Merry Christmas

November Excitements

So I have been just terrible about posting... and have lots of pictures to catch up on!  I will try to catch up with a series of pictures from the last couple months.  Preparing for baby #3 arrival, we moved Sarah from her pink/green bedroom and put her in the 4th bedroom that wasn't really being used.  We painted her room purple this time.  We then painted tan over the pink in her old room and turned it to a jungle nursery for baby boy.  Not wanting James to be left out of all the redecorating fun, we did extreme home makeover on his bedroom for his birthday.  He got a rock and roll bedroom.  Yeah, baby!  Cause THAT'S HOW WE ROLL!

 James and my dad share the same birthday.  James picked creme brulee for his birthday "cake" this year.  Here are the two birthday boys!  Love both of you!

 Yes, this is a straw and he is drinking milk through it.  :)

 November had some fun sister moments.

 And teaching the maddening game of Risk to our kids.

 November also brought Pinewood derby.  James took 2nd this year.  Good job, bud!  It was sure a close race and I'm glad you had so much fun!

Love days like this!

I love days where you really feel productive.  This week, I repainted the bathroom (fixing a color choice disaster from a month ago).  Looks MUCH better.  Also painted this large tree on the wall in the family room.  Turned out pretty cool.  Have my paint ready to give a fresh coat to the living room... NESTING IS AWESOME.  I think I should be pregnant all the time just for the motivation of getting all the projects done.  Been a good day.  

For the love of October!

October is always such a fantastic month... not just cause it's my birthday month (although it does seem that people with birthdays in October are especially fabulous).  I just love the weather changes... Fall is great.  This October was a long month because of lots of details we won't go into now.  However, we had some great moments!  Chris and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary!  I don't know where the time went.  Been an awesome 10 years.  Glad I had someone uniquely wonderful to share it with.  :)

Below are some pictures from Halloween:

 Chris carved this "Barbie and the Frog" pumpkin for Sarah.  She loved it.  In fact, it was quite a hit.  We had lots of trick-or-treaters stop to take pictures with the pumpkin.

 I carved this goofy thing with the tongue sticking out.

 James did a great job on his pumpkin!

 Sarah was Ariel this year and made sure we knew she HAD to have red hair and red lips.  Grandma Boyer brought over the red wig for her.  She left it on a majority of the night.

 James was a super creepy monster guy from Pirates of the Carribean.  My sister was a cowgirl.

 James and Sarah giving love!  Sarah showing off her whip cream mustache after some yummy hot chocolate.

We've had Brooke over a lot this month and it's been GREAT!  LOVE HER!!!!

Correction

In my last post, I said "less tantrums".  I take it back!!!

July updates

 What have we been up to this summer???  Swimming A LOT!  Below are some pictures from 4th of July.  We had some family over for food and fireworks.

 Sarah thinks fireworks are "too loud".  She covered her ears the whole time.

 Sarah loves the swimsuit Grandma Boyer got her... she has to do her ballerina twirling in it every time she wears it.

 James and Haleigh are best buds.  They get along very well.  The first picture below I told them to pose for a picture...

 Then I told James to do a more manly pose.  :)

This summer is flying by.... It will be time for school to start again soon.  Sarah is getting more fun by the day... She is having less tantrums, which I think is because she can talk so well now (or maybe because I am doing such a fabulous job)... really, I don't know the reason, but whatever it is, I am grateful.

New Camera

Testing out my new camera.  Liking it so far... however I really need a class to figure it all out.  This is like a foreign language.... the graph for color saturation, etc... I just don't get it.  I have started to play with color adjusting... which picture do you like better?

Quick Mini Update

These last few weeks have been very busy for us.  Sorry for not posting pics!  We took the kids camping in Pismo Beach last week (SO FUN - definitely going back).  James had playoffs for baseball.  His team did extremely well.  It was a double elimination playoff and his team went into the championship game undefeated.  They ended up losing the championship game, but we were all so proud of how far they went.  We went to RiverCats game tonight.  Our team won, kids cheered, fireworks show wowed, all left happy.  We are happy.  Life is busy and very, very good.

James' Mother's Day Gift

This is James first year playing on the Minor As.  He tried out and was one of the very few 8 year olds to make the cut.  We are so proud of how much James has practiced and worked and progressed this year playing with the older kids (9-11 years old).

The transition from Coach Pitch to Kid Pitch has had a learning curve though.  After being hit by a some wild pitches early on, you could see his batting stance change because he was afraid.  He would do great at practices when the coaches would pitch, but didn't trust the kids pitching.  But as the season has gone on, his confidence is increasing.  At Wednesdays practice, he even challenged a kid to a pitching match.  James bet that the kid couldn't get a hit off of his pitching.  Pretty gutsy for being the youngest, smallest kid on the team.

Yesterday, I told him, "James, it's almost Mother's Day.  When you get up to bat, tell yourself, 'This is for my MOM!' and smack it outta there!"  AND HE DID!!! Woo hoo!  Took half the season to find his groove in the new level, but Stella got her groove back. baby!  He scored two runs for his team.  They ended up winning 12-4.  I am a proud mama!

Inspirational Quote

Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid. -John Wayne

Easter Party

This year, our rose bushes (as ugly as they are) have provided us with an abundance of flowers!  Which means that I have been able to keep the house beautified with fresh flowers.

 Easter was busy this year.  We went to two Easter parties the weekend before Easter and had two Easter celebrations the Easter weekend as well.  The pictures below were taken at my girlfriend, Megan's, house.  She and her husband have such a fun yard... complete with an entire petting zoo and pony rides.  The property is big and made Easter hunting fun for the kids.  Thank you, Megan and Sam, for such a nice time!

Megan's daughter is Sarah's age.  

I love my friend!

My friend's hubbby

Our girls relaxing while checking out their finds.

Megan's younger daughter, 6 months old

Temple Choir's Easter Program

Last night we went to Oakland to watch Uncle Robert perform in the Easter program at the temple.  Normally, Chris and I attend alone (since young children tend not to sit very long) but this time, we decided to take James with us.  He  did remarkably well and made this mama proud!  All three of us enjoyed the beautiful music and especially enjoyed listening to Uncle Robert sing... his voice never sounded so heavenly!  Out of all the people that audition to participate in the Temple Choir, Uncle Robert was chosen to be a soloist, singing the part of the Disciple John.  He was wonderful and made us all wish we could sing a solo like that without squeaking or totally embarrassing ourselves.  James was even singing "hallelujah" in the car afterwards on the way home.