Kaycee's 15

This is my niece Kaycee with her mom. Melanie will kill me for posting a picture of her, but oh well. They had a family party for Kaycee at their home, which they bought in my town (yea!). Anyway, happy birthday Kaycee. She is such a character, posing for pictures with everyone.

Little Olivia

On this rare occasion, Olivia let me dress her, so I was able to pick a cute matching outfit with a headband. I had to take pictures. This outfit stayed on her for a whole 4 hours. It's not really her fault that she changed. The outfit was too warm because the 20 year storm all the news stations said was going to hit us this day never came.

New Cousin!

Meet Amy. Amy is short for Amelia. This is my cousin April's newest addition and third daughter. Isn't she too cute? I think she looks alot like her daddy Alex.

Marty went Surfing

My parents rented a condo on the beach (for many reasons) and had GGPA's birthday party there. Since it was a 4 bedroom, we spent the night. Marty brought his surfboard and went surfing for the first time in probably a year. He was exhausted from the paddling. Marty's eyes are closed, but this is the best picture that came out because the sun was behind him. That's Natey behind him.

GGPA's Birthday

My grandpa just turned...drum roll please....92! Can you believe it? He still lives on his own and drives himself where he needs to go. Only just recently my mom has been making him a big casserole (or pot of something) on Sunday and he eats it for dinner all week, but it's not like he needs her to, she does the same thing for my dad for his lunch. I think my grandpa is healthier than me. Hehehe. I laugh, but I'm not kidding, I really think he is and I'm not "sick".

9 / 11 Patriotic Day

The kids school has a patriotic day every September 11th. Nathan's Boy Scout pack asked the boys to wear their uniforms and they could participate in the flag ceremony. So, I decided to go with my camera and catch a picture of Nate with his fellow scouts. Well, to my surprise Nathan was holding the California state flag. I was quite the proud mom. Everytime I saw someone I knew I would point to Nate and say "look, Nate is hold the flag"! I took so many pictures of him. Walking down the aisle, holding the flag, then putting it into it's stand. This one is my favorite because he is saluting. He is so adorable and I say this because while he is waiting for the ceremony to start, he's goofing around like any 7 year old, but as soon as it was "time" that boy was so serious and somber.

It's Soccer Time

It's that time of year again, soccer season. Nate is on a team called the Vipers. Every team in his age group is named after a species of snake, which is right up Nathan's alley. Nate's team won this game 2 - 1. Nate is such a cutie. :)

Labor Day Weekend

On Sunday we had a barbeque with our neighbors. This is our next door neighbors backyard. We took out a small section of fence between our yards. Their yard had the jumper and a baby pool and our yard had the playground and a slightly larger kid pool for the big kids. I made snow cones for the kids. In the picture are Cassie, Emily, Olivia, Nathan and JJ. Lucas is out of frame and Lexi and Andrew hadn't arrived yet. Everyone had a great time, especially the kids who jumped all afternoon and well into the night. Don't tell the jumper company, but the kids kept jumping into the pool and then straight into the jumper and made it a slip and slide.

First Day of School

August 27 - Today was the first day of school. It truly is "the most wonderful time of the year". Actually I wouldn't mind summer at all if I had more money. I simply could not afford to take the kids out and do all the things they wanted to do. I think I will try to put money aside all year just for summer activities. I was so tired of them complaining that we didn't get to do anything that I made them a scrapbook that I call "shut up, this is what you did this summer". I don't actually say that out loud to the kids. It ended up being about 25 pages long. I only made 1 page per destination, i.e. even though we went to the beach three times I only made one beach page, etc. I'll try and post pics of it later. Emily donated her long hair to Locks of Love the weekend before school started, she had been wanting to do it for close to a year. After we got the kids settled into their classrooms, the neighborhood moms (4 of us) went to a nearby scrapbook store woohoo!

August 26 - Ice Skating

We went ice skating on just about the hottest day of the summer. It was 107 degrees outside and I was freezing at the ice rink. This was Olivia's first time out on the ice. She wasn't having a good time until another skater let her use the walker. The rink only had two of them. I can't believe the rink wasn't packed. I guess since this was the day before school started, not too many people thought to get out of the heat.