Oohh yeah, it's twilight baby!!

Well, the time had finally arrived for the midnight showing of twilight, and boy, was it ever crazy. We got to the theatre 3 1/2 hours before the show began and there was still a line of people (mostly young girls, of course) wrapped all the way around the theatre and out along the main road.

Here is a shot I took of the line, which doesn't even do justice to just how many of us insane fans were there.Brittani was lucky enough to get to bring along one of her best friends, Delaney. Considering it was a school night for both of them, and we didn't get home until 2:30 am, I think we just might be the coolest moms ever- if I do say so myself!

Once we got inside, there was still more waiting. Here we are fast asleep dreaming of Edward. Ha, Ha. Oh, and by the way, even though we were sooooo early, we still ended up in the 2nd row if you can believe it!!
Like I said, we had A LOT of time on ours hands, or should I say feet? Don't we have the cutest shoes ever? Anyway, the movie was definitely worth the wait. Although, I do have to say I wanted to LOVE it, and the first time I saw it, I just really LIKED it. But...do not despair, because the second time I saw it, which was later that same day, I LOVED it. I don't know why that is. The first time seemed kind of choppy, but the second seemed to flow much better for me. I did miss out on some of my most favorite lines like, "Do I dazzle you? Frequently," "If I could dream at all, it would be about you," and "Stupid, shiny Volvo owner." Otherwise, I loved the music, baseball scene, and of course...Edward. Aaaahhhh.

Bella's been re-cast!!

Check out the new Bella Swan!!

Steve did this picture of Brittani with the twilight cast for her birthday- she turns 14 today. Can you believe it? I can't, and I had her!
Happy Birthday Brittani!!

Midnight showing. . . here we come!!

Brittani, Julie, Dawn, Brandi, and I have a girls night out planned for Thursday, November 21, 2008 at 12:01 am, along with about a thousand other crazy girls. Of course, this is the first official showing of Twilight and you better believe that we will be there with our Dr. Pepper IV's!! And...not to mention, our really sparkley, homemade "I Love Edward" t-shirts. And yes, we our in love with a 90 year old fictional vampire! That's just how we roll, you got a problem with that?!?!

Remember when...

In honor of Zachary's 1st Halloween, I had to post this picture. My last two posts have been about him, so I decided to keep it going and continue "the love."

By the way, this was back in the day when I sewed all the kids costumes. I didn't actually sew Zach's, but I put it all together myself. I did sew both Brittani's Jessie costume and Hayli's Minnie costume though.

Another "Zach-ism"

We were at the Fall Festival at the kid's school on Friday and Zach hands me a carnival ticket and says, "Here you go mom... get yourself something nice."

Now when you read this, you have to read it with "an accent" like you're REALLY doing someone a BIG favor. Something like from the 1920's or 30's will do.

That's my boy!

Not to boast or anything, but I just had to share this compliment that Zach gave me today. He was in the shower and asked me to get him a towel for the ground so he wouldn't get it wet. I went and got one and put it on the ground. He said, "Thanks mom, you're the best mom anyone could ever dream of. Who wouldn't want a mom like you." Wow, just for putting down a towel for him to step out of the shower onto! I should do that more often... I didn't even get that kind of praise for staying up with him two nights ago and cleaning up the mess when he was puking!! Man, I just needed to lay down a towel. Who would of thought...

It's the GREAT pumpkin, Charlie Brown...

It was the perfect fall day in usually sunny LA, that we went to the local pumpkin patch/ranch to get our pumpkins for Halloween this year. It was rainy and cloudy and actually the first day in over 6 months that Zach wore pants! (except to church, of course) Now, if you know him at all, you would know that is a grand feat in itself.

We continued our "3rd" annual tradition of going to Lombardi's Ranch with Christopher and Chloe. It was a lot of fun, but dirty, muddy fun too! Chloe looked like Pigpen from the Peanuts when she was done!

Here are the kids being "Headless" in Scarecrow Alley next to their least favorite scarecrow- Hannah Montana! Apparently, it was soooo bad, they didn't dare look!

The happiest place on earth???

Yes, we were at the "happiest place on earth" but you couldn't tell by looking at our faces!!! Wow, I promise we were having fun, I guess Zach and I are just very serious about getting our laser beams onto the targets. We had a bet going about who could get the highest score. I said if I got the highest score he had to be my slave for a day. Zach said that if he got the highest score he got to pick all of the rides we went on after Buzz Lightyear. I guess I would make a terrible slave so he picked something better... Oh, by the way, I won! So, get ready to start cleaning dude!!

