Alexis' 1st haircut

I was brushing Alexis' hair, and wondering why she has this spot on the back of her head that is always ratty looking (see below picture) Even when it is freshly clean and I brush it out wet, it's still there. Then I realized she is almost 2 1/2 years old and has never had a hair cut! This was her left over new born baby hair that never fell out. So here are the front and back before pictures.
I took her to a new place near our house called cool cuts 4 kids. I was hoping that since it was for kids they would be able to handle it if she started having problems. It was very nice, as you see they have nice little fire truck chairs, and they have little tv's in front of them. So she sat there and watched Dora the Explorer. She was a little nervous because she demanded her "paci" and sucked it very rapidly. But she held still and didn't cry or complain, although she kept looking at me and the stylist like we were crazy.
And here's the after picture. She took one to two inches off the back of her hair to even it out, and she cut off all the ratty looking hair. Then she trimmed the front of it so it lays across her forehead a little nicer then before. She got a sucker and a free hair bow. They took a polaroid of her and put it in a card with a lock of her hair. I took this picture when we got out of the store, she still wasn't very sure what was going on, but I'm so glad that she didn't scream or cry.

Dustin's 5th Birthday

Dustin celebrated turning five last Tuesday. We had everyone over after church on Sunday. He loves the movie "Cars" so he picked out a cars cake. He was so glad that his cousins were able to come. We still had a full house even though there aren't too many living around here anymore. He got a few more toys from the movie to add to his collection, and he got a little football and the game hungry hungry hippo. And the big gift was a new bike! He has gotten way too big for his other one and was looking quite silly riding it. He was starting to take Emily's and ride it while she was at school, then he looked even sillier riding a pink and purple bike with streamers around, so it was time for a new one.

Emily's Baptism

Emily got baptized last Saturday, November 3rd. She was nervous, but stayed calm. We also confirmed her while everyone was there and that was a good thing because we had four baby blessings the next day. Thank you to all of our family and friends who came. We appreciate all the love and support. It makes getting through this crazy life a lot easier when you have a lot of people who care about you.

This first picture is before we started the whole program. Mike was really loving being in this "straight from the 70's" polyester jump suit. *note to Bakersfield stake: spend a little money on some newer cotton suits!*

This is Emily in her absolutely beautiful gown! I put the finishing touches on it that morning. Talk about last minute. (Although I did have a friend who's mom was in the car driving to the temple while finishing her wedding dress, so at least it wasn't that bad...)
And here we all are back at home. I can never get everyone to smile at the same time. I realized after we took this picture that we were all wearing white except for Alexis. Oh well. It was a beautiful day and everything went smoothly. There was a wonderful spirit there, and we had two friends with children that also got baptized. So it was a lot of fun with them all there. After wards Mike invited all of them over to our house. I had only planned food for 25 people, and we probably had double that show up. I got comments from a few of them about how I had fed the multitudes and how they didn't know how there was enough food for everyone. So we also had a little miracle that day.

Today was Dustin's Halloween party at school. His school really loves parades, so here he is today in the costume parade.

Sunday was Emily's eighth birthday. How time flies. We celebrated on Saturday with as much family as we could. She's starting to get into the "tween" stage and really likes a show called Hannah Montana about a girl who has a secret life as a rock star. So here she is blowing out the candles on her Hannah Montana cake. Mike and I bought her some scriptures with her name on them, and a new CTR ring.

Last Wednesday, our ward had our annual "trunk or treat" So here are the kids before we left. (Dustin is smiling too) Below is a picture of how Alexis got out of bed the next morning. I think she got up some time during the night to have some candy and fell back asleep with it.

Dustin is really enjoying preschool. They do a lot of fun activities. One of the first ones of the year is the Bike Parade. The kids take their bikes to school in the morning and decorate them, then at the end of the day, they ride around in front of the classrooms. Dustin sped by me so fast that I couldn't get a picture of him during the parade, but here he is in front of his classroom afterwards. The name of his class is the "big dogs" and Clifford the big red dog is their mascot. So that thing on his helmet is supposed to be Clifford.

Volleyball

Emily is playing volleyball this year and they had their first game last Saturday. She was the first girl to serve that actually made it over the net. They still need to work on what to do when the other team serves, all the girls just stood there and watched the ball hit the floor. It was funny. The coach said it's just the age, that they learn it eventually.

Dustin's first day of preschool

I know I haven't posted for a while, so here are a few things that have been going on the past few months. I missed taking pictures on Emily's first day of school. We had all gotten into the bad habit of staying up a little too late and sleeping in in the morning. I tried to push back bedtime for a few weeks before hand, but that didn't go over too good. So the first day of school was a little hectic and rushed and I didn't even think about pictures until I read every one else's blogs with the nice pictures on them. Oops. So I made sure to take pictures on Dustin's first day of preschool. We had a meet the teacher day the week before and he wasn't very happy to be there, but the teachers are great and took him to meet the class fish and turtle and he was all smiles after that. So the first day wasn't bad. I tried to take a picture of just Dustin, but Alexis wasn't having that and had to squeeze her way into all of them.

What's been going on?

I just wanted everyone to know that I was going to post pictures from the family re-union today, (I know, it was a month ago) but every once in a while my camera decides it is going to "eat" all of the pictures on it. When this happens, Mike has to take out the memory card and work some magic to remove them. Eventually I will get a bit better of a camera. We bought the kodak easy share because it is so easy to use, but it doesn't take that great of pictures and if you try to blow them up, they look horribly grainy.

