Happy New Years!

Hi! Sorry, I'm a little late, but we had a great Christmas this year, and we are now all down and out with our families traditional christmas break sickies.    I always seem to get it the hardest, with both kids going on a week of coughing and runny noses off and on.  Nothing major, just enough to bug us and keep us from doing anything too fun and crazy.  Caleb got his beloved Leapster and has already run through his batteries twice, we've had to put it away and give it some "rest" time so he's been busy playing with his Diego Dinosaur Rescue Mountain.  Belle is loving being a mama to her new babies, and tells us all to shhhhh when they are sleeping.  If she's not shushing us, she's galloping around the house on her new stuffed horse yelling yee-haw and giddy-up.  We are enjoying having Jared home for this week, and I know the kids will miss Daddy when he goes back to work next week.  Happy New Years to all who are staying up tonight, I will be snug and warm in my bed, which is where I am heading as soon as I am done here.  Yes, I am a party pooper, and proud of it! 

Santa!

We went and saw Santa at the Bass Store last Thursday with Jared's parents.  They moved all the boats outside to make room for a winter wonderland!  There are lots of free crafts you can do (so far we've made candy cane reindeer plus brought home lots of coloring pages) and free activities, like target shooting and other Bass themed things.  Luckily for us, when we went on Thursday, no line!!!  So the kids got to take their time and enjoy seeing Santa without being rushed along.  We were really happy that they got to see him then because when we went back on Saturday with my parents, it was packed, and they were handing out placeholder line cards for people to see Santa!  And the cards they were handing out were for 2 and a half hours from then!  I couldn't believe it!  Almost 3 hours, just to see Santa!  This year is the first time Belle has consented to see Santa without screaming, so we are very happy!  And of course, Caleb couldn't pass up the opportunity to ask for his Diego Dinosaur Rescue Mountain again (ask him what he wants for Christmas, all he asks for is that and a Leapster).  If anyone mentions Christmas and presents, he will tell you that he wants the Diego Dinosaur Rscue Mountain, with Diego and the Dinosaurs.  Seriously, he has his response down pat, it's quite funny to hear.  But anyways, here are their pictures from Bass on Thursday night. (oh yeah, did I mention they gave each child a free 3 x 5 plus a card for a free kids meal at the restaurant attached to the store?)

Adore? or a door?

So I had to record this for posterity.  Today in primary the kids were learning a new song, and the chorister asked the kids what "adore" means.  I am the pianist and am in there to hear all the funny things the kids say, but today my son stole the show.  While other kids are giving their answers, Caleb announces in th middle of a lull, that adore is " like a door, like when people go in and out of the door"  Needless to say, every adult and most of the kids just started laughing.  The best thing is Caleb was totally serious.  He thought very hard about it, and thought he had the correct answer.  I love my Caleb!

My Pet Wolf

So I got a new blanket.  Jared has dubbed it my wolf.  I have to say I agree with him.  To back track a little, Jared's parents decided to give us money for Christmas this year, with each of the adults having one present to open on Christmas it self.  They gave us the money on Thanksgiving, figuring that with all the sales coming up this month we could maybe stretch the money a bit and get more, knowing that most of the adult kids were looking to get new electronic stuff.  Now me, I'm not an electronics gal.  Don't get me wrong, I love my tv, and I love my computer, but I don't have to have the newest and best constantly.  But there was this one thing that was stuck in my mind....  I had seen it at Pottery Barn the week before, and it had been lurking in the back of my mind ever since, but I knew I would never be able to afford it on my own.  Thanks to my early Christmas present, I knew I could!!  And even better, my wonderful father-in-law found me a 20% coupon that I could use to help even more!  So I now own a faux fur throw and seriously, it feels like a mink coat!  It is so soft and warm and cuddly, I love it!!!  Now, as to why it is my wolf... I didn't go for plain white (bad idea with kids in the house)  nor did I go for the charcoal black.  I got the throw that has black, white, gray and brown in it, so it resembles a wolfs fur coat.  It is the best blanket ever!  It gets pretty cold during the night up here compared to Long Beach, so I have been enjoying snuggling under it as the temperature has dipped into the low 40's the last couple nights.  You can see my wonderful blanket here  Mine is the color pattern on top.  I love my wolf!!

