A small update.

12/9/09: Nathan's birthday and I totally didn't call him. Ugh. Sorry about that, Nathan! Life has been hectic and busy, as usual. Hope you had a perfect 39th birthday! Wednesday was also my weigh-in day. I only lost 1/2 pound, but hey, that's better than zero, and definitely better than gaining. So, I've lost a total of 8 pounds. Now, I just need to start some serious exercise. :)

12/10/09: Kale and I went in and met with his school counselor at RHS. Yeah! He's going back to Roseville in January. I'm happy that he got to do the whole Independence thing, like he wanted, but he had a good reality check in that he is seriously bored to tears being at home all the time, and he's looking forward to going back to "regular" school.

12/11/09: Carcerys Vale had a show in Fresno. Shawn allowed Austen and the guys to go without him (he just couldn't make it with work). They drove the 3 hours down there, did the show, spent the night at La Quinta Inn and came back on Saturday. All went very well!

12/12/09: Bailey and I had lunch with Lisa and Lauren at Prime Wok. (Their treat ... so nice!)They are both such wonderful friends to both of us. We love them dearly. After, Bailey went to play at Lauren's and then about 5:00pm, they both came back here and Lauren spent the night. Kale went and hung out with a friend and then went to her indoor soccer game. Austen went to RHS' holiday dance show.

12/13/09: After Lauren left this morning, Bailey and I watched Eloise at Christmas. Such a cute movie! I'd never seen it before. It was very sweet. We will also be wrapping gifts, and hopefully finishing up any crafty things we're working on. Fun stuff. My fingers are crossed that the rain will let up so Shawn and the boys can get some Christmas lights put up on the house. It's not looking good, but a girl can dream, right?

Decorating the tree.

One of the many things I love about Bailey is the fact that she is passionate about holidays. She truly adores everything that goes in to a holiday, especially when there is decorating involved. On the Friday following Thanksgiving she quickly made the comment that she couldn't wait to take down all the fall decor and get out the Christmas boxes (all 47 of them). Haha. That is an exaggeration on the number of boxes, but suffice it to say ... we have alot of Christmas decor. So, since I'd already nixed her idea of going out for Black Friday early morning shopping (Blech! So not going to happen!), I gave her a glimmer of hope with this simple comment: "you know, Bailey, another big tradition on the Friday after Thanksgiving is to put up all the Christmas decorations". I think she almost died on the spot. She was excited!

We spent most of Friday decorating the house, minus the tree. If she'd had her way, the tree would have been done too, but I had a splitting headache for most of the day, so resorted to telling her we'd do the tree either Saturday or Sunday.

Sunday about 6pm she was getting pretty discouraged. Haha. She thought we'd run out of time to do the tree. But a promise is a promise! So she and I put the tree together, the boys did the lights and then the kids all decorated the tree.

Roxy helped supervise. :) She has a real fascination with lights, so once the lights were on, she had something to really entertain her.

These are the kids' annual Hallmark ornaments:

Drums for Austen (of course).

"Where the Wild Things Are" for Kale. Not so obvious. He just really wants to see the movie, and sometimes we're limited on choices. Haha.

A cute little puppy for Bailey (of course). Anything dog, puppy or animal related will work for her.

I sure loved having all the decorations done before December 1st! Now, if I could just convince Shawn and the boys to work on the outside.

Wednesday Weigh-In

Yesterday (Wednesday) was my second weigh-in day at Weight Watchers. I'm happy to report that I was able to lose another 2.6 pounds, even over the Thanksgiving holiday! So my total weight loss is now 7.6 pounds. Yippee!

Thanksgiving 2009

I think it's pretty safe to say that when Thanksgiving is held at our house, it makes it near impossible for me to even think about taking photos. Case in point ... the measly six photos I took this past Thursday. What the heck? I'm bummed to say the least. Not a single photo of Shawn, Roy, Zack or me. Buzz was there, too. He is pictured, just barely, in the first two photos below. Note to self: never have Thanksgiving again. Haha. I'm just kidding.

We had a wonderful day with family and friends. Thank goodness for Shawn, who prepared both turkeys (one in the roaster and one on the BBQ). He assigned carving the birds to Buzz, so I didn't have to worry about turkey at all! Thank goodness for Mom and Tiffany! Oh my goodness. First off, they helped big-time with bringing goodies along. Mom brought 4 pies and Tiffany brought veggies, rolls, sparkling cider, salad and a veggi tray. So much food! Plus, these two ladies are epic in the kitchen. They helped me through the gravy and mashed potatoes big time. And then Mom being the rock star that she is proceeded to hand-wash every single dish afterwards. Crazy lady, I tell you. I kept telling her there was room in the dishwasher, but she just wasn't listening! Haha.

We also had the usual staples: stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry/whip cream dish, mashed potatoes, gravy. It all turned out great. We are so thankful to have had everyone here with us.

Pleased. And a little bit proud.

I started Weight Watchers last Wednesday, 11/18/2009. I've been following the plan this past week, and I have to say it wasn't too bad. Really not difficult at all. I almost never felt hungry. Such a good thing. I didn't weigh myself all week, and I went in today for my 2nd meeting and weigh-in. And guess what? I lost some weight. Five pounds to be exact. Dang. I'm happy about that, and feel like I can definitely move forward with this plan. Even with Thanksgiving tomorrow, and all the upcoming holiday goodness. I really feel like I'll be just fine. I will definitely keep you posted. :)

BOTB - Nervewracking and Amazing.

