UGH!

So, can I say that we've been crazy busy and use that as an excuse for not updating our blog?????
I'm afraid that'll have to do. I'd better back up to November.

The last week of November brought with it adorable Thanksgiving feasts. Elise's school put on a darling program for the parents. Here's a little video I took with my digital camera. Elise was feeling a little bit shy with the video camera on her. Can you believe she's my daughter!!!

Sorry, it was taking over a half an hour to load the video. Here are some pics of her and Jason at the feast:

Jason played in this boat on the playground while Elise did her program.

Tyler's feast wasn't as elaborate, but was still fun. The kids got to create Native American vests which they wore to the feast. They got to eat all sorts of yummy food on the playground and then play for the rest of the school day. How fun is that! Elise and Jason got to come along for the fun.



After the Thanksgiving parties (or was it before????) I hosted cooking club at my house. It was great fun and we had 12 women there! That weekend was Tyler and Elise's final soccer games and soccer parties. Elise was so excited because her coach got all of the girls little Ariel polly pocket dolls. She slept with hers for a week! Here's a picture of Elise and her trophy. Tyler's party was at the same time so Jason and I went to his and Wayne to Tyler's. Wayne had a camera and I didn't. Well, I guess I had my phone. Sorry Tyler!

Following the soccer parties Wayne and I went to see Twilight with three other couples. Wayne actually read the book in order to "more fully criticize" the movie and ended up reading all four books in the series! It was so fun talking to him about them. Hee hee!

The video is taking forever to upload, so that's why this blog is getting longer and longer...........
The week after Thanksgiving was the bookclub Christmas party...SO much fun. Sorry, I don't have pics., followed by the ward Christmas party and Wayne's work holiday party. (Yes, the two were on the same night). My parents came up to take the kids to our ward party and Wayne and I were actually able to come to the beginning of it before we left for his work party. We heard that the kids had so much fun participating in the program and decorating gingergbread houses. Congrats Rachel on an awesome party! The pic of Wayne and I at his work party is so yucky that I will NEVER show it to anyone (Wayne looks great, I look awful). But here's a fuzzy pic from my phone of the club where it was held.

This past week we had parent/teacher conference, Wayne's brother's birthday, Tithing settlement, an Enrichment Cookie Exchange (went well, lots of people came), and a wedding on Saturday! This week isn't as busy...I'm going to Tyler's school on Wednesday to help him decorate a Gingerbread house and baking cookies to take to Elise's class for her Christmas party on Friday. Friday afternoon we'll head down to my mom's to decorate for her Christmas party (she's activities chair) and attend her party. My future sister-in-law (who I love!) is coming into town and we'll get to hang out with her and my brother at the party Friday night (hurray!) and then we're having an early partial Christmas with her Sat. morning before heading out to see BYU play AZ in the Las Vegas Bowl. Oops, I forgot to mention Wayne's birthday tomorrow! They set up an ice skating rink on the BEACH here and we're going to go there tomorrow night with some friends and my parents. PHEW! I'll try and post some more pictures after this weekend. It should be fun! All right, I'm done now. :)

California Adventure!

We had a great and busy weekend, which you will see from back to front, I'm afraid. Still need to remember to post the last thing first!

Anyway...Friday, Tyler and I went to see Cinderella (scroll down and you can see pics).
Then Saturday morning we went to the Tide pools (again...scroll down and see pics).
Saturday night we had promised the kids we would go to Disneyland. Despite the fact that geographically we are very far from the fires, the Santa Ana winds are blowing due West, so the smoke and ashes from the Yorba Linda fires are hitting us in full force. The kids' soccer games were cancelled because of the smoke, although it wasn't too bad at that time. Because of our promise, we thought we would try to go to Disneyland anyway. The smoke on the highway to Disneyland was really bad, but we thought we would see if it was better at the park. Miraculously, as we started heading south, the smoke cleared and the park was just fine! We ended up going to CA Adventure and had a great time.

They have an amazing playground that's based on the Redwood Forest that we had never been to before. There were slides, rope bridges, rock walls, little hiking trails and a cool tire swing activity. The kids had a blast!

Here's Tyler coming out of a redwood slide.

One of the rope bridges. They were super fun...even for big kids like Mommy and Daddy!

Our brave girl went on the tire swing, but Tyler was afraid it would go too fast. Elise was afraid of the rope bridges, however.

After we played on the playground the kids wanted to go on the river rafting ride. Thank goodness it was still a beautiful night! If you squint really hard you can see Wayne in this tube! The kids are beside him.

The Tide Pools

Saturday morning dawned very hot and sunny. The kids didn't feel like going out on the jetski, so we decided to head down to the tide pools. We arrived at high tide, so we didn't actually get to see any of the marine animals, but we still had fun hiking, collecting rocks, and wading in the water. The shoreline is made almost entirely of large rocks which make a really cool crackling noise as the water recedes. It was amazing to see the water crash almost at the base of the cliffs. When the tide is out, you can actually see sandy beach before the rock shoreline begins.

