Thanksgiving 2010

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. Drew's parents decided to go to California for Thanksgiving.  We couldn't join them because Drew had to work Thanksgiving weekend, so instead we decided to have Thanksgiving on WEDNESDAY while they were passing through town.  They had Thanksgiving twice and we were able to enjoy family for the holiday.  Win/Win!  They brought Drew's sister Meleena and her son Brecon.  Aunt Meleena always brings the best gifts.  But my kids love her the fact that she's a wonderful person (although the gifts don't hurt things).

 The kids were in school Wednesday, so set up was nice.  We didn't have to do much kid entertaining while we were trying to cook the meal.  Here's a photo of the kid table.  Mia and Cole get so excited to use the nice glasses.

 Here's the adult table.  Casual but beautiful.  We don't have a formal dining room, so everything is casual.

 Dinner was ready at 3:30pm sharp, just as the kids walked in the door.  After dinner we played monopoly until we were all too tired and cashed in.  It was a great night.

Everything turned out wonderful, especially Drew's pumpkin pies.  His first attempt and it was the best pumpkin pie I have ever had.

Getting all the dinner stuff out of the way on Wednesday was great, because we were able to spend the whole day Thursday, enjoying family time.  We went bowling - and some friends of ours had the same idea.  We were able to bowl by the Johnson Family and they took this great photo of us when the game was over.  I'm thankful for some many things.  So so so many!

Disneyland 2010

 Disneyland!!!  Who doesn't love Disneyland?  We were lucky enough to take our family to the happiest place on earth for Veterans Day week.  It had been exactly two years since our last trip there.  Most of the time we really enjoyed ourselves.  We joined the Stuart family, whom we love and adore, so it made the trip even more pleasant.  But I must say...taking 4 kids to Disneyland is A LOT OF WORK.  Especially when one of them is six months old.  Ella was wonderful, but dragging all her gear was more than exhausting.  And the other three kids had a few too many temper tantrums.

 Ella spent most of the time sitting in the stroller and she was a great sport about it.  We had plenty of snacks for her.

 Mia's favorite ride was the Matterhorn.  She would have ridden it 20 times if we would have let her.

 Mia riding her favorite ride.

 This is my favorite picture.

 Luke loved the Dumbo ride.

 On day two we went to California Adventure.

The whole group.

 After a few kiddie rides, we went on the Tower of Terror.  I wish I would have taken pictures of Luke's and Carlee's faces as they dropped on the ride.  Sheer terror.  I was laughing my head off.  It's payback Luke!!!

Drew's favorite ride... California Screaming.  Mia's supposed to be sitting next to him, but she chickened out at the last minute.

We spent our last day back at Disneyland (except Drew and Cole who hung out at California Adventure for half of the day).

Luke never wants to stand by the characters.  He gets a little freaked out.

 Best friends enjoying Disneyland together.  Isn't life grand?

Finally getting Luke in a Character picture.

 For lunch on the last day, we went to the Blue Bayou, located in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.  I always wanted to eat there.  The kids did great, so it turned out nice.   The kids menu doubled as a pirate hat.

 We finished the day on Main Street for the parade.  Mia, Katelyn, and Carlee, were all pulled into the parade to dance.

On the morning before we left, we stopped at Downtown Disney to do some shopping. We had to hit the Lego store.  It's a must.  

I love Disneyland dearly, that's why I'm going to wait at least three years before I go back.

The "Cow"ch

Our sweet little Cole.  This is a conversation I heard between Cole and Mia yesterday...

Mia "Cole, did you know that you're sitting on a cow right now?"
Cole "A Cow?"
Mia "Yea.  This couch is leather.  And leather comes from cows."
Cole "I knew that, Mia." (- acting super confident now -)  "That's why we call it a Cow-ch."

Hiding...

Luke disappeared this afternoon.  I searched the entire house and backyard and couldn't find him anywhere.  I even looked in the dark garage and there was no sign of him.  I began to panic, when suddenly I saw some movement coming from the minivan.  This is what I found...

Worried that Mommy wouldn't let him have a popsicle, he decided to hide in the minivan to eat it.  Little stinker!

Luke's Birthday and Halloween

Luke turned 3 years old on Oct 29th.  Being so close to Halloween it's always a little crazy.  But it was nice that the kids didn't have school that day, so they were able to help him celebrate.  He chose McDonalds for lunch, and loved that.  Then he picked out this lovely Halloween cake from Walmart.  We had dinner and cake at home before we headed to the Ward Trunk-or-Treat.  He thought the whole ward was throwing him a party.

Luke got a Sit-N-Spin, a play cell phone, and a play laptop, so he can be just like his Dad (minus the sit-n-spin part).