What an incredible three days! The Battle of the Band started on Thursday night with 10 bands. It continued Friday with another 10 bands, and then finally on Staurday CV got to play along with 9 other bands. So, a total of 30 bands competed. After all was said and done, we were nervous, and a little doubtful. Not because we don't have faith in these boys, but because there were ALOT of bands to contend with. There was definitely some talented bands and it made us nervous. But in the end, the boys prevailed and took home the grand prize of $2,500! Wow. Crazy, good stuff. The pictures that follow are from the night, in no organized order (which, yes ... will drive me crazy, but it's gonna have to do).
Our good friend Dave LaPlante and his daughter Michelle (middle girl) came out to support the boys, along with 4 of her friends and one of their dads. Yes, they were rockin' one of the new CV t-shirt designs.

Will and several of the guy's friends hanging out during the show.

The crowd as the boys took the stage.

This was actually taken after they had won.

Nice big group shot, with a few of their friends and fans.

What $2500 in very small bills looks like. Haha.

Whole group shot. They were super happy! Haha.

Before the announcement. Making us all wait.

Hugging and thanking the judges.

Kale and his BFF, Scarlett.

More of the crowd. Pretty busy night.

A final shot of the crowd.

Happy Anniversary!

To these two special people. Nathan and Jodie. We hope you have a spectacular anniversary! Any big plans??

We love you,
Shawn, Kristen, Austen, Kale and Bailey

Halloween Night.

All three kids were doing something different this year. Austen was at a CV show in Marysville, Kale was out strolling the streets of our neighborhood (and nearby neighborhoods) with his friends, and Bailey went to Lauren's to trick-or-treat over there and then spend the night.

This was Miss Bailey before I took her over to Lauren's. I love her hair! We curled it for Halloween. We had hoped to curl it for her party, but ran out of time. This was taken in our courtyard. Shawn and Kale had done up a little spookiness. They put up black plastic to darken the whole area, and then created a torn "door" that people had to walk through. They placed our creepy guy on a box (he's a little too short to be all that scary), and then had the huge light up pumpkins on each side. Lots of black lights, a single strobe light, the fog machine, and a "ghost" that flew back and forth. Just the perfect amount of scariness. Everyone who came through, kids and parents alike, really liked it.

This is just an adorable picture to me. I love her pretty face, her curly hair, the touch of make-up and the fog adds a nice touch.

This is my Halloween wreath. I copied the idea from Darcy and Alexa (thanks, guys!) It needs something. But this is how I put it up and figured maybe next year I'll add something to it.

Bailey's Halloween Bash ... October 30th.

Bailey's party was a great success. All the girls got along great and seemed to have a fun time.
Bailey had Lauren arrive a few minutes early. I guess that's one of the perks of being the BFF. :)

I tried using my 50mm lens inside (when I could). I really, really dislike using the flash, so most (maybe all??) of the photos were taken without a flash.

Here's the whole group: Bailey is a pirate, Maddie is a 50's Sock Hop girl, Lauren is Raggedy Ann, Alyssa is a Dark Angel, Cami is a Teen Pebbles, and Ridge is Tinkerbell.

Eating dinner: Spaghetti and Eyeballs.

Bailey had lots of games, activities and crafts planned. Here they are decorating fake pumpkins.

They also played hide and seek, some relay games, decorated cupcakes, played twister and watched movies. I was up super late (waiting for Austen to get home from a show in Elk Grove). I finally went to bed at about 12:15am. I was sooooo tired! The girls went home the next day between 9am and 10:30am (a few had soccer). I think Bailey was very happy with how everything went.

Carving Pumpkins ... last weekend.

Bailey had Lauren over last weekend to carve pumpkins and spend the night. They decided to work on the little pumpkins that we had picked out from the pumpkin patch.

This is Bailey's cute pumpkin. It kind of reminds me of Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas.

Here are both of the girl's pumpkins. Pretty darn cute.

Two Days Late and a Dollar Short (or Happy Belated Birthday Lil Bran!)

This adorable dude just had his 18th birthday. And did his Auntie post about it? No. Damn. I completely lost track of time. So, lil Bran ... we sure hope it was a big, wonderful birthday! You deserve it! We love you!

Happy Birthday Lexa Lou!

Oh, wow. I'm glad I got on here to post this. I have been lagging so much lately. I'm just gonna blame it on being busy. I wanted to be sure to wish Miss Lexa Lou a very Happy Halloween Birthday! We just love you so much, and can't believe where the time has gone? Hope you're birthday is perfect!

Pumpkin patch pictures from Sunday.

Bailey had mentioned that she really wanted to go to a real pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins this year. I was excited (curious?) to try out my new 50mm lens and then quickly realized it's a whole new ball of wax. Wow. I really, really love the ability to zoom in and out. I'm SO used to that. But obvioulsy with a fixed 50mm lens you can't do that. Drat. I'm taking an online photography class, and I'm getting more and more frustrated and confused by all there is to know/learn in relation to photography. The instructor strongly encouraged we get a 50mm lens. The main reason is the ability to blur the background of the picture, while keeping the subject in focus. I love the look, and hopefully will get better with lots of practice.
This picture of Bailey was my very first picture taken with the 50mm lens. It was very weird to hold the camera up and realize "crap" I've really got to back up. So I did. This shot turned out too dark and the background is boring, but otherwise a decent shot of Bailey.

This one was also too dark. Bummy. I'm sure I can fix it in photoshop, but for now will post as is. I love that Shawn wore orange. Haha. Not on purpose, I'm sure.

This one of Austen I was able to lighten up a little. Maybe too much? Blurry background = cool picture (in my opinion).

This was terrible. I had backed up as far as I could (right into a fence). It looks like the pumpkin is going to eat Bailey's head for a snack.

Kale insists on giving me grumpy looks when I take pictures. Especially when it takes me forever to get everything somewhat set up.

Shawn and Bailey fInding the perfect pumpkins.