OSF

So, as some of you remembered,  Sunday was my big day where I had to stand in front of our WHOLE church!!  ANd yes, when i got up there i toatly froze and forgot what I was supposed to say. lol.  It was so embarassing. lol. But Father Joe just made a big joke out of it and said how he had a cheat sheet and I didn't and reminded me what I was supposed to say. lol.

Afterwards there was a big breakfast for everyone so we could all hang out and talk. But the kids didn't want breakfast. lol. Instead we all went out to The Old Spagetti Factory for lunch.  This was Logan's first trip there.

Avalon and Nolan are always asking to sit in the trolley. But it is so crowded in there.  But this time we got there right when it opened so there was no one else in there. So we ate our lunch in the trolley.  Avalon and Nolan pretended we were moving. lol. And everytime the waitress sat some one down at a table outside the trolley Avalon and Nolan would wave at them and tell them they were going on a trip.  I dont think they bugged anyone. lol. Most everyone laughed and told them to have fun and to bring them back a gift. :o)

I haven't been inside the Trolley since I was a kid.  But inside are akk these little posters that tell you interesting facts about Riverside.  Which I thought was pretty cool. :o)

And of course no trip would be complete at OSF without stopping by the arcarde before leaving. ;-)

Happy Halloween

Saturday afternoon we headed off to Hemet to go spend the day and go trick-or-treating with the Stone Family. :o)  We had so much fun.  We have all been trick-or-treating together for the last 5 years. Except for last year we didn't go together. And we both had lame results. lol. Neither of our kids made out with a lot of candy. So, lesson learned. We stick together!! lol :o)

Earlier that morning the kids and I made a trip out to Corona to pick up a taggie blanket I bought off of craigslist for Logan.  Logan loves this blanket. It has soft ones for him to rub between his fingers which he does while he is putting himself to sleep.  It also has a little rough ribbons that he likes to chew on.  The lady was sooo nice too and she is making a custom one for me to give to Jaydon.  They are pretty easy to make. But if you don't want to and just want to buy one let me know. :o) And I will send you her email address.

Logan LOVES it! :o)

Dan and Jason BBQ'd for all of us. Dan was very excited to grill bacon wrapped shrimp. But i forgot the peppers. So, they were really good. But missing that little piece. :o)

Michelle made all kinds of yummy snack for us to munch on:

Michelle and I decided to tattoo the babies. lol. Jaydon loved it. Look at his big ol smile:

Logan, ehhh, not so much.  He started crying. But afterwards he didn't mind it.

Michelle and Jason got this new puppy Crimson.  Avalon and Nolan wouldn't put that puppy down all night long.  They wanted to keep it so bad.

Then before we knew it, it was time to go trick-or-treating.

I know this isn't a very good picture of Jaydon in the cutest halloween costume ever! lol. But look at the way the sky came out in the backround. It didn't really look like that so I dont know why it came out like that. But it looks cool. :o)

Me and Logan trick-or-treating:

Me and Michelle:

Michelle kept switching costumes. lol. This one was the best!!

Dan and I.  The kids always pick costumes with masks. But then they never ever wear the masks.

Jason and his crazy make-up that Michelle did. Good job Michelle. :o)

I don't know. apperently Jason found a house where they were handing out beer: The funny part was when he tried ot drink it with his vampire teeth in.

Nolan sat down after every house and went throughhis bucket and took a rest because he was tired. lol

Avalon and her new BFF Samantha. Why? Because Samantha went trick-or-treating in high heel shoes which now makes her Avalon's idol. lol

P.S. - the new layout does not have spell check!!! I am doomed. haha. So sorry for anything i missed.

Halloween Party(ish) # 3

I am so behind. on everything. There just aren't enough hours in the day or days in the week. lol. Here was our last and final Halloween(ish) party. I say ish because we went to the pumpkin patch. So, I don’t really know if it counted as a party. But we went with a great group of friends so I count it. lol.

So at the beginning of the month we headed out to The Pumpkin Patch in Redlands with our MOMS Club friends. It was so much fun and we had a total blast!!

