing.  He is by far my favorite son!!! Despite his wild testosterone fueled craziness I swear he melts my heart with his blond hair, blue eyes and his "please mommy."

The kids had a blast Trunk or Treating and are excited to do the real thing on Monday!!! I swear, I may be slightly biased but we have the best 3 kids in the world!!!



Happy Birthday Karyl!!!!

We had planned to visit Disneyland on Monday, October 17 to celebrate Karyl's birthday, but Freddie got really sick that morning and we had to postpone the outing until this past Tuesday, October 25.

Lucky for us the weather had been nice and cool, and even a little wet the night before...we love visiting Disneyland when it's slightly overcast and cool!!

We had fun, the kids had fun...it was just a win-win situation!!

The kids rode the Storybook ride for the very first time....Karyl has been asking to go on "the whale ride" for a while, but the line is always long....and we have an aversion to long lines.

They even let her sit on the front of the boat - she loved that!!

We also rode the teacups, which I swear is one of Karyl's favorite rides...makes sense because despite what people think, it's one of mine too. I always have a baby strapped to me though when going on it so I can never spin the things as much as I want to!! This time we decided to be gender discriminatory and the boys had to ride in their own teacup!!

On Karyl's birthday Grandma and Grandpa brought her a cake, and we gave her our present that Greg brilliantly came up with.  This camera was actually exchanged the next day for a little better one, but the digital camera idea was amazing!! She carries her camera everywhere and is always snapping pictures of EVERYTHING!!!

Then, the Saturday after her birthday, October 22, we celebrated with our family. That morning Karyl got super sick, but managed to be feeling a lot better by that night - she caught whatever Freddie had so was feeling fine in the afternoon and just had to stay away from some of the heavier birthday foods!!

If you have kids, check out Nick Jr.'s website...they have everything imaginable to print out for your kids from coloring sheets to entire party packs!! We had a Milli themed party (she is a character from the show Team Umizoomi) and Karyl loved it!! These flowers were supposed to be on lollipop sticks, but I liked the thumbtack in the pencil version much better...and Karyl loved them!!

They even had this banner to print out!!

This was priceless...Uncle Glen and Aunt Dyanna got Karyl a fossil discovery kit where you dig through the sand to find fossil pieces, then put them together.  She opened up the present, got one good look and yelled out "It's a paleontologist kit!!!" Yes, that's right, unprompted and all on her own she blurted that out. Everyone got silent for a split second and looked at us like "what did she just say??" That's my girl!!

She also won't put down the purse that her aunties gave her.  Not only is it her all time favorite color, but it matches her mommy and Auntie's purses. If you ever want a giggle, ask her to see what's in there any given day...it's hilarious to tell her to pack up her purse and then look and see what she felt needed to be taken with us that day.

We had lots of fun celebrating her birthday!! It was unfortunate that everyone got sick, but the timing worked out perfectly that at least she could mostly enjoy her birthday dinner, and we were able to show her just how special she is and how blessed we were to bring her into our family 5 years ago!! Can you believe it?? We have a 5 year old!!

Just for posterity's sake...here are a few of the amazing things our big girl is up to...

*She loves her ballet class

*She can count to 100 with no help

*She is 2 chapters away from being done with her Kindergarten Math...and we're only 2-1/2 months into the semester!!

*She LOVES school and every day asks me if we can do more school work

*She can read any CVC book (consanant - vowel - consanant)

*She loves books and is constantly asking to read!!

*She can write and spell most 3 letter CVC words.

*She apparently knows what a paleontologist is and what they do!!

*She is in love with her baby sister, I mean completely smitten!! Those two will be best friends as Nicole gets older!

*She loves her Learning Center classes, especially Digging for Dinosaurs!

*She is constantly making Freddie scream - she tries to help him but he wants to do things on his own. They love each other, but the sibling rivalry has already begun!!

Oh Karyl - what would we do without you in our lives!!

Disneyland!!!

Last Thursday we decided to take advantage of the lovely weather we've been having and head to Disneyland...

We packed up lunches for the kids and they loved it!! They were excited to use their Tinkerbell and Cars lunchboxes we got a few months ago!!

We went on their favorite ride - the Merry-Go-Round.

We met our friend Claire and her son Jaxson there and the boys had a blast goofing off together! Don't they look like they could be related?? Oh wait, they are!!

