Christmas Week at school in Clarksburg

The night of the Christmas program at school

For the Christmas program Sydney with her class sang the 12 Days of Christmas and she was the 10th day. Shelby's class did a salsa dance (and yes she had to dance with a boy which she was so embarrassed when she told me, she thought she was going to die!)The program was really cute and to her surprise she did not die of embarrassment!

The Clarksburg Christmas parade was fun and the fire station afterwards had hot chocolate and brownies for everyone and a special visitor....Santa! Whom Gigi this year was not afraid of as long as she had her sisters near!

Dress like Santa Day! We opted for Mrs. Claus

Fake Injury Day. Don't they look pitiful? Jeff was in charge of this theme day!

At the girls school the last week before Christmas vacation they had theme week. Where everyday was a different theme. There was pajama day, fake injury day, Santa look a like day, mismatch day and Christmas colors day. They had a lot of fun with it and we are loving all the fun things that the new school offers and the fact that they can actually celebrate within the school "Christmas"!

Thanksgiving time

Michael was really hungry...this was just his first plate!

The kids table

We want TURKEY!!



Jack and Gigi actually getting along!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Some pictures from Thanksgiving. I went half the day forgetting to take pictures. I only ended up with 10 pictures!

Christmas Cards...

Really Girls this isn't the cover for Cosmo!

In the middle of this one Gigi said "whats up girlfriend?" and everyone started laughing

My favorite one of Gigi

So its that time of year again the dreaded picture for the Christmas cards. Getting these 4 kids to ALL smile at the same time is like pulling teeth. It is more stressful than Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. But yet each year I put myself through this torture event. Every year I try to do a fun pose not something so formal or plain, so each year the stress is on to find a creative way to do the pose for the cards. Well this year I had this bright idea to pose the children in front of the trailer which sums up our whole year because of buying the trailer & all the camping we have done. So all morning we have attempted "the picture" but Gigi was in an ultra pose mood and kept doing the silliest poses. Needless to say I went with a plain picture I took on the beach when we were camping!

Samuel P Taylor State Park

The kids on the bridge to our campsite

Point Reyes beach

Shelby Gianna and Sydney on the beach

The Bridge at Samuel P Taylor State Park

Picture from our camp site

Samuel P Taylor turned out to be a beautiful place! I took a lot of pictures of the scenery (something I don't usually do) because it was just so pretty there. But they have a big raccoon problem there and they aren't afraid of people! The best part is we brought Jeff's projector from work and we watched the movie Goonies outside on the back of the trailer. I hadn't seen that movie in a long time and the kids thought it was the funniest movie. We cant wait to go back!

Pictures From Halloween Night

Shelby and Kylee

Trick or Treat

Candy... Shelby's favorite thing in the world

Gigi crying because she didn't want to go up to a door because there was a monster on the porch

Yes Michael wore his regular clothes with his cowboy hat and really did go trick or treating. I was embarrassed for him but then I remember going trick or treating when I was his age (right Necia?) But at least we wore a costume!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

The girls with our neighbors

Halloween Festival at school....Yay!!

I am loving this new school the girls are in! They actually let the kids come to school in their costumes on Halloween. They have never been able to do that at the other school because everything has to be so politically correct these days. But I remember how excited I was to wear my costume to school when I was younger. The girls were thrilled and said that it was the best day they had ever had at school! At 1:00 they (actually me, Jeff and a few other parents) set up game booths and popcorn/ hot dog stand for all the kids. They had a parade and a costume contest for the teachers which Sydney's teacher won so they get $75 for their classroom! Anyway here are some pictures from that day.

Gigi on her 4th cupcake! She kept winning the cake walk

Sydney helping with the popcorn

Shelby and her friends Sally and Kaleigh. I loved Sally's picnic table costume. If only I could be that creative. Who am I kidding even if I was Shelby would look at me and say "you want ME to wear what?!" Not happening!

Gigi in her fairy costume. It was actually Shelby's very first dance recital costume

Need I say more? This picture pretty much sums it up!

Shelby's 9th Birthday Party

Karaoke time!

Waiting for it to get dark enough to start the movie

Shelby working the stand!

We had Shelby's birthday party a few weeks early this year because she wanted to do an outdoor movie night, so we needed good weather and I didn't want to chance waiting until Nov. 10th. All the girls had so much fun. We had concession stands that Jeff made set up with nachos, pizza, soda, candy and popcorn. Sacha, Mary and I all worked the stands and we even had fun doing that! With all the soda and candy plus cake the girls all went home that night on a sugar high...and that is why I don't do slumber parties! We watched the movie Hocus Pocus which a lot of the girls hadn't seen. I was worried about picking a movie that wouldn't hold their attention and having 20 kids running around being bored but that wasn't the case! It turned out to be a great party!