Here is the pick your own pumpkin field we drove through while on the hay ride:

Logan had a ton of fun. lol. Can't you tell by his enthusiastic face:

After the hayride they had a little outdoor classroom where we got to go and learn all about how pumpkins are grown and all the different kinds and what each different kind would be best used for.

Then it was off to the petting zoo to feed and pet all the goats. All of the kids loved it. As soon as we walked in though Avalon was pretty much attacked by the goats and separated from the group. The goats kept trying to eat her dress. Avalon is showing them she has no food in her hands so they will leave her alone.

Nolan is like whatever man. He had a blast!

All the kids LOVED the little baby goats. They were sooo adorable.

Afterwards we all got to go over to this wagon and pick put any pumpkin we wanted. To me the pumpkins all looked the same. But the kids all took FOREVER to pick out the perfect pumpkin. Nolan had about 5 or 6 lined up and was testing which one weighed the most and asking which one was the most round and the biggest. He had a pretty big criteria. I however did not listen to our guide and I picked up my pumpkin by it's hat and not by it's belly. :o( And my stem broke off. lol

I tried to get a picture of Logan on the wagon with the pumpkins. But there is a big sign that says you can’t sit/touch/climb on the wagon. And I was trying to be super quick so I wouldn't get caught by our guide. lol. So, this was the best picture. He is totally distracted by the pumpkins. lol

After the tour was over we all went over to the crazy Hay Castle. The kids were all over that thing. Except Avalon. Who got all upset because they hay was sticking to her tights and making her legs all itchy. It so hard being a girly girl. lol

Avalon loved the white pumpkins the best!!

And as all of you know after reading my facebook page, after all this we walked over to the games area with all the jumpers and the obstacle courses and stuff. Now, I was warned by Michelle that this place is a little more expensive then our regular place we used to go to. BUT OH MY GOSH! I still was in shock! To me it was just insane!!

However, when we left they gave us a coloring book for each of the kids. And inside of it was all kinds of crazy coupons. Plus we went back to bakers and bought even more of their Halloween coupon books. So, we made plans with Aunt Nikol to go back later that weekend. And we got to use all our awesome coupons. :o) Then Aunt Nikol worked some magic and we ended up getting to go on almost all the rides for free. Even Nikol and I got to go on the slides and obstacle courses. lol So for me that made up for their outrages prices. Plus we got to use all the coupons too. :o)

Here is the kids back in the petting zoo. This time they didn't get attacked by any goats. They had so much fun. We probably spent about 40 minutes in here.

Aunt Nikol bought everyone Pizza and Ice Cream:

Aunt Nikol with her awesome new haircut. I think she looks sooo cute!!

Avalon and Nolan telling Aunt Nikol she is the BEST AUNT EVER! It's pretty easy to make my kids happy I guess. The bright side is they are always telling me how everyone is their favorite or the bestest ever. And then they usually had the either the BESTEST day Ever in their whole lives and thank you thank you thank you. Or it was the WORSTEST day ever and why did I dare to think they would have a good time and why did I make them come. lol. There is no in-between with them on outings. Luckily for me they usually had a good time.

I wish I would have gotten a better picture of this. But in the morning I threw Avalon’s hair up into a messy ponytail on the top of her head because I didn’t want her to get it wet while taking a shower. Then she thought it looked like the Japanese girls hair and wanted to keep it that way. So I had to redo it and make it all poofy on her head. To me it looked more like Britney Spears. lol. You know how she always has that messy ponytail on top of her head and it looks like she didn't brush her hair.

And finally, for our last picture, Aunt Nikol pretending to be lost in the corn maze:

All I want for Christmas.....

Just don't ask her to smile for you.

She gets all mad. lol

Or just does the classic fake smile. Like her faec is gonna break.

But if your really quick.... you'll get a good one. :o)

Halloween Party #2

Saturday we had another Halloween Party. This time just a small one with some of our best and closest friends. The kids were all excited to see each other again and to play. And it was so fun seeing them all together. We played a ton of fun games.