I'm starting to like my mostly permanent place on the bench when we ride the Carousel - Nicole was such a sweetie and stayed asleep when I got her out of the stroller!!

Who doesn't love some snuggle time with the baby??? Isn't she just too much cute all squished into a tiny package?!?!

This pic is strictly for Claire...she knows why =)



See, the cuteness is just too much!! I wish I had another picture of her in the sun so you could really see and appreciate her flowing red locks!!






She's a wiggler!!

When I went in to get Nicole this morning for her first feeding, this is what I found...

She wiggles out of her "swaddling" most nights and has her arms free and above her head...but this was a first. She has been trying to roll, and getting VERY close...but I find it hilarious that she fell asleep while trying to do it in her sleep.  She never whined or cried, so she wasn't doing it while totally awake. 

How do I know she was trying to roll?? She only rolls to her right side...don't ask why, I don't speak baby, she just does.

I just had to run back and take a picture before waking her up because it was so stinking cute.  Yes, that's right, I have to wake her up in the morning.  If I were to let her sleep in she'd wake up at like 8:30am, which means she doesn't get her last feeding until around 11pm and I have to be up at 5am every morning. So, I've started waking her up around 7:30am in the hopes that I can get her to bed before 11pm so I can get at least 5 hours of sleep.

The best laid plans...

CRAP!!!!!!

I made a HUGE mistake...I was trying to fix something on our blog and accidentally erased my entire "blogs I follow" section.  And unfortunately, once you do that, you can't get it back - now matter how many times you try pressing that "back" button!!! I cried, seriously...tears were shed.

So, with that being said...if you remember seeing your name on the side of my blog and it's gone now, PLEASE send me your blog address so I can add it back on.  There were a few that I was able to remember right away, but otherwise I don't remember most of the URLs. I will try and find some through other blogs, but the chances of recovering all of them that way are slim....

I'm so sorry...please help!!!!

Tanaka Farms Field Trip

Today we headed to Tanaka Farms in Irvine for our very first Homeschool Field Trip

It was so much fun!!

The kids had a blast and the experience created lots of questions that lead to some great discussions about farm animals, how vegetables grow and how a farm works.

Here are some great pictures we took while there!!

Right after checking in...before the heat got to us!!

Yep, those are real farm tractors and some gorgeous plants they had along the edges of the farm....Freddie about died when he saw these tractors!

Ah the inevitable petting zoo....

Karyl had no fear....she grabbed some food and walked right up to the animals and fed and touched them.

Freddie took a little more convincing....he finally touched this one goat on the top of the head - I barely got this picture it was so quick!

Even though he wasn't super thrilled about the animals, he still was in a good enough mood to smile for me!

After washing their hands we stopped for a quick picture before heading back to the wagon for our ride around the farm. Freddie kept saying how much he loved the petting zoo, that's why he's all smiles here...even though he didn't want to touch the animals!!

This was the wagon ride....Freddie was SO excited watching the tractor pull the two wagons, he could barely contain himself.

Waiting for our wagon to take off...a quick attempt at taking a picture ourselves...not too bad, right??

The good old corn maze...the kids loved it, but it was getting hot and it was a little larger than they planned....

But they made it to the middle and were so excited when they did...luckily this was a short maze so I could follow them from a distance and see them.

See, just the right height for kids....Kayrl loves to tell everyone that she made it to the flag with the smiley face in the middle!

Then we got to pick vegetables...these were the radishes.  Karyl even let Freddie pick one of each vegetable (she was allowed 4 of each veggie).

Look, it's a radish!!!

And then some carrots...

Even Freddie picked a carrot and then put it in the bag with the rest of our pickings!

They had so much fun and loved getting into the plants and seeing what came up when they pulled the leaves.

Does this need a caption??

Karyl also got to pick a pumpkin, but it had to be small enough that she could carry it out of the patch - no rolling allowed.  She walked that pumpkin patch for at least 10 minutes looking for what she thought was the perfect pumpkin!!

Tah-dah!! It was about 8 pounds, and she didn't carry it very far.  Right after I took this picture she asked me to carry it.

We were lucky to get this picture...the kids were hot and sweaty and REALLY thirsty by this point and about 10 seconds later Freddie completely broke down and screamed for water and to go back home.  I had no idea how large the farm was, or how long we'd be there....next time we will bring water bottles!!

Our freshly picked veggies from the farm...now what to do with them!?!?