Mia dressed up as a Snow Princess, Cole was Super Mario, and Luke was in probably the most dangerous halloween costume for Trick-or-Treating.  But he insisted on being Batman.  I snapped this photo after the kids had been running around, so Mia is missing half her costume and her cute hair is going wild, and Cole's mustache would not stay on.  Who cares, right? Little miss Ella was a bunny rabbit - meaning I dressed her in her regular clothes and put some bunny ears on her.  How creative is that? I didn't even get a photo of her.  Poor 4th child. 

The next day we carved our pumpkins:

It wouldn't be a family activity if someone wasn't crying.

Drew helped the kids cut the top off their pumpkins, but we both decided that they could do the rest themselves, while we supervised

Yup, that's my 3 year old carving his own pumpkin.  It made me nervous, but he did great.

Here's the end result.  Pretty spooky.  Cole's is on the left.  Mia's is in the middle, and Luke's is on the right.

That night, I carved my own pumpkin and made our traditional Dinner in a Pumpkin.  We also had apples with cream cheese carmel dip and rolls.  The kids loved it.

San Diego

On October 14th we went to San Diego for a family vacation.  And I use the word "vacation" loosely, because it truly qualified as a business trip.  And technically it was.  Drew had a conference there, so we decided to tag along for a good time.  It ended up being more like a test of my motherly patience, than a vacation for me.

We arrived late on Thursday and stayed at the beautiful Loew's Resort on Coronado Island.  It was a great place.  Not sunny, like in the picture above, but the pool was still wonderful and the hotel was nice.  

On Friday morning we got up and headed to McDonalds for breakfast.  (blasted fancy hotels never have continental breakfast!)  Drew was in conference all day so I decided to take the kids to Sea World with Marquessa and her kids.  The park was fun, but managing the kids by myself is complicated, to say the least. Cole had a problem with letting me know where he was going.  He would just vanish, and I'd run around the park like a crazy person for 5 minutes until I could locate him again.  This happened several times.  

I wanted to get a picture of Cole and Luke with the Sesame Street characters, but Luke was TERRIFIED of them.  He ran away at first sight.  In his defense, they are big harry monsters and had a picture of a spooky haunted house behind them.  And who can trust Cole with those shifty eyes.

Ella was such a good sport.  She just went along for the ride and didn't complain.  My favorite part of Sea World was the hot chocolate at the all you can eat pizza buffet.  It was FANTASTIC.

Later that night I took the kids to Seaport Village and walked around for a while.  That place is really great.  

On Saturday we went to lunch to celebrate Wynette's Birthday.  We went to the most fabulous restaurant called Filippi's Pizza Grotto in Little Italy.  The best food and service ever.  And we were able to see some friends from San Antonio that we hadn't seen in a while.  

Then that night was MY highlight of the trip.  We went to the Air Force vs. San Diego State University football game.  I never get to go to football games, so it was so much fun.  The weather was perfect, the kids behaved well, and our seats were awesome.  It made the whole trip, struggles and all, worth it. 

Sunday was a rough day.  I was considering heading back home because the kids were fighting constantly, the weather was yucky, and my nerves were shot.  I spent a large portion of the day doing laundry while trying to keep the kids entertained, so I was exhaused.  But we decided to stick it out for a couple more days.  

On Monday we went to the San Diego Zoo.  The kids were wild and crazy as usual, but this time I decided to just sit back and let the craziness happen, and not stress myself out.  And it ended up being a great time.   

 Luke checking out the gorilla over his shoulder.

 I don't know why these silly face cut-outs are so popular with my kids.  They just love them and insist I take their photo every time we see one.

 Poor Peacock.

 Ahhhh, sibling love!

This was Luke's favorite part of the entire day at the zoo.  He loves the monkeys and it happened to be the last exhibit we saw.  We stayed there for a while but decided it was time to go and since it was nap time, Luke got angry.  I told him, "Well, if you don't come now, you're going to have to stay here and live with the monkeys."

He got more than angry.  Check out the video. 

He fell asleep 5 minutes after he got into the stroller, so we headed home.  All in all, it was a really fun day.  

We went bowling with the Aikeles at the Bowling Center on the Navy base that night.  That was tons of fun. 

And on Tuesday we decided it was time to head back home, and left Drew to ride back with his good friend the following day.  It wasn't until after we made one last stop at the beach.  

Luke was covered in sand when it started to rain, so he decided the best thing to do, would be to stand in the outdoor shower and wash it all off.  Clean, but soaked we headed back to the car and drove home.  But we didn't forget to stop at Chick-fil-a, our favorite fast food restaurant that currently eludes us in Las Vegas.  All I can say is...It's good to be home.