Like Twister:

And musical chairs:

We did our own funky way of bobbing for apples. Since it is the sick season we didn't want any of the kids spreading germs and getting sick. Plus they really liked this way better:

Then we had a big silly string fight:

Jaydon and Logan in their Halloween costumes. Isn't Jaydon like the cutest thing you have ever seen?

I was super super busy the week before and was having a hard time finding the time to go get all the stuff together for the party. So Michelle and Jason offered to co host the party. :o) They made super yummy food. Like all different kinds of sandwiches in Halloween shapes. Pumpkins, ghosts, cats, and bats. Everyone loved them:
And they brought over all kinds of decorations and decorated the whole house. Like these spooky guys:Thanks to everyone who came. We missed you guys and it was so nice finally catching up again with everyone. Can't wait till the next time. We had such an awesome time thanks to all of you. :o)
And here are some of my favorite pictures I took that day. I have been really practicing a lot with my camera lately. I still think I have a long long way to go. But I do think I am getting a little better. :o) I keep telling myself if only I had a better lens. If only I had a better body. If only I had photoshop. lol. But, I keep reading on mom*tog over and over that you don't need the best lens, the newest body or fancy editing software to take great pictures. So, I figure until I can get some really good ones with what I have there is probably no point in spending money upgrading anything. lol

Hummm... I tried to get all the kids. I don't know how I missed Carlie. :o( I will have to try to get her again next time. And I got Andrew but all his came out blurry. I still have a little trouble focusing. But, I have totally gave up on trying to manual focus with the kids. I can only practice that when I have something that wont move. HA ha!!

The fustrating part for me is all the classes and the workshops and everything that I am just ding to take because I keep telling myself I will be sooo much better are all aimed at people who want to go professional. And I don't want to go professional. I have Jessica and Amanda. Two of the best most amazing photographers I know. :o) I just like doing it as a little hobby and want to get better. But I can't really justify spending all that money on classes and workshops and photoshop. So, I guess I will just keep working with what i have. lol

Poor Emma

Avalon: What's wrong with Emma?

Dan: I took her to the vet.

Avalon: why?

Dan: So the Vet could give Emma surgery so she won't have any babies.

Avalon: Wahhhhhhhhhh! Why? Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Poor Emma! She will never be a mommy. (hysterical crying)

Dan: ummmm....opps.

Don't worry Dan. I think Emma is sad too. :o(

Poor Emma. She wasn't allowed to eat anything the day of the surgery. Then she wouldn't eat all night last night. Dan was able to feed her 1\4 can of wet food this morning but that was it. Anytime she doesn't eat she gets sooooo skinny. It's so sad. :o( I don't know what is with her. We feed her all the time. The vet said she is healthy. But she always looks so skinny to me.



She is getting lots and lots of love and attention. So she probably is feeling ok about it. lol.

Halloween Party - #1

Last Friday was our Halloween Party with our MOMS Club. It was so much fun.

All the kids had a blast. Lori, Tracy, and Mandy really did an awesome job and had a ton of fun games and yummy treats. :o)

I have realized it's a lot harder to take pictures when you are lugging around a 17 pound baby that likes to grab at the camera. lol. Basically you just get what you can and don't worry about what you miss. :o)

Here are some picture from the party. There were so many awesome costumes. Avalon won 3rd place in the costume contest. :o) She was sooo excited. There was also a Optimus Prime, a Megatron, and Nolan was bumble Bee. lol.

Family Pictures - 2009

Finally!! There is a picture of my whole family. This has been the best gift I could have received this year. :o) Thank you so much Amanda!! You are so amazing. Everyone else go check out Amanda's blog http://www.amandapatriceblog.com/ to see the rest of our pictures. They are so awesome!!!

