First day of Kindergarten!!!

Okay, so here is Lucas and Abby on our front porch getting ready to walk to school. On the way we ran into a few friends from the ward who we walked with.

It was so cute, Abby grabbed Lucas's hand and Aiyla's as they walked across the street- I had to get a shot of it!

Here they are walking from the front

Here they are being nice . . . the other girl is Dana who is also in kindergarten and the boy is Aiyla's brother (whose name escapes me)

Here are the kids, being themselves . . .

Definitely his father's son . . .

Outside of his classroom . . .

Abby giving Lucas one final hug goodbye!

Lucas's first day went really well. He wasn't scared at all to go to school and he said that he made some new friends. I don't know if there were any other hitches- but Abby and I showed up early to get him and witnessed him crying at the end of class, but it turned out that another kid had accidentally stepped on his fingers and he was crying from that. I don't know what to do about the fact that he does cry so easily, I swear, I never encouraged it- Abby is a lot tougher, but that is who he is . . . All in all, he had fun and did good and you should be so proud of me because I didn't cry!

Our silly Abby

Okay, Abby is just plain adorable- we all know and accept this. I wanted to post a couple of things about her that I keep forgetting to put up here. One is a story that happened a couple of months ago at church:
Abby was sitting on Shawn's lap at church when she looked up at him and said, "Daddy you have something growing out of your nose!"
Shawn touched his nose and said, "It's called nosehair Abby."
She studied it for a minute and then leaned closer and looked up for a better look. "Wow, it's like a forest in there!"
We couldn't stop laughing- not very reverent, but wouldn't you?!

Botox face!!! Okay- so about a month ago, I got Botox (yes, I really did, since I work somewhere where we sell Botox it made sense for me to get some to both see how it feels and to get rid of the *wrinkles* that are cropping up on my forehead and between my eyebrows! So, Abby saw some of the pictures we took of before and after and the strange faces we make in them and decided to make her own face- we call it her "Botox face"!

I got some headbands for Abby a couple of weeks ago and now she won't let me fix them when they are on- she insists on doing it herself ever since Grandma taught her how (thanks a lot, Sherri!) and of course, rarely does it right. Sorry this is fuzzy, but I thought she looked like some kind of 80's aerobics video instructor!

So, last week Abby came up to Emma while Emma was putting on some make up and asked if she could put some on too. She insisted on doing it herself- you can see the "beautiful" results- this was one of the best pictures I got of her artistry, you can't really tell, but there is eyeshadow not only on her eyelids, but also across her cheeks and she got a big spot of mascara on her cheek (that is easier to see)! She is so cute!

Lucas's Birthday

So, here is Lucas on his actual birthDAY opening some presents: His favorite thing he got- a large ream of blank paper that he can make tons of pictures and paper airplanes with (He has a paper airplane book that he LOVES- good job on that one last year Shells!)

Doesn't he look cute opening his presents?

It is amazing how excited he was about simple things like colored pencils and a pencil holder!

Here we are at his actual birthday party, which took place a week after the birthDAY. Our good friends Chris and Gabby came, he is an amateur magician and he put in a fun show for the kids- here we are in all of our great anticipation!

Chris did a good job entertaining the kids with his card tricks!

Here is Lucas hitting his Optimus Prime pinata!

We wanted to do something cool ever since our discovery of working with fondant, but we were short on time, so we did this- he still loved it!

Here he is blowing out the candle on his cake- he looked so cute doing it!Lucas had a fun birthday over all. We all missed Shawn on the actual day, but we had a great party later, as you can see. I love that he is still young enough that things like reams of paper and crayons and colored pencils still were a bit hit. Of course, his new changable lightsaber is quite popular as well!

This was a funny video that my Dad sent to me- enjoy!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trailer

I'm almost as excited about this as I am about Twilight!!!

The kids can actually play nice every now and then!

The other day the kids were "wrestling" and it was shocking how sweet Lucas was to let Abby win and he played so softly with her- no one got hurt!!!! Wow!

I forgot about this cute video when I was doing the wedding stuff!

Sorry this is side ways, but I couldn't figure out how to change it. Anyhow, isnt' Shawn such a wonderful daddy to dance with Abby like this, as you can see, Lucas came up to me and we danced together also, but I had to put the camera down. (You might want to turn down the volume, there is so much background noise it is just plain noise, I don't think you can even tell what song they are dancing to!)

Memory Game

I thought this would be fun! I hope you'll play along! Here are the directions:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you've known me a long time or just a little while. Anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It'll be funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave a memory I have about you. If you don't want to play on your blog or you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

FIRE!!!!

So, while we were out of town, apparently the mountain behind our house caught fire!! One of the neighbors told me that they were watching it on Friday and then a fire truck pulled into the neighborhood and evacuated everyone from our area! They were able to come back on Saturday since the fire was sucessfully stopped in the feilds behind our houses. We went for a walk along the canal this morning and saw the damage- there were even a few places where the black reached all the way to the canal. I bet it was scary, but I had gotten a call from my cousin, Melissa, on Saturday telling me that our neighborhood had been evacuated and I wasn't scared. I didn't even feel really worried, I just knew that everything would be fine, and it is, although our view out the back yard isn't as pretty as it used to be as you can see here . . .

Alex and Zoey's Wedding

Saturday we had the great pleasure of attending Alex and Zoey's wedding up in the mountains above Chico. There is a beautiful park there that has all of these little lakes and waterfalls and gorgeous woods and they chose to have it there. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! Zoey was a beautiful bride and Alex looked so handsome. Cory was the officiator (he got his liscense off of the internet) and they had a gorgeous ceremony that Zoey and Alex planned out where they wrote thier own vows and thier mother's spoke- needless to say, I cried a lot! It was wonderful!
Shawn played "Longer" by Dan Fogelberg while a good friend of Alex and Zoey's sang during the ceremony. Most of you know about Shawn's stage fright- he did a great job!
Lucas and his cousing Aiyden (who were both Mushers=mini ushers) decided to play transformers to keep themselves entertained during the ceremony . . .
Here is Abby (the most beautiful flower girl EVER!) finding some things to do to keep her busy during the ceremony- she was so adorable and I love the one of her twirling with Emma- she is so good with the kids!

This is my neice, Scarlett, who was also an adorable flower girl!
Our family afterwards, it really was such a beautiful setting!

Shawn looked so handsome in his tux, don't you think?

Aren't the kids adorable? I was so proud of them!

After everything, the kids were a little tired on the ride back down the mountain . . .

Breaking Dawn

Friday night I went with Emma (Shawn's sister) and her friend at midnight to Barnes and Noble to get Breaking Dawn! We had fun waiting, although there was a big group of obnoxious girls a little in front of us who kept screaming and singing songs about being in love with Edward Cullens. It was funny. Anyhow, the unfortunate thing is, although we did get books, I had to wait to even start it until Sunday because of the wedding, but I will tell you that although at first I wasn't loving the book, I finished it yesterday and did love it! It wasn't what I anticipated and was , perhaps, better than that for it! Anyhow, here is Emma and I as we were waiting in line!