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.

father's day somewhere in here

I know fathers' day was some where in here. we celebrated it early because james was going to be in San Diego for training for two weeks so we changed the day. I had to put in these cute pictures of sophia DEMANDING to make pancakes. (chocolate chip ofcourse, daddy's favorite) she wanted to do it all herself (imagine that). so i told her that she could take them out of the pan when they were done but ofcourse she wanted to FLIP the pancakes. finally i gave in and right when she was going to flip she takes her other hand and puts it on the side of the pan to steady it. HOT! no blisters or anything. good thing we were right next to the sink. she was ok. Fathers day was good. we ended up at G & G house for Steak and Crab legs. James favorites, that i only make once (or twice maybe for his bday) a year. (the crab of course, steak all the time). the steaks were good though. on the actual fathers day, it was kinda sad to sing with the primary kids and James not be there to hear, because let me tell you Cullen knew every word and definitely was the loudest. ( i was so proud of my primary kids though, *tear* they sang good.) anyways that was fathers day sometime in here.

Lily and her music card

this little girl is so cute. i had to get it on video. She has one of those music cards which my kids get from grandma pretty much every holiday. she loves them. now that she knows how to open them up its so cute to see her dance any time she hears the music. for her birthday we had to get her some more.

don't pay attention to the dirty room and everything under the couch please. and yes,i am in my pjs in the video.

cullens kindergarden graduation

cullen is now a first grader! he graduated from Mrs. Zirille's kindergarden class. He is such a clown. They sang all the songs they had learned throughout the year and cullen was singing every song, i was so proud. then they announced the names, it was my first experience when i realized that cullen will always be close to the end because his last name is stockdale. i had always been close to the front with chapman so i was waiting for him, then realized it was alphabetical. it was great. grandma was there with us and they had a little luncheon at the end. we were so proud of Cullen.

Sophia's Dance Recital

Sophia had her first dance recital. She had been taking a tap/ballet class through the city. i loved her teacher she was great for little girls, i don't know how she kept their attention but she did. the song she danced to was super trooper from Mama mia. so annoying. That's why the song is on the blog because we practiced it at home. She looked so cute and danced great. she was the only blonde haired white girl in her class so she kind stood out, in a good way. and her bow on her shoe came untided half way though and ran off stage, but came back on right on track and finished the song.
We gave her her own flowers that she loved. james was gone in san diego for the recital so it was sad that he wasn't there to see it. but we got it on video.
She was the cutest super trooper there!!!!
Cullen loved the dance too, i really think that he was proud of sophia and he knew the dance by the time she preformed so they did it together.

Trip to utah

For my best friend amy's 30th birthday I flew out to Utah. I had been looking for tickets for about a month to go out there but on her birthday i told her that I had been looking and didn't find a good deal. but out of the blue the next morning i got an email from delta and come on i never read those. but it was from la to slc for 49 each way. now that i could do. So lily and I flew to Utah and it was good because half of the stockdale family all that live in Utah had never met Lily. so it was good all around. Lily had flown before, when she was only 2 months old to my cousins wedding, but this time was different. The flight was full but no one wanted to sit by me because I had a baby (oh no the baby's going to cry!) whatever. fine with me I got three seats to myself and Lily was an angel she slept and ate and never cried, haha losers who wanted to sit cramped in the middle of two people you would have liked it better over here. I spent the day with amy. cafe rio and getting ready for her party that night. it was just good to hang out. But let me tell you I was ready at about 9 to go home and go to sleep. But i stayed up with the "singles" chatting until amy guests left, we got to grandma and grandpa stockdale at about midnight. Lily didn't really sleep well with me, she is such a rolly polly, it drove me crazy.
Lily got to spend sometime with G & G and the cousins for a while before i got home from Amy's ward. She had a fun time with the kids, I think she really missed Cullen and Sophia, it was weird just us because once the kids were playing she wanted to be right where they were.
Livy, Lily and Braxton! so much fun being cousins.
Kiera and lily. (she's taller than me now, I know that's not really difficult)
Lily playing in grandmas drawers she loved this one it was the perfect height.
Rolling around naked on the bed what a crazy girl.

tithing

(cullen and Lily so cute on mommy and daddy's bed.)
Today on the way out the door to church cullen stopped me and said "what about Tithing we have to pay our tithing." I told him the Daddy had paid our tithing. He said but I have to pay ten cents. then when i thought of it he had made that money for his lemonade stand so we went upstairs and I told him he needed to have 2.00 because he made 20 at his lemonade stand. with out whining or even being reluctant he got out his 2.00 in change and we put it in a baggie for church. So we got the envelope and he wrote most of it out and almost ran up to the stand to give his envelope to the bishop before he was done, before i stopped him. Then he walked right up shook the bishop's hand and gave him his tithing. I was so proud of him. He's growing up to be a really smart young man.