Christmas at Disneyland

Doesn't this shirt say it all?? This family was enjoying their day at Disneyland and then I asked to snap their picture for my blog!! Crazy, huh!!!
We had so much fun!!! The kiddies got up on their own at 4:15 AM!! Holy Cow!!! We had stockings and a couple of gifts under the tree. So after opening gifts we hit the road at 5:00 am. It was dark. And windy. And freaking cold!!!!

Yes, I am wearing a Grumpy Santa Hat!! Love Grumpy!!!!

Here we all are on the Pooh ride!!!



And here we are at the entrance to Tomorrowland. It actually was not crowded. We got on Pirates and Haunted Mansion early - ok, first thing!! We did not get on Nemo. That ride is crazy!!! People were waiting in line for TWO HOURS!!! And no fast passes. The Toy Story ride was a blast!!!










Sleeping Beauty's castle was beautiful at night!!! The fireworks show was cancelled due to high winds and so they had a two song light show at beautys castle with the snow blowing. Not as cool as the fireworks show would have been, but still a nice end of the day.

And of course, It's A Small World. How beautiful!!! IASW also had a lightshow every half hour or so.

All in all the day was great, tiring, but great. Disneyland for Christmas is really fun, the kids love it and ok so do I.

Third Son's 13th Birthday and The Christmas Stockings are DONE!!!!

Here is the whole kit and kaboodle! My young son is 13 today!!
Of the the four birth experiences I had - he was the only "natural" one. That's right no drugs, now I know there are many women out there who swear by the no drug approach to childbirth, I am not one of them. He was cute (after I recovered and regained my senses that is!!) his nostrils were heart shaped!! And he was the cutest little chubby boy ever. With this child I was an older mom and I did things the way I wanted. I don't think I put him down for the first two months of his life!! He was rocked to sleep every night of his life until he was three. I tried breast feeding him, but he had a clamp down reflex (Really?!? Never heard of that in any of the classes or doctors appointments!! But trust me - he had it!!!) He does not need to be rocked to sleep anymore and he survives just fine without me holding him 24/7. But I will always have his first year - I got to spoil him to my hearts content and he still turned out ok. Ok, well he is now hitting his teen years and maybe he isn't perfect, but that is due to age and not his first year of spoiling.

I made this cake for him. Four layers. (I was so domestic yesterday!!! Sewing and baking and a little knitting after dinner!!!)

And young son eating (ultimately not finishing his cake!! Ok I do make a pretty good meatloaf and we had that for dinner!!)

All six of the stockings are finished!! The kids each picked out two fabrics that they liked and I put them together. Now we just have to find a place to hang them where cats and Max won't get them.
Here is Kitty Kitty doing what kitties just lllooovvee to do, sit on brand new, just about to have their pictures taken stockings!!!
This would be Max and Baby hoping to look cute enough to get a treat!! Baby is doing so good - as a matter of fact I think she is "blowing her coat" right now. Hair is EVERY where. I furminate her every day still she trails shedding hair. (Love Huskies!)

Max will be ONE on January 7th and has started the charming habit of chewing everything. My new ornaments, hangers, dolls, chihuahuas (jk - he only nibbles on them!!)

Finally a picture of my Honey and I. We are busy planning a big family Christmas Eve dinner at her dads house. Her sister will be here on her way from Seattle to Texas with her two girls. I love the big family dinners for holidays. Next year we are going to Seattle to my sisters house for Christmas. This year we are going to Disneyland Christmas day!!

Honey is making a trifle for the dinner, I think I will make ambrosia and green bean cassarole. I love when the traditions of two families meld and become what are our kids traditions.

My family has a big Christmas Eve dinner and then Christmas day we have my moms enchiladas! My moms enciladas are the BOMB!! My sisters and I have all starting cooking them in our own homes. I like to cook them all year round - the kiddies love 'em - my sisters stick to the tradition and cook them only at hoildays.

One moment for a giggle...

Awards Week for the youngest three

This week I got see awards (finally!!!) Middle girl here was student of the month for September, Youngest son excellence in english language arts,
And youngest daughter had perfect attendance. They all had perfect attendance and youngest daughter here also received her BEST report card yet. This year the learning light just clicked "on"!
The awards have English and Spanish on them because the kiddies attend a magnet school that teaches in both english and spanish. The kids spend half their time in english (in which no spanish is spoken or written) and then switch to spanish ( in which in english is written or spoken). They have attended since kindergarden and the program is through 8th grade. I have no idea what will happen in high school, they will be far beyond spanish 1, even beyond spanish 4. There has been talk of the program continuing through high school, let's hope cause I would hate for all that spanish learning to go unused until college.

Saturday Sky

Yeah I know, it's Monday but the pictures have been sitting in my camera. I was actually out and about this weekend!! No time to sit at the computer. We had another Christmas parade to watch, family movie night (Pirates of the Carribean At Worlds End, Snow Dogs, and The Grinch!!!!!), then Sunday was church and Knotty Knitters at Starbucks!!! Sunday night was our alone time - kids are showered and in bed EARLY (when I was a kid I had to go to bed by 8pm and as a night owl my whole life I hated that!! But as a mom I see the wisdom of children in bed early!! Hee hee!! My kids however, don't seem to care. There is no whinning or complaining, probably because unlike my folks, I don't care if they stay up for awhile and read. They are pretty good about selfregulating and turning out the lights on their own. Mostly.) and then Honey and I get to spend a few quite mintues by ourselves. We watched Amazing Race. She then crashed and I watched The Guardian. I know many people don't like Kevin Costner, but I for some reason LOVE his movies. I will watch all 90 hours of one movie of his and they all do seem to run llllooonnnggg. Don't know what it is, don't really care, I just love his movies.

