Finally Posting Nick's Grad

Finally I downloaded the pictures from my nice camera and on that camera was Nick's graduation. This was such an awesome day for the Kim's family. Kevin and I were just beaming with pride that Nick was representing our country in such an amazing way!! We are so thankful for men and woman like Nick who are role models to all of us - and our kids!! Thanks so much Kim for allowing us to be a part of this amazing day!!

Mia waiting for the graduation to begin.

In formation. Nick is in there somewhere

Love that picture

Again, Nick is in there somewhere

Nick, Kim and Kylee hugging Nick

Hugs from Grandma

Mia's 3rd birthday was the day before so Kim came bearing gifts for the little twerp. It was the cutest little tutu, and fairy set in the world. Mia plays with it all the time.

With the wings and flower clip

Kim and Mia-- bonding

The whole family!

Nick opening the gift we brought-- a knife

Kim Mia and I

Thanks so much for letting us spend that special day with you!!!

San Juan Capistran Mission Field Trip

In the 4th grade in California we study California Mission history. I always loved studying the missions as they were such a place of refuge back in the day. Last week Owen's class went to the San Juan Capistrano mission which is abut 45 minutes from our house. It was a fun field trip to be able to go on - just Owen and I. We had a fun time and since I drove my car with one of his friends, I was able to get them a Starbucks and make it a special time.

Some of his class- Owen is the third from the left.

A student took this picture of us

Our guide explaining the lay out of the mission

San Juan Capistrano is an absolutely beautiful place!!

Not sure what the horse was all about but had to get a picture with it.

Another Owen and Mommy picture

The bell

Checking out the Koi pond fountain thing

The graveyard

Sorry, my history evades me-- not sure who this guy was

Overall a nice time for Owen and I!

Mall~ Gymnastics~ Delay

First off, I have to apologize for the delay in posting. I swear this week just got away from me. I have so many pictures to post that it has become overwhelming to think about going through all of them so I am burying my head in the sand and just using pictures that are on my tiny camera that are easy to upload. Kim-- I promise I will go through all Nick's grad pictures soon-- I have just been so overwhelmed and busy that I have not been able to take that on yet-- but I will-- promise!!!

These first pictures are from when we went to get Mia's 3 year old pictures taken at the mall. We did not do pictures in this outfit (it was the outfit she changed into after pictures) but she still wanted to play the piano so I let her and took these. Her 3 year old pictures came out really cute and I will post those as well, but that is another project to scan those in and post them-- and you know how well I am dealing with projects right now-- horribly-- uggg!!!

My mom and Kevin's mom came to the mall with us and after we went to Cheesecake Factory to have lunch. I looked back while we were walking and saw them both holding Mia's hands and thought that was a great picture.

My mom Julie in red jacket and Kevin's mom Mary in black sweater.


Mia is now old enough to start gymnastics at our local gym now that she is 3. There was a waiting list but they just had a cancellation a couple weeks ago so we just started this past Monday. At first Mia was a bit tentative but she warmed up quickly.


Climbing the rock wall

Waiting while directions are given

Jumping down the long trampoline

Mia loved this part. She loved holding her body up with her arms and kicking her legs in the air.

Helping Mia do a push up

Not sure what she was doing here

Having fun!!!

Sliding down the slide back into the preschool room.

Overall, Mia had a great time and is looking forward to her next class!!!!

Where is my camera and Disneyland

I'm a little freaked out right now because I have yet to be able to find my nice Nikon camera. I had it last at Nick's Marine graduation and now I cant find it. I know we took it with us but not sure what happened from the car to the house. All the pictures of the graduation are on there and I would be crushed if I lost those pics as well as my nice camera. Anyway, this is my first day off this week so I will look everywhere and if and when I find it I will post all those awesome graduation pictures.

I wanted to do a quick update. We redid our stairs. Our home was built in 1994 so it has many of the lovely 90's furnishings. We have changed most everything but the stairs were one thing that we thought would be very expensive to change so had put it off but we checked into it recently and decided it was cheaper than we thought so we should go ahead and do it. We had the rails painted and the big room painted and then Kevin removed all the wood spindles and then replaced them with iron spindles we bought online. It ended up making a HUGE difference as our staircase is a very prominent feature in our house right when you walk in. It looks awesome. These are pictures I just had in my camera after the project was complete. They are not good pictures but gives you an idea of what it looks like.

This is the before. I searched for a good picture of the staircase but could not find one. This is a picture from my grandparents 75th wedding anniversary last November 1. You can see a little bit of the staircase but you get the idea-- honey wood- screaming 1990's

The bottom little caps were not on yet but you get the idea. There are little feet that go on the bottom of the spindle- they were not on yet in these pictures.

After the graduation last Friday, Kevin dropped Mia and I off at Disneyland on our way home and I met up with my sister to do Disney at night.


My dorky 11 year old-- he was acting like a total dork for these pictures!

Me and my boys

Me and my kids

Love this picture. I think Mia looks so darn funny! We are on the Peter Pan ride.

My little twerp!!


We had a nice time. Pray I find my camera as that would be quite a loss. Today I have Mia's 3 year old pictures-- a little delayed. I will post them when I get them back.

Happy # 3 Birthday Mia and Halloween!!

Since Mia's birthday is October 29, I have a sneaky suspicion that her birthday is often going to get lumped with our Halloween party but we will see. I have some great pictures from my pal Kim's son Nick's Marine Boot camp graduation but there are tons of pictures to go through so I will do that post a little later in the week. So this post is Mia's birthday party and Halloween. We did a little cake party on Mia's actual birthday but those pictures are on the other camera so I will post those later as well but we did her actual birthday party with a jumpy and big cake on Halloween. We usually have a little family get together so we just combined the two parties and it became a Halloween/ Mia party.

Our crew before we went out trick or treating.

This is a horrible picture but I had to show how busy our streets were this year. Remember that scene from ET when the streets were filled with people all dressed up -- that is how it was this year. We just get tons of trick or treaters- tons!! The streets were just full!!

Ethan, Tanner and Mark

Mia and Kaitlyn trick or treating

Kacy, Kas and Owen

On our stairs- the younger cousins- Nathan, Mia, Savannah and Haileyanna

Mia and her cool Dora cake - wow did she love it!!!

Getting ready to blow

Picking out the characters

Mommy cutting the cake with all my servers

Mia's big gift-- the Cool Costco Doll House-- gotta love Costco!!!



I will go through all the Graduation pics and get those posted ASAP. Have a great week-- I have a busy one--ugggg!!!