2008 Christmas Card

We Wish you a Merry Christmas

and a Happy New Year!

Griffin's Snow-MAN

*****Warning*****
***Graphic Content***

So we got a sweet treat today when Griffin got home from school. He drew us a snowman, emphasis on Man. Yes, that would be an anatomically correct guy. His teacher sent me an email with a head's up...

"Take a look in Griffin's folder. He drew an amazing snow"man" with all the right parts. God Bless our boys!!!!!!
Debbie"

We were sooo very proud of our little man. When I asked why his snowman had a peeper he said he didn't have time to draw his pants, but he didn't get sent to the principal even though he was this close, "I stayed on a green light and didn't have to go to the principal even though I was this close." (Picture fingers pinched very close to touching!) We have discussed bodypart drawings and Mrs. Levandowski had already done the same so hopefully this will be our only Michelangelo's David Snowman. You gotta love the holidays!

Grammy Jammies

Every year Grammy gives the kids some Christmas jammies, this year we got them at Thanksgiving since that's when we were all together. (It's the outlaw year for Christmas :> ) Here are the girls with Grammy, aren't they cute?!?

Real 7 Wonders Video

Love this!

Beachin Pictures

We took a few pictures while we were at the beach in California. It was so nice to be out at the beach with the family. My mom wanted a family picture and I hope Michael got some good ones on his camera because I didn't get any. I have a few of my family but no really great ones. Lewis was not happy to have to stop playing in the sand for a dumb old picture. He just wanted to play. So here we are... our happy family Thanksgiving 2008.

Hermit Crab alert!

my boys!

3 little ones--so cute!

Here Comes Santa Claus

****Warning****

For those of you who still haven't been to see Santa, pure jealousy will occur when reading the following message.

****Warning****

We have had the big score of Santa pictures. The Fashion Island Mall in Newport Beach had a great Santa and hardly any waiting! Last year we stood in line for almost 2 hours and that's with taking the girls late to school so we could get there early! So, I thought, if there was no line when we got to the mall, we would go for it. We arrived at 5:45 p.m. and Santa was due back from feeding his reindeer at 6:00 p.m. In line in front of us was a family of 4. SCORE!! My momma didn't raise no fool so we hopped in line. While we waited our mere 15 minutes, we got to see the 2nd largest real Christmas tree in the USA. It was so tall and amazingly beautiful. http://www.shopfashionisland.com/CenterEvent/922.aspx

When we got in to see Santa, Lewis was a little fussy but the picture still looked ok, even with his almost crying face. Then Santa said, "Hey lets try again, this little guy is calming down and happy now." Yes, Santa himself, suggested another try for a better photo and feast your eyes on the fabuloso finished product!! Isn't it great?!!!

Thank you Santa. Mary and Helen had been swimming all day and their eyes are a little on the bloodshot red side but other than that, perfection. I am soooooo pleased with this picture, all 4 children smiling and looking forward, it's a Christmas Miracle!

Sprinkles Cupcakes

While we were in Newport Beach I happened across a Sprinkles Cupcake store

http://www.sprinklescupcakes.com/

I've heard about it but never been in one so I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about! I got 6 cupcakes and the cost, a mere $20. Yeah, 6 cupcakes for 20 bucks. What the ........? Ok, obviously a one time deal for me as I am calculating that a box of cake mix is 89 cents and it makes 24 cupcakes so for 20 bucks I could make about 480 cupcakes. Granted these are big cupcakes so maybe only 240 cupcakes but you get the idea!!!

Since it was a one time shot, I thought I'd document the cupcakes. They do have nice boxes and bags and fancy stickers and such. I got 2 dark chocolate, 2 peanut butter chocolate, 1 black and white and 1 chocolate marshmallow. Marshmallow was my favorite hands down! Dark Chocolate came in second.

So here they are for all to see. The one with the red dot is the marshmallow, the white frosting is the black and white, brown frosting is peanut butter and chocolate frosting is dark chocolate. The were delish but let's get real!!!

