"Happy Birthday" To Us!...

Tonight we finished celebrating mine and Josh's birthdays.

Yesterday was my birthday.  I spent the morning of my birthday running some errands by myself, which is such a nice break sometimes.  When I got home, this is what I came in the door too...

   ...my kids made a "Happy Birthday" sign for me and yelled "Happy Birthday" as I walked in the door.  It was the sweetest thing ever!  Jaron told me that since I always do fun things like this for them on their birthdays, they wanted to do something nice for me...I loved it!!!  Mission accomplished kids!   For dinner, I chose to go to Sweet Tomatoes, which the kids were all happy about.  It was yummy, as usual.  After dinner we went home to enjoy some yummy birthday cake.  Josh and I always have our cakes on the same day and we don't like the same kind so we never just have one.  I picked up our cakes earlier and got a little frustrated about them because my name was spelled wrong, even though I told them how to spell it right before they did it, and because Josh's name looked like it was written by a child.  Oh well, They still tasted good!     The kids sang "Happy Birthday" to us...         ...then we blew out our candles.  Notice how we don't have a lot of candles on our cakes????  We didn't want to start a fire with all the candles we'd have to put on them because we're so old...hahaha!!!   For my birthday I got some new perfume...my favorite kind.  Josh also told me that I can go shopping and buy myself some new clothes.  I'm for sure going to have fun with that!!      Today was Josh's birthday and he chose to go to Red Robin for dinner...a family favorite.  We made the mistake of ordering Jaedyn some lemonade, when what she really wanted was some chocolate milk.  Since she had two different drinks that she didn't want to waste, she decided to drink them both at the same time...GROSS!!!  She apparently liked it because she kept drinking it that way.       While we were waiting for our food to come, Jaedyn and Josh had fun playing around for the camera...       After dinner, the waiters sang "Happy Birthday" to Josh and then he got his ice cream sundae.  Of course, Jaedyn had to have some too!          I got one quick picture of us birthdays kids before we headed home for more cake and ice cream...       Before we ate cake and ice cream, we had Josh open his presents...           Jaedyn wanted to be the garbage can for the night...silly girl!      We gave Josh some protein powder, a container to hold it in, an Amazon gift card, some Diet Coke, and then I told him he can go pick out some more gym clothes...     After he opened his presents we sang "Happy Birthday" again, then we enjoyed some more cake and ice cream.     We've been celebrating our birthdays together for 15 years now and it's just as much fun now as it was the first time.  Nothings better than sharing your special day with your best friend.   HAPPY 36th and 38th BIRTHDAY'S TO US!!!!!

Happy Easter!

Since the kids didn't get enough candy yesterday on their egg hunt, the Easter Bunny left some more goodies for them overnight...

   The kids were so excited to wake up and see what they got.  I think it's safe to say that they were happy with everything...               The Easter Bunny even left a little something for Josh and I...     I'd have to say that the Easter Bunny has good taste in purses...I love the color!   Even though Easter is a fun time for the kids with their baskets, we always remind them why we really celebrate this time of year.  They all know that Easter is all about Jesus Christ and his resurrection and it's cute to listen to them talk about that while they're going through their baskets.  As long as they remember to think of Christ always, they'll be truly happy.   HAPPY EASTER!!

Easter Egg Coloring & Hunt Fun!

Tomorrow is Easter and we hadn't colored any eggs yet because we've been out of town for spring break, so we decided that we'd do it today. If the kids didn't like coloring eggs so much we'd skip it this year, but they do so we didn't.  Just look at how happy and excited they are...

  They were busy little bees coloring their eggs with crayons before they dipped them in the colors they wanted...     They were all very careful this year and didn't get any dye on their fingers like last year...     Josh even joined in and colored a few eggs...     Here's the final result of all their fun and hard work...      I noticed there was an egg (yellow one up front) that read, "Steve was here!".  I guess we can never escape Minecraft, even when coloring Easter eggs...That's my boys!!
My kids also love to hunt for candy filled eggs, no matter how old they get.  After we were done coloring eggs we went to the park by our house and hid some candy eggs, then we unleashed the kids on them...         It was fun watching them run around trying to find them all.  We tried to make some of them harder for the boys and it worked.  We had to point some out to them.              Wow!!  I think they made out very nicely with their candy stash...     It didn't take them long to dive right in...     Then we headed back home.  I think the kids were happy with their hunt, especially this little girl!     It never gets old watching my kids enjoy fun activities like this.  I'm glad we're able to do these kind of things.

