Tyler's 7th birthday!

I can't believe he's seven already. How time flies! And boy did we ever celebrate. First, we went as a family to Disneyland. Here's a pic of Tyler with his presents there in the park.

Then, later that week, we had his birthday party at a very fun place called Kid Concepts. It was seriously one of the best birthday parties we've had. The host was absolutely hysterical and the kids just loved him. He had them playing all sorts of silly games. During dinner he asked them questions about Tyler (favorite t.v. show, favorite color, etc.) and if they answered correctly, they got prizes. He also had them do silly things if they won, like writing Tyler's name on their forehead or pouring ice down someone's back. They just loved it. It was truly very, very fun. And easy! Which is what we needed during this busy, crazy time!
Here's Tyler and his friends at his party.

And here's Tyler with his haul at home.

Sienna's blessing

Sienna's blessing was really special. Wayne's mom found a good deal on a plane ticket and was able to come down, which was so wonderful. Additionally, Brian and Julie were able to come. They initially had plans to go to Sacramento, but thankfully, things were rearranged so they could be there. Hurray for family, whether small or large!
Here's our family. Believe it or not, this was one of the best pictures.

Mommy, daddy and Sienna

The boys.

All of the boys.

All of the girls.

Big sister and Sienna in her blessing dress.

Sienna...

Sienna and more

I'm going to slowly update our blog. I'm going to try and go from oldest to newest so that they post in order!

Here's a pic of Sienna with big Sister:

And another shot of Sienna

Here's a picture of my birthday dessert. My mom, dad, Brian and Julie came up for dinner at our house. It was so fun to have them all there! Sadly, I have no pics of everyone, but here's one of our family. How lame was that???!!!

New Arrival!

August 28, 2009 at 7:45am we welcomed a beautiful new baby to our family, Sienna Leigh Dahl. She weighed 8 lbs 2 oz and was 20 inches long. The labor was quick and relatively painless (thank goodness for modern medicine!) and she is such a joy. We feel so blessed to have her as a part of our family. Elise wants to hold her every second that she can. Tyler likes to hold her too, but can't let on too much because she's a girl. Jason has pretty much avoided her so far, but I'm sure that will soon change. Here are some pics!

Too much stuff!

Last week Tyler and Elise went to science and art camp every day. They had SOO much fun, which is a good thing, 'cause they're going again this week too! Friday was my mom's birthday and we decided to go to Disneyland after the kids got out of camp to celebrate. The plan was to pick the kids up from their camps and head straight there. I thought that they would have quite a few things to bring home after the week, but HOLY COW, not only did they have a ton of stuff, but a lot of it was quite large! My trunk was full! I'm going to get a picture of them with all of their things and post it...maybe after this week is done. What on earth am I going to do with all of this stuff???? At least I can immortalize it with pictures before accidentally disappearing. :) (Okay, I won't get rid of all of it...)

Saturday we went up to Santa Barbara with my parents, brother, and sister-in-law to officially celebrate my mom's birthday. It was really fun seeing the house where we used to live and letting the kids play on our old elementary school playground. The same tables that I sat at for lunch were STILL in the lunch patio. I showed Tyler all of my old classrooms. It was great. Then we went downtown to eat and spent some time at the beach. It was so hot downtown, I thought the beach would feel great, but there was a really chilly breeze. Brrr! The kids had fun swimming anyway and Brian made a great drip castle/wall with Tyler. I got my suit on but was too chicken to do anything but get my feet wet. Wayne and my dad went in with the kids while my mom, Julie and I sat comfortably on a beach blanket. Afterwards my mom, dad, and I went to Solvang and had some delicious Ableskeivers. YUM! It's such a beautiful little town...I highly reccommend a visit. I was lame about taking pictures, but my sister-in-law with her awesome camera took some. Hurray! Julie just e-mailed me some pics...here they are!



One super funny thing...Saturday morning, Jason comes around the corner to our family room wearing Tyler's darth vadar helmet and carrying a lightsaber when he breaks into song...yes, the Star Wars song....dum, dum, dum, dum, dee, dum, dum, dee, dum. It was SO CUTE!!!!! I ran to get my camera and begged him to do it again, but he ran off. I WILL get it on video and post it for all to see. It's seriously hysterical!

They're Baaack

Hurray! My family is back! It's been great having everyone home. The kids so love to play with each other...I find myself looking at them and thinking, Man, I love my kids! Then of course they start fighting and I think, wanna go back to Canada? Just kidding. I love having them through it all.

We haven't been doing much since they've been back...just the normal. It's so nice to have lazy, unstructured summer days. We just do whatever we feel like doing and it's awesome!

The other day we went down to my parent's house so we could escape the heat and go swimming. I made Tyler some lunch and took it out to him on the patio. He was such a sweet boy and brought his plate back inside to my mom. She said to him, "Perfect! I can put some fruit on your plate for everyone to share." She started to put fruit on the plate and Tyler stood there thinking. Then he said, "Well...I let Rocky lick this plate clean." (Rocky is my parent's dog, if you didn't guess). Needless to say, the fruit was removed from the plate rather quickly!

While the cat's away...

I guess I could fill you in a bit on Jason's and I's doings while the rest of the family was in Canada. Wayne took the nice cameras, so the pics I took this week were with my phone. Sorry!

Thank goodness for my mom and some good friends who helped keep me entertained this week, or I would've been a sad cookie. It was very nice having Jason here...I think I might have had a hormonal breakdown if he wasn't.

Okay...I started writing the things I have done and they were so boring I decided to delete them! I'll just highlight...
We spent a few days swimming down at my parent's house. Jason had a BLAST, and it felt so good to just float, weightless in the pool.
I got my haircut and saw a chick flick with a dear friend. Ate dinner with some wonderful friends who felt bad that I was all alone. :) You saved my sanity! Thanks so much!!!! Went to California Adventure, cleaned (my house is still clean btw! Woo hoo!), organized closets and Elise's old baby clothes...and FINALLY updated our blog! Oh! Today Jason and I went with some friends to ride these little trains at a local park. It was so great! Jason didn't want to get off!

A couple of funny stories from this week:

Jason and I were shopping at Home Goods and he was just singing away. An older couple came up to him and asked him, "Do you like to sing?" to which he responded, "No" and then went straight back to singing at the top of his lungs. It was so funny! For those of you who don't know, he sings a mean Star Wars theme and Frere Jacque...all with the syllables...doe, doe, doe, doe, di, doe, doe, di, doe. I've got to catch it on video one of these days!

This morning, Jason was standing on the kitchen chair facing backwards, and suddenly his face turned bright red and he started grimacing. I asked him, "Jason, are you going poopy?" He grunted, "yeaaah" and kept on grimacing. It was hysterical!

Here are some pics: