Hollywood Celebrity Movie Night

This year for her birthday party Cambrie wanted to have a movie night. So to spruce it up a little we made it a Hollywood Celebrity Movie Night. We found a fun Hollywood banner and rolled out the red carpet for all her friends. They then played a game where they had a gold star stuck on their back with an actor or actresses name on it. Then they had to ask yes or no questions to each other to try and figure out who they were. They really had fun with it. They had names like, Hannah Montana, Selena Gomez, Raven Symone, Miley Cirus, Zack and Cody Martin, etc. Obviously it was mostly Disney people since that’s all they really watch. Also they made their own Hollywood stars with their handprint and signature, and then after cake and presents, they watched their movie “Another Cinderella Story”. I have never seen kids down popcorn so fast! They were like popcorn vultures! It was a little crazy, but Cambrie had a great time, and that’s what really matters! Happy Birthday Cambrie!

Cambrie’s Birthday Baptism

Unbelievable!! Today Cambrie turned 8 years old and was baptized on her birthday! What a special day! I can hardly believe that she is 8 already. It seems like it all went by so fast. I think one of the neatest parts of today was seeing how ready Cambrie was to be baptized. I have been so impressed with her level of understanding about the gospel and our Heavenly Father’s plan for us. I think she truly understood the commitment she was making when entering into her baptismal covenants. Pretty impressive for an 8 year old. She was so excited to get the Holy Ghost too. What an amazing little girl!

She was baptized with Brenden Hetzler, a boy in our ward whose birthday is only 7 days before Cambrie’s. It was crazy how many people were there to show there love and support! She even had two of her friends Jasmine and Brianna, from school (who aren’t LDS) show up to support her! It was standing room only! We were also blessed to have Nana and Papa there. Grandma Marilyn and Grandpa Mac even drove out all the way from Utah to be there for Cambrie. We are blessed to have lots of wonderful family and friends. We are especially lucky to have Cambrie as part of our family! We are learning things from her all the time. She is a sweet special little spirit. Congratulations on a beautiful baptism. We love you Cambrie!

Cambrie's Baptism Invite

Subway Days

Who doesn’t love Subway right?!? One day after going to the gym, I really wanted a subway sandwich. So to justify my craving and in the name of healthy living I thought it might be a good idea to walk to Subway. Then I could justify loading my sandwich with all the things I like! I talked to my friends Karen and Kara about walking to subway together, because they go to the gym with me too – (Plus it was closer to walk to subway from their houses anyway)! They were game… literally! Karen made the fun suggestion to walk to get the sandwiches and then walk back to her house to play games. More specifically to play “Ticket to Ride”. What can we say… the game is addicting! It must be because we keep playing even though we know Karen always wins! (ha/ha) All it took was once and we were hooked! Each week our group seemed to get larger and larger. Now it is commonly known that Wednesday’s are subway game days. We make sure we schedule shopping, doctors appointments and other “non-essential” activities around our Wednesday afternoons! Priorities right?!?

Mimi's Birthday!

I'm beginning to think that I love other people's birthday's almost as much as my own. Today was Mimi McCain's birthday and for her birthday she wanted to do a girls night of dinner and a movie. I wondered if she understood that was a present for us all! Thanks Mimi! Anyway we went to dinner at the "Sushi Garden". For those who know me this is the last place you would think me to eat, but they had some great non-fishy food as well. I decided that tempura vegetables are my absolute favorite! I tried a California roll, which I was told had no fish in it. It was the worst tasting thing I have ever tasted!! After Kara and Sabrina tried it they agreed that it was pretty bad, and then everyone at the table collectively decided I needed to try one of their rolls, so I would know that not all rolls taste that bad. Only one major problem... they all had fish in them. They insisted that the one I tried tasted more like nasty fish than any of the rolls they ordered. So here I am __ years old and still succumbing to peer pressure. (J/K) - I was a little curious, but not enough to actually eat one. After a few moments, ok maybe minutes, I decided to try it. There was one called a Tiger roll that had a sweet and sour taste with a kick. I scrapped off the orange fish eggs as best I could... I still have my limits, and carefully dipped the tiger roll into the sauce and placed the whole bite in my mouth at once. According to other's accounts of the situation my face made a pretty intense grimace, which sent Mimi in search of her camera, which made me chew even faster, but in the end it was not so bad. I DID IT. I AT A TIGER ROLL FROM A SUSHI BAR!! " I must yell it from the top of someplace very high" (name that movie)-- Anyway all in all it was a fun dinner!

