Rain rain go away

Becasue it hardly ever rains here, I LOVE rain. But, not when you've got friends in town from Seattle! Our besties, Luke, Kristin, and their kids came to visit for a week. We made the best of it, though. Here are some pics of us braving the wind at the Old Point Loma Lighthouse




Luke just wants to get outta the cold and eat dinner...

outside the Mormom Battalion

and of us getting rained out at a restaurant in Old Town.

Alex was not happy about being rained on.

Doyle fam-- we miss you already! Come back-- it's sunny now! :)

Disney!

We pulled the kids out of school for a day (amazing, they were all too sick to go to school on the same day but all healthy enough to go back to school the following day!) and took them to Disney to play with Luke, Kristin, Connor, and Easton. We all had sooo much fun and the kids had a blast together. My favorite part about these pictures is seeing the kids ham it up for the photos...they got it from their Dads!!

Cinderellas and the step sister

Last week was the annual Daddy-Daughter Dance at EBS (our neighborhood school). Here's the girls right before they left with Dave... and Carmen trying on Ana's shoe but upset that it doesn't fit and she can't go with Dad. :(

Just one of the girls

Carmen's just barely starting to let me put ponytails in her hair and not immediately pulling them out. It's so fun because she has such fine, nappy baby hair that looks crazy without anything in it! Carmen spent some time in Hayden and Ana's hair salon last week and this is how she looked when she came out!!

Elementary Admirers

On Sunday, my mom came up and helped the kids make suckers for Valentines Day. Now that they're all in school and class sizes have risen :(, we had to make about 80 suckers! Took the entire first half of the super bowl!!

Their school celebrated Valentines Day today (Thursday), because of the upcoming 4-day weekend. Needless to say, we've got just as much candy now as Halloween...and I'm the mean mom again, only letting them have one piece a day! (Gotta save those teeth)

This morning as I walked Anamarie into her class, I noticed a huge commotion (yelling, screaming, jumping up and down commotion) from about 15 kids in her classroom who were screaming, "She's here! She's coming!" Anamarie was busy taking off her jacket and hanging up her backpack outside the classroom, so she was oblivious to what was going on. But I was kinda curious, and started looking around for Mrs. Corry (the teacher) and around the courtyard to see who they might be talking about. Well, once Anamarie walked into the room, I knew. The hoopla hit the roof, all the kids started screaming, and Nick (one of Anamarie's "friends"), walked to her and gave her a little puppy dog stuffed animal with a heart on it that said "Puppy Love". He said "This is for you, Ana"--brave as can be! Anamarie, on the other hand, whipped herself around to face me, completely mortified. I had to coax her into saying "thank you", and to help her gain her composure. As I was leaving the classroom, a mom of another boy in her class (who is a neighbor of ours) was walking out at the same time as me. She said, "Carson has a heart-shaped box of chocolates that he bought with his allowance for Ana. He was going to bring it today, but I told him we'd drop it by your house this weekend, if that's okay" At dinner, when Anamarie had to tell Dave (the only boyfriend she's allowed to have) about her day, he smiled and said, "You know, Anamarie, when you win American Idol, you're going to have a lot of admirers. You're going to have to get used to it." Then she was quiet for a few minutes as she soaked that thought in. :)

After school, Hayden had a friend of hers (also named Carson) over for a playdate. Since Hayden's favorite things (the Wii and Sorry Sliders) are gender-neutral, she gets along with both boys and girls equally, so no big deal to have a playdate with a boy, right? :) Well, once we got home, there was a big bear and balloon and chocolates and other candies left on our doorstep for her-- that Carson's mom had dropped by a few minutes earlier. (I was just so glad that they were from Carson and not from another boy that we now had to do some explaining for!)


So, I've decided that either I have super cute girls or boys these days are getting a lot more brazen much earlier. (Probably a little of both)

And lastly... can't have a post without little Carmencita. Her new word is "nuh nee" which means CANDY. Great.