Trick-or-Treat

First of all, I can't believe that Halloween has come and gone. It is almost Christmas...Yikes! Last week we took the kids to Schnepf Farms for a great time. They rode roller coasters, watched pigs race, ponys, hayrides, slides, Jaeden got her face pained, picked pumpkins, ate a chili dinner with lots of dancing, and we ended the night riding the night train. It's a little pricey, but definitely worth the hours of fun. The kids had a blast we'll for sure be going back next year!! Dance Machines!



Jaeden was chosen as a "pig leader" during the races!
I was able to go Jaeden's school to volunteer for their "Fall Celebration" day. Because the students aren't able to dress up and actually celebrate Halloween, they celebrate Fall. So the past couple of weeks they have been learning about pumpkins, leaves and everything that makes up fall (sure miss the fall leaves from Oregon). Each child has a 6th grade buddy, Jaeden's buddy is Patricia. Each child brought in a pumpkin and with their buddies, they weighed & measured the pumpkin and then gutted it to find out how many seeds were inside. Jaeden's had something like 423!! The kids had a great time. It's especially fun to volunteer in her class and I try to do it as much as possible..I guess I'm living out my dream of being a teacher ;-)
Jaeden's class, getting instructions

Jaeden & Patricia

Swinging with her buddy!
Moody's carving pumpkins. Once again Jaeden's throwing up a sign. I guess it's her trademark! We all know she didn't learn that from me!
On Halloween night we had an enjoyable evening BBQ'ing with our neighbors before off to trick-or-treat. We were grateful to have our neighbors directly next to us back home. Their son Elias (16) was diagnosed with brain cancer recently and so they have been literally living at the hospital for about a month now. He was released to come home on Halloween!! As neighbors we were so happy and we wanted to make their welcome home special..we decorated their yard and made welcome home signs. I think he was truely surprised and really enjoyed it!
After getting the kids full on some healthy food we set off. Talan got to meet up with his best buddy Logan, aka..his twin hulk. They were inseparable and just too cute!! Jaeden also got to trick-or-treat with her best buddies, Emma, Mariah & Anissa. The kids went hard for almost 2 hours ended up with tons of candy and I'm pretty sure we shut down the neighborhood. Needless to say, the kids crashed! Finally, introducing Sleeping Beauty and The Hulk!
Our girly girl!
T was so cute, he wouldn't take off this mask all night!
Belle even got in on the halloween action, not by choice of course! Jaeden says she's a beach dog in her bikini. She's such a good dog!

Chipmunks??

Okay, I promise that I REALLY do watch my kids!! I happened to be out back with Talan and Zach, the little cute boy I babysit. He can't play outside by himself yet for fear of eating rocks, etc. So Jaeden stayed inside because she said it was too hot out. Next thing I know she comes running out like this and tells me that she has the CHIPMUNKS (aka chicken pox) I almost died!! Luckily it turned out to be WASHABLE markers, thank heavens! Too funny! Of course, if the older sibling does it then it must be cool right???? When will he learn?

The rest of fall break

We spent the rest of Jaeden's fall break trying to do some fun and cheap things!
#1 We went the zoo with Crystal and Talia. The zoo has this really cool new water cave feature. So after a couple hours of walking the zoo the kiddos had a great time getting wet! Talan getting some air!


Jaeden and Talan got their very first camel ride!



#2 We went to the park and had a picnic, and played racing games. Initially we sat under a ramada to eat lunch, but their were so many darn bees that we ended up eating in the middle of the park. So simple but the kids LOVED it!

#3 Simple play time at home! Since we all are missing Disneyland so much, Jaeden and Talan decided to make a matterhorn ride out of chairs. When daddy gets home, he pushes and pulls the chairs up and down like they are riding the roller coaster. They laughed and laughed!!
Now Jaeden is back in school and I miss her so much!! It was so fun having her back at home with me all day. Now I'm just looking forward to Christmas break ;-)

San Diego

So after Disney we headed to San Diego for 4 days. My mom, brother, and sister flew in from Oregon to enjoy sunny San Diego with us. We rented a beach house right on Mission Beach that was fabulous, inside and out. It was so relaxing going to bed listening to the waves crash and then waking up to ocean, ahhh..we miss it!! We had a great time and spent most of our time on the beach. We played in the sand, built sand castles, ate lunch, walked to Belmont several times, sat in the beachfront jacuzzi, chased waves, watched Chad and Brandon boogie boarding and Alana surfing or trying at least. We had a lot of good laughs!

Talan loved chasing the birds and wanted to catch just one! Jaeden loved spending time with her auntie Alana. They went shopping down the beach one day for about 3 hours, and came home with not one, but two new bikini's for Jaeden!!! We do NOT buy bikinis for J, but somehow she talked her aunt into it and had a smile on her face for days! It doesn't help that everyone there is half-nude and all wearing bikinis!! I told her ONLY beach wear :-) I loved having mom's home cooking and spending some girl time together. We haven't had a family vacation (we missed my bro Mike) in a long time, it was so fun! This will definitely have to be a yearly event.
Surf Rider Beach house...we love it!!

The girls struttin' their bikini's!
Jaeden's always throwing up PEACE signs in photos! Who is she?

Disneyland Photos

The Greatest Place on Earth!!!

So we have been back from our Disneyland trip a week now and I'm still in depression about leaving. I LOVE IT there!! It truely is the happiest place on earth. We spoiled ourselves again and stayed at the Disney Grand hotel! It's hard to stay anywhere else once you've stayed..to many conveniences! We had an amazing room right above Downtown Disney. It was so nice to come back to our room after a long day and just open up our balcony door to great nightlife and calming jazz music. But I'm getting over it and back to realization!!! The park was decorated for Halloween, one of my fav. holidays so I had to get pictures!


The first day we were there the weather was lovely. The next two days, not so much...100 and above. It was extremely hot and we tried to spend alot of time riding the indoor rides and getting wet. Poor T-bone wasn't big enough to ride splash mountain or the river raft ride, so he went ALL out when he found these water spouts!!




Jaeden was able to get her hair done just like a princess!! I was able to watch and save ourselves $30 (ouch!) the next day, now I can do it myself. She looked gorgeous and got so many compliments. The best part was that she felt like a princess!



This trip was so fun because Talan was able to ride the majority of the rides at Disneyland, not so much at Ca. Adventure, but he still had a blast. His favorites were Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story, Pirates of the Carribean, Matterhorn, and he especially loved to see the characters, especially Woody and Jesse! However, he was to scared to go up to them himself, that's why Chad or I are always in a picture. Once he realized they weren't going to hurt him, he loved giving them goodbye hugs!




We met up with Renee, Brian, Brianne and Kaitlin. It was so fun to hang with such an awesome family. We had a great time riding rides with them and our kids loved playing together. We always have a great time with them.

We also ran into Jaeden's teacher, Miss Wagter. She was kind enough to take time out of her day and ride Soaring over California with Jaeden. Needless to say, Jaeden was in heaven and thought it was so cool. I'm sure she'll let all of her friends at school know :-)

Overall, we spent 4 days at Disney, had a blast and can't wait to go back!