Lucy! You got some 'splainin to do!

I continued my Halloween theme of "Theme Shmeme" and went with 3 totally unrelated costumes. Elli went as Cindy Lou Who from the Grinch. I actually sewed the fur on her hood myself! But the coolest part of her costume by far was her hair which surprisingly only took 15 minutes to style which is awesome since I had the privilege of getting her ready 3 times!

Addie's teacher this year is a huge "I Love Lucy" fan, so she started watching old episodes and then came across this costume idea online. It was really fun and she got a lot of compliments, but wigs are troublesome and itchy - a lesson learned the hard way.

Millie is still into princesses and wanted to be either Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella. I was so over princess costumes when she was deciding on who to be, but then I found out #4 was a boy and all of a sudden I am getting nostalgic over girly trends, especially the ones I know they grow out of.

Trunk or Treat - no costume contest this year, we're sure we had a winner - Bummer!

The girls and their friends.

Happy Haunting!

Theme Shmeme

For this Halloween I went with the parenting style "controlled expression". Textbook says if I pick a theme and have adorable coordinating pumpkins where I dictate how each pumpkin will look in detail, one day my children will rebel on me and perhaps start wearing black eyeliner with matching lipstick. That won't be so adorable anymore. Textbook also says if I get out all my craft accessories and paints and let them have at it, quote-unquote boundaryless (visual but less effective "boundaryless") they will crave limits and also one day rebel; this time by possibly wearing too-risque of a costume all in the name of Halloween. So I presented many options using my crafts and paints and had each one of them decide and then tell me step by step what their decorating plan was. Upon approval they began and I think they came out very cute by themselves, together they look like the Land of Misfit Jack-o-lanterns.

This is mine/Jason's.

I was going for the look "Yes, I can decorate a pumpkin without it looking girly".

Elli spray glittered her pumpkin then pinned ribbons.

Addie choose "Sequins & Pearls" not to be confused with Prince's "Diamonds & Pearls" or Auntie Cami's "Diamonds & Roses".

And Finally Millie wanted to match her costume this year with Cinderella's carriage.

Land of Misfit Pumpkins

Glass Bottom Can Kiss My...

On Thursday we took a glass bottom 2 1/2 hour reef tour leaving from Key Largo's Camp Pennekamp State Park. I followed the cruise director's advice and took 2 dramamine in plenty of time for it to take effect, but effect my body did not take. I didn't see one fish on this cruise as I spent most of my time on the top deck trying to get any fresh breeze and watching the horizon attempting to get my world to stop spinning.

But enough about me, the rest of our gang fared pretty well.

While still near the shore, with not much to see.

Father/Son bonding

Rock-a-bye Baby

Chillaxin

Here is how we spent the majority of our time:

Millie posing because if you have it - flaunt it!

The only natural curls a King-girl can get, one of the plusses to humidity.

Dance party. (To the Beat of my Heart, a Millie standard)

Yummy Blue Bell ice-cream, we miss that so from our AZ days.

And we discovered a delish new flavor - Caramel Kettle Cruch.

The Lagoon with the pier in back that Emily and Jason swam from.

BTW - Emily won.

BTWW - We walked down another day to let the kids jump from the dock but the nurse shark circling around persuaded us to change our plans.

The pool where we lounged many an hour, ready many a page of books and magazines, ate many a chips & salsa, and heard many a Marco/Polo callings.

Jason and the girls in the sea kayak

Jocelyn watching Jason and the girls in the sea kayak while lounging under a tiki hut.

We miss it already!

Day 4, Key West

Tuesday morning we took a break from swimming and drove an hour and a half to Key West. We started with a french breakfast at Banana Cafe where all 3 girls ordered a grande nutella and banana crepe and licked their plates clean! Then we were off for a 2 hour "train" tour through the historic streets of Key West that was really interesting for the adults, but with the heat and all the names and architectural details, the kids weren't so into it.

We headed to Louie's Backyard for lunch and then made our way over to the southernmost spot in the United States. This is about the point when the heat and humidity made me want to crawl under a rock, literally. But we pulled through and looked for spots of A/C while we waited to embark on our Sunset Booze Cruise.

We couldn't pass up this photo op.