Here's Wayne and a rosy-cheeked Jason at the beginning of the hike.

And who could forget Elise and Harry Potter! There's a little nursery school at the base of the cliffs with a playground the kids like to play on.

Jason got all wet by a wave, so we had to take his shorts off. He loved being free to walk around and play in the rocks and sand.

You can't go to the beach without a sword fight...right?

Whachu talkin' about Willis??!

Mommy and kids...but where's Tyler???

Jason sacked out on the hike back up. Poor kid!

A Trip to the Theater

We've been reading Harry Potter to Tyler and he just loves the stories. A good friend let him have her Harry Potter glasses and he's been wearing them all weekend.

Look out! Tyler's using his favorite spell, "Alohomora!"











Tyler's Sunday School teacher gave our family tickets to see the musical Cinderella at the Armstrong Theater Friday night. It started too late for little Leesy, but not for our night owl Tyler! Daddy was very kind to stay home with Elise and Jason so that Tyler and I could enjoy our first trip to the theater. Tyler said that he would have liked to be one of the mice.

Trick o' Treat!

The kids were so excited to go Trick or Treating. Even Jason got into the spirit of things, despite being frightened by some of the decorations. He had a death grip on his little pumpkin pail and when we finally went home, hollered like mad when we took it away! One house gave large candy bars and he wouldn't let go of his great big Nestle Crunch bar. We had to distract him and hide it. He looked around for a good two minutes before he moved on to something new! It was fun having my parents come up too. My dad ended up carrying Jason on his shoulders the majority of the time.




Tyler went as a Jedi knight...he alternated between Obiwan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, depending upon who asked. Here's a picture of him at his costume parade at school using the force on me.



Elise went as a fuzzy pink bunny. I think she just liked the costume because it was pink and soft! Sadly, her ears kept falling forward so she took them off for the majority of the trick o' treating. She was still cute though!



















Jason went as a cute little pumpkin. He, too, didn't like his headware and I couldn't get a single picture of him with it on. Oh well! He's still a super dooper cutie in my book! In that last picture he's thinking, "That pumpkin's got nothing on me!"

Disneyland!!

We love going to Disneyland. When Carol came to visit we said we were going to drag her there and assured her that it would be a different experience with her grandchildren than with teenage show choir kids. Sadly, one of the differences was she twisted her ankle boogie boarding (I forgot to mention that earlier!) the day before, but toughed it out. Despite the crowds and ankle injury, it was still fun.







We were lucky to also have one last evening at Disneyland with dear friends before they moved.



















I had to include these cute pics of Elise and Jason sleeping. Of course our "night owl" Tyler, as he likes to be known, was WIDE AWAKE! :)

Tyler's 6th Birthday

We celebrated Tyler's 6th Birthday on September 29th of this year. I can't believe he is already six. No longer is he my little five-year-old. Now he's my big six-year-old. Boo hoo! When I told him that I didn't want him to grow up any more he told me that "he would try." What a sweet kid.







For his birthday he just wanted to invite a couple of kids to go to a place called Kid Concepts. It's an indoor play gym that has a HUGE play structure, a play kitchen, salt-water aquariums, dress-up clothes, and all sorts of other fun things. It's SO fun! That night they had a caricature artist that drew a great picture of Tyler as a Jedi Knight. Yes, as you can see by the pictures, Tyler is just slightly obsessed with Star Wars right now. His little brother Jason is following right in Tyler's footsteps and is pretty good with a lightsaber himself!

OUT OF ORDER!

Sorry these posts are all out of order. I'm just figuring this stuff out. :)

We wondered what had happened to Carol's glasses...until we looked at all of the pics from the beach! There's one where they are sitting firmly on her nose while she stood happily in the freezing cold water. I had to blow up that particular picture really big to see them though...so I didn't add it to the blog. Mystery solved...boo hoo.

Boogying Beach Babes!

Wayne's mom Carol came out for a visit this past week and the weather was so hot, I had to take her to the beach. While there, of course we had to try out boogie boarding! The sad thing was that we didn't even notice that she still had her glasses on her face when she got into the water. You guessed it, bye, bye glasses! She reassured me that she had made a goal to get new glasses before she went to her daughter Allison's house in November. I felt so bad!

It was also so much fun to spend one last day at the beach with our dear friends before they moved to Utah. WE MISS YOU!!!!!!!!! You know you have a place to stay when you're needing to escape the freezing weather!

Paryting with the Girls

Last night a bunch of my GREAT friends and I went out to dinner to celebrate my and Rachel's birthday. We had fun talking, laughing, and of course, stuffing our faces. It was so fun! And despite the fact that we were all so tired, we couldn't end the evening too early. Wayne STILL doesn't know that I came home at 1:30 am!