Jayci had her first dance recital. She did such a good job I was very proud of her! I wanted to make sure I got pictures and video of her performance so we put the video camera on a tripod and Rob was supposed to hit record when she came out and then take some still pictures (I was busy wrestling Halle). When she came out I noticed him taking pictures but didn’t notice him hit record. So, me being so worried about missing it, leaned over and hit record. Well he had already done it so we missed the whole thing! I was so upset that we didn’t have her first dance on video! Thank goodness her dance teacher saved the day and sent me a video of it!

Funny Story….

When we were getting ready to go to Disneyland in May I was trying to make the kids an autograph book. I wasn’t sure how many pages I should put in it so I was looking online to see about how many autographs we were likely to get while we were there. There was a website with a list of the characters often seen and one of them was Duffy the Disney Bear. I had never heard of him before so I was asking Rob if he had. He hadn’t either so he started Google-ing it and found a few pictures of some bears that were called Pre-Duffy Bears. Funny thing was they looked exactly like a stuffed bear we had and they were selling on eBay for around $1,000. We couldn’t believe it! We kept meaning to take some pictures and sale ours but just never got to it. When Christmastime came around we decided it would be nice to have a little extra money around so we took some pictures and got it posted. It sold for $840. Thank you Rob’s ex-wife for the nice post-surgery present you gave him all those years ago. It will make for a nice Christmas around here!

Rob hates taking family pictures! So this year I told him we would just do one pose of the whole family, one of the 3 kids, and one of each of the kids separately. It wouldn’t give us a lot to choose from but it wouldn’t be lengthy and miserable either. So here is the 1 pose we got of each! I was pretty happy with how they turned out.

While we were taking pictures a couple of buffalo came up over the hill right where we were sitting (just as we had all got posed and ready). We had to all get down and walk up to the car. The kids were terrified but it was kinda cool. Then they walked through the background of a few of our pictures.

Also, if you were worried that the kids totally cooperated I assure you they didn’t. Halle had a fever and regardless of the treats we kept trying to bribe her with she was not happy to be there at all! We are lucky we got a couple good shots of her.

Rob and I worked pretty hard on the kids costumes this year. Why you ask? I have no idea! They wear it for a minute and cover it in sticky candy. I don’t think we will do that again but for this year the kids looked awesome!

Rob made Corbin a Buzz Lightyear costume. The wings flashed red and green and it had a red light for the laser beam. It was pretty darn awesome if I do say so myself. But it probably took Rob about 80 hours to put together (and he says I am a perfectionist).

I made Jayci’s costume. She was a beautiful Belle. It didn’t take nearly that much time but it still took enough. I wasn’t present for the photo shoot either or she wouldn’t have gum in her mouth and the dress would have been straight! Haha!

I also made Halle’s. It took a whole 10 minutes or so but she made a darn cute butterfly.

Next year we are definitely buying costumes!

Jayci and Corbin’s classes did a costume parade.

Here is Corbin walking down the road. And his cute teacher.

Corbin’s class also sang a couple of Halloween songs for us. I hope you can hear them. It was just on my phone so the quality isn’t that great.

Here is Jayci, a couple of her friends, and her cute teacher.

I got to go to the Zoo with Jayci’s class. It was fun! It was Jayci’s first time riding on a school bus and she was very excited. She has wanted to ride the bus since she was a little girl so when she started school and realized she didn’t get to she was very disappointed. Turns out it wasn’t as exciting as she had always hoped it would be which was a good thing. Anyway, it was kinda nice because there were almost as many parents go as there was kids so nobody was responsible for a ton of rowdy kindergartners. We had a fun little group. We had 3 moms and 3 girls. Easy peasy. We walked around the whole zoo and then stopped and had lunch together. The girls enjoyed their day (I think their Mom’s did too)!

Kaelani & Ian welcomed a new addition to their family on October 6th. They had a beautiful baby girl who they named Preslee Rose Stanger. She weighed 7 lbs. 11 oz. and was 20″ long. She is so precious!

Congratulations guys she is beautiful!

The kids were SO excited to hold her. Halle cried when her turn was over. She loved holding her.

Kaelani definitely lives by the motto “The bigger the bow the better the mommy!”

It was a cold, rainy day but we were off for a walking field trip to 7-11.

Jayci & Scarlette walking with their umbrella’s.

Each of the kids got a turn to ring up something. They thought that was cool.

Each of the kids also got a Slurpee to take back to school with them. Lucky kids!

It is quite tricky to figure out how to carry an umbrella and a Slurpee while walking.

My mom decided to have all of us over for the 24th of July to watch the fireworks. She has a perfect view of them from her backyard. We decided to make it a slumber party too. It was so much fun! The kids loved sleeping outside with Grandma. They thought it was great!

Grandma has the best view from her swing set.

The kids with all of their tents set up (that Grandma Margo gave them). That is Grandma’s bed in the middle. We had to find a way for all of them to sleep next to her. So fun!