On another note, we finally got Dustin into a pre-school! He will start next Tuesday. He is less than excited. All I hear from him is "I don't want to go to school" Thank goodness that I didn't start him in kindergarten this year. It would have been a disaster. We go to a play group with some ladies in the ward once a week and last week he discovered almost all of the kids in his class started school already, so I think he is finally starting to figure out it's inevitable.

Today I have been getting ready for our big Labor Day camping trip. I think it's going to be a little scarce this year. Everybody keeps moving away and not coming back. If mama feels better after her "procedure" today, they will go too. So we'll see. I know there are always plenty of people up at Big Meadow for this weekend, but it will be a bit lonely without a lot of family around.

Alexis' second birthday

I can't believe that it has been two years since my little one was born. Time really does fly. Makes me a bit sad. We celebrated Alexis' birthday on Sunday, so everyone could make it. This first picture is the kids before church in the outfits we bought them in Hawaii. That's right, genuine tourist clothing! This was the first time I made them all wear them on the same day, so I had to take a picture.

This is the cake I made. I know I'm not as talented as some of you, but this is actually pretty good for me. When I asked Alexis what kind of cake she wanted, (no, I wasn't expecting her to answer) she said "quack, quack" So I got on the internet and typed in "duck cakes" and a whole bunch of pictures came up. Then she got really excited and started yelling "QUACK QUACK! QUACK QUACK!" I got a bunch of really good, easy ideas, and here you go! (By the way, the ducks are in a bubble bath)

Alexis really like it when we all started singing to her. She thought it was great. Just look at that precious face! We tried to convince her for a while to blow out the candles, but she didn't get it. Even after all the other kids were done eating and moving on to playing, she sat there and ate every little bit off her plate. It might not look perfect, but it tastes great!

Finally done eating, we brought her into the living room to open the presents. It took her a little help to get going, but once she had it figured out, there was no stopping her. Just to let you know how sweet she is, after she opened each present, she took each one to a different person. Either she was sharing, or she just wanted them all out of the boxes faster.

Transformers W/ Dad

Well on 7/7/07 I (Mike) took Emily and Dustin to see Transformers. We started our day at Albertsons buying sour patch kids and Gummy worms. We had already gotten drinks from home. We showed up an hour early and messed around in the lobby and I took some pics of the kids (see Below). Then we went to theatre number eight and there was a sign that said "line starts here" so we just went in LOL its me what do you think I would do. Ok this is the part where I cry during the movie, ok one of the parts. Optimus Prime is shown Transforming (SOOOOO AWESOME) WOOOOOOOO it choked me up, and to be sharing part of my childhood with my children was great Dustin yelled out "there's Optimus dad". The other part I tear up at is the part when the new Camaro shows up "man is the money gonna roll in when that thing hits the showroom" but all in all everyone who is, was, or are currently a fan of Transformers should at least see this movie twice.....

Mike

Fourth of July

We celebrated the fourth on two different days. On the Saturday before, we went up to Lake Isabella to watch the big show they put on over the lake. Mike's dad lives up there, so we went with him. We also met up with some of our friends from Ridgecrest, so I've got a few shots of their kids in here too.

Alexis really liked the fireworks. She kept yelling for everyone to look.

After the show was over, everyone was in such a big hurry to leave, we decided to stay a little longer to let traffic clear out, so we trapped the kids in the back of the truck, that way we didn't have to worry about them getting run over.

Getting ready to go to Alice and Ed's on the Fourth to watch the BC show from their backyard. Alexis once again liked the big fireworks in the sky, but she wasn't too happy with the ones we were setting off in the backyard. She would look for a second, then bury her head in our shoulders. At least she wasn't screaming.

Alexis enjoying some good food. I mostly took this picture so you can see her cute hairdo. This is the first time she sat still long enough for me to put clips in. A little while after I did it, I saw something in her hair so I called her over to see what it was. It was a "made in China" sticker.

Hawaii

So, we took a vacation to Hawaii last week. Mike's cousin, Kevin lives there so we stay with him and his family when we go. The weather was beautiful, and we all had a lot of fun at the beaches. I even tried surfing! Kevin said I was alot better then most people when they first start, but I only made it onto one knee with one foot up. The waves just weren't in my favor. (sorry no pictures of that, we had to go too far out to get to the waves) So, enjoy the pictures. The first one is of Dustin, he kept asking to be buried in the sand, so I finally took care of that for him.

A Hawaiin sunset from sunset beach, North Shore, Oahu. See how nice and calm the ocean is? During the winter months they have lots of surf contests here because the waves are so huge.

Dustin finally got brave and jumped in the nice, 80 degree water.

Emily tried out boogie boarding.

The kids spent every night catching geckos, look closely!

The Hawaii temple, also on North shore, Oahu.

This is Waimea Falls. They allow you to swim here, but there are signs all over saying there is bacteria in the water and not to swim if you have any open wounds, so we opted not to.

At Waimea Falls, there are peacocks everywhere. They are so tame they just walk right up to you.

Our last day in Hawaii. We had to take a picture of all the kids on a surfboard.

Everyone else is doing it

These are our new puppies Max and Rex.

This is Mike and I at "La Bufadora" in Ensenada, Mexico. We went there on a cruise in February. (Many thanks to Alice and Eddie for putting up with three extra kids for a few days)

This is the most recent picture I have of the kids. I wanted to take pictures of them on Easter when they were all dressed up nice, but we had to hurry to church early because I had to sing, then afterwards, Alexis fell asleep and the other two were over excited because "papa" and the cousins were here. So I'm going to dress them up again in a few days and take some nice pictures. (I didn't buy them new clothes for nothing.)

Hi everybody! I like looking at everyone's blogs, it helps to keep up with what you all are doing, so I decided to create one too! Hopefully I'll be able to figure this thing out and start posting some pictures.