Then to top it off we all went and met up with more friends at the movies to see " Confessions of a Shopaholic". It was a really cute movie. A little predictable but cute and it actually had a great moral to the story! I love a good girls night out! Thanks again Mimi for sharing your special day with all of us!! I hope you had a great birthday!

100th Day of School

Everything is an event when your in kindergarten! Today was the big 100th day of school. I went to help out in Hailey's class for the big event, and I am glad I got to go and see the kids be so excited and have so much fun. Every center revolved around the number 100. We made necklaces, hats, glasses, and groupings. We stamped, ran, jumped, skipped, hopped, colored and counted everything to 100. Miss Ellerson had everything set up for a full 100th day of fun! Hailey just adores her!! Then of course the kids got to meet Zero the Hero- who shares with the kids how important zeros can be. After all "without the zero 100 would just be 1." They all took an oath to be zero hero's as well and learned the special zero salute. It was a fun day for Hailey and I am glad I was able to be there to be a part of it!

YES, THIS IS MY BOY!

A picture is worth a thousand words right?!? I think this picture says it all. My precious little boy in blue wearing my high heels. What can you do. He loves shoes. We were at the Pace's house on a sunday evening and I had taken my shoes off by the door. Not too much later I heard a clomp clomp coming through the kitchen. I was pretty sure it was Colby, but of all the things I thought to be making the clomping sound, it definately wasn't my shoes.

Didn't Want You To Be Too Comfortable

So one evening after dinner Brian was laying on the couch relaxing and having the girls rub his feet. (He's training them!) I decided I wanted a piece of the action so I went over and laid on Brian and put my feet up to get in on the deal. Colby immediately decided he wanted in on it as well, not really knowing the purpose, and not caring either way. So he insistantly climbed up and twisted his way into position. Then he kicked back and relaxed. I couldn't quite say the same for me and even less so for Brian. That's our Colby making himself comfortable. Please don't worry about the rest of us. ha/ha

OUR BACHELOR NIGHTS!!

So while I will take just about any excuse to get together with the girls, there is a legitimate group who are bachelor fans. As for me I like the show depending on who the bachelor is. This season is Jason, the reject from the last bachelorette. Opps did I say reject, you know what I mean. (ha/ha) He wasn't my favorite but he has grown on me a little. What has really made it so enjoyable it the fun we have getting together to watch it. It is a great group of girls who fortunately or unfortunately always seem to bring amazingly good food. (I have had to restart my diet almost weekly thanks to them!) The door is always open to any fan of the bachelor or of just getting together. Luckily I pretty well fall into both categories. Mostly because I love hashing out someone else's drama besides my own! I figure if they do and say dumb things I have every right to talk about them, because they choose to do it on national t.v. Anyway I love our bachelor nights and I think we have decided that the bachelor season will go on year round this time. Whether the t.v. is on or not, all we need is good friends and good food, (it could be healthy by the way) and we will always have a bachelor night!!

FYI- Were still here

I know that I am way behind on my posts but it has really been a crazy month of travel and holidays and hospitals. Just a really short update, (I will back blog later). Right after thanksgiving which we spent with friends at family at the Garcia- Young home, we left for a cruise to Cozumel and Belize with my family. Mom, Dad, Jayleen, Janell, Ryan, Brian and I. We had an absolute blast and none of us wanted to leave. We returned late Saturday night, in denial of the reality that we were now only 3 weeks away from christmas. Then to throw a real twist into the choas, 2 days after we got home my Dad had a heart attack. It was totally unreal. He ended up having a 5 way bypass. I don't even know what the word for that is! Quad plus one? Anyway it was a very crazy emotional time for us all. My Mom was able to get Jayleen and Janell a flight out immediately - thank you SouthWest! It was a scary crazy time, we were all just in disbelief. Fast forward, Dad did make it out of the hospital. We know it will be a hard road of adjustments for him and probably for Mom as well, but we are just grateful that he is alive and that this didn't happen while we were on the cruise. He came to our house after leaving the hospital and they spent Christmas with us. It was wonderful to have family there to help celebrate. Christmas was truly a celebration for many reasons. Then to add to the celebration, Janell and Ryan decided sort of last minute to make a trip down to spend new years with all of us. It was really enjoyable to see my kids have fun with Dax and Kaydin. We played games galore and the Girls rocked at Rook (of course!) Anyway it made for a fun way to enter into a new year. While there were many great points of 2008 and some not so good, we are really looking forward to making 2009 an even better year. So here is to all the great resolutions we may make and a hope that we might keep them. I hope to be a better blogger... so here goes! Happy 2009 to you all!

