Donuts with Dad

For some reason I forgot to post this and I just found it in my "edit posts" section. Anywho...this happened a couple of weeks ago, but is worth posting!

Chad got to attend Jaeden's school for "Donuts with Dads". For a couple of weeks now, Jaeden has been practicing these "special" dad songs that they have learned at school. She has been singing them constantly in her room, shower, car..and once she almost got caught as Chad heard her and asked what she was singing. She got so embarrassed and said, "never mind, dad!". So up to this point she has been very careful not to ruin the surprise for him!
Chad called me after he left the school and said it was really cute. She sang him songs, made him a tie to wear, and then they enjoyed donuts. After, they walked to the playground, where Jae showed him how she masters the monkey bars and he stayed for about 15 mins. When he told her he had to go, she turned to him and this was the conversation.

Jaeden: "my eyes keep watering"
Dad: "Are you sad that I have to leave for work?"
Jaeden: "no, my eyes just keep watering"
So he started to walk away and then he turned around and said that she had a 1/2 smile/grin on her face.(I'm picturing the one where she's about to break down into a full crying mode). Then she nodded for him to "just go" with her hands. How sad!!
Getting ready to leave...Talan of course had to be in the picture. Sorry Jae!

Happy Birthday Belle!!

Call me crazy...Actually call Jaeden crazy! I was driving Jaeden to school on Monday, and realized that our dog Belle should be having a birthday soon. Jaeden was so excited and insisted that we must have a party for her! So when she got home from school, we pulled out Belle's "dog info" and indeed Belle had turned one on Sunday. We were a day too late and I thought for sure we might be off the hook for a party...NOT!
Jaeden woke up on Tuesday and tried to get ME to call everyone. Yeah right, I wasn't about to take credit for a dog party! How silly would that be?! So she called her aunt Robin, who has 2 dogs; Tyson & Emie. Then she called Grandma Kelly, who has just one dog, Sissy. Jaeden didn't leave them anytime to get ready, since she insisted the party was taking place the SAME day. She advised them that the dogs needed to be dressed and no gifts. So, since Jaeden gets everything she wants...all the dogs came dressed and bearing gifts! The dogs enjoyed some freeze dried dog ice cream, or at least Belle did! I'm pretty sure she finished all of it off. Overall, I think the dogs had a great time sniffing each other and marking their territory all over the grass :-) The best part was seeing Jaeden so excited and so proud of herself for putting a party together. Thanks for coming and supporting Jaeden!

Jaeden's welcome sign on the front door. Mind you, this was all her idea!
Trying to get all the dogs to pose for a photo was quite challenging. This is as good as it gets!
Gift from Sissy: New dog bowls. Too cute!! Gift from Tyson & Emie: A new toy dog bone!!

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