The Christmas Spirit

The Christmas Spirit

I love this simple video. Take a moment to reflect on the true spirit of Christmas.

Family Pictures

We were really overdue on getting some new family pictures taken. But, we finally did it and they turned out great! The kids personalities were captured so well!

Courtney Turns 5!

Courtney turned 5 in November! We celebrated by heading to Disneyland. The kids all got to go on a date with mom or dad to a theme park this year for their birthday. Well, we were thinking of getting Disney passes anyway, so we all went as a family. Courtney and I spent most of the day on our own, but we met up with the rest of the group as well. She was SO HAPPY to finally be 5 years old.

We stayed for the Christmas Fireworks show and the snow made from soap bubbles, which the kids always love. Courtney got to pick out a souvenir for her birthday and she chose a baby aristocat wrapped in a blanket and a giant lollipop. She was VERY tired and fell asleep before we even left the parking lot!

A Lot of Catching Up to Do

I know that somehow I've managed to totally neglect my blog. All I can say is, I've had other things keeping me busy. I really don't have a moment to sit and work on it until about 10:00 at night and by then all I want to do is sleep!

Anyway, here is a recap at the major events of September and October:

For Labor Day weekend we decided to spend some time in San Diego. We stayed on Coronado Island at the Marriott Resort there. The view was magnificent and we really enjoyed the boardwalk. We also spent a day at La Jolla Cove snorkeling. The kids loved it, though the water wasn't exactly tropical and McKayla came out a little blue!

The kids were really excited to rent a surrey one morning. It was fun, but mostly because we went "off-road" a bit and almost a tipped it a few times!

For Halloween we got REALLY into the spirit of things. The kids just LOVE the spooky stuff. So, we turned our front yard into a graveyard. We made gravestones, dancing ghosts, spiderwebs, and even had a green spotlight, fog machine, and scary noises playing through a stereo to add to the ambiance. The girls picked out a really scary mask for Chris and they all had a blast scaring trick-or-treaters. Chris hid and jumped out at people, McKayla crawled around the lawn near the caution tape and growled, even Jenna wandered around the yard growling! We had some kids who were too scared to come! We had over 150 pieces of candy and only gave one to each person and still ran out!

Our scary costume choices: Brianna-vampire, McKayla-werewolf, Courtney-witch, Jenna-Jack-0-Lantern.