Here I am!

Wow, I've been a lazy blogger.  Well we had a fun Thanksgiving.  We spent the day with Jared's family, had yummy food, took new family pictures (which I will post when I get copies), and went to the theater and saw Bolt (Way cute!!).  The next day we had a family reunion with my side of the family and had a great time eating more yummy food.  It was fun to see people that I haven't been able to see in awhile.  The best was how much we would all get confused with which little boy was who from the back, cause there were 5 little boys within a couple years of age and they all had the same blonde heads!  It was a lot of fun, and the kids had a great time playing with all their cousins.  We also have had family come up to enjoy all the fun decorations at Victoria Gardens.  They also do fake snow in the town square area that kids love playing in.

Chaffey Town Square with everything lit up before the snow started.  Yummy CPK is in the background!

Caleb and Belle laughing and playing in the snow.

The pretty Christmas tree all lit up

Belle talking to Santa and getting a lollipop with Grandma.  This is the first year that she will go anywhere near Santa.  She has always been a screamer, so this is a huge improvement that she got even this close!

Oh yeah, and we attempted potty training with Belle.  Here she is showing off her Princess underwear that were supposed to help motivate her.  Yeah right.  Needless to say after 3 days and only 2 successes, she started to scream No! at us when ever we said it was time to sit on the toilet, so we gave up.  But she likes underwear... so I guess one step at a time.  We will try again in the spring, after the craziness of the holidays has past.

Twilight the Movie!! Who thought it would turn out to be a laughfest?

Ok, so did anyone else find Twilight absolutely hilarious?  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I went, and I had a good time, but it was so cheesy!!!  It was the most ansty, emo-filled, and corny movie ever!  I have never seen that many closeups of faces, lips and eyes in one movie before.  And his "dazzling"  skin?  What a joke.  It looked like some hideous rash!  Still, the movie was ok, although there was a serious lack of character development.  I guess if you love the movie's maybe you'll be ok with it.  If you didn't like the books, don't waste your time, cause it'll be everything you hated about them, x10!

Twilight!!

Yay! I am getting ready to leave for Twilight!  I am sitting here at the computer waiting for my ride (we are carpooling down to the theatre)  Anyone else crazy enough out there to go to the midnight premiere?  I love getting to experience all this fun stuff that I would never do on my own, so it's great I've got other crazy moms in my ward!  Wish me luck as I go stand in line for the next 4 hours waiting to get in !  Luckily we already have our tickets.  We got those the day they came out!  I know, we are insane, but its fun!!

Tai Pan!!!

 So I have a new favorite store.  In the past week I have gone three times, and I'm still not tired of it!  We went to Tai Pan for the first time last Friday with Grandma Marcy, Grandpa Galen, Aunt Skylar, and JoAnna Hall.  We had a blast!  We were all Tai Pan virgins and had a great time exploring this humongous store, and I mean HUGE!! (It is 70,000 sq ft!!!!! Seriously!)  My mom had Tuesday off for Veterans Day and she came out to see what all the fuss was about, and we again had a great time exploring.  Somehow I forgot my camera both times we went!  So on Wednesday after dropping Caleb off at school, Belle and I headed down to play (it opens at 8:30 am, LOVE IT!)  Unfortunately, I forgot to charge my camera's battery, so it died on me about a third of the way into the store!  I got lots of fun pictures, but still, it doesn't really show the magnitude of this place.  If anyone wants to come visit my new little slice of heaven, it is on 4th Street just across the street from Ontario Mills, so right at the intersection of the 10 and 15 freeways.  A link to the map is here 

Caleb's School Pictures

Ok, so this post is for Grandma's eyes mainly, but everyone else can enjoy Caleb's new school pictures too!  So for Grandma Sue and Grandma Marcy, here are Caleb's new school pics.  I have the whole package here at home like last time, if you want any let me know, so I can keep them.  I have to return the package to Caleb's school by next Wednesday, so let me know by then!  Enjoy my handsome boy!

