Trick or Treat

We had another great Halloween this year. It's so much fun with the kids now and we are so thankful to have so many great friends and neighbors to hang out with. This year, Olivia was able to actually participate (last year she was less than 4 weeks old) and so we dressed her up as a very cute princess/fairy. I found the adorable costume at Gymboree when my sister was up here and I just had to buy it. She did so well all day/night and actually wore the headpiece. It's hard for me to believe that next week, she will be running to the houses and saying "Trick or treat."

Cole had another eventful Halloween. As most of you know, Jim has taken over the Halloween costume department for Cole two years in a row now, with him being Michael Phelps last year, followed by the one and only Michael Jackson this year!! Cole is such a good sport and goes along with whatever we tell him to do. We also entered him into a costume contest at a local frozen yogurt shop here. We dressed him up as Micael Phelps again (it was a warm day and we thought that he had a better chance with that one) and the kid actually won! He got a $100 gift certificate, so there will be lots of frozen yogurt in our future.

Stay tuned for Halloween 2010....Jim has already started brainstorming and Olivia will be able to participate in the tormanting next year :-)

Cole and Olivia all dressed up at our Playgroup Halloween party.






Mommy and M.J.


Daddy with the kids


Our adorable Playgroup! Notice Olivia in the front row, screaming her head off.


Michael Phelps at the fountains




Only a 3 year old can pull this off. The cutest little butt ever:-)




Cole and his buddy, Enrico




Olivia enjoying her "treats!"

Nannu turns 70!

We were able to join Jim's dad, Tony on his 70th birthday during our trip to Southern California. His children (mostly Lisa!) planned a suprise party for him about a week after his real birthday (so he wouldn't suspect anything) and invited his family and friends! We had a fun time meeting his friends and I think Tony was actually suprised! Happy 70th Birthday Nannu and here's to many more. We love you!

The Birthday boy with his wife

Cole turns 3!

This year Cole's birthday fell on a Saturday and we decided to have his 3rd Birthday party at a place up here called "Wacky Tacky." Our playgroup goes there every once and awhile and Cole always enjoys and more importantly Daddy loves it!! It's basically a very large (like 7000 SF!) indoor play area with slides, obstacle courses, ropes and as Cole likes to call it a "shooter gun" area, where the kids gather all of these plastic balls and shoot them at each other using air guns. (Nice lesson we are teaching them, huh?) But the dads enjoy this place as much as the kids, which is nice, because that means the mommmy's can sit and chat and watch the younger kiddos. They take care of everything from the entertainment, to the food and cupcakes, make a video photo collage from the day, provide goodie bags, even make a list of all of the gifts the birthday boy receives etc... It was money well spent this year considering we were out of town for the 2 weeks before his birthday and I managed to get myself pretty sick with a cold and didn't have the energy to prep for a party of 17 little ones. We were joined by Aunty Kathleen, Aunty Lisa, Nanna and Grandma and we were so happy you all could join us. It was a "ladies weekend" with Cole and daddy being very out-numbered to the women.

Cole on the flight back from Lake Arrowhead to Sacramento


Happy girl on the flight!


Wacky Tacky in all its glory!


Cole and Olivia with Aunty Kathleen and Aunty Lisa


Cole and his "shooter gun"


Olivia having fun playing around



Cole and his Spiderman cupcakes....he is VERY into Spiderman these days.

The PARTY room!

He got to sit in this super cool "king" chair to open up all of his gifts.


Cole and Grandma (wearing his new sweatsuit from G-ma)


Mommy with "Curious George" aka...birthday boy Cole


Nanna and her grandchildren

Olivia's Birthday Party - Part #2

We had Olivia's birthday party in San Diego on October 18th at my dad's house. She was able to celebrate with the rest of our family and we had a great party. Unfortunately she was going through a period of extreme "seperation anxiety" and would not even let me put her down or leave her sight. Hence the reason, you don't really see any pictures of her with anybody other than me :-( (This was right after we left for 5 days on our cruise and I also used this time to wean her). So it wasn't really fun from that perspective, in fact, it was quite annoying for everyone, but fortunately once we got back home, she has slowly started to turn back to her normal self.
That aside, the party was great. We got it catered from one of our favorite mexican restaraunts in San Diego, "El Indio" and my Dad and Carolyn did a great job of decorating the house and getting everything ready. My mom made her yet another beautiful butterfly cake and I think everyone had a fun time. She got all sorts of fun presents, including lots of baby dolls and cute clothes. Thank you to all of our family! She is one lucky little girl.

Cole and Olivia's PG Birthday Party

Here are some pictures of us celebrating the kids birthday with our playgroup on October 9, 2009.

Our Cruise with Brown's

We flew down to Southern California in October to go on a 4 day cruise with our old neighbors from here, Leslie and Mike Brown. Jim's parents were gracious enough to watch the kids for us and let us get a little time alone with just the adults, and boy was it NICE! They picked us up at the airport and then dropped us off at the cruise ship in Long Beach. The ship stopped in Catalina, Ensenada, a day at Sea and then dropped us back off on Monday morning. We had a great time with the Browns and really enjoyed our time away. Can't wait for the next vacation.