Riding bikes

The girls love to have bike races in the front yard, and of course, Maddie always wins. Nevertheless, the have fun doing it and they burn off lots of energy in the process. Look at how cute they are!

Our gingerbread house!

This year is a first for many things with Lucy and Ava, and making our Gingerbread house is no exception! I think they may have helped eat the candy last year, but as far as actually helping to decorate and make the house??? I don't believe they did. :)

Christmas caroling!

Lucy was so sweet looking at this nativity scene in one of the neighbors
yards. After looking and Mary and Joseph, she bent down to give baby
Jesus a kiss... Ahhh.. It was such a sweet moment.

Sacramento, SNOW? Let's see if this prediction is right!!!!

Monday

Snow mixed with rain at times in the morning then rain likely in the afternoon. Highs 38 to 44. Total snow accumulation 1 to 3 inches. Light winds becoming northwest up to 10 mph in the afternoon.

Updated.... I heard and saw on the news that it did indeed snow in Sacramento, in fact, it snowed everywhere except our neighborhood!!! I woke up really early, all excited about the snow, and guess what? There was pretty much no snow...... Then my friend, who lives about 2 miles from my house, writes me at like 6am telling me all about the snow at her house! Seriously, the snow fell everywhere by here.... Oh well...

Cookies with Santa

We had our annual decorating of the Christmas tree last night. It was so much fun to have Lucy and Ava actually participating this year! We made lots of cookies, had some lovely chistmas music playing, and decorated away. Chris took his usual spot on the couch to "watch" and drink his adult libation. His job is to hang the lights up on the outside, our job is decorate this inside. LOL What a great night!

Having fun with fall leaves

Poor Bailey...

Yesterday around 4pm, we let the dogs back in the house from outside. We noticed that Daisy had blood all over her ear. What? After searching and not finding anything, we realized that Bailey also had blood all over her leg. We looked at Bailey's leg and sure enough she had a really large, deep laceration. I have no idea where she got it, but after Chris and I looked at it we agreed that she would need stitches. Sooooooo, we called the vet and they got her in right away. Bailey came home with 8 staples in her leg!! Poor Pup!
That night, Daisy would not leave her side. It was really sweet because Daisy usually likes her space... she's old and she is just not that into the new dogs. But tonight she cuddled with Bailey and let her know that she really did love her. Ahhhhhh...

18mm

135mm

200mm

18mm

135mm

200 mm

I got a new lens! I pretty much love, love, love it!!! My old lens broke, I have no idea how, it just didn't work one morning! This happened to be a morning that I got the girls dressed up in their Christmas outfits, did their hair all pretty, and was going to take our Christmas card photo..... I was so upset that my lens broke that I almost cried!!

Anyway, I have really been enjoying this new lens, and I thought it would be fun to take pictures of the zoom this lens has. The first is wide open at 18mm, the second is at 135mm (which is the lens I almost got), and the third is the closest zoom at 200mm.

Happy 8th Anniversary!!!

I can't believe I have been married to my wonderful husband for 8 glorious years! We have been together for almost 10, and I have been loving every moment! We have been through so much during these last 10 years, we have had some wonderful memories created, and I really do believe that we have out best years ahead of us. I am giddy at the thought of spending them with my husband and three beautiful daughters.
Thank you Chris for a delightful night, the company was great. And thank you for being such a wonderful husband, friend and father, thank you for being you. You truly are the best! XOXOXO

Halloween!!!

The next set of pictures are from Maddie's Halloween party at
her friends house.




It was Halloween overload this weekend! We had a school party on Friday, then a Halloween party at Maddie's friends house on friday night. Saturday Maddie had a Halloween soccer game (see http://desertflames.blogspot.com/) and then we had friends and family over Saturday night for Halloween festivities! Complete of course with trick-or-treating. The girls had a blast all weekend long and I am sure that they have enough sugar on board to last for the next several weeks!

