Fun with Grandma & Grandpa

This last weekend was busy and fun. It all started last week where we celebrated the end of soccer for Grace with a pizza party. The girls had a great time signing soccer balls and playing the arcade games. We thought our season was over, but to our surprise Grace was selected to play in the all-star game under the lights.

Grandma Annie flew in to see us on Tuesday night. The kids were off of school on Wednesday for Veterans day so we enjoyed hanging out together. We had a picnic lunch at the park and played lots of games. That night Grandpa flew in as well. The kids were so excited! They loved playing with Grandpa!

On Thursday evening the kids went out with Grandma and Grandpa while Chris and I went out on a much needed date. We got to see The Martian and really enjoyed it. It was nice to be out and about on our own. 

Friday night was the big all-star game. The theme was the World Cup, and Grace was on team England. It was great to get Grandma cheering for England! The game went really well, and Grace even scored a goal! It was so fun for all of us. Her team won and we went out for ice cream afterwards to celebrate. 

On Saturday we drove to San Jose to check out the Winchester Mystery House. It's a really old Victorian mansion built by the widow Sara Winchester. It has a lot of very odd features including doorways to nowhere, stairs that end in a ceiling, and small riser stairs. She was pretty superstitious and had people work on her house 24hrs a day for 38 years. The grounds of the mansion were really pretty too. There was a small firearms museum with lots of old rifles as well as gorgeous gardens. It was a nice day to walk around.

On Saturday night we had Claire's last softball game. They played under the lights as well, and it was freezing! We were all bundled up and poor Claire froze. Her team played hard but lost the game. I think they were all just excited to go home and get warm. 

Sunday was my parents last day in town. We took them into San Fransisco to see the sights. It was a really windy day but the sun was shining. We walked down pier 39 and saw the shops, rode the carousel, and enjoyed the sea lions. The bay was really rough in the strong wind and it was really fun to watch the giant waves.

After exploring for a while we stopped at Boudin bakery for their famous sourdough bread bowls with clam chowder. Delicious! We walked further down the waterfront where we found another Boudin bakery where they had created these cute bread animals. It smelled amazing there!

We continued our walk for several blocks until we came to Ghirradeli Square. They had a restaurant there where we could see fresh chocolate being mixed. The kids had a cone and Chris and I shared a banana split. 

We continued walking and found this fun little historic pier that had several old boats that are now part of the national parks. There were rangers to answer questions and even a few interactive displays for the kids to play around with. This little wooden dinghy was a hit. 

We went right from