Happy Halloween!!

Rapunzel's long braid

Clone Wars Trooper, Cleopatra & Rapunzel

It's a heavy wagon!

Carson's new girlfriend!


Pumpkin Beauties!

Dad & his boys (11 & 9)

Rosenthal's, Chris Fisher & Nedzweicki's

Posing for Mom

Hanging with Aunt Kathleen

Carson & Trevor

Carson & Drew (Scary dudes!)

Okay, I have a lot of back blogging to do in the next 2 months to catch up to 2011. All I can say is that I'm exhausted at the end of the day and since the house is usually a mess, pictures are at the bottom of the list. Would love for 2012 to be my turnaround year, but I'm not making any promises.

I do want to post Halloween pictures though so friends and family can see all the fun we had!

Carson went as a Clone Trooper this year, Cheyanne decided to be Cleopatra and definitely looked the part with her straight black hair, Cassidy went as Rapunzel and just loved her new braid wig. She got many comments during our trek for candy as many loved her dress and LONG braid. Colton decided to opt out of Halloween this year and managed to snag a movie with some family friends and enjoyed himself as well.

Our downtown has trick or treating from 3:30-5:30 where you go by all the merchants and collect candy. We did that for an hour and then headed home for pizza. Then, at 6:15, we started out with the Rosenthal's for a strolling walk to houses with 8 kids in tow and lasted almost 2 hours with a lot of candy to sort through by the time we were done. We had fun running into many friends along the way and stopped for short break at Uncle Trevor & Aunt Kathleen (who were more than generous with the candy amount they handed out to us). The kids got to hand out a little more candy once we got home to late night treaters and then off to bed.

We managed to get to the pumpkin patch finally this past weekend. A very nice one with a corn maze, climbing wall, country store and lots of pumpkins to choose from. I think we'll go there another year as the kids really enjoyed it and it wasn't too crowded. We tie-dyed Halloween shirts as well, so we need to take some pictures of us modeling those and post as well.

I cannot believe it's November tomorrow. Yikes!!! I'm not ready for the holidays, I need another month in between!!

Check out the photos and I hope to play some catch up here soon with past pictures from our trip to Alaska in June. Sports pictures and other miscellaneous fun shots.

Tamara

End of School Year

Colton & Mom

Last day of school

Colton with Mrs. Gardner

5th grade

We ended the school year very happy. Colton's 5th grade class a little graduation. All classes walked across stage and they announced each child's name. Then, they sang several songs to the audience. It was nice. He had a very fun last week. One day was pool day, another was beach day and then another was team building games with the other elementary school on the strand so all the 5th graders could meet each other. Clearly, the last week was a "bust" as far as learning and they just had tons of fun!

Carson, Cheyanne & Cassidy were all happy to have summer start. We ended up heading out that evening to Lemoore to visit the Westendorff's and have an Ortho appt. for Colton. He's near the end of his teeth stuff for this stage and I didn't want to start payments with another orthodontist, so figure 2 trips to Lemoore in the next year would be fine for us. All went well and everyone else had playdates with various friends and sleepovers, so a good first two days of summer break.

On Saturday, we decided to head to Travis AFB and try our luck hopping a MAC flight to Alaska. They had 3 flights going up there over the course of two days, so we prayed we would get on one of those. We ended up getting on the first one and thus had our first good experience doing MAC flights. YEA!!!

I'll be posting the pictures hopefully this weekend. We took a lot, so I need to weed them down.

Tamara

Spring Soccer

Colton & Carson - Spring Soccer 2011

Colton with a soccer move


Fighting for the ball

Celebrating his "header" goal that was awesome!

Soccer Star at age 11

Brothers & Best Friends

Carson's corner kick

Carson - What a leg!

Carson showing off his moves

We just finished Spring soccer here. This season in Southern CA is pretty relaxed. They only have 4 teams each in the league, so they just play each other over and over again. No tournaments either. I guess Fall soccer is more intense here. Carson is going to play that, but Colton has decided to give tackle football a try. The girls are glad it's over :) They were getting tired of watching soccer games every Saturday.

The boys had a good season. Each of them scored several goals throughout. Carson had a huge goal last week that was about mid-field. He has got a STRONG kick on him which is why he plays at defender. Colton had an awesome goal this last game -- he scored a goal with a header. He was quite excited. I missed getting that shot with my camera, but did get the smiling face and congrats from a teammate you'll see below. Colton really hustles and was all over the field. Even one of the parents from the opposing team that we know said "Colton is everywhere, isnt' he?" He really goes all out and loves soccer the best of all his sports.

Here are some photos!

Easter

Family Easter - 2011

Colton - 11, Carson - 9

Cheyanne - 7, Cassidy - 6

Tamara & Colton

Tamara & Carson

TJ & Colton


TJ & Carson

Dad & the kids

Mom & her girls

Sweet!

Two peas in a pod

Mom & her boys

Jumpin' for joy

We had a nice Easter day. We got up early and headed out to church for an 8 am service. Went to Denny's afterwards for brunch and then home to decorate Easter eggs and do our egg hunts. The kids had fun and surprisingly only have done one hunt. We figured they'd be begging to do several today. The sun has been in and out of the clouds today. We had a gorgeous day on Friday & Saturday.

The kids have had spring break all last week and enjoyed the time off. We did a lot of hanging out, but did some fun things too. Visited the Chula Vista Nature Center one day, Zoo and beach were also highlights. A visit from our friends, the Hume's, was a highlight. The weather wasn't the greatest, but it didn't seem to matter to any of the kids.

Glad all the kids cooperated to do Easter Pictures for me.

Tamara

Cassidy's 6th B-day

Turning 6 yrs old - March 20, 2011

"Tangled" Girl

Cassidy with Siblings

Nail painting with Bella

Hair weaving with Bella

Cheyanne, Cassidy, Kacy & JJ

Tangled Cupcakes

It's a "TANGLED" B-day around here! Cassidy loves Tangled and can't get enough of it. We know all the songs on the soundtrack and can sing very last word! She's now got the barbie doll, baby doll, dress, shoes, wig and other accessories. We are officially a "Tangled" house. She just got the movie today in the mail and screams could be heard around the block when she opened it!

We did a small party with Kacy & JJ (Friends of Cheyanne & Cassidy's). We had Tangled decorated cupcakes and Bella Farrell helped me throw the party complete with games, pin the princess, nail painting and hair braiding. Lots of fun by everyone.

Some of her gifts included Tangled PJ's, Flip flops, Dress-up dress and shoes, Roller blades, Tangled baby doll, Scrabble Jr. to name a few.

She's changed quite a bit from when we first met her 3 years ago!!

Tamara

Cassidy's 3rd GOTCHA Day - March 7th, 2011

Cassidy's GOTCHA Day - 3 yr. anniversary

March 9, 2011

GOTCHA Day - 3 yrs.

Pretty in Pink - March 2008 Cute smile! Wht a giggle box (& still is!!!) Our Official Photo -- She's OURS!!

Attached are a couple of pictures for Cassidy's 3rd GOTCHA day with us. We had a fun day. TJ & I greeted her at Kindergarten pick-up with balloons and M&M's and treated her to lunch - just the three of us. Later that night, TJ brought home sushi for everyone that likes it and they had a feast. We then watched her adoption video and time in China and a few months after getting home. Soooooooo cute!!! We so enjoyed the video footage of her dancing, popping bubbles and just listening to her talk in Mandarin.

Enjoy!!

Tamara