A trip to the pumpkin patch with the Pre-school

We had our first ever call trip to Pumpkin patch with the twins! Lucy and Ava are loving pre-school and talk about it almost every day. The pumpkin patch was fun, and very crowded, as to be expected this time of year. Lucy LOVED the tractor ride and Ava LOVED the corn maze. We took them through the haunted house, thinking that it would be age appropriate, and boy was I wrong! Ava is now afraid of the dark and talks about monsters coming out from under her bed and closet.... I wish we would have known, but like I said, we thought it would have been age appropriate!

Dorky's 30th birthday! :)

Dorky is a funny name that my brother and I call each other. I actually don't even remember has this name calling started, but I think it may have dated back to when my brother was in the military and we would write letters back and forth to each other. Rather than using nice words of endearment we would use dork and nerd. Hey, I was only 17 at the time!! LOL It has caught on now with all his friends and even his wife. When he calls my house the talking caller ID says, "call from Dorky". Anyway.....

Dorky turned 30 on today! We had a great time at his surprise party!! My camera however got in the hands of some of his friends and I don't think you want to see those pics!

Happy Birthday Jeffrey!!!

A few pictures over the last several weeks

Hanging out with papa at a soccer game.

This picture just cracks me up. Ava was so happy before I took this picture. The reason she is so upset is because I made her stop playing
soccer so I could take a quick photo.

The girls loved playing in the rain today.

With all the rain and wind we have had today, Chris has been very busy all day running calls. He did however get a chance to stop by the house in between calls to
say hello to us. The girls were SO excited to see their papa....

And so sad to see him leave with the engine got a call.

Beautiful little girls!

Park Day

Lucy loved just relaxing in the stream!



I totally forgot to post pictures of the girls when we went to this park a few weeks ago. I have been wanting to take them here because I heard that it was a lot of fun, which the girls will agree. :) I like that fact that this little water feature is separate from the playground as it can still be really hard to watch the twins on a playground. They both want to do different activities, so naturally they run off in different directions, forcing me to triage which kid needs my attention the most. (The one about to take a head plant from the monkey bars, the one about to run into the street, or the one screaming at the top of the slide because the ground is too hot?) My attention is being pulled three different ways, and it just doesn't make for a very enjoyable outing. But this park was very nice and relaxing. :)

Our trip to Jamestown

The train whistle was quite loud!



An American flag and a POW flag.

The motorcyclists waving to Lucy as we passed by.

We made a long, but fun, side trip to Jamestown today to ride the old Steam Engine. Jamestown is about 100 miles south east of Sacramento off of Hwy 49. Chris got this idea after seeing some old movie at work and his firefighter told him about the train rides that they do every weekend. The girls had so much fun, and in fact, so did Chris and I! This age is really so much fun with the girls. I love taking them places and doing things with them! We can just throw our daily schedule out the window and go have fun with them without too many tantrums by the end of the night. (This really wasn't that possible just 6 months ago with the twins.) If you ever go, make sure you take Latrobe Road to Scott Road to Prairie City on the way home. Scott Road is so much fun, it's like a little roller coaster with all the hills and turns!

State Fair

Jeffrey, Chelsea and Kaitlyn
Horse Racing!!

Papa helping Ava pop a balloon to win a prize!

Lucy didn't like the water ride so Papa pulled her out! LOL

Ahhhhhhh, so sweet!





Maddie and Grandpa Mike.

Isn't she SO pretty?!?!

We met my dad, brother and SIL at the State Fair today. The weather was GORGEOUS, and it really wasn't that crowded. The girls had a blast, and I officially convinced that the twins are ready for Disneyland! The fair was great, except the cost of the kid rides!!! One ticket costs $1, and the cost of the carousel was 4 tickets, or $4! $4 x 3 kids= $12 to ride a stupid carousel!!!! Of course we didn't have to let them ride any rides, but how could we take them to the fair and NOT ride any rides?!?!? The last time we went I think tickets were 3 for $1, so essentially each ride was $1 or $1.25.... I can definitely say that next year we will go on a Tuesday when they have free admission for safety workers and $1 rides. Now that I am off my rant, we still did have a good time and the company was great. :) And an added bonus was that we got to see the horse races right before we left. Maddie and I were lovin it!