While on the boat, they let the kids help hoist the sail, I'm not sure what they would have done without them!

Do we look sticky?

Ariel wannabe

Dance party on deck 3

Finally, sunset!

You might see this picture again on our Christmas card.

After a long, hot, humid day we couldn't wait to get back to our hotel, but our 80 mile drive took FOREVER because at night half of the drive we could only go 35 mph because of the "Key deer" that are endangered that might cross the road. We literally thought that drive might never end!

Florida Vacay - Day 1

We started our vacation taking the "red eye" from Los Angeles to Ft. Lauderdale thinking it would work perfectly. We would sleep the whole night and before we knew it, our 6 hour flight would be over. No such luck. We had no jackets and the plane was freezing, we had no blankets or pillows so we were incredibly uncomfortable, and the kids were so excited it took 3 hours for them to settle down. But alas, we rallied and made the most out of our first day.

Not too shabby for 3:30 CA time, 6:30 FL time, waiting for the rental car.

After a few cat naps and baths, they cleaned up pretty nicely for our first night out in the Florida Key Islamorada. Elli, Addie, Millie, and their Aunt Emily (Notice my inlaws view, while we were across the hall with the highly sought after "lagoon view")
My favorite meal of the trip at the Green Turtle with hearts of palm salad, scallops, and New Orleans BBQ Shrimp. Here we are with Jason's dad Les, Claudia, Emily, and us - me.
Our room at the Cheeca Resort was so nice, the bath was on the balcony with water coming from the ceiling. Novel, but really noisy.

Addie's Baptism

Addie was excited to get baptized, I think mostly to get to wear the white dress and get presents. But she was prepared to take this step and waited an extra month so her Roseville cousins could be there.

Above, her pictures we took before for the program,

below in the church dress she was baptized in.

Addie with Bishop Peterson

Grandma Joyce & Grandpa Kim

The Jamisons

The cousins sang a couple of songs during the program and Elli gave a talk.

Poppa & Linda

It was a wonderful day for Addie and our family, and she did get some really cool gifts!

Real Men Eat... Parfait

Happy Father's Day, Jason!

When I asked him what he wanted for breakfast, he requested chocolate croissants (cwa-sonts). To make it more of a special breakfast I made granola and rounded out the meal with yogurt and berry parfaits - and Jason loved it.

So here's to my girls father, who doesn't need meat/bacon and potatoes to be called "dad".

A-May-Zing

We have been planning on having an Amazing Race birthday party since the uber-creative Ms. Ranelle first executed this party for her daughter 4 years ago. But I knew I only wanted to do it once so I had to wait 'til Addie was old enough to combine the girls parties. Two birds...

Thanks to Jenny Stott for coming up with the logo in less than 5 minutes, she is amazing!
Since I couldn't be in more than one place at a time, I didn't get pictures from all the tasks. So a thousand words will have to do, more or less. The first challenge was sucking jello through a straw, the girls were so sick of jello by the end. The hair extension head bands were how we told the teams apart, totally unrelated to the show but that is what Dollartree had.
After jello they ran across the street to play play-doh charades, then off to my friends house to play jelly bean-boozled. They spun a wheel, landed on a color and had to eat that color jelly bean, the twist being that each color had one normal and one gross flavor that looked exactly alike: green could either be booger or pear, brown - chocolate pudding or dog food.

Next they were off to the park for Hoop Dreams where they either had to hula hoop for 30 seconds or make 3 baskets - a task that proved easy for 3 out of 4 teams.
They stayed at the park and had to find a buried puzzle and put it together with the help of their drivers who were a big help - big thanks to Uncle Bryce!

Their last challenge was to go to Target, find our babysitter Brianna, get the clue that said to find a certain color nail polish, return it to Bri, and then run to the yogurt shop. Uncle Bryce's team didn't read their clue and were the first to show up at the finish line. When they went back to Target they got the brunt of the first 3 teams running through the store and were escorted out by the manager. Oops.
Elli's team came in first, Addie came in third, and everyone had a great time! They got to serve themselves yogurt and open presents. Everything was perfect until we realized 2 days later we forgot to sing to them.


This party involved as many adults as kids so a big thanks to all who helped, so glad Grammi and Grandma could be here for this big day!