Nana's Here!

Since my mom was here for only a few days, and Madison was doing much better, we decided to have a Girls Night Out...we even invited Brooklyn to tag along! She was so excited to hang out with the "Big Girls" while Phil and Greg scored pizza and the rest of the gang at home!

We found this store, new to us, called "Home Goods" over off of Estrella Pkwy. It's attached to TJ Maxx, but it had lots of super cute things! After we found a few sweet things for ourselves at the "Home Section" we crossed over into the regular TJ Maxx. I'm terrrrrible to shop with! Seriously, especially at stores where you have to "dig around" to find a good deal! I always end up finding the most horrible outfits and items in the whole store! Which ends up in me making jokes, having people around us feeling dumb because they thought it was cute, which in turn makes me move to a new area, where I find more "awesome" things...it's a vicious cycle! Here's our fun at the Sunglass Hut area...oh, these beauties were all "Name Brand", way over priced, (free would have been a stretch), and they all had these HUGE tags that were supposed to deter people from stealing them...as if the styles alone weren't bad enough? WoW!

After shopping, we stopped off at Olive Garden to feel like family...and it worked! Ha! Our poor waiter...who needs kids when you got all of us there? Shavonne knocked over a glass of water in like minutes, which fell all over my mom! Luckily, she was quick and started scooping the water and ice off of her and onto the floor before becoming too soaked! We couldn't stop laughing! Oh I love hanging out with my mom! Sky and Sarah you freaking missed out! Move closer already!! It will be fun to hang out with you both around Christmas again!!! Oh the fun we'll have!! Shavonne got this Pumpkin Dessert...YUM!!! I don't think I would have ordered it...but now that I've tried it, heck yes! It's good!
They have the best Lemon Creme cake ever! I even brought one home for Phil...since he wasn't having quite as much fun as me...I'm sure!

Kids Vacation...Part 2 (Lake Don Pedro, CA)

One of Nana's FAMOUS breakfasts on the front of the boat! Anyone who's ever been to visit on the lake...knows that you will NEVER leave hungry...and it STARTS with breakfast! (See the whipping cream and orange juice?! Sooo yummy!!!)

Yay my mom and dad just sent me their pictures from the week the kids were down there! So I thought I would add the pictures so you can see how much fun they had!

I was told that Boston and Paris LOVED riding over the "double ups" on the tubes! (Not the tube shown...) I'm not sure where the camera was on those shots! We call it "Tube Wars". My dad circles around and makes these huge "double up" waves and then takes (usually all the big boys) over them (there's usually 2-3 tubes out there at a time) and you see who can hold on for the longest. I've done it...but I'm not really a fan. My dad said that Paris got about 4 ft above her tube at one time! Then I heard that Boston's tube flipped over somehow and my dad was worried that he would be freaked out under the tube...but as soon as my dad killed the engine...Boston came out to report that he could still breath because there's an air pocket in the tube! Ha Ha! I can't believe how old he's getting! I would have freaked at his age...heck I still freak! If a tube starts to flip...I bail!!! There's no way I would actually hold on underneath! I think it's a guy thing?! (sorry if any of you girls are hard core "tubers"!)

This is more my style of riding! My mom has the right idea too...you take small kids for insurance! MY dad gets a kick out of making what is supposed to be a nice straight ride into a curvy and bouncy one...so this is one ride we actually want kids to come with!

Madison LOVED Barkley! (I heard they all did, but this is BIG for Madison)

(Shavonne and Greg's dog, Barkley. He's on vacation too!)

Boston getting a feel for the wakeboard...unfortunately there was a knee-boarding trial...that went wrong and spooked him into being afraid to try wakeboard this year...maybe next year.

Gotta LOVE the paddle boat!
Papa taking Boston down the slide off the back of the boat!

The best thing about having their houseboat on the Marina...no mud, goo, slush, weeds, or rocks to wade through when you want to go for a swim! You just jump right in!

Follow the Leader

Brooklyn brave enough to be towed VERY slow! She's our cautious one:)

Nice rope wrapped around you guys! This is one of the "classic" middle of the lake swims you HAVE to take when it starts to get hot! Madison just told me, "Mommy I didn't like that water. I'm scared of the fishies kissing me." I'm with her! I don't think my legs EVER stop moving when I'm in the lake!!!

I think this says it ALL it was a FUN, EXCITING, and EXHAUSTING week for EVERYBODY!!

Thanks Mom and Dad for having them! They had a blast! I loved getting to hear ALL their versions and stories! It's so cute:) They'll have THE BEST MEMORIES!!!

Swimming with Papa!

The kids went for a swim today with Papa...and it was so fun to see him teaching them how to be better swimmers! They all had fun, splashing and playing around. Paris has learned to stop plugging her nose and actually "blow" out of her nose after this "lesson"! I don't know...I was on the "West Side Stingrays" swim team when I was young...plugging your nose...just wasn't an option! I've tried to teach my kids some of my "sweet" moves and strokes...but it just isn't as cool and exciting when it's your mom teaching you, I guess:)

Halloween Fun!

