Halloween

So i might as well do halloween. my kids dressed up about 4 times. our ward party, grandmas trunk or treat, party, school party... whatever. so by the time it came to the real night sophia's zipper had busted, cullen's gloves were blue from his face paint and lily had about 3 dots left on her skirt. anyways we tried to take a couple pictures and this was the best one. Lily looks like a ballerina in this picture but she was a cute little ladybug i made the tutu myself, and cut up a baby lady bug costume we got after halloween last year for 3 dollars and she had a hood with a face and antennae. she was cute but i saw alot of lady bugs this year.
Cullen was Sonic this year and i tried to find a costume but couldn't so hey we made due. i bought a pair of blue sweats for about 6 bucks, used leftover fabric for the stomach, dollar white gloves, felt pieces for the ears, dollar blue spray dye, and dollar face paint. i did have to buy the shoes for 5 bucks, but sonic needs red shoes or he can't run. he loved it but wanted to run to everyone house or car for trick or treating and i couldn't keep up.
This was our ode to Bowser pumpkin, Sophia had asked me to help her and she wanted a koopa pumpkin and this is what we came up with. can you tell they are into mario brothers, sonic and everything that has a wii game attached?
Sophia wanted to be Belle so bad this year, (even though she has never seen Beauty and the Beast)but she does have a pretty dress. I started looking for her costume months before, ebay, disney store, disneyland, every party store. but i really didn't find one that i liked and even if i liked it i wasn't about to spend 60-100 dollars on it. my mom found this one at tuesday morning in Vegas. we took off green leaves, added the sleeves, put on more flowers and another layer to the dress so for about 15 dollars that's what we got and i tell you she was the best lookin belle on halloween, except when she turned around and you could see the 5 safety pins holding the back together, but hey it was good enough. Happy halloween kids, yep your mom is cheap! but you had fun so it's ok.

disneyland birthday

Cullen celebrated his birthday at dland. in first grade at his school they don't really celebrate birthdays after kindergarden except to say your name over the intercom on friday, wahoo. so we went and cullen loved spending his 62 dollars. He loved his birthday button and if one of the workers didn't say happy birthday to him he would show you and make you see that it was HIS birthday.
First things first jedi training, it's not like he's never done it before, he always gets picked. but it was cooler because it was his birthday.
he fought darth vader but i had to put in darth maul, he was looking good, i mean evil.
waiting for his turn!
listen to your jedi master! he knows how to defeat the dark side.

you probably thought i quit

but i didn't i just broke my camera so i didn't have any pictures. anyways i think i will post a few a day to catch up on the year. Cullen's first day of first grade. sportin the star wars gear, awesome. He loved it. no problems with first grade. Sophia actually took this picture, i think she did a great job!
Cullen wanted to take one too. me and my girls... so cute
The kids on the couch, i guess sophia didn't need to see in that picture
cullen doing the "robot dance" for school, i guess he was excited to go.
my big first grader!

Lily's First Birthday

Happy birthday to my Little Lila! Yeah I know it's been a while since July 16th, when Lily had her birthday. but i have to catch up on blogging in order, or i don't know how things happen. Sooooo..... Lily turned one. One of my friends said once.. wouldn't that be an easy party if you just had an UP party with balloons and everything. Lily loves balloons, i mean LOOOOOVVVVVEEEESSSS balloons, everytime she sees one in any store she reaches out her arms and yells for one. So we did a whole party for balloons. For the invites I had found a 3D paper house from up that you could put together, so i only made 8 invites (thinking that that would be a small party) i attached a balloon on each with a tag about the party. We had diane and Jason make "balloon animals for the kids (even though i think a ballon sword or light saber was most of everyones favs) a couple of balloon games for the older kids and enchiladas, (because the movie is in south america somewhere) I made a house cake with waterballoons filled with helium attached to the top. in my head it was so cute, but the frosting wasn't working the way i wanted it to. blah. anyways everyone we invited was there so with kids and adults i think it ended up 35 people. yeah, small not so much.


