The Thanksgiving Post

Our Thanksgiving at Nana's began with a surprise birthday celebration for Blake and Julianna. They were spoiled with nice gifts that they LOVE.

They always have to play shuffleboard when we're at Nana's house.

I decided to get some shots of the kids in the backyard. Julianna's cute pose!

Blake looking pretty handsome.

Love those faces.

Briana's turkey. No really, that is the actual turkey. It was AMAZING--marinated in apple cider, whole allspice, whole bay leaves, and kosher salt. I decorated the plate with leftover herbs. Briana decided to do everything homemade for her first time and it was SO GOOD! I still need to get that sweet potato recipe!

Our family in Nana's backyard.

Joel's family. What a great picture!

Joel got to carve the turkey. Blake had to watch him.

Eating at their own special table.


We had such a fun Thanksgiving in Santa Ana at Joel's grandma's (Nana's) house. Briana (Joel's sister) and I ran the 10K Turkey Trot in Dana Point at 7 am. There were 5000 people running it! I had a lot of fun running with her for the second time now, and I've decided I really like running that distance. The view of the ocean while running was so great! The funniest part was when we went to get my goodie bag for registering and when we got back I discovered I ended up getting a child's size medium shirt by mistake! I guess I'll just make Julianna wear it sometimes!

Once we got back to Nana's house we started the cooking. Briana had delicious recipes for each dish. It was fun spending time cooking with "Grandma Shaw" (as the kids call her), Nana, Briana, and Soquel (Joel's cousin), and trying to make it work in Nana's oven. In the end, everything came out perfectly! All the food was delicious! We also had fun playing Balderdash with Soquel and her husband Phillip in the late hours. The kids also loved playing with Uncle Christian in the backyard and taking a few walks with Tony around the neighborhood. It will be a Thanksgiving to remember!

Blake's 4th Birthday and Julianna's first lost tooth

In front of the Capitol Building.

In front of the Luxor.

At the play area of Legoland.

Blake's first experience in "driving school." He didn't like it much, but he got his "driver license."

Another cool Lego creation--the Excalibur.

On the boat ride.

The helicopter ride--Julianna loved going up and down. Joel took the picture from his helicopter.

Sunday morning before the primary program--they both had speaking parts and did well!

Singing Happy Birthday to Blake yesterday. He loves telling everyone he's 4 now.

Well, a lot has been going on since I posted Friday. We went to Legoland for the first time on Saturday to celebrate Blake's birthday. That place is SO fun. We loved it! They were big enough to go on almost all the rides, and some of them had a "kid waiting area" where they could play with Duplos. The Miniland with all the creations of different cities/towns in Legos was really cool. I especially liked the Las Vegas one! It was a really fun day with the family.

On Blake's birthday we did a little party at the park with some preschool friends and Sunbeams and it was a lot of fun. Blake was so excited to open his presents! Then that night we sang again to him as a family. Blake is so much fun and is excited to be 4! He kept asking me if he was "old" now, and even thought that he would be 5 the next day. He can't wait to grow up. He still loves all his superheroes and Star Wars and is always dressing up in something. And he can write his name now by himself and loves to draw and write his letters all the time, and knows all the sounds of the alphabet. He still loves collecting his sticks to play with in the backyard, and now our neighbor cat will actually come to our sliding glass door, letting Blake know it's time to play. It's almost like we have a cat! Anyway, I think he had a good birthday.


Julianna's missing tooth smile.

Her little tooth in her hand.

In Julianna news, we had a big surprise tonight. When she was in the bath, I was trying to wash her hair using a cup to pour water on her head like I always do. She started to bite her hands (something she does when she's mad) because I guess she got water on her face (she doesn't like this). I went to take her hand out of her mouth by just pulling it down like I usually do. Well, maybe I did it with too much force? It didn't seem like I did. But from doing this, she ended up losing her first tooth! After I pulled her hand down, she screamed, and I thought she was just mad. Today has been a hard day with her--she's been screaming a lot and bugging Blake and I really was at the end of my rope. So when she let out this scream, I was so done. And I just walked out of the bathroom to calm down. As soon as I walked out, I had the thought, maybe she lost a tooth. So I walked back in after a few seconds and saw the blood trickling down her chest. And sure enough the tooth was gone! I was lucky to find the tooth among all the bath toys and took it out to show her. At first she was a little scared, but then she felt good because she lost a tooth! So we put it in an envelope to give to the tooth fairy. She didn't want it under her pillow, so we put it under a pillow in the loft area. I'm just happy that we didn't have to worry about a wiggly tooth!

