Valentines Day CRAFT

So for Vday this year james and I went a little early, two weeks early. I don't think we have ever celebrated Valentines day on actual Valentines do, it never bothered me, we would always go when we could and count it for that day. In fact James and my first valentines day ever when i was 17 was not celebrated on Valentines day, James had to film a commercial down in the valley so we did it another day, i ws kind sad being my first one with him but come to find that that one commercial practically paid for his whole mission made up for it. So we don't think of it as a big deal much. Sooooo anyways, I had always know about restaurant week in LA and knew that it was around january, so i just happened to look it up the last 3 days, i was so excited. James was all for it. we decided to go to Craft. even though or reservations weren't until 10pm, we were going. They had a three course menu for 44 dollars. fine dining... can't beat that. The food was amazing. the service was amazing. Great place if you are ever in LA. So you can see it was raining. but it didn't bother us. We had foie gras, pate, smoked trout, beautiful salad with hazelnuts (that was just appetizers) next james had a slow cooked rib eye, and i had homemade ricotta filled pasta, so delish! Dessert: warm cinnamon sugar donuts with dark chocolate dipping sauce, and chai penna cota that was so smooth. They even gave us a banana nut muffin for us to take home. SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOD.
I am a sucker for an awesome meal like that. Best Valentines ever. James and I agree we are going to do it every year and try some place new. I don't know if it could top Craft. Loved it. Happy Valentines day to me!

100th day

Cullen had his hundreth day at school awhile back. i was fortunate to be able to help out that day with the events. They had 10 different events for K and 1st graders. each one they had to count and do the activity. some were tossing a ball, jump rope, music sticks, jumping on one foot, jumping jacks, bean bag toss... Tammy a fellow mother helper and friend of mine, and i decided we wanted to do jumping jacks because usually at that time we are at the gym so we wanted to get out workout for the day. CRAZY! but fun. i ended up doing over 800 jumping jacks, (i had to take pictures too) Cullen was really excited that i was there and that he could do jumping jacks. Ready....
GO! each group counted by fives and then tens to make 100. but there ended up being about 20 groups. ahhhh!
Cullen counting out his dominoes.

Zero the Hero came and visited (soooo cool!) and he (actually it was a she, shhhhh don't tell) brought 100 balloons to count off and let go. This is Cullen and his best bud at school Brady, they are always together. they are wearing their nifty 100 day visors, they didn't last long though.

Looking for Snow

It snowed a couple of times in January here but nothing seemed to stick at our house. The kids were ready and waiting to put on their heavy coats and mittens and enjoy the snow. but pretty much we just looked out the window watching the snow fall onto the wet ground hoping just hoping for the white stuff to stay but no luck this year. (I was secretly thankful, i do not like snow not one little bit, had enough in my life living in rexburg, logan, and provo. never need anymore. James likes it so he can take the kids in it.)

mug shot

So Lily is a very wild girl, normal for any stockdale i've decided boy or girl both crazy. Lily likes to grit her teeth and pull my hair and jump around everywhere. one thing that she also loves to do is, stand up in her high chair. one day she did exactly that... stood up put her hands and the edge of her tray and pushed it down until it gave out. she fell to our wood floors, luckily she had a blankie with her to help her with her fall. Her eye swelled up with a little purple bump then yellow and reddish, black eye. she was fine but we had to take pictures and ofcourse she had her 18m check up that week. (bottom 3 % for weight and height, 19 lbs, but growing just fine)

Australia

It's hard to sum up our trip to Australia. It was beautiful, fun, crazy, perfect, and tiring all at the same time. My mom agreed months ago to watch our kids so that we could go to australia the week before Christmas. Lily was going to be 18m old so we thought that she would be ready for us to be gone. we used miles that we had been saving for one ticket so we only paid 600 bucks to fly there which is dang good, and couldn't pass it up. i had always told James that i wanted to go back there. We decided to make it a road trip though, driving from Sydney up to the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef so james could go diving. We didn't really plan much in between, just went and stayed where we wanted and found along the way. it was fun but stressful me trying to navigate on unknown roads and james driving on the wrong side of the road. but fun just to have time for US!
Our first night in Sydney after a 14 hour flight we stayed in China town, we walked around the marketplace and found that Wicked was playing at the Theatre right by our place. so i just had to see if they were preforming on a wednesday and how much the tickets were. too much but they had a raffle. And James is the luckiest man alive when it comes to winning stuff like this, and i was so excited because i knew his name was going to be called. and it was, the second name (james was kinda disappointed that is wasn't the first). so at about 2am our time we went to see Wicked. Loved IT! front row, 30 bucks a ticket nothing better. (except maybe being well rested so we wouldn't have been so exhausted.

Our last day we took a detour back to Sydney through "waterfall Way" it was beautiful we got to see some great falls right next to our car but were kinda disappointed to find the biggest one had dried up. still beautiful except for the flies everywhere!
One thing that i wanted to do was kayak, and we did our last day, it took me some time to get the hang of it but it was fun and pretty on the lake by the end my shoulders were killing me.

We stopped by Steve Irwins Zoo on one of our excursions! awesome zoo. You can do anything, feed elephants, pet koalas, pet kangaroos all just lying around, and ofcourse see the CROCS. had to shed a tear for Steve there it was so sad to see all his work and him not there. but CRICKEY it one of the best zoos ever!

James and my beach, (park beach) loved it there not many people, walks around the rocks, beautiful sand and great weather! we just sat there together reading, eating and napping, awesome! (except for the chinese food we got there, nasty! poor birds that we fed the food to they could have died) I wanted to go by the Sydney Temple but we could never figure out where it was, on our way back we took a different way and i said, "hey look at all those Christmas lights" we hadn't seen much there, drove by and it was the Temple out of no where. it was awesome, we walked around looked at the lights and the full Manger scene. great end to our Christmas trip to Australia!

Christmas Time

Christmas time was here. It was a little different this year with james and i going off to Australia for 9 days, it was weird preparing for christmas and a summer vacation at the same time. But my kids were right on track. We got our tree and the kids were so excited that they couldn't make up there minds for once, last year they were practically asleep and picked the first one they saw. but they loved to decorate the tree and the house, we made cookies and candies and dropped them off to our friends. It was fun. But no snow this year.Merry Christmas!

Big Changes for Cullen in November

Cullen had a big month in November.
He got glasses! I knew that he would probably need glasses with my eyes being so bad and all, i probably could have used them in first grade, but i didn't think it would be so soon with him. But once he looked at the chart and couldn't read the third row, i thought he was joking then knew he needed glasses. At first he was worried and said that he wasn't going to get them, and that his friends wouldn't be friends with him if he had them. But after some talks about superman, spiderman and other cool guys with glasses he was ok with it. He loved trying them on and picking out his glasses but thought he was just going to take the sample ones right home. Once he got his real glasses he couldn't believe the difference he loved them. He lost his first tooth after being wiggly for almost a month he finally pulled it out. We almost lost it in the sink when we rinsed it because it was so teeny tiny, but it made it under his pillow. The tooth fairy left him 4 dollars, three dollar bills one silver dollar, and one coin from another country that the fairy must have gotten mixed up. I thought the teeth would start pouring out of his mouth but none since.