Halloween

Halloween came and went in a blur, such a busy time of the year. But we enjoyed ourselves. Anastyn and I went over to the school in the morning and watched Taeya in the Halloween parade. So cute. Next we watched Annie during Jack's Halloween party, then I took the girls to the school and Luci took them home so I could help with Taeya's Halloween party. Once again I should've taken pictures of the cute bats that the kids made during the party, they were fun. After school we went to Xango for some trick or treating. I went to my mom and dad's after Xango to say hi and let Papa and Nana see the girls. We made it home just in time to do trick or treating in our neighborhood. The weather was great again this year, so we were out for a long time. We had a ton of trick or treater's at our house also. Busy year. Taeya was in heaven, she ran around with Brynn and Kira with Alyson and I (and the little girls of course), trailed behind. 

Taeya at the Halloween parade, her friend Sabrina behind her, and Ella in front of her.

Xango Trick or Treating.  The girls decided to be pirates for the "real" Halloween!

A good Xango shot.

Quick shot before we go off to trick or treat.

Girls Halloween Party

Last year I dropped the ball on the girls Halloween party so this year I felt like I needed to pull through. Not a day to soon! We had a ton of little kids, I think I counted 21! It was pretty nuts but I think they had fun. We played Halloween Bingo, had a little spider web craft, decorated cupcakes, played the donut on a string game, made mummy hotdogs, and drank witches brew, and played a freeze dance game. Taeya told me afterwards that the party didn't turn out how it was supposed to in her mind. I think she wanted to be "in charge" of an activity. So maybe next year!:) I didn't get many pictures, I think I was too busy keeping track of kids! 

Anastyn, Annie, and Alayna

Jayne and Rachel

Cache and Taeya

Addy and the little girls doing the freeze dance.

My dancing fairy.

Holly, Avery, Jeffry, Kira, and Brynn waiting for the "witches brew."

The spider web craft.  It turned out cute I thought.

Carving Pumpkins

We've carved pumpkins with Mehlhoff's for at least 7 years in a row, we love it. It's fun to see so much creativity, and to spend time with them. This year we only had Micah and Landon, but we were happy to get who we could! We had chili and cornbread for dinner then got to work carving. This is the first year that Taeya cleaned out her own pumpkin, poked the holes, and did most of the carving herself.  Anastyn had a great time drawing on hers. So much fun! 

Taeya and her cat pumpkin.

The finished pumpkins with the rightful owner behind the pumpkin. 

Don't they look great?!

All ready for Halloween night!

Baby Blessing

Cute little Brandt was blessed today. We were lucky to be able to participate! Lunch afterwards was delicious and fun to be with friends and family. What a cutie! So excited to have another cute little man in the family.:) 

Family Halloween Party

We were so excited Cheryl offered to have a Halloween party for the Kennard family. We were assigned dessert so we made mummy cupcakes and worms (with jello). The worms were kind of a pain but looked great, for some reason I didn't get a picture of them.:( Gordon took the girls shopping for costumes after Halloween in 2011 and Taeya decided we should be pirates. Gordon also bought her a bat costume. I ended up making her a Lalaloopsy costume for Disneyland. So she had 3 choices. Anastyn also had a pirate costume, a witch costume, a Lalaloopsy costume and a cute fairy costume that Taeya wore when she was 3. They both had a ton of options so it was fun to have another party so the girls could wear another costume. (Can you tell that Gordon loves Halloween!) The party was great we had spaghetti (guts and eyeballs), witch fingers, and other goolish food items. Cheryl planned a few games for the kids also. We really enjoyed the party as pirates! 

Our mummy cupcakes that Taeya helped me make.

Our pirate family.

Taeya hanging out in our cemetery (aka: front yard).

Daddy and the girly pirates.

Granny with: (back row) Andrew, Taeya, Laeklan, Matthew, and Phoenix  (front row) Adam, Sam, Emily, Anastyn, Strider, and Rachel

Granny with the adults: Cheryl and Anthany, Gordon, Anastyn, me, Wendy, and Sean

Frightmares

Every October we make it to Frightmares, this year I was tempted to skip because it seemed like there wasn't a good weekend to go but we made it work and of course we had a great time. The weather was perfect. We let the girls dress up in costumes just because we figured it was another excuse to get some use out of their many costumes. Taeya was a cute little bat and Anastyn was a cute little witch. Their costumes both lit up so at night they looked extra cute! I think Taeya was a little jealous of the attention Anastyn was getting because more people commented on her costume. Also, Taeya was getting frustrated because no one really knew she was a bat! The drama in that child is incredible. We still had a great day though. It wasn't super busy so we were able to run around and go on whatever rides we wanted without too much wait time. What a great tradition! 

