Mendenhall 5 (+ one dog)

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Orphan

Who is this sad, brilliant child?

Look closely at the homework assignment David attempted to pass in to his teacher the other day. Good thing I checked his folder. I might have missed an awesome piece of his personal history. Nice try getting out of homework buddy....

(Notice how he's scratched out "Parent's Signature" and pencilled below it, "I have no parents")
So clever.
I wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time.

A Perfect Ten

James celebrated his tenth birthday on the 3rd of this month. It was a fantastic day. We started the day with a field trip to the San Luis Rey Mission in Oceanside. How cool is that to have a field trip land on your birthday?! This is my favorite picture of him and Brooke with the mission in the background. Friends since birth....gives me the sniffles!

In the afternoon, James got to go his friend Jacob's brithday party at Pump It Up. Abby was giddy since she got to stay and play too.

He came home to find a present waiting for him. Ok, actually he was waiting for the present! He got the Star Wars Clone Wars blaster gun he's been begging for. Pure Joy!

We ended the big day with the Blue and Gold Dinner. James earned his Bear and moved up to Webelos. We were going to sing to him, but the evening got cut short by a fire alarm going off at the building. We had to evacuate and the fire truck came and everything. That was definitely the way to top off an awesome birthday. The firefighters spent tons of time with the kids showing them all around the truck before they had to rush off to a real emergency. Good thing someone left the crockpot in the kitchen on high so that we could get a visit from the firemen! (who wants to place bets on whether or not James will be taller than me by his next birthday?)

We had a birthday party for James a couple of nights later on Friday. Abby is the perfect party planner. Here she is working hard to fill the goodie bags. She loved that activity.

We went to a tumbling gym for a hour with all the kids. They had a great time jumping on the trampolines and tumbling on the mats. It was a brilliant idea for a party, if you ask me, since it totally wore them all out! They came home, ate pizza and cupcakes and were pretty darn mellow for the rest of the party.

Happy Birthday James!!
P.S. yes, that is a storm trooper costume he's wearing. That was one of his presents and he put it on immediately and refused to take it off. I'll definitely be using this story and picture for blackmailing him when he's about 13 years old... hee hee!)

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Party House? Really?

I'm long overdue on my post about our renovations. We are very pleased with how everything has turned out. (Thank you Accutek!) The floors are so pretty, I am really, really happy with them. My camera doesn't take the best pictures, but I snapped a shot the other night during Maren's 30th birthday celebration
that shows the floor and the new door style.

Speaking of which, I must say, Maren transformed my dull little bungalow for the party. She is so clever! She routed the guests through our side yard, which by the way, has been a major annoying spot of my yard. I think she changed my mind about that area. Add a few tiki torches and christmas lights and, who knew?, it doesn't look too bad after all!

David said, "Mom take a picture of me for the blog!". He's perfecting his pose...

Not to be outdone, Abby is working on acutally looking at the camera.
I'm going to go take some pictures of the powder bathroom to post. I"m not missing the golfing wallpaper one bit!

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Ringing In 2010

It's a New Year's Eve party, kiddo style! These girls are party beauties!

Fox is ringing in the New Year with some new tricks. What a cute guy!!

The guys had fun with RockBand, even though our tv picture quality isn't the best. "These things are sent to try us"

It was an extra treat to have our friends, the McNairys in town visiting. They even treated us to a song or two.

Parker and I had fun chilling out on the couch. This guy loves to have his picture taken. Can you blame him?

The actual moment(east coast time) snuck up on us. But, not to fear, we have ways of manipulating the clock! I had joked that everyone was welcome to stay from 6:30 until 9:02, but when it came down to it, I didn't want anyone to leave. We had a blast and ate some really good food too.

The kids tipped their hats to MJ with a Thriller dance tribute. I was so impressed. And a little jealous of my son's moves too. (By the way, the beanie is the new hat du jour for 2010.)

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Round 2- G&G Style

Oh, the joy of Christmas morning!

All we Moms really care about is the hugs, right?

James hasn't lost a bit of his enthusiasm for Legos. Long live the Lego.

We ended with a "what's behind the curtain?" surprise. Everyone got new bikes. It was a blast!
p.s. that's Abby's prized sequined dress she's sporting in this pic. Her dear eldest brother got her that for Christmas. (from you know where....)