Halloween

It's crazy, I did not get any pictures on the actual day, but I did

get some at the Trunk or Treat on Tuesday night. David was a Jedi and he met up with the cutest Yoda I have ever seen. They were equally thrilled with one another. Abigail also met her mentor, a lovely lady dressed as Cinderella. James was nowhere to be seen! He was off fighting battles as a Storm Tropper somewhere on church property. (Really, we monitor our children very carefully at church activities...) Between the Trunk or Treat and our neighborhood trick or treating we amassed a dentist's nightmare worth of candy. Let the rationing begin!

Judge me by my size, do you??

David's Jedi Birthday party was a great succuess. The Jedi trainees were so enthusiastic, they all completed the activities with great gusto! This party was probably the most fun Mark and I have had throwing a party. We always love getting creative with the theme. I thought the most creative part was Mark's brilliant idea about the pinata. I procrastinated the party planning, as I usually do, I feel it fuels our creative juices, so I was stumped at Party City at 8:50pm the night before the party. They had nothing in the way of pinatas that would fit the Star Wars theme. I ended up buying a football pinata, mainly because it was the cheapest one they had. I had faith Mark could figure something out, and that he did! He sprayed painted the football black and turned it into a TIE fighter. Needless to say, I was totally impressed!

"We're Going to Disneyland!"

This was our best attempt at making the best of an awful situation. On Monday morning my parents got a call at 4am telling them they had to evacuate their Poway home. They arrived at our house at around 6am. They looked as of they had left a war zone. They were quite shook up and smelled strongly of smoke. We spent the morning at our house and then decided to leave for more southern ground. We hung out at the Bybees until they were included in the evacuation area. Although we were not officially evacuated, we decided that the dangers associated with being confined indoors with our children for an undetermined amount of time were far too great. So, at that point we decided to do what most sane people do when there is a natural disaster of great magnitude. We headed for Disneyland. Before we got too far, we got a call from the Marriot dowtown SD saying they had a room for both us and my parents. We decided to head downtown for the night and then leave in the morning for Anaheim. It was a good choice because the evening in downtown was so pleasant. The hotel was very nice and we had a great night's sleep. In the morning we found out that Mom and Dad's house was indeed safe. (See more on that later...) Once we knew that all was well at their home, we left them and headed off for Anaheim. We had a great time at Disneyland for two days. The kids had a blast and it was a nice break from the craziness in San Diego. We had no access to our computer or San Diego news so Michelle was our go-to person for information. It was nice to escape reality and count our blessings.

And they call him One-Leg Bill...

The legend of One-Leg Bill continues. Bill and Chris were concerned about Mom and Dad's house and so on Tuesday morning they headed south from their home in Oceanside towards Mom and Dad's. They were stopped at Pomerado Road where the police informed them that noone was allowed back in. Of course, Bill knew that "where there's a will(or a Bill), there's a way." He convinced the police to escort him up to the house. Once there, he did a complete search of the property and found that it was in good shape. The pool and yard were a complete mess. In fact, the winds blew a large 50 gallon planter pot into the deep end of the pool. But, the home was safe and undamaged by fire. Bill reported back to Mom and Dad and everyone was so grateful. As always, Bill is an amazing guy and has the ability to get things down when needed. I know Mom was particularily grateful for his efforts to get in there and visually inspect the property. Mom and Dad were not able to get in there themselves until late Wednesday, but knowing that Bill had been there made their wait much more bearable. Go Bill! We all love you!!

Boo Dots

My dear little friend Maren has passed on another creative tip to me. I've changed the look of the blog for the season. I'm loving Shabby Tulips blog, that's where I got this template. Maren is becoming my creative mentor. Tonight she came up with the most creative costume, "Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Showers", brilliant! The boys particuarily enjoyed the squirt bottles, aka rain machines. Now we just have to get this girl blogging....

Trick or Treat!

Today was a super busy day. We had our school's annual Harvest Festival. We went with the family of one of David's new school friends. We had a great time while dropping a load of cash! Surprisingly, David wanted to ride on the swing ride. It was a bit scary, but he was with his buddy, Trent, so he was kicking back and looking cool. Tonight we went to Janie's Birthday Bash. It's tradition for us and we always have a great time. It's so fun to see all the costumes and watch all the kids dancing. I dressed as Snow White and Abigail was mesmerized. She kept wanting to dance with me. Mark was Prince Charming (of course), James was a Clone Tropper(again) and David was Darth Vader(again).

I was just browsing through my pictures and came upon this one I had forgotten about. I love the way these two interact. I am constantly in awe of Abby's ability to keep up with the boys and her unfailing admiration for them. Seeing as I never had a brother, it's a realtionship that I am fascinated with and love to watch grow.

It's that time of year....David's birthday is coming up at the end of the month. This year he is in love with all things Star Wars. I never imagined I would know so many factoids about Star Wars, seeing as prior to this year, I had never even watched a whole Star Wars movie. (Thanks to David, James and Michelle(who has helped fill in any missing details) I now have a pretty good idea of what the whole story is about. Don't ask me too many details though as I tend to zone out when I hear words like Qui-Jon and Obi-Won. So, I came up with the idea for making Jedi robes for all of David's friends coming to his birthday party. (Thanks goes out to Art, my new work buddy, for passing along very simple directions for making Jedi robes.) Now I have 10 days left to sew 12 robes and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. Rebecca M. has offered to help me and I'm going to take her up on it. I think the robes will be a hit. Who can resist a dozen 5 year old Jedis! Here's a picture of David in the prototype robe, Clifford also got one too. If anyone has ideas for games or activities for a Jedi Training Camp, please pass them along. What kind of food would Jedis eat anyways? Where's Claudine when I need her?!

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Well, the party is over. The Parmleys moved out on the 28th. It is definietly more quiet around here. We had a really nice time while they were here. Now we're all going through some withdrawls. Abby misses the attention of Claire and Zane. David misses having a constant playmate around. James misses...well, let's be honest, he misses Zane, but he also misses the Game Cube. He had to go cold turkey. It was rough the first few days, but now he's pullling out of it. I miss having my buddy around all the time to hang out with. (I'm referring to John of course. ) But, seriously, I miss having Lizzie around to keep me company and make every mundane activity more enjoyable. Mark misses having two women around. I think he may miss John a little bit too. In the end, we feel so blessed to have had this great time together. We hope our children will look back with fond memories of the fun time we had. We sure will! Good bye to our good friends, we'll be over at your house next!