Camp Spooky

Last Saturday was our annual Wagner Family/Valenzuela Family day at Camp Spooky. Vicki wasn't feeling too good but was a huge trooper and still spent the day with us. All the kids had a blast. Avalon was finally tall enough to go on a lot of the bigger rides. So she was super excited. Which also caused a little bit of a problem with Nolan who for the first time had to watch Avalon go on rides that he was too small for. :o( But, it gives him something to look forward too I guess. :o) Ryan is like the perfect kid. He could care less what rides he goes on. As long as he goes. Which is a big difference from that first year he went. I think he was barley 18 months old. He didn't want to get off any of the rides because he thought they were only doing that ride. It took half the day for him to realize that there were lots of rides and we were gonna do all of them. It was so funny watching other parents this year going through that very same thing. lol.

You can view all the pictures here.

Family Fun Day

I am a week late posting this. But i just barley got all the pictures downloaded. Thanks everyone! :o) I couldn't take any pictures because i was at the booth all day.

Here is our booth. We did such a great job decorating didn't we? Very basketball looking. Dan eating lunch. lol. We have a picture of someone in our family doing this at every single fair or picnic or carnival we have ever gone too. lol. This year it was Dan's turn. We are weird. I know. (p.s. Our booth was actually sponsored by Bill's Handy Services 714.350.3036. But there was some confusion when they signs were made. But if you need anything done you should definitely call Bill's Handy Services. He is the best.)

These 3 boys spent the whole day at our booth and probably about $40 each and never won a prize. You had to make 3 baskets in a row to win and they kept only making two. It was so sad. lol. I wanted to just give them a ball anyways for trying. But we were specifically told not to and that we would all be watched to see if we were handing out prizes to people. But i really wanted to give them SOMETHING!! :o( But good news was they had a blast and for whatever reason they thought Dan was the coolest person they had ever met. No matter what Dan said they would think it was sooooo funny and just start cracking up.

These girls told us they weren't very good at basketball. Then they made every single shot no matter how far back we put them. Turned out they were on the girls varsity basketball team. lol. Each girl won 5 times. Then we had to cut them off and tell them they weren't allowed to play anymore because we were running out of prizes.The Valenzuela Family came down for the day and hung out with us. Monkey LOVED the basketball game and kept asking everyone "don't you want to throw the basketball again?" He was a great PR guy for us. haha! he was so cute how could you say no. He just kept wanting to play the game over and over.But then I lured him away for a little bit over to the jump houses and the giant slide. All the kids loved that area. They even had a velcro wall. Here is Vicki stuck to the wall.Here is Nolan suiting up to be thrown up on the Velcro wall.Doesn't he look soooo cute? :o) Of course the battery in my camera died right after this picture. So there is no picture of Nolan stuck to the Velcro wall. :o( Avalon said Nolan got stuck and papa had to peel him off the wall. So she was too scared to try it herself. So Gma took her to go play bingo. And of course Avalon won a pedicure gift set with a gift certificate to go and get a pedicure. Which is so perfect for Avalon because she LOVES getting pedicures. Then Gma took her over to get her face painted. So pretty. :o)

Aunt Nikol came with Uncle Anthony and Aunt Rose. And My Grandpa and my dad came. And Aunt Nikol also brought two of her friends Caleb and Kelsi to come spend all their money at our fair. :o) Everyone had a good time. The food was really really good. Especially for being at a carnival i thought. Then we all went and played a few of the littler kid games. I did the cake walk 5 times!! and all 5 times half of the people were Wagner/Cokers/Valenzuela's people and we still lost all 5 times!!! How is that? lol. Everyone loved this rubber duck racing game. It was fun. You had to shoot them with a water bottle and who ever got to the other end first won. Of course Avalon and Nolan both won. Avalon looks shocked.

Aunt Nikol and Ryan at the pumpkin patch:

Everyone hanging out in our booth:

Everyone getting ready to leave. The Valenzuela's had already left. So Vicki is missing in this picture. :o(

Me and Dan almost at the end of our 11 hour shift:

Nolan crying because he doesn't want to go home. He wants to stay at work at the booth with us
. Even though it is like 7pm and he has been there all day and is exhausted.