Overall, we had a great time and despite the heat and whining, the kids say that had a really fun time and would love to do it again!! SUCCESS!!

Oh, and for those thinking our group looks a little small...Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to watch Nicole for us while we went so I could focus on the two older kids and really enjoy spending time with them!! I loved being able to give them my undivided attention for those few hours, and I think they appreciated it too!!

I'm one of the chosen ones!!

For those of you who haven't heard...there's an amazing blog I love to read - Win, Lose or Blog which chooses 8 contestants for each "Season" to participate in a new-age weight loss competition.  Not only are there prizes at the end for whoever loses the most weight, but each contestant is given a blog page to write updates on and share their triumphs, frustrations and experiences with weight loss through the 8 weeks in the contest.

They also have giveaways for the blog readers and lots of great weight loss inspiration!!

So...why am I sharing this with everyone here?? Because I was chosen as one of the contestants for Season 6 which starts October 3!!!

As most of you are aware, I worked really hard to lose weight before getting pregnant with Nicole, and I am SOOO excited to be a part of this contest and now have extra motivation to work hard...because all the people who read the blog will be able to see how much weight I lose and my weekly picture.  That's motivation enough to work hard and really lose some weight now that I'm accountable to lots of people!!

Once the contest starts I will have my own blog page off their main one and you can follow my 8 week journey with me - please check out there blog and see for yourself how neat it is!! And I can't wait to see how this goes and would love to have all of you follow me through the contest!!

I will post my blog address for the contest when I get it!!

What you've been missing

I know, there aren't enough Nicole pictures on here...I gave her a bath this afternoon and since she was clean and relaxed I held her for a while and she fell asleep with her head on my chest. I took this picture about 30 minutes ago....I got her to sleep laying on me and thought I'd try laying her down on her tummy. She is still asleep and has even readjusted herself, so I know she's not going to suffocate!! Maybe this will be a new tactic for napping??

On a side note, that onesie she is wearing used to be HUGE...it's still wide, but she's finally the right length, which means she's growing!! She's still a little pipsqueak, but she's slowly expanding!!

This picture was taken last weekend...I decided that I needed to map out Karyl's school schedule before I started back to work so that I would be able to get everything she needed for the day or week ready ahead of time and she could do more independent work...and make sure she gets it all done by the end of the school year!! So this is everything spread out while I tried to sort through and make sure we got everything on the schedule!!

Our little ballerina!! She started ballet and tap class on Saturday mornings at a wonderful little studio here and she LOVES IT!!! The best part is watching her huge smile each week. She's super easy to find because she's like the tallest kid in the class (there's a few first graders maybe an inch or two taller, but that's it). However, in 2 weeks she will be moving over to the performance class because we decided to let her continue on after her class through the city was done and she will definitely be the tallest girl in there by at least 6 inches!!

There were about 30 girls in the class who, like us, signed up through the city....but if you decided to continue on with classes and be part of the Winter Wonderland rehearsal, you get to leave the city class and move to the performance class and learn the dances for the recital...she even gets a professional costume (which there is a picture of further down!!).

Tah-dah...this will be her costume...a penguin!!!

The rest of this blog is courtesy of Karyl....she asked if she could borrow the camera and take some pictures, and these are the things she felt were important enough to snap a memory of.  I have no idea why, but quite honestly, some of her pictures are better than the ones I take!!

I love that she chose specific things to photograph...she even placed them carefully on the floor and was very meticulous about the pictures. You have to love that girl!!

And for those thinking, "wait, don't you have a son??" yes, we do!! However he is such a little ball of energy that he's never in one place long enough to take a picture of!! He is growing so tall so fast....we thought Karyl was abnormally large, well we were wrong...Freddie is quickly giving her a run for her money!! This boy is only a head shorter than Karyl (about 5-6 inches) and he is only about 6 pounds less than her. Luckily, since Karyl is a girl, she thinned out as she got taller, but Freddie will definitely not be "thinning out," this boy is linebacker material all the way!! He is getting too stinking cute too and is talking like it's nobody's business. He went from saying maybe 2-3 words together before Nicole was born to full sentences and ideas now. He know his whole alphabet and what sounds the letters make...he can count to 10 and count objects correctly...he is amazing us everyday. He had a slow start but has caught up fast and we just can't get enough of him...even if he is loud enough to always wake Nicole up RIGHT AFTER she finally falls asleep and I finally get a few minutes with no screaming....