Bowling!

Today we celebrated Mia's birthday once more by bowling with our good friends Jake and Kylee. We went to the Yorba Linda Bowl, which is conveniently down the street from us. The kids had a great time! Lots of gutter balls, a few points, and loads of great memories!

Awards

Our little studious Sarah earned her first award today! She was so happy and we are so proud of her!

Happy Halloween!

We had a great time tonight on Halloween. Tonight, we went to Christy's house, as we traditionally do, and went trick-or-treating in her neighborhood. This year, Sarah dressed up as Princess Jasmine, Grace was Princess of the Rainbow from the Fairytopia movie, and Mia was Tigger. The girls had a great time running from house to house, collecting various kinds of junk food. Even Mia got into it and stayed with the group. At the end of the night, all three were completely exhausted, but very happy with another successful Halloween.

Halloween, Kindergarten Style

Traditionally, Van Buren does not celebrate Halloween at school. Instead, the kindergarten teachers have the students dress up as a character from a book they did a book report on. The book Gracie chose was The Very Hungry Caterpillar, so she dressed up like a butterfly, and Sarah dressed up as a cat to go with her story Millions of Cats. Both girls' costumes were homemade. Grace painted her own butterfly wings on a sheet of poster board, and Sarah painted her cat tail and ears. The girls were very proud of their costumes and had a lot of fun on Halloween at school.

Birthday Celebration #3 & Happy Birthday, GJ!

Tonight, we had a dual birthday celebration for Mia and GJ. All of the family came over for this glorious occasion - celebrating 2 years of life for Mia, and 68 years of life for GJ. Check out how bright GJ's side of the cake is!

Happy Birthday, Mia! AKA Birthday Celebration #2

Today is Mia's second birthday! These past two years have flown by at lightning speed. Our little baby is not such a little baby anymore. Her personality is shining through, and we are thoroughly enjoying our time with her.
Normally, on the girls' birthdays, we like to go out to dinner or somewhere fun, like Chuck E. Cheese, for the evening. Unfortunately, Gracie got really sick with the flu yesterday, so we were homebound. We ended up getting an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins, and had a nice, quiet birthday celebration at home. Happy birthday, Mia!

Birthday Celebration #1

Last night, we went over to Grandma Sue's house for a 2nd birthday celebration for Mia. Although Mia had no idea what was going on, she had fun!

More Pumpkin Patches!

Today we went to the pumpkin patch with Jake and his mom Christy at Irvine Park. Christy and I are both freaks about getting good pictures for scrapbooking, and today was no different. Snap, snap, snap went the camera, as we aimed for the best photo for that perfect layout. We got some pretty good ones!

Pumpkin Patch

Today we went to the pumpkin patch and petting zoo at Tanaka Farms in Irvine for McKenna's second birthday party. The weather was not good; we weren't even sure if we were going because it had been raining that morning. Luckily, Mother Nature was on our side and the rain subsided for a while. The girls had a great time! They ran around the pumpkin patch, playing with the pumpkins, went through the corn maze, picked vegetables out of a vege garden, went to the petting zoo, had pizza and cake. I was, of course, a freak with my camera, trying to snap that perfect picture. Oh, the joys of being a scrapbooker!

Dimples

Look at those dimples!

So Pretty

I know I'm biased, but aren't they beautiful? We are so blessed!

SOCCER!

Gracie and Sarah had their first soccer game today! Their team name is the Tigers, and the games are played at Rose Drive Elementary. They lost today, but seemed to enjoy playing the game.

And on the 8th day, God made pools

We LOVE our pool! It provides the best entertainment throughout all of the hot weather. The girls are getting much better at swimming, and Gracie can jump off the diving board, touch her toes to the bottom of the deep end, and swim to the top. Good times, good times!

Princess Mia

First Day of Kindergarten!

Today was Grace and Sarah's first day of Kindergarten! Carey and I took off the day so that we could be there for this momentous occasion. Last night, we had to sleep over at GJ's house, because our electricity was STILL out and it was too stinkin' hot in our house. So this morning was a tad bit hectic, getting ready at GJ's house and commuting to school. While being put to bed last night, Sarah was filled with tears, saying she didn't want to go to Kindergarten. Gracie seemed fine with it. In the morning, on our way to school, both girls were one big ball of nerves (me too!). We walked the girls into their class, they sat on the carpet and Mrs. Willey read the kids a book called "The Night Before Kindergarten." At the end of the story, she told the kids to "Kiss your parents goodbye." They did, and we proceeded out the door, tears welling up in our eyes. Our 29-weeker, two-pound preemature babies are in KINDERGARTEN! WOW!

HOT!!!!!!

Thank God for electricity, cause I don't think I could live without air conditioning. Over Labor Day weekend, we lost power for over 40 hours. Thankfully, our next-door neighbors didn't lose power (they're on a different grid than us), so with a long extension cord, we plugged in our refrigerators to their power. I had just gone to Costco that morning and spent mucho dinero on food, and would have been really ticked if we lost all of that food. In the meantime, our house was in the high 90s INSIDE the house. We couldn't sleep; it was totally miserable. It wasn't the best of the Labor Day Weekends.