Disneyland, my Happy Place

Ok, I might have exaggerated when I said that the Dolphin Safari was my favorite part of our Thanksgiving holiday. As anyone who knows me knows, Disneyland is my HAPPY PLACE. I love Disneyland. I just start smiling as I walk in the doors and I don't stop. I made sure my family knew that Disneyland was on my agenda with Helen, Mary and Griffin and if they wanted to come with us we would be there from opening at 8 am to closing at midnight. That's right 16 hours of Disney Magic for me and my kids!!! My family thought I was nuts for leaving so early and told me they'd meet me there at 10ish. Well, low and behold they were all ready to go and we left by 7:30 am for our fun day. (Brad and Lewis stayed behind with Pap, Michael, & Malcolm to swim and cruise the PCH)

We split up into 2 groups once we got there with bigger kids and younger kids. Sheri and I took the younger kids, Anika and Griffin. Grammy, John & Amie took the bigger kids, Helen, Mary, Aleksia, Willow, Cedric and Brax. They were off to Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain while we rode Buzz Lightyear and the Astro Orbitor. As we were getting off of Buzz's Astro Blasters we were greeted by the "year of a million dreams" team handing out Dream Fastpasses. These Fastpasses can be used at any time of the day. We were so excited!! We wished all of our group was with us and not just the 4 of us got the passes! It was a score!!! The fast passes were good for Disneyland and California Adventure so we found a group of 4 going over to Cal. Adv. and gave them that part of our passes since they were only good for that day.

After our big score we met up with the big kids getting off of the Matterhorn and headed to the newly refurbished and reopened It's a Small World. Wow! It was beautiful. Everything was shiny and even the boats got a makeover. Brax loves Small world and he was smiling the whole ride! Of course my picture of him is fuzzy but you get the idea!

Then we split up again, this time adding Helen, Mary and Cedric to our group and we were off ToonTown. On our way to meet the others at Splash Mountain we did see Jackson--Hannah Montana's brother aka Jason Earles, cruising around the park. The girls were excited but too embarrassed to speak to him.

Splash Mountain was lots of fun. I don't think I have ever been so wet on that ride before! I honestly had to go buy pants for me and Mary because we were so wet and frozen, but it was lots of fun!!! :>

At 3:30 we saw the afternoon Christmas Parade with everyone decked out in their Christmas finest and Santa at the end. After the parade, Sheri, Grammy, Anika, Cedric and Griffin all exited stage Newport swimming pool. Griffin and Ani were so excited to go swimming.

The rest of us continued to play play play. We did hit every ride in the park at least once and a few more than once. We did the Indianna Jones ride twice and the girls rode Space Mountain 3 times, Thunder Mountain 2 times, Autopia 2 times etc... We did enjoy our night time Jungle Cruise. Our guide was hilarious!!! He kept us entertained and ended with this..."And now I will finish with a joke for all the psychics in the group." I laughed long and hard. Mary had to have it explained 3 times.

After watching the fireworks we called it a night. No, I didn't stay till midnight, only 10:15 so Brad wouldn't have to come and pick us up later, we just went home with John and Amie. So only 14 hours in the park but we will live to go another day I guess! We--Helen, Mary and I--wanted to watch Fantasmic which was at 10:30 but we were dealing with only 2 cars at Disneyland and sacrifices had to be made! :>

Haunted Mansion all decked out for ChristmasGrif waving at Buzz

It's a Small WorldDream Fastpasses!!!! SWEEEET!!!

Captain Dave's Dolphin Safari

Well, we had a fabulous Thanksgiving. We spent it in Newport Beach with my family. Since I took 168 pictures I will be breaking it up in to 3 or 4 posts for your viewing pleasure!

My favorite was the Dolphin Safari. We went the day after Thanksgiving with part of our group. We took my kids and Cedric, Anika & Grammy. Lewis and Brad stayed home to swim. Our safari was 3 hours long and we saw common dolphins and a fin whale. It was so much fun. The common dolphins were in a pod or herd of a couple hundred. Captain Dave said for every dolphin we could see there were 6 or 7 under water we could not see. It was amazing to see all those animals. They love to surf on the bow of the boat which was cool to look at them right under our feet. We had so much fun and were blessed to see so many animals.

Sea Lions

Fin Whale

Common Dolphins

WWZ Fieldtrip

I'd just like to say that I never go on fieldtrips because most of the time I can't bring my sweet handsome prince with me, but zoo fieldtrips are perfect for younger siblings.

Helen and Mary went on 2 different days back to back so Lewy and I had lots of fun 2 days in a row. We were at the Wildlife World Zoo and although it isn't huge, I saw totally different things on the different days. There is lots to see at that zoo and tons of babies. The zoo started out as a breeding facility for rare animals and it still has lots of breeding going on! (Cara and I can testify to that!!) The weather has been so perfect that we all needed sunscreen both days! I got to hang out with friends too since Becky came with Helen's group and Cara came with Mary's group. So a great time was had by all!!

5 day old llama

"i like to move it move it" name that movie and animal!

The biggest hit was feeding the Lories--parrots. The sweet things fly right up to you and you feed them apples. That was fun.

Lew and the brrdee, "yook mama, booo brrdee"