More recent pictures

We got to spend a few hours with my sister Karina and her little boy Bradley when she came to pick up Mom to bring her to San Diego for the last part of the trip. Before Julianna got home from school, we did a little photo shoot with Bradley and Blake. Bradley really likes Blake and just wanted to touch him and grab his toys. It was really cute to watch. Won't be long before they will be having fun playing together like little boys! And when Julianna got home from school, we made sure to get a picture with Grandma and the kids. (Blake is wearing his "after-Halloween clearance costumes that I got for him.)

Halloween 2010

Julianna was "Blossom," the pink Powerpuff Girl, Blake was Superman. My mom is here right now for a few days to visit. It's been fun having her here! We had fun at the trunk or treat. I especially liked watching the kids trying to eat their donuts off the string. It was a fun Halloween!

Blake's cuteness

So the other day Blake said probably the cutest thing he's ever said.

We were at the district office, signing papers for me to be a substitute teacher (Julianna's school district--I can actually sub for her class!) So anyway, after the woman gave me the papers and left the room, Blake asked what I was doing. I told him I was signing papers so I could be a substitute teacher.

Blake said, and I quote, "I don't want you to be a teacher. I want you to be a mommy."

Can you believe he even said that? I told him that was so nice of him to say, and that I will only do it once in a while, but when I teach, he can play with his friends all day.

His attitude immediately changed. "Oh, OKAY! Are you going to be a teacher now? When are you going to be a teacher?"

I guess he likes playing with his friends more than his mommy. I understand!

Just had to share this funny conversation.

Temple Grandin movie

Making Of

We just watched this last night. AMAZING. I heard about this movie, but it was released on HBO. Now it's available to rent on Redbox and probably Netflix. It's about a woman with autism--true story. Claire Danes plays her and she does a GREAT job. It was nominated for 15 emmys and won 7, including best movie. There were some parts in this movie that I just cried--the screenwriter was really able to say exactly how it feels to have a child with autism as portrayed by Temple's mother. I wanted to find that scene to post, but you'll have to settle for this one I found on HBO. I loved this movie. Watch it! You will love it!

Blake's backyard friends

(Don't you love the face?) Our fish died a few months ago after a long life. Still no new fish yet, but we found a new pet in the backyard. A big fuzzy caterpillar--the biggest I have ever seen. We put it in a jar and gave it some apples. Caterpillars really do eat apples! I asked Blake to give it a name and he thought for a second and said, "Paris!" So Paris it was.

Yes, there's the big caterpillar. We thought we'd keep it until it turned into a butterfly. We kept it about a week, and then I just didn't like having it in the house anymore, or living in a jar. So we set it free in our backyard. Maybe soon we'll see a butterfly flying in the backyard and say, "There goes Paris!"

Our neighbor's cat likes to hop the fence and play with the kids about once a day. Here was Blake today playing with the cat. He usually pulls a bunch of weeds and puts them in a bucket to give to the cat so it can play with the weeds. Or eat them, I'm not sure. He really likes playing with it.

And there you have it! Blake's backyard adventures. Another one of his favorite games is collecting sticks. We have quite an assortment of sticks from walks we go on, or tree trimmings in our backyard. He calls them his lightsabers. He's even got a stick for each Jedi from Star Wars. So we will play Star Wars with our sticks. He's such a boy.

I'll try to post more often! Just don't have much going on besides school, work, preschool, and church stuff! I don't even take that many pictures anymore. Oh well, that will change once the holidays hit.