Thanksgiving 2008

What do you get when you put together 14 kids 8 adults and a lot of good food? A Great Thanksgiving! This year my family, including my Mom and Dad, joined the Garcia-Young clan and their friends the Saunders' from Wyoming to celebrate Thanksgiving. Ben and Holly Kroutil joined us for a short time as well. The food was a great compilation of everyone's efforts, especially the hosts. We were very grateful to have such wonderful friends to invite us over and to be able to have my Mom and Dad with us as well. One of our favorite parts of the meal was the pies. Karen made her famous apple pie, my Mom made her yummy banana cream pie, and I made pumpkin (Brian's favorite) and chocolate cream pie (my favorite). You can never have to many pies! Just ask me!

At this time of Thanksgiving, I recognize that there is truly much to be grateful for. In a time of economic uncertainty and many new changes upon us, I am especially grateful for every little thing that we have been blessed with! I am thrilled that Brian has a good job, and that we can still afford our home (as many people in our neighborhood have lost theirs). I have a wonderful family whom I love dearly and I learn from daily. Most of all, I am grateful we have the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives, which gives us hope and encouragement and has taught us to prepare ourselves for whatever may lie ahead. I am grateful to have leaders who are in tune with the spirit who guide us in the things we should do to find joy in our journey. I am very grateful that we can have the spirit in our home, that we may enjoy the peace that it offers us, provided we let it! (ha/ha) Overall, I really have no complaints. The only things I could complain about are things that are my own fault anyway. I guess I still have a lot of work to do! Thank you to all my family and friends whom I love and care for so much. You've had such an impact on my life and have helped in making me who I am today. (I hope your not too disappointed) (ha/ha). All my love- Jessica

I love to see them playing

While working in the kitchen I glanced around looking for Colby who was normally hanging on my leg about this time. To my great pleasure I found him sitting on the floor with his sisters. The girls were teaching him how to roll a ball back and forth instead of just hogging it. He would take turns sitting in front of each of the girls playing and then they finally they let him into the circle. As I worked I could hear the constant giggling and chattering of the kids.

One of my favorite things to see is my children laughing and playing together. In this particular instance there was even a valuable lesson of sharing and taking turns being taught. I am so proud of my wonderful children. I am very grateful for the wonder examples they are for each other. I know that I am their mother and slightly biased, but they are the best.

Yeskidettes Jungle Book Play

This Season Jade and Cambrie both were involved in the Yes Kidettes Production of "The Jungle Book". Their friend Claire Pace made it also. So after a solid 6-8 weeks of driving back and forth to practices in different parts of downtown Modesto, and of course no two kids ever seemed to have practice at the same time because they all had different parts, they finally had their big weekend of performances. When we finally got to see the show I was so impressed. I can't believe they can pull that many kids together in such a short amount of time and make it look so good. It was especially enjoyable for us because throughout the entire show, we had a child on stage. Either Jade or Cambrie were on the stage the entire time and a lot of the time it was both of them. Jade was a Monkey in King Louie's crew, a star and a flower, and Cambrie was a bumble bee. Cambrie even had a little speaking part which she was very proud of! She ran up to Mowgli the man cub and said "Awh, come on what's wrong?" I was so proud of both of them, they did a great job. It has been interesting to see the confidence that they have gained through this experience. Even from the small part Jade had in the last YES performance, she had much better confidence and stage presence when trying out for this one. She even had a call back for the part of Ashanti. In the end I was very glad they had the opportunity to be in the show. Even if it meant the tripling of my gas bill, the juggling of Colby's nap times, the rearranging of carpools, and the lack of dinners provided during that time, I think it was a great experience!

A Quick Stop In

One of the great parts of living in the "city" with parents who live in the "country", is that when they to do any big shopping, they come down to where we are. Consequently we get little surprise visits more often. This stop in happened to be after Nana got a new cast for her hand that she had surgery on. All the kids love when Nana and Papa stop by. Lucky for them Colby was in rare form tonight. (ok so maybe not so rare) but Colby was on one of his kicks. He was just being silly and thought it was funny to imitate what Papa was doing. Papa would make a face and he would make a face. Then Papa would make a face and shake his head and hands and Colby would make the face and do this shaking thing that he does when he grits his teeth. It totally cracks me up! Of course if you laugh he keeps on going! Anyway he was enjoying putting on a show and giving loves... and then some. I love that my kids have the opportunity to get to know their grandparents so well and be able to play with and love on them.
Check out these little video clips of Colby imitating Papa, and then giving him loves. That is until he realizes that I have a camera on him and then he just wants to pose.

