Prom 2010

James asked me one day if i considered chaperoning prom for his school. I totally thought that would be awesome. Get all dressed up, maybe dance a little, not have to pay, get to eat some food. ofcourse there would be tons of high schooler there that we have to make sure are not doing drugs, drinking or not playing nice but hey it would be a date, right? So the morning of my birthday james had me go into the bathroom and this is what i found... there were about 50 fish (40 live and about 10 not) in the bathtub and james asking me to go to prom. ofcourse i said yes. he was kinda sad that i wasn't giddy as a school girl, but i'm not a school girl anymore, and i wasn't even like that as a school girl. but i was excited.

So he talked his school into having "extra security" there so cindy and dave got to go with us. BONUS! i got my dress 30 bucks at burlington (ok i bought 3 and kept two but all three cost the same as one of the dresses most of the girls were wearing) Cindy and Me waiting for the kids to get checked before getting on the bus.
Our kids stayed at the Knapps, where they had the best night ever! we ofcourse had to take pictures on the lawn together. how cute. I'm the one with the white legs and arms.
I made a boutineer for James and corsages for cindy and i to wear, i took roses from my mom's backyard and our neighborhood walkway to make them and they came out pretty good, a little wabbly though to cindy and i didn't wear ours to the dance.
Prom was at a jewish history museum next to the getty. it was very pretty and large, and had extra security of their own, so we didn't have to do much. the dance floor was outside, which is good when you're hot and sweaty on the dance floor but cold if not, so i was sporting james coat most of the night.
We had a great time. but we were really tired by the end, we aren't that young any longer. James had to tap a couple of students on the shoulder and offer a couple of chairs to girls sitting on laps but no problems at all. they also had a caricaturist that drew the kids pictures and karaoke for the singers. fun night.

9 year anniversary

for our nine year anniversary we decided to do something really crazy... how bout go to san bernidino and stay the night in a teepee. Great idea! this is how it came about...
James got a call from Cal schools education something and they liked his idea about this switch box they made in one of his classes and wanted him to come and make lesson plans for it and to be put in lessons plans through all of california. They said they would pay for hotel to come to san bernadino for a couple of days. the first night fell on our anniversary and i said... "you're going to spend our anniversary in a hotel without me?" but we made it work and wonderful Nicole spent the night with my kids and take them to school so that i could go with him. we went out to eat before we left at outback and my wonderful husband changed our seats 3 times so that I could watch the nba playoffs during our anniversary dinner. I think the waitress was kinda shocked when she found out i was watching the game. that man knows me well, and loves me tons to do that for me. We then made our way through snow over the mountains to san bernandino. neither of us had been there before, but the area we were in was kinda scary, i thought james was going to get mugged out there riding a bus. so we made it to our teepee, which was booked by the school board, weird! rated one of the best hotels there. (i know why now, everything else was soooo scary) I was happy to have our little teepee. It was fun to be away for a night and we will always remember and joke about what could possibly beat this anniversary. but we are already in the works for our tenth and it's looking pretty sweet.

Tea Party

Sophia has some cute little girl friends from school that she doesn't really get to play with that often. Most of the friends her age that she plays with at home are boys. So I thought it would be cute to have a Tea Party Playdate and invites a couple of her girly friends from school that she mostly likely won't see much after pre school because they are all going to different kindergartens. So Kaylyn, and her sister Krista, Lorelai, and Robyn came over to play dress up, decorate cupcakes, drink pink lemonade, and just to be girls for one afternoon.
The princess tea set!
The pretty cupcakes the girls decorated
Lorelai and Lily, always together wanted to match, she loved being the big sister for a day.
Cupcake Bite!


Lily loved having the girls over and she was looking so "cheesy" so i had to share
Lily loved to dress up like all the other girls and they loved dressing her up too.
All the girls in their dress ups, even though it was a fight to get sophia to put something on, after all the girls left she didn't want to put the dress ups away because she wanted to play with them by herself. Sophia, Robyn, Kaylyn, Lorelai, Krista, and Lily
The girls sitting down for their tea, and Sophia pouring the lemonade, they all used the cutest little manners, "sophia, could you please pour me some Lemonade?"
The tea party set up, Sophia wanted pink cupcakes (ofcouse) but i wanted to make mini ones but she insisted to have big ones.

Easter

Lots of cousins for easter! The ferrari's came down for a couple days and smiths came back with me. We had our egg hunt a couple days early with everyone then another with more eggs on sunday. I think we counted at least 500 plastic eggs that were filled with candy or money or little fluffy chicks (toys of course)The day was blusterous! it was cold and windy but we managed to go out and get some eggs. The kids all filled up there baskets and dumped them all out. I still have candy left over. They just liked to play and be with their cousins. We also dyed about 5 dozen real eggs, Delaine and I even let lily and liam dye some. we love using the whisk instead of a spoon so much easier. we couldn't believe that we dyed all those eggs and nothing got spilled or tipped on the floor... until we were on the last egg liam was dying it. i was at the sink pouring out some dye when delaine asked for some help. red dye down her pants on shoes and on the tile floor. we all jumped to clean it up, i held screaming liam, while they poured bleach toilet bowl cleaner on the floor. but it came out and the shoes were a little pink. But hey someone had to do it. now we can tell the story and laugh. It was great to watch conference those two days together as a family. So wonderful. On easter Sunday james made his famous pancakes...so good and the real eggs were hidden until some crows started swooping down and taking whole eggs to eat them. So the kids had to run out and find the rest (the birds took about 2 dozen)it was funny. We had a great ham dinner and just had a wonderful time together.
Kids getting ready for the hunt
All our dying of the eggs, what a mess but sure fun!
Lily picking up some of her eggs, She liked to open everyone one and eat the candy right away.
Olivia and Sophia as the easter bunny girls.