Halloween Part II

Ok, so my pictures ended up a little out of order, sorry, you'll just have to bear with me.  We took the kids trick or treating in a nice neighborhood we found last year and we really liked, so we went back there again this year and we were not disappointed.

A lot of the houses get really into their decorations, and we really liked this house.

Kind of a cool shot.  Jared was doing a long exposure and the kids moved during it.  They are the ghosts I guess.  Oh, and Belle's pumpkin is glowing.  No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you.  We put a bike light in it to help keep track of them just in case.

My little witch walking down the street.  And look!  She is going for her nose again!

We have got to break that habit, and soon.

Indiana Jones walking down the street.

This was the best we could get of them together.  This is right before we started (I told you they were out of order) and this was the fourth shot of them together.  Belle was refusing to look at the camera so Jared asked her to show us her teeth, and this is what we got.  Of course, Caleb had been smiling perfectly for the previous photos, but he was getting a little antsy and ready to go, so as Jared took the shot, he starts swinging his pumpkin between his legs.  Oh well, at least he was still smiling!  They had a great time tonight and we have enough candy to last us for a while.  That is, as long as I keep Daddy out of it!  ;)

Halloween Part I

So Caleb's school today had a costume parade and we went to watch and hand candy out to the kids as they walked around.

So this is our problem with Isabelle lately.  She digs at her nose.  She picks out her boogers and hands them to me.  I feel so loved! 

Coming out to show off their costumes!

Caleb was Indiana Jones this year.

His entire class with Ms Jessica on the left and Ms Shana on the right.

Daddy and Belle, she did not want her picture taken.

Dancing with the Stars Tickets!!

So I got tickets to next weeks Dancing with the Stars results show on Wednesday!  Yes, I know its normally on Tuesday, but because of the election it is being pushed to Wednesday.  I am sooooo excited!!!  I was able to request up to four tickets, so I did, but only Jared and I are going at this point!  So I have 2 extras if anyone is interested.  We will be dropping the kids off in LB at their grandmas house and going to Hollywood from there.  You have to be there by 2:30, but I am planning on being there earlier, so we are not at the back of the line.We will probably leave LB by noon, so this will be pretty much an all day thing.  If any one is interested, LET ME KNOW!!!!  The more the merrier, we would love to have friends come along.  And you don't have to be a couple!  We can take two separate individuals too, or however it works out.  If I get multiple requests, than I will hold a raffle, and my kids can be the impartial choosers!  Seriously, I am soo excited and would love to have someone come with us, maybe even carpool.  Let me know!!!

Update:  The tickets have been claimed, but if anything changes, I will post!

Free Ice Cream!!!

Just so everyone knows, if you haven't heard already..... FREE ICE CREAM!!!!!  Yep, on election day, Ben & Jerry's is giving away free ice cream from 5-8 pm.  So go to your scoop shop between 5-8 pm and get your free scoop of ice cream!  Who doesn't like free stuff?

Their First Dance

So this afternoon we are watching Beauty and the Beast when Belle runs up to me holding her Princess Belle dress.  We put it on and she proceeded to watch the movie.  After about 15 mintues, she pulls Caleb to his feet during Be Our Guest and gets him to start dancing with her.  I had the camera in front of me so I had to grab it and record a little bit of their duet.  And yes, Caleb's lips are very red.  He has very chapped lips right now he had just smeared on his Dr. Pepper Lipsmackers chapstick.  I love my cute kids!

Beach Day!