Waiting for dad to buy the tickets.  My cute little bat and witch.

The girls loved the roller coasters.  This was one of the first rides of the day.  Later on that night Anastyn and I went on the roller coaster again and Anastyn kept her arms up the entire time.  I tried to put my arm around her and she pushed me away.  She was so brave!

In pioneer village they had this cute little maze for the kids where they were trying to find the outlaw!

Anastyn went on the little swings while I took Taeya on the big swings.

My butterfly and spider.

Always have to get a picture on the Merry Going Round.  Anastyn has a new little butterfly necklace.  The face painting was about $10 each so we asked the girls if they would rather spend $10 in the gift shop or get their face painted.  They both chose the gift shop, yay!

Here are the girls with their new little stuffed animals.  Taeya named her's frogalina, and Anastyn named hers ducky.

Although you can't really tell by the looks on their faces, the girls loved this ride, BomBora.  Anastyn went on this ride at least 5 times in a row while Taeya and Gordon went on Jet Star II.  Taeya joined us after and we went at least 4 more times.  It was so cute.  Although I finally had to say we were done.  So cute to see their little hands up in the air.

We love watching the little shows during Frightmares.  What a great ending to a great day at Lagoon.  And notice that we were only in sweatshirts at night, the weather was great!

Bountiful Harvest

We had a little garden this year that did okay, our corn and cantaloup was not successful at all, but the beets, peas, beans, and carrots did well. I planted pumpkins throughout the yard. We got a ton of cute little pumpkins. I did a little decorating with them. 

Baptism Day

We left California early Saturday morning so we could make it to St. George for the Baptism. I was a little nervous, so I drove as fast as I dared. We made just in time to swing by Alyson's parents house, change our clothes, throw the girls hair in a pony tail, and drive to the baptism. It was a perfect little baptism. So glad we were there. Afterwards we went to a park close to the church and had a yummy dinner. The kids had fun playing and we enjoyed visiting. It started to get a little chilly and the sun was starting to go down so we called it a day. The girls and I headed back to the house and spent the evening swimming. Sunday we went to Ryan and Kristy's for lunch and enjoyed some more time chatting and spending time with the family, which was awesome. We drove back home late that night. We had promised the girls a stop at the park, but by the time we loaded up, played at the park, and stopped for dinner it was about 8:30 by the time we left. What a perfect ending to a perfect little vacation. 

Congratulations Daylen, such an awesome day.

Alayna camped out on the steps of the pool the whole time, but she enjoyed herself.

Anastyn was all over the pool of course.  Not sure why I didn't get any shots of the other girls.  They had a blast!

California

For the past few years Gordon and I have wanted to take the girls to Disneyland during Halloween. With the job change for Gordon at the beginning of October we had to change plans. I convinced Alyson to go with me! We really wanted to go see Lawni and her new house, and a day trip to Disneyland was definitely enticing. I'm so glad we went and it was an awesome trip!

We left Monday after school. I was really dreading the long drive but I knew we needed to do it without stopping since our stay wasn't very long. We didn't get off until about 4:00pm and we pulled into Lawni's driveway around 2:00am. It was great. It went by very quickly, and the girls were amazing. It was extra nice when they were all asleep, and Alyson was a great navigator! I was worried that the girls would be wired when we woke then up to take them inside but I had warned them that everyone would be asleep and they could see Brielle and Bryce in the morning. Thankfully they went right to sleep. We visited with Lawni shortly before going to bed, we were tired!

 Tuesday we took a tour of Lawni's house, hung out with the kids during the morning, went and found Taeya a new pair of shoes and got the girls all ready for Disneyland. We had bought tickets to Mickey's Halloween party. The party was from 6:00pm til 11:00pm but you can get entrance into the park at 3:00. Unfortunately the tickets were sold out so Lawni wasn't planning on going with us. At the last minute she found 2 tickets on Craig's list and Lawni, Brielle, and Cade joined us. We were so happy!