Photo Contest

I entered this picture in to the Pioneer Woman Photography Contest. lol. You had to use textures to enter. I don't really know anything about textures. haha. There are some super fabulous pictures and i know i am not even close to actually winning or anything. lol. But it was still fun to enter. :o) Pretty much 90% of the people that enter are professional photographers. I don't even own photoshop. haha. But i still think it came out cute. :o) But, I did feel a little stupid for entering because up against professionals i don't stand a chance. But oh well.

I'd also like to point out that i have entered every single contest she has ever had on her site since 2007. lol. And I have yet to win a single one. But there are about 12,000 other people that can say that exact very same thing. And somehow, that makes me feel better. :o) (btw, the third one, the lady in the hat with the writing, is my favorite!!) (btw again, the 16th one down, the kids sitting on the railroad tracks, Dan hates when people do that. even just for a photo. he can't stand when people play on the railroad tracks. he always says "you think you will hear a train coming, but you will be surprised how many times you won't hear it". Or "what if your foot got stuck?" "what if you slipped?")

I like this one better. :o) But no texture. So i couldn't submit it.

I like this one too. He tried to eat the bubbles. Goofball

Tranformers Roll Out!!

Would he be anything else? lol. Nolan has been obsessed with Transformers since the first time my mom brought the dvd over to watch it. And he cried and made us pause it because he thought bumble bee died and he just couldn't keep watching it he was so upset.

Last year we waited to long to buy a Transformers Costume and they were all sold out. :o( So this year Vicki and I just happened to be at Wal-Mart and I saw the Bumble Bee costume and I just bought it right then. Even though it was still September. haha. But I couldn't miss out on it twice.

Nolan had a hard time deciding who to be. In June Party City sent us an add in the mail with Halloween costumes. And Nolan went back and forth on Bumble Bee, Optimus Prime, and Megatron. But in the end we all knew he would pick Bumble Bee. lol

Then Dan took him a few weeks ago and got him the gun that goes with the costume. Nolan hasn't let it out if his sight since. He even sleeps with it every night. Except of course for the day we went to my dads to take pictures. Of all days we would forget it that day. lol.

So, as you all know my house is SOOOO super dark and it is impossible to take any pictures. :o( But then I read this handy tip on Mom*Tog about taking pictures in your garage so you can have more light. Only instead of doing that I had Nolan stand in front of the sliding glass door. And I stood outside to take the pictures. And I think it worked out pretty good. We also used another tip about using blankets and fabrics for backdrops. And we used Nolan's Transformers bedspread as the backdrop. :o)

And just for fun i went on http://www.picnik.com/ and made this cool looking (to me anyways) ghost effect picture. SPOOKY....... (ok, maybe not really spooky)

Dinner Time

This is what we do for fun during dinner time at our house. lol. A physic's lesson maybe? lol Dan was shocked that i have never seen this before.

Ribbit Ribbit

Logan is going to be a frog for Halloween.

If I actually had any videos of him when he first started crawling then you all would think it is as funny as we do.

Because he hopped around like a frog. lol (p.s. - last weekend Logan started sitting up by himself. yay!)

Even though this picture came out blurry because he moved and was soooooo close to the lens I couldn't focus. It is still one of my most favoriteset ever pictures of him because he is actually smiling. Usually when ever i whip out the camera he stares at it and refuses to smile. :o)

This picture is so our lives. lol. Avalon sitting patiently, quietly on the stool watching tv. And Nolan in the backround being all crazy and jumping off the couch.

Meet my sister Rose

Sunday Dan and the kids and I went over to my grandpa's house to visit with him and my dad. And also so that my dad could get some pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes. Nikol brought over Rose and Anthony so we could all hang out together for the day. :o)

After my dad got done taking pictures of the kids I was asking my dad to take pictures of Rose with Logan and Nikol with Logan and Rose and Nikol together. lol.

Then Nikol had Rose put on Avalon's Halloween costume and i took some pictures of that. lol. I can't believe Rose is skinny enough to wear a 6 year old's skirt. lol. To be young again. haha.

I had a bunch of really cool pictures I got of her dancing around like a ballerina and goofing off. But i had to put on my kit lens for those ones and I guess it was too dark because they all came out blurry. :o(