Lily was just so happy just playing with balloons all day. she got a huge bouquet that she held on to the whole time. She was walking kinda by then, so she just wanted to explore. Lily got a lot of high tech presents. everything lit up, sang a song, or popped up or something. She got a laptop, a cell phone, a microphone, a radio, an electric spinning top, and alot of other pop up stuff. Her favorite though was here little pink swing, we hooked it to our playset before the party was through. you can tell she loved, it.

Stockdale reunion

This year we had a Stockdale reunion. first of it's kind and definitely not the last. we had a perfect spot at Lake Shasta right below the Dam. It was beautiful. we had the whole place to ourselves. a pool, the lake, game room, horses, bikes, a dining hall, trails, and fire pit. Perfect for the whole family. we had a great time. The kids loved being around all their cousins, and getting to know all of them better. Cullen and James went to a little water park with most of the fam, went shooting with the boys, and played hard with Cullen's new airsoft gun, he loved it. sophia went swiming, played with emma and livi alot just walking around exploring, (alot of the time i had to try and find her she was always exploring. Lily decided that she wanted to learn to walk and actually took 8 steps by the end of the trip. She got a little sick by the end so wanted to stay close by mommy's side. She loved being around Bella and having another little girl around. We played games every night, watched movies, and ate alot of good food. it was really great that all of us could be together!
This is one of my favs... Adam and Sophia being "afraid" of the bear at shasta caverns.
James unhappy with the craziness of the kids at the Shasta caverns, lily just wanted to walk up all the stairs, so crazy. james: "I don't want to take a picture in here."
Sophia and her bandaged eye, she had a little incident with her eye and the foose ball table. She was fine and looking soo happy on the boat to the caves.
Grandma had everyone paint their hands and put them on quilt squares. Cullen loves anything having to do with paint, messy, gooey, yucky... pretty much anything.
some of the cousins all together playing with Lily, she loved all the attention! More pics of us at the caverns, the kids just loved cousin allie and were so happy she was there with us!

Fourth of July

For the Fourth this year we went home for a couple of days, picked up James and headed back to the Ferrari's on the way to the Stockdale family reunion. we always end up seeing the Ferrari's for the fourth, it always includes fireworks and KFC. that's a must.we had made our "Family Fun" fireworks t-shirts the week before so all the kids could make their own and match. they looked so cute. we went up to the top of the hill at their park to watch the fireworks and Sophia had to potty right when we got to the top so Daddy had to take her all the way back to the house, but they made it back in time. It is always fun when the cousins get together.



But this year besides Diane's red, white and blue meal with giant prawns and steak, she made up a family challenge. Ferraris V. Stockdales. This included a three legged race, donut eating contest, ping pong tournament, and tug of war. It was so fun and we hope to make it a tradition in years to come. The Ferraris totally beat us. But the kids had a good time.

trip to nor cal

James was doing training down in San Diego for 2 weeks so what else would i do but go and stay with Diane so that the cousins could play all day everyday and we could cook and play rock band every night. it was great. the kids love it, i love it. and it got my mind off of being at home and james not being there. so here are some pics of our trip.
We went to the academy of science museum in San Fran. it had everything... an aquarium, rain forest, planetarium, stuffed wild animals, real penguins, great dim sum, and a roof that grows food... totally fun.
oh yeah and a play room for all the little kids. it had a tree house, and pirate boat with kitchen and play food, sea animal dress up and an area just for little lilies. but Lily just liked chewing on the fence.
this is just a cutie eating a toquito while the older kids were running around getting their wiggles out.
at the aquarium part they got to see and feel it all. even what it feels like to be stung by a electric eel. so cool and all the kids loved it.
a normal occurrence at the Ferrari house. all the kids in a blanket i think watching Star wars. which they pretty much did every night. too fun! but after they went to sleep it was rock band until the wee hours of the morning.