Here is the whole gang before loading up in the car.  The girls all wanted to be lalaloopsys.  So we have Anastyn as Sugar Cookie Crumbs, Bryce (who wanted orange hair), Brielle (who went with pink hair), Taeya as Marina Anchors, Brynn and Bea Spells Alot, Alayna as Mittens, and Kira as Rosy Bumps and Bruises. Don't they all look so cute?!

We finally made it into the park!

First ride - Haunted Mansion, the line was pretty long and I was a little worried but as it got the park got less crowded and it was so great!  My cute lalaloopsys.

Taeya in Minnie's house.

Anastyn - I love how her pink hair turned out!

After the haunted mansion we hopped on the train and learned that Toon Town would be closing at 6:00 so we spent all the time there that we could.

Goofy's roller coaster was definitely one of Anastyn's favorites - she really wanted to go again but they closed the line.:(

So happy in Toone Town.

After toone town we went in one of the trick or treat lines and got a ton of candy then went on "It's a small world."

Alayna and Anastyn - such happy girls!

Yay, Lawni made it!  Little Cade is so darn cute!

Brielle added strawberry shortcake to the lalaloopsy mix, isn't she adorable!

Anastyn's always happy on the Merry Going Round.

Anastyn, Brielle, Brynn, Taeya, and Kira - Alayna and Cade were snoozing in the strollers.  We really should've taken pictures earlier - these girls are in front of the castle but it was way to dark, and it was about 11:30pm (which is 12:30am our time).  They were still pretty happy and still looking cute!

Silly faces!

Me and the girls in front of the castle - Anastyn's pretty done now!:)

Brielle and Taeya

Our last stop was for a little shopping - each of the girls picked out a little gift for being so good on the drive!

So overall Disneyland was awesome! We had so much fun. We would've loved a few more hours of course. The girls were so good and we all loved it. Wednesday had the best weather forecast so we decided we better hit the beach! This turned out to be another great day. We went to Doheny Park beach and the kids enjoyed the sand, sun, and water. The water was way too cold for my liking and I never even took off my swim suit coverup. The kids played and played and loved every second.

Love, Love this shot of Anastyn.

Kira, Taeya, Brielle, Brynn, and Bryce - getting soaked!

What's not to love about the beach.

Anastyn and Alayna playing in the sand - Bryce was braver than these two and played more in the water.

Taeya is just like her daddy - she is happiest in the water.

Brynn and Taeya

Brielle and Taeya

After the beach we went back to Lawni's and had a yummy dinner. Got the kids to bed and we talked, laughed, ate ice cream, and watched a movie (don't remember which one right now!) Thursday we let the kids play in the morning and they loved that! Brynn is so awesome to keep the kids going constantly. That afternoon we went to the Irvine Spectrum for a little shopping and more fun! We spent way too much time in Old Navy. We got the girls matching shirts but never took a picture of them on together. The kids only survived the store with the purchase of bouncy balls, but I think the employees didn't like us so much. Let's just say they were happy to have us out of there!

Making a wish in the fountain.

Happy, cute girls.

We sent the big girls on the ferris wheel, we bribed the little ones with ice cream to not go!  Aren't we cheap??!

Look at those happy faces - we did let all the kids go on the Merry Going Round.

She's obviously very happy!

Friday we spent the morning just hanging out at Lawni's house and I even got to go for a run. Her neighborhood is awesome and it was so great to enjoy some warm air. That afternoon we pool hopped in her neighborhood. The first pool was way too cold, so we found the pool that was heated and had a nice big hot tub and that's where we spent the rest of the day. The evening was more ice cream, laughing, talking, and coloring Lawni's hair.

The girls playing around.

This is the slide the girls created on the stairs. So much fun, especially to clean up!

These silly girls enjoyed bathing themselves and being crazy, I guess it's opposite day??!

We sure miss Brielle - don't you love all the underwear?!

She's so darn cute, even with a mouthful!

All good things have to come to an end:( We had to leave early Saturday morning so we could make it to Daylen's baptism in St. George. It was so hard to say goodbye. We really miss Lawni and her sweet family. She is the perfect host, and we loved it. Thanks Lawni, we had such a great time!