This past weekend was Jared's 10-year high school reunion!   While we didn't feel like forking out the big bucks to go to the big party at the hotel, we did meet up with a good friend who was in town for it.  Serena was a good friend of Jared's in high school, and has since become a good buddy of mine through IM'ing.   It was great to hang out with Serena and take advantage of the fun weather a tthe beach.  We may never have gotten a beach day in with Daddy during the summer, but hey, we got it in in mid-Oct!  Gotta love California!  We started the day with cinnamon rolls from Sweet Jill's on Main Street, and then we headed to the beach for play time!  Gotta love my fearless kids, they would run right into the waves, and right back out.  Neither one wanted to come out of the water.  It was great cause it wasn't crowded at all, so we were able to park ourselves right at the edge of the water and play for a couple of hours before we headed to Ruby's for lunch.  Afterwards, we drove Serena back to her parent's house where she is staying while here(she lives in Colorado with her husband) and met up with a couple of other friends before we left to go on our way, and they went to the official reunion.  And boy, were we glad we didn't shell out the money for the tickets (it would've cost us almost $200 for both of us to go), Jared talked to a friend who helped plan it and we found out that less than 50 people had RSVP'ed!  We had a great time that day, and can't wait till Serena can come visit us again!

Tagged!

So I have been tagged.  This is the sixth photo in my sixth folder.  It is Belle in December 2006.  She is 7 months old here, and in her first Christmas jammies.  Such a cute little girl!

Oak Glen Fun!

We had a fun weekend!  We headed up to Oak Glen saturday morning for some fun time outdoors with my parents.  We started the day at Law's for breakfast.  Its a great little coffee shop that does a great buffet for pretty cheap.  It was a little chilly, only 46 degrees at 8am!  Glad we brought our jackets!  After breakfast we walked around the village for a little bit before heading off to some of the apple farms.  Our first stop was Los Rios.  The kids had a good time watching the workers pressing apples and making fresh cider.  Inside it was wall to wall apples.  Anything you can think of, it was there.  

Next stop was Riley's Apple Orchard.  Isabelle got to pick her apples right off the tree.  Caleb had a good time helping her pick out apples too.  Both had fun running all over and enjoyed the outdoors.  The only bad thing was they were doing a huge girl scout thing that day, so it was very crowded.  We then left and went next door to Riley's Farm, where they have a huge pumpkin patch that covers this entire hill.  You are able to go out there and pick your pumpkin and cut it off the vine yourself.   The kids were tromping all over and had a great time.  Poor Belle kept tripping on all the vines but she would just get right back up and keep on going.  After the kids had picked out their pumpkins we headed back down the hill.  The only problem with this was Belle was carrying her own little pumpkin herself.  Well, needless to say, she stumbled a little and dropped it!  Off it went, rolling down the hill.  We all started laughing, till we turned and looked at Boo's face!  She was traumatized!  Its my biggest regret that I didn't get a shot of that sad face.  We watched that pumpkin rolling down the hill and we hustled after it, hoping it would survive its fall.  Luckily a group of young adults saw us and stopped the pumpkin and saved it for her!  It survived without a scratch and let me tell you, Belle hugged that pumpkin tight after that.  

Our last stop was Snowline for some apple cider donuts and to buy some cider before heading home, but holy cow!  It was soooo crowded!  The line for the donuts was at least an hour long.  No way.  So we went inside, bought some apple cherry and apple raspberry cider, and some cider donut mix and headed off.  It was a great day.  The kids had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa and loved getting to do somthing new for them. 

Free Bag Give Away!

There's a new site going up and on their launch day they are giving away a free handbag every hour for the first 24 hours!  Check the link and go sign up for yourself!

http://www.handbagplanet.com/

Las Vegas and then some

Wow, it's been a little while!  There have been some issues with phone and DSL lines in our apartment community off and on the last couple of weeks and it seems like it worked that when I was home, I had no signal, but when I was going to leave, or didn't have time to get on, I had a signal!  I think there must be a conspiracy against me going on here.  Well, it has been a couple of fun weeks though.  Jared and I went to Las Vegas together from the 24-26.  How nice it was to get away and just be a couple.  Big thanks to Marcy and Galen (aka Big Grandma and Grandpa) for watching the kids for us while we were gone.  It was Jared's yearly InterBike convention at the Sands Expo Center (attached to the Venetian Hotel) so he went to work, and I got to play!  I always love being in Vegas and seeing all the different happenings going on.  We were invited to a really cool party in the Voodoo lounge on the roof of the Rio Hotel this year.  We were so excited!  Too bad when we showed up the line to get into the door was forever long.  There was no way I was going to wait for over an hour in a line!  It was already 10:30 pm, so we went home and went to bed, cause we had another big event the next night, the World Finals Crit Races.  I know, the what?  Its a bike race where they make a course in a parking lot, in this case the Mandalay Bay event Center, and people race on their road bikes really fast and are absolutely vicious.  We saw lots of crashes and had fun partying till midnight, well, I was mainly partying, Jared was busy working and networking, handing out lots of busniess cards and free JensonUSA gear that I lovingly toted around for him. ;)  We had a great time like always, and can't wait till next years convention.  