Man, I'm old...

Okay, so I was looking at some old pictures today, so old that they had to be scanned into the computer. Yeah, this was way before digital, people. Anyway, I came across this one and then I felt REALLY old. Here is my now 13 year old with her grandma, (who, by the way, looks exactly the same) and her uncle who was about 13 years old at the time. Wow! That's about all I can say!

J & J

Over Labor Day weekend we were able to go and visit Che and Krista and their two beautiful little girls, (my nieces), Jacey and Jayden. Jacey just turned 2 this past month, and Jayden is about 7 months old. Che, correct me if I am wrong. Jacey showed us her room and we colored some pictures and read a book together. We also tried to play the farm animal matching game we gave her for her birthday. Jacey LOVES Finding Nemo, and wants to watch it everyday. I am sure next week she will have a new favorite. Jayden is getting SO big. She is very active and such a happy baby, although she did have a little cold, she was still happy! We were so glad we were able to see them, and of course, Che and Krista too!

Yosemite 2008

All the girls, adults and kids, bought "Let's Have S'more Fun" t-shirts this year and we wore them all on the same day. I thought we looked adorable. Be on the look out for next year's tee.

Here is just a small sample of some of my favorite pictures from Yosemite this year. We had a big crowd this year which was ALOT of fun! Even Grandma and Grandpa, and Steve and Laura came. Can't wait until next year for another annual excursion to one of our favorite places on earth!! We hope even more family will join us next time! What do ya say?

We always go hang out at "the beach" well, that's what we like to call it; it's actually Lake Merced. We take the inner tubes and float around in the beautiful surroundings! Except when Steve's around, then you "plunge" right into the ice cold water instead!


Christopher decided to take a little break and meditate in the middle of a hike we were on. I thought it was soooo hilarious. Although, he could be on the right track, how many times I would like to just stop everything I am doing and just "veg".

Yeah, Brittani is all "growed" up now and just one of the adults. She's lucky she has such cool adults to hang around!!:)

FINALLY!!

Well, August 2, 2008 finally arrived, and us girls couldn't have been happier. As you can see, that was the day Breaking Dawn was released. Yeah Baby! Although, the date was a bit of an inconvience because we were tent camping in Yosemite at the time. But, that wasn't going to keep us from our book, and our Edward. I called a local book store in Oakhurst, a little town outside of Yosemite, and reserved 5 copies for us. We just had to drive 3 hours round trip down the windiest road in California in the middle of the night, to go and pick them up. No problem. By the way, it was worth every minute!!
Don't you love our "I love Edward" t-shirts?! We made them ourselves in Yosemite. Nothing like doing arts and crafts in the great outdoors. It was fun, and Brittani and I are able to have a nice mother-daughter bonding experience. She finished the book before me because I had a test in one of my classes I am taking during the summer, and studying for that slowed down my reading, but I finished within 4 days, and it was AWESOME!! I loved the ending, but that's all I'm gonna say!!

Yay for Cub Scouts!!

Zachary is now in Cub Scouts because he turned eight. I thought he looked so handsome in his uniform that I had to post a pic. He loves going to the activities every week, and lucky for me Brittani has Young Women at the same time...so only one trip to the church. Well, except for when Hayli has Activity Days. But, I'll take two trips over three any day!!

Zach is baptized, hooray!

Well, on July 12, 2008 my little Zachary David was baptized at the age of 8, into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Yeah, for you Zach! Congratulations, we are all sooooo very proud of you.
Lots of family came up for the big day. Here we are with Zachary's Grandma and Grandpa Hawkins! Zach was baptized by his Grandpa, don't they look handsome in their white jumpsuits?!
Of course, we had to get a group shot of all the cousins. Aren't they the cutest cousins you've ever seen?!
Yo, yo, yo. Calling all the ladies...
Even Zachary's Great-Grandma Myrosh and Great-Auntie Mary traveled 6 hours round trip for Zachary's baptism. Thanks so much to everyone that was able to make it. It was a special day for Zachary and our family, and it was nice to share it with family and friends.