Anyway, it was finally COLD this past weekend. We almost got snow, missed us by about 500 hundred feet. Dogs water bowls froze and the chihuahuas were dreaming of summer, but me?? I was outside - FINALLY cooled!!! I hate being 40ish. Well, not really, but I do dislike the ALWAYS being freakin' hot!!!! I mean it is 27 degrees outside and I'm thinking nice night, let me open the windows. My family is like popcicles and I am in a tank top and shorts!!!

I finally got award notices from the kids for today, so I am off to school. I will have pictures from this weekend and today up soon. (I know, you can hardly wait!!!)

Meet Our First Pets

I kinda like this picture of me, so I thought I put it on my blog!!!!

This is Tiger whom we call Mama. She really isn't this heavy, bad angle.

This is Patches. This catr is what I ordered.. a big, fat, lazy cat and that is excatly what I got.

We got these cats four days after the kids father passed away. It was actually on Father's Day. Their dad was very, very allergic to cats so we could never have them. Now my kids were only 7, 6, and 3 then and I don't really think they understood what death meant, cause they asked for cats the next day after he passed away. My son wanted a striped cat he could name Tiger. Now Honey and I have these cats so he can't got and visit us, EVER!! Unfortuantely, cats won't keep his family away, heehee!!!

Getting ready for our HULA application

We put up our Christmas tree tonight - so of course the babies had to be decked out!!! Max is chewing on a chewy wearing his Christmas finery.
Baby is looking confused in her finery. I love this dog to death, but the lights are on and nobody is home.
Being the princess she is we had to go get her her own pillow to sleep the hours away!!!

This is Max looking picture perfect in front of our fireplace on HIS pillow - which is really just a blanket because Max really doesn't sit still for too long!!!!

The evening wouldn't be complete without Kitty kitty trying to get herself eaten. Later on in the evening Kitty Kitty decided being IN the fireplace was a good way to warm up!!!!!! Again - lights are on.....

Tomorrow I am going to try to get the kids Christmas stockings sewn. Wish me luck!!!!

My new scarf

Does Max look thrilled to model my new scarf? it's all good, I gave him apple as "payment" for helping me out today!!!

My scarf is easy - just cast on 15 - knit every row until yarn runs out. I got this yarn two years ago for my birthday - at a yarn shop in Anaheim. I don't remember what the solid yarn is but the fluffy and really soft yarn from Online.

See I really do knit from time to time. As Honey says, I am great at starting - not so much at finishing. Anyone else like that?

Off to make dinner!!!

Santa Comes to the AV Part Two

The Colorguard - when I was in high school and then in college (Go Beach - CSU Long Beach) - I was in colorguard. Of course back then we were just tall flags.

These are my SongGirls - let's face it they will always be "my girls"!!! Don't they look beautiful?
The percussion section - my boys are there - just hidden because of course we were on the wrong side of the street!!!!

The Drill Team -
And of course SANTA!!

Santa arrives in the AV

Saturday was the Lancaster Christmas parade. Of course the band participated and rocked!!! We took Baby and Max (it was their first parade) they were so well behaved and took all the oohhing and aahhing in stride!! The picture below is of them watching the paprde - actually I think either a dog or horses were on the way down the street. This pony was incredibly cute, being led by a carrot!
Gratuitous shot of my babies!!
This little girl was walking with one of the other high school bands. Her brother or sister must have been with the band. I include this picture because she reminds me of my baby sister, who when we were both much, much younger also had an older sister in the band and she couldn't wait. So one night she got into some white paint my mother had been using and dunked her hands in the bucket. This was so she had white gloves like the drill team. CUTIE PIE!! My own daughter has her own Song Girl outfit for basketball games, because it gets to cold up here during football.
And here they come: Knight High School Marching Band!!!!

TIN MAN

Did you see this Sci-Fi show last night? It continues tonight and tomorrow night on the Sci-Fi channel and it was crazy good!!! My kids and I had hot coco and watched it together!! Check it out if you can!!

OMG!!!! It's Crazy Aunt Purl!!!!

Yesterday was a BLAST!!!! Darcy (go to her blog to check out some pictures of yesterday!) and I met up and drove "down below" to go see Crazy Aunt Purl, Laurie Perry. She was reading and signing her book - Divorced, Drunk and Covered in Cat Hair!!!

The ride down with Darcy was crazy!! I don't think we took a breath - we just clicked and that made the drive just fly by - we got to Santa Monica BEFORE the store even opened (open open open!!) Bonnie one of the store owners kindly took pity on us and let us in to "smell and fondle" the yarn! And it was so yummy!!

I can't believe that is really me sitting with Laurie! (What I really can't believe is that I am flashing God and Country!!!! Holy Cow!!!) She is really nice and open. I had such a great time meeting her!!
Darcy and I had front row seats and I spent way too much money on yarn!!!!!! Darcy was kind enough to give me my PIF package in person!! (Pictures are coming!!) And let me just say she is too kind and the kids, Honey and I had were really spoilt by her!! (Darcy, lllooovvveedd the tea!! Had some in my new mug this morning!!!!)

This is Ellen Bloom of Los Angeles is My Beat!!! I cannot believe the day I had!!! I love her blog! And she had some crazy beautiful shoes on ( Dang - didn't get a picture of them!!) but believe me they were crazy cool!!! Plus, she is a really nice - kinda want to drive to West Hollywood to go to her SnB, but she'd probably think I was stalking!! Maybe only a little. Hee hee!!
I stayed up and read her book cover to cover.

Loved it!

SATURDAY SKY