Cappuccino Christmas

The Women's Ministry of our church has a HUGE event each year called Cappuccino Christmas. There is live entertainment, beautiful tables hosted by different ladies from the church and a wonderful dinner served to all. I wasn't going to go this year but Stephenie invited me to sit with her family and I couldn't pass up a night to chat with her while watching her hubby do a little drama stuff on stage. I'm glad I went!

It was a night full of good friends!

Cute Babies

(do any of you bloggers know why it keeps turning my pictures???)

Lots of fun tables to look at...

And for the entertainment this year they did a live radio broadcast of It's a Wonderful Life...

and they did a really good job!

Summer Camp Cooks

Our church high school summer camp was this past weekend and somehow Kyle and I got invited (I mean suckered into) to come cook for all 70 of the people there. At first i was really looking forward to the cooking part but soon after realized it was at a camp ground and I don't do well at camp grounds. I fretted and stressed so much about this darn trip. Adia and Avery were out of town so all the shopping was done with just my 2,3 and 5 year olds with me. Yes, that means filling 2 flats at Costco or Sams per trip the few days leading up to the trip all on my own with the little monsters I call kids.



Anyway... the whole point of this post is that it actually turned out to be fun! I'm so happy to see that God is truly changing me and helping me become more of the person He made me to be. Our family made a great team, the food turned out good and we even squeezed in a bit of time for some fun! Plus, we got to know a lot of our church family that we had never met and we gained some respect for our crazy friend the Bri-guy for his super tough job!


Durning the cooking times I was usually too busy to pull out my camera so the pictures make this look like a vacation... let me assure you there was much more cooking and cleaning than playing. But here are a few of the pictures I got.

Here is where we did our cooking... this was our site.

Each meal we would set up a buffet line on the groups site and the OTS (opportunity to serve) team would serve the food, return the dishes and help us clean.

We ate as a family usually at our own site.

A couple times we got to sneak out on a boat with the kids while the students were doing devotions or early in the morning. Princess Adison showed her true princess colors the whole trip. The wind in her face "bothers my hair", "i don't like being so dirty all day and not being clean", "next time can you call Aunt Stacey and she can watch me"... Avery on the other hand LOVED it!

Although Adia hasn't been on a wakeboard in over a year she picked up right where she left off and by the end of the trip was catching some great air!

Kaden never went on the boats but he LOVED hanging out on the beach. Each morning he would get very upset if I din't put his swim shorts on right away.

And here is the Princess the morning after her fall on the fire pit... it was so scary! She was literally walking right next to me, triped over nothing and fell. It was really late and I saw a black line on her face so I wiped it but she was only crying about her finger so we were icing that. When she woke up we saw the damage on her face and felt so bad.

Two days after the fall it seems to be healing. ANd now it looks a lot better but I'm afraid there will for sure be a scar.

And that is it! I think I might be growing up!

Happy 30th Birthday Kyle!

Well my sweet hubby turned 30 the first weekend of October! He is such an awesome person and I so wanted to make sure he felt that on his special day. I tried to think of something he would love (which means it had to be cheap and has to include close friends). And I must say that I am so proud of myself for finally pulling off a surprise for him after 15 years of knowing him and never managing to do it before (and I have tried so many times). The big surprise was a trip to my family's cabin at Lake Shasta with a few of our closest friends and none of our kids (among the 14 kids we 4 couples represent we managed to get away with only 2 of them and since none of them belonged to Kyle he could care less!). We had such a great weekend with them and it was the perfect way to spend his last few days of youth!

Here are the party people!

Carolyn, myself and Jeanna -our first day on the boat.

Crazy Carolyn was the first to get in the COLD water... she is so fun!

Here is Carolyn and her hubby David - we worked really hard on him trying to look nice in pictures... something very hard for him to do. ALthough he is super nice for some reason his facial expressions don't always show that.

David on the slalom ski.

Jeanna got up on the wakeboard (every second counts)

and her poor feet payed a huge price for her victory!

Although after her hubby Brian got stuck in the boot for what seemed to be an hour I think maybe they are just babies and we need to get them some custom boots for next time. I do have pictures of Brian that look pretty cool out there but this one has to be my favorite.

Kyle, Bri-guy and David after finally getting Brian out of the wakeboard!

The Robertson gang.

Sweet little Jovie LOVED looking at the water and didn't seem to realize leaning

over the edge of a boat going fast is not the best idea!

Jovie, Stephenie and Travis.

They weren't with us on the first day out and unfortunately the 2nd day there was much colder.

Old men soaking their sore muscles after an exhausting day on the boat.

I enjoyed cooking for everyone and hopefully they enjoyed the food.

Game night! So fun! Kyle you can see is aging quickly as he yawned his way through the game.

Little Isaiah and Ky-guy!

You can't get the boys together without a little cards.

And here is their failed attempt at making me a yummy madori sour BLENDED!

Maybe next time right?

You couldn't bring this cute little baby and skip a photo session.

Isaiah is Brian and Jeanna's 5th baby

(2nd one they have been blessed with through adoption)

Travis really appreciated the cabin having the NFL ticket and although he wasn't cheering for the Cowboys we still let him watch the game. I guess he is used to a bigger TV because he stood 2 feet from it the whole game.

Thanks guys for an awesome weekend!

I hope this becomes an annual event for sure!
And since we got home the day before Kyle's real birthday I had to have a little party that day too. Kenyon picked a Transformers theme and since Kyle was transforming into an old man i thought it was perfect!

Thank you to my good friend Glory for helping with the desserts - so cute and so good!
Here is Kyle's grand entrance.
Do you like how nicely I dressed up the kids for the event?

Just a few of the people who agree that Kyle is so worth a celebration!

You can't have a party with our friends and not provide 2 bounce houses to keep the kiddos (around 30 of them) entertained (and outside).

I think Kyle's favorite part (well not really) was that I had put up pictures of him throughout his life to embarrass him and give our friends some great things to tease him about from here on out! Notice the one of him dressed like a cheerleader!

Happy Birthday Kyle -

I love you and hope you enjoyed your parties!

Fun with Friends

Last weekend we had a nice little trip to San Jose with our friends - The Holcomb Family. My parents were out of town and we took over their crazy ranch and house. It all got planned because the USA mens olympic team was in town to play and Kyle and David decided to make a family vacation out of it to keep the wives on board with the idea. I'm glad they did because it was such a treat to be with friends for an extended time. I will let you all know next time my parents leave town and we can take over again. Oh and if you are wondering why there are 12 kids in the pictures that would be our 5 kids, plus Adia's volleyball friend, plus my 3 nieces who I always get to have in San Jose and the Holcomb's 3 kids... it seriously felt like we were running a camp - especially at meal times.


Of course the kids started our time there visiting all the animals and riding horses. THANK YOU Louisa for helping make that happen! It was so cute when Stevie (Kenyons friend) after seeing the bunnies, goats, pigs, horses, donkeys and more said "I want to go see the giraffes now". Here are just a few of the fun ranch pictures...




Next stop - the pool!





And of course the highlight of the trip - THE BEACH!!! As you can see by the pictures my friend Carolyn is much more fun than me and sat in the freezing water catching crabs with all the kids.

Adia still loves it...

Adison and Erin - how can 2 beautiful girls be such trouble?

Sand baby!

Looking for crabs

Could Lauren get any prettier???

Kenyon and Stevie racing the waves

precious father son shot

Avery my camera loving gifl!
my beautiful neices really need to work on the whole being followed by a camera thing - they did NOT like it!

Yeah for good friends!

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