Spring Break 2013...Final Day!!

Today was the last day of our spring break vacation. We were all sad that it was coming to an end, but at the same time we were all happy that we were going to get to sleep in our own beds tonight.

Before we headed home, we had a breakfast reservation with Mickey Mouse and some of his friends.  The kids were really excited for this!

      They got to meet Stitch...
  ...Jaedyn wasn't too sure about him, she doesn't really know who he is.    Then, Pluto came over to say "hi"...      He gave Jaedyn a hug...     ...licked Jaron's head...      ...and laughed and joked around with Jantzen...     The kids all thought Pluto was a lot of fun!
Jaedyn was very excited to meet Minnie Mouse.  She brought her stuffed Minnie, and even wore her new Minnie Mouse earrings that we got for her at Disneyland so she could show them to the actual Minnie Mouse when she came by.         Before Jaedyn got to meet Minnie, the boys took her up for some dancing with Mickey and Daisy.  Jaedyn wasn't too thrilled about it, I'm not sure why.  Jaron really tried to get her to dance, but she just stood there and did nothing.         Finally, after some attempts at dancing, Minnie came over to say "hi" to the kids...     Jaedyn was sooo happy!  She showed Minnie her earrings she just got and then she got a hug and kiss from her...         Josh even got a kiss from Minnie...I think he's actually blushing!     Then Daisy came over to say "hi"...      Jaedyn got a hug and kiss from her too.  The boys were okay with not getting one, I think.      After meeting Minnie and Daisy, Jaedyn was a little happier, so when Stitch and Mickey starting doing some surfing she decided she'd go up.  The boys thought they were too old to do it, so they stayed back and watched Jaedyn.     Jaedyn had fun surfing and after that decided that Stitch was okay...     We finished our breakfast fun and then headed out to our car to go home, but we saw another friend on our way out...he didn't talk that much though...      We decided that we'd take our time getting home.  Since we weren't in a hurry, we drove up to Los Angeles and took the kids to the observatory up in the Hollywood hills...                  The boys have been here before, but Jaedyn hasn't, so it was fun for her to explore things.   Last time we came here we didn't do much inside, so this time we did.  The kids got to explore a lot of fun things like this telescope that Jantzen was really enjoying...       ...and seeing themselves on an infrared screen (from left to right-Jaedyn, Jantzen, & Jaron)...      We went downstairs and found some things about the universe.  Jaron tried to lift the Moon...     ...and Jaedyn got surprised, by what I have no idea...      The kids sat down with Albert Einstein...         ...and their expressions made me laugh!
We got to see the planets (they were really big in person) and learn more about each one of them.  I'm not sure what's going on with Jantzen in this picture...      We got done exploring and learning about everything that was inside the observatory, so we headed back outside.  I got one picture of Josh and I with the Hollywood sign behind us just for proof that our kids were not wandering around by themselves.  The sign looked a lot closer in person.      Here's Jantzen and Jaedyn being silly...they play so well together.     We then headed to Beverly Hills...      ...and we found this really huge, cool looking tree there...         The kids had to get their picture with both sides of this tree.  They thought it was the coolest tree they've ever seen, I'd have to agree with them.
After we left Beverly Hills, we decided to drive down to the Santa Monica Pier and walk around.  However, we didn't quite make it there.  The roads getting there were a little confusing and the traffic was horrible, so we just drove by it along the PCH.  We thought it would be fun to drive along the PCH up to Malibu because we've never been there.  As we were driving, the kids noticed these houses...     Jaedyn's first words about them were, "I want that house!".  She's referring to the pink and purple one.  It just happened that there was a perfect house for each one of them all together.  Jantzen gets the green/tan one, Jaron gets the black one, and Jaedyn, of course, gets the pink and purple one.  They thought that was cool.
We made our way up to Malibu and it was beautiful!  The view of the ocean from the mountains was amazing!  Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of it so you'll just have to take my word on it.
We finally made it home late and tired, but we all had a fun vacation together.  It's so nice that we can do fun things like this together as a family.  Next year I think we might try Sea World again.