It finally arrived! It was such a busy week, the kids even got to wear their costumes to school this year! It was great to have my mom in town too, because I got to go hang out in Brooklyn's classroom while they did pumpkin experiments! They got to "hypothesize" about how much their pumpkins weighed, how many seeds they contained, and if they would float or not! It was fun to see what their original guesses were! Brooklyn's pumpkin weighed 8lbs and had over 1200 seeds! Oh yeah...and they all floated...in case anyone was confused about that one!

School ended...the kids had enough cake and cookies to burn through about 50 neighborhoods, and were all sent home to finish their buzz! After seeing what her 3rd grade teacher goes through everyday...with 29 kids...wow! It totally made my 5 look like angels!
Trick or Treating Fun! My mom, me, and the older 4 kids all went out first, just around the block, to get some candy...we ended up being with a group of kids that had a "black spider man" costume. I think it's the bad guy from the last one...well Madison would not go trick or treating with him! So we had to wait until all the kids had run off to the next house before she'd go up! She would just keep yelling, "I no likee pider man, scare me!" It was funny at first...but then as we had to hang back...it just got annoying. I have the most pictures of her...because I was the one with the camera...and we were way behind everyone else!
Sorry, Seattle didn't score any candy this year. We stand out by the curb. I'm not a parent that can wheel my baby around trick or treating, and pretend the candy's for them! (I just can't do it!) More power to those of you who do have enough guts to do this though! I'm sure you could score a lot of candy...who would turn you down? In fact, as long as your baby's in a costume... you can come to my house and not be judged! I really do like seeing their cute costumes, and the trouble you go through to dress them up, deserves an extra handful of candy!


A group of teenage girls drove by in the back of a truck and yelled out that she was soo cute and pretty. Madison immediately got a huge smile and said, "I pretty mommy!" I have to admit...it was freaking cute!
Madison thought the saying was "pick a treat"...it's actually easy to see how she got confused.
When we got back, Phil took the older 3 out a bit further to score some more candy, while we went home and raided Madison's candy! She really dug the suckers! We had so many "trick or treaters" this year, we totally ran out of candy by 8! That's never happened before. We even buy way more than needed every year so we can eat it afterwards! I guess we'll have to eat the kids' candy this year!

There are 5 suckers here!
This is as they came back...what a sight! It brings back memories of when we were young! My dad would always be sporting one of us kids on his shoulders! (I was always embarrassed!)

Corn Maze fun at the "Fear Farm"

The last couple of years we've been making it a tradition to take the kids to the "Fear Farm" corn maze. It always looks so crazy and wild, being a "teenage" hangout with really loud music (sponsored by KUPD)...but our kids love navigating their way through the acres of corn in the dark! This year, my mom was in town and my sister Shavonne is having some difficulties with her pregnancy, so we also got my little niece, Haven, for the night!

We looked so flipping sweet! We had 2 strollers, 6 kids, and 3 adults all by-passing the sweet little pumpkin patch next door, for the wild, smokey, and loud "FEAR FARM"! My mom was a little nervous, but the kids reassured her it would be so much fun!

While we were listening to our "instructions" to go through the maze, we found out that there was a wedding reception going on in a part of the corn...that was not part of the "maze", and we were to make sure we were staying on the correct paths...that were wide, with packed dirt. Yeah, yeah...we were just interested to know...who wanted to have their reception in the corn???

Anyway, so we were off to a solid start...sure that we knew exactly where we were...until we realized...that we had no idea where we even started! Last year we didn't pay attention to the map at all and some how completed the whole maze by accident in a record 30 minutes! (I'm sure we didn't actually do the maze as it was intended) This year was so different! After about 10 minutes we decided we were completely lost and started following "shortcut" paths that had been forged by some previously lost and frustrated individuals! It was so funny! We had all these kids and 2 strollers coming out of nowhere into the middle of clearings...scaring the crap out of people! We must have looked like such a sight! All my mom and me kept thinking about was the fact that one of these times we were going to come out right in the middle of the wedding reception...and our original maze guide would be there to reprimand us for not staying on the wide, packed dirt paths! So we sent Phil with Seattle in the stroller first! Plus he helped forge some extra room for Haven's stroller, behind him, when the paths became too narrow! If there could have been a hidden camera on us...I could only imagine!

We finally found our way out shortly after Brooklyn announced she had to go to the bathroom! That was incentive enough for Phil to grab his bearings and lead us out of the flipping maze!!!

When we came out we had an audience of scared teenage girls that wondered if the maze was scary. After they saw all the kids smiling and saying it was fun...I think they became convinced...the only scary things in there...just left!

In the end...all still smiling!

It was a lot of fun...and I recommend it to anyone brave enough to walk through the "wild" crowds!

It was really dusty...so we lost some really good footage outside of the maze!