Category: Family

We went to the beach today with the Pauly’s. Dan had the day off from work, so we was with us too. The kids had a great time. The girls did a lot of body surfing and boogie boarding. Dan helped the boys do some boogie boarding too. The boys also had fun splashing around in the waves near the shore. I sat under the umbrella with Falyn most of the time there. She is still too little for sunscreen, so I didn’t want her out in the sun at all.

We went over to Samantha’s apartment for dinner. Aunt Pam and cousins Lawrence and Chantel were there too. Samantha made delicious fajitas for dinner. Talia and Kayli helped make brownies for desert. After dinner we took a walk to the pier. The kids had a great time on the pier. Jared and Riley kept calling it “The Ramp”.

Here’s a picture of the oldest kids taken at the end of the pier.

Since it was Falyn’s 4 mo. birthday today, I did a photo shoot of all the kids and created this from some of the pictures.

We visited the Nixon Library today. Since President Ford has passed away yesterday, there were a lot of news media at the library. There was a book for visitors to write messages to President Ford’s family. We all signed it. The highlight of the visit for the kids was the huge model train exhibit. They would have stayed there for hours watching it if we let them.

We had a wonderful Christmas! It started around 5:30 am when the girls woke up and snuck downstairs to spy on their Santa gift and stockings. They then got dressed and came into bed with Dan and I until the boys finally woke up around 7:00 am. We got the boys dressed and everyone went downstairs. The boys were very excited about their Santa presents: BC Builders sets, Treasure Island Matchbox set and the Aircraft Carrier Micro-Adventure Rescue Heroes set. The girls got Heely’s and were thrilled! They opened up their stockings and the twins started munching all their candy before we could stop them! I then started breakfast – coffee cake. Which apparently is our traditional Christmas morning meal. (Talia and Kayli informed me of this a few weeks ago.) After breakfast, Dan took the girls to 9 am mass. I went with them on Christmas Eve to the 4 pm mass. Since they are in the children’s choir, they have to sing at two Christmas masses.

While the girls and Dan were gone, I opened up all the boxes of the boys Santa gifts and put them together so they could play with them. They were very anxious to open up their presents, but knew they had to wait till everyone was home. Finally, the girls and Dan were back and the present opening began. We tried to keep it orderly, with everyone opening one thing at a time, but it was hard to keep it under control. Kayli’s favorite present was her gameboy. Talia already had one and she very much wanted one too. Talia isn’t sure what her favorite present was, but has been playing her new gameboy games almost non-stop. The twins and Aidan loved all their new toys. My favorite present was the earings that Dan gave me.

After lunch, the girls went out to play with all the kids in the neigborhood. Turns out that all the other kids that didn’t already have them, also got Heely’s for Christmas. They all had a blast skating all over the neighborhood. I spent most of the afternoon opening boxes of the boy’s new toys. They managed to play with ever single one of their new toys.

For dinner, we went over to Dan’s parents house. Dan’s parents, Dan sister Pam and her two children, Dan’s sister Barbara and her “significant other” visiting from the Netherlands, Dan’s sister Samantha, and Dan’s grandma were there. Aidan brought his new Bionicle with him and and his cousin Lawrence help him put it together. Lawrence also got Heely’s for Christmas and the girls tried to help him figure out how to use them.

After dinner, we had another round of present opening. We all got so much stuff, that I don’t know what we will do with all of it! Definitely will be time to get rid of some old stuff. We then had desert and sat around talking. Dan’s dad built a fire in the chiminaria and the kids all went ouside. Samantha and I went outside with them. Around this time, Dan’s mom was trying to get his grandma to go to bed. Apparently, they had forgotten to add grandma’s medicine to her food at dinner and she totally flipped out. (She won’t take the medicine on her own, so they have to hide it in food.) She started yelling at everyone and refusing to go to bed. We left a while later at around 10:30 pm. From what I hear, grandma continue to rant and rave for several more hours.

You can see our Christmas pictures here.

The kids had so much fun last night. Talia was a cheerleader, Kayli was a mediveal princess, Aidan was a Hot Wheels World Racecar Driver, Jared was Baby Jaguar and Riley was batman. Ya, I know, Jared’s costume looks like a tiger, not a jaguar. Just don’t tell that to Jared!

The boys had more fun passing out candy than getting it. Poor Kayli came home sick after only going half way around the neighborhood. She had a 101 degree fever and went straight to bed. She is home sick today from school. Talia was out trick-or-treating for over 2 hours! She came back with way too much candy.

We had a great Halloween. There were many more trick-or-treater this year than last. My girls hit every house in the neighborhood along with their friends. (They were out for over 2 hours!) They came back with way to much candy. Luckily, I was able to send about 10 pounds of it to school with Kayli this morning. The girls school collects candy the day after Halloween to donate to a local childrens hospital. I took the boys to a few houses. They had a lot of fun. I think Aidan liked passing out the candy better than trick-or-treating.

Today we went to the Long Beach Aquarium. We were suppose to meet up with other families from the Twinstuff website. We ended up only finding one other family that I had met previously. We had a really great time anyway. All of the kids loved it!

We spent most of the day today at Knotts Berry Farm. We had so much fun! We went with DH’s sister Samantha. She works there and was able to get us two free passes. We weren’t there very long when we ran into a family that we know from church. Their daughters are in the same grades and go to the same school as my daughters. Their son is the same age as Aidan. We hung out with them a good deal while there. We also managed to get the adults on several rollercoasters while other adults watched the kids. All in all, it is one of the best times I have had at a theme park in a very long time.