The kids are doing good, Caleb is loving school this year, and Belle is missing her big brother when he is gone.  When we go pick Caleb up, Its so cute, cause the first thing Belle does when he comes out the door is give him a big hug and kiss.  She loves him so much, and Caleb is just as happy to see her and tell me all about his day at school.  I know we have lots of fun events coming up the next couple weekends so I should be posting more soon.

LA Fair!

Belle with her favorite corn-on-the-cob, and her new friend the goat.  I think the goat liked her corn more than her.

These lambs were just born the day before we were there.

Caleb the strongman!  He loved all the picture spots.

Belle playing in the snow.

Caleb sledding down the hill.  Belle did this too, both kids loved it!

The sled was bigger than him, but he wanted to carry it by himself.

Belle drinking her coke.

Caleb at lunchtime.

My chocolate covered bacon!!  It was really good actually.

Jared's lunch, a foot-long sausage with peppers and onions.

All gone!  He ate the whole thing!

Belle fell asleep for a little while in her stroller.  She was all tuckered out, poor thing.

Caleb riding the airplanes.

Caleb loved this ride!  He sat all by himself and did not want anyone to go with him.  We even caught him putting his arms up during it!  Such a wild boy!

Gotta have my honeysticks!  Weirdest flavor available?  Had to be the avocado.  They didn't use avocado flavoring, but the bees that made the honey were only able to collect pollen from avocado blossoms. 

Belle found this in one of the little outdoor stalls, and once it was in her hair, we had to tear her away from the mirrors, she loved it so much!

Jared and I were really thirsty on the way home, so we decided to go through a drivethrough.  We figure we'll jsut split the biggest size they have, so we order the Mega.  Who knew it was a Mega-Jug?  We were laughing soooo hard.  I have never seen a drink this size from a fast food place.  I think it goes with the family pack from KFC.  

All in all, a great fun day!

Laney Joanne is here!

Yay!  I'm an aunt again!  My sister gave birth to my newest niece about 30 minutes ago!  Little Laney JoAnne is here.  She has fuzzy blond hair according to her daddy and is absolutely beautiful.  She weighed in at 7 lbs 6oz and is 19 in long.  

Midnight Sun Petition

So there is a petition for Midnight Sun happening.  You can go to www.SaveMidnightSun.com  or follow this direct link to the petition here.  Even if you are not a huge fan of the books, you can still sign the petition to help the rest of us out, and to just help her feel better!  I also have a link to www.supportmidnightsun.com in the upper left corner, which is a sister site.

First Day of School!

Today was Caleb's first day of school. He has been counting down the days, and was very excited that today was the day! He gets to have Ms. Shana and Ms. Jessica again this year and was very excited to go see them again. Of the 18 kids in his class, five were in his class last year, plus a friend from church is in his class too, so he has lots of friends already. We are very excited because this year Caleb gets to go to school three days a week (last year he only went two) and he goes from 8:30 to 11:20 in the morning, so we are preparing him for kindergarten next year.





All ready to go!


















This was the closest to a nice normal smile we could get out of him.
















Caleb always has to take funny pictures














Another funny face.




















Belle really wanted to go too. She got her boots and backpack on and was ready to go, except for the jammies!
















Getting out of the car at school.













Yay for Playschool! This is outside his building.

















Putting his backpack away.



















Helping Maddy put her backpack away. Caleb is in the same primary class as her at church and was happy to see her.

















Sitting on the rug, waiting for school to start. The mommies normally drop the kids off and go, but we had an orientation today and had to come in to fill out the emergency enrollment cards.

It should be a great school year!