Macy's baby blessing

Of course, the most important reason that we went to San Diego for the 4th of July, was for Macy's baby blessing. Let me just say that we weren't the only ones who came. Wow, there were ALOT of people there. Macy, you are one loved baby!
Here are Macy with her loving parents, Chris and Kristen, with their loving parents, Tony and Nina.

Here are the rowdy cousins. Hey, where's Macy? She needs to get in there next time!

Chris gave Macy a very sweet and special blessing and the Fast and Testimony meeting was very spiritual too. Many family members bore their testimonies and we could all feel the spirit and the love we have for each other in the family!

4th of July

Like I said in my last post, for the Fourth of July we went down to San Diego to visit family. We had a blast going to the beach in La Jolla. The kids had fun boogie boarding and playing in the sand. The adults had fun eating yummy fajitas that Kristen's family made. Deeeelicious!
Chris is always the fun uncle, (and now dad), that likes to play in the sand with the kids. They are always finding interesting creatures to bring back to us. Crabs, starfish, jellyfish...you name it, they find it. And yes Alissa, this is the one who wears brown, as you can see by the picture!
Grandpa always takes good care of his grandkids. Here he is with Chloe. I thought this picture was adorable. Just taking a stroll down the beach...
Wow, Steve has been working out. Love the six pack! The kids and adults, had fun bulking Steve up. It was even more fun to see him try to get out of this!
In keeping with our usual tradition, we stayed at the beach ALL day and into the night so that we could watch the fireworks. Steve took some cool pictures of the fireworks, so I thought I would share one.

Book club...

Well, for the fourth of July we went to San Diego to visit family. Of course, I had just purchased Twilight and got it in the mail the day before, so I had to bring it. Brittani was way ahead of me, already on book 3, Eclipse. And Julie, was on book 2, New Moon. We were all so into our books that weekend that we couldn't stop reading, and Steve took this picture. It wasn't planned at all, but here we are...Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse...all in a row. How funny! Well, I have to say I ended up finishing all three books in less than a week, so now I am done and waiting for book 4, Breaking Dawn, to come out on August 2nd. Can't wait! By the way, I am officially obsessed with Edward! And I can't wait til the movie in December!!

Beach blanket bingo baby...

So, the week after we got back from Bass Lake, Julie and Cyrus were lucky enough to go to Hawaii and we watched the kids for them for the week. We had fun going to the beach.
I just love this picture of Brittani and Chloe. What cute cousins!!
Hayli kept trying to get Chloe to stand up in the sand, but Chloe wasn't havin' it. She did NOT want to get down. We were cracking up at the "death grip" Chloe had on Hayli.
Here is the gang at Ventura beach. I love the beach, it's one of my most favorite places to be.

The need for speed...

The first week of summer break we took our family vacation. We went to Bass Lake, which is about an hour south of Yosemite. We rented a speed boat for 5 hours one of the days and had fun tubing, relaxing, and of course...fishing. (unfortunately we didn't catch anything, though)
Here are Zach and I on the tube. Dave went pretty fast, but we only fell off a couple times. The water was surprisingly nice. Not really warm, but it wasn't cold either.
Dave was brave enough to let me drive the speed boat so that he could have a turn on the tube. Well, let's just say, he's not the only one who likes to drive fast. I think it was my mission to knock him off that tube, and well, mission accomplished!
Here is the Chalet that we stayed in. It was actually quite nice. Older, but nice. It had a bedroom and bathroom downstairs, and a living room with a kitchen and a loft, upstairs. The kids LOVED the loft. They would go up there and play games, it was nice.
The day we arrived was Father's day, so we celebrated at Bass Lake. Which if you know Dave at all, is very appropriate. We gave him this cool Bass magnet. We like to collect magnets. This was our first time at Bass Lake and we definately plan to return again!!

It's GREAT to be eight!!

On June 13th it was the last day of school, and what better way to celebrate than to have a party! Zach had his eighth birthday party at Scooter's Jungle! It has private party rooms that are just for your own group that have giant inflatable slides, jumpies, and swings etc.
Here I am going down the slide. The fun is not just for the kids, ya know.
Here is Zach on his "royal thrown" opening his birthday gifts. This one is from Julie, Cy, Chris, and Chloe.
Yes, I told you, we LOVE Costco cake. Here is Zach with his. Yum, Yum. By the way, our Costco does the best designs.
As you can see from this pic, Zach definately had A LOT of fun. Man, is he sweaty. Well, that's my boy! Happy birthday buddy!