Prop 8 part 2

The greatest of blessings were never given without overcoming a little adversity right? When we did our last street walk to support Yes on prop 8 we had organized another walk for Monday, the day before the big election. We had quite a few people who said they were going to be there as well. As Monday approached we quickly found that it had a really good chance of raining Monday night. At first I thought they might cancel the walk, but after talking to Bob Rawe the regional coordinator for prop 8, he mentioned that it was snowing when the pioneers crossed the plains and that didn’t stop them. Brian’s thought was that doesn’t mean they weren’t crazy either. Ha/ha So anyway, out into the rain we went. Originally I was thinking of just keeping the kids in the car and letting them watch a movie while we stood outside with the signs, but they protested that idea. Especially Jade and Cambrie, since they didn’t get to help the last time. So out we all went. Except Colby of course, I wasn’t about to deal with him on a busy street in the rain. I was so impressed with all the people that were there rain or shine to support this cause. There were actually quite a few other kids out there, and everyone was getting drenched, which to the kids was pure fun. Some of our signs started to fall apart in the rain, so we turn the kids into human signs, while protecting them only slightly from the rain. We took the plastic yard signs and cut holes in the tops for their heads and then put it over the top of them. They loved it and almost all the kids wanted one. Jade and Savannah Pace and a few of the other had made up a little cheer that they were hollering at the top of their lungs. “Yes on 8 is really great” over and over and over again. I have to admit my favorite sign was the one Jen Miyakawa made from yellow foam core board. She cut out the word Yes and the number 8. It was way cute! I loved seeing the enthusiasm and dedication that everyone there had. I am so grateful to live in a community of people with whom I share common views and interests. There was even a guy who when he saw what we were doing came over and asked to join us. How cool is that!! Yea for Yes on Prop 8!!!

Halloween in Kindergarten

For whatever reason the schools in our area don't let the kids dress up in thier Halloween cosutmes at school, but in Kindergarten they keep it fun with some of the little things they do. Just check out these precious pictures of A.J. and Hailey after we picked them up from school. I never thought I would see a spider on someones head as cute.

It's Halloween!!

Well... it is what it is right?!? Halloween a day where everyone gets to pretend to be someone or something they aren't and they are rewarded with candy for doing so. You've gotta love Halloween! Jade was Padame in her battle suit,(Star Wars) Cambrie was Princess Leia (I made her costume) Hailey was Super Girl, and Colby was a Dog! Brian and I even took a little stab and prentending to be someone else this year. If you watch the show NCIS you would know that I was Abby the freaky forensic scientist, and Brian was a 70's dude, with the tan leather, butterfly collar jacket and all! This year the Pace's were kind enough to host the gathering of creatures big and small. Everything is more fun with friends right!! Even Nana and Papa came to see the crazies! We had pizza and some yummy appitizers, including a disney pasta salad and a cheese ball in the shape of an owl (way cool Karen)! The kids had a blast just playing and eating with thier friends, as they always do. Then we hit the streets.
The girls took off in the first wave of "runners". Luckily Becca had the energy to head up that group. Brian, my Mom, Dad and I helped bring up the rear with some of the smaller, slower and more easily distracted animals. Literally... Colby was a dog Dakota Lewis was a monkey and Calli was a Tiger. Colby was chillin' by Dakota for a while until he got tired of walking, (just 2 or 3 houses later). He was more interested in opening the candy he got, than he was in going and getting more candy. Finally he took refuge in Karen's bike stroller with Calli. The funny part of it was Karen kept trying to get Calli to sit in it so she could push her, and Calli for awhile wanted nothing to do with it. But Colby on the other hand would jump right in, weither he was welcome or not! (In Calli's opinion, he wasn't always welcome)

Every once in a while I caught a hi Mom as the girls ran by and eventually Hailey got tired and decided to hang back with us. "I just want to walk with Papa" she said. I know they all had a great time. When it started sprinkling rain we all headed back to the Pace's house for some hot chocolate. Once we got back everybody dumped their loot out into piles to be compared and inspected. There were quite a few kids running around and candy everywhere! Somehow everytime I saw Colby go by he had a different sucker in his mouth. I am not sure where he got them or how he got them open, but boy was he happy! It was like there was an endless supply. I don't think he ever finished a whole sucker, he just kept putting new ones in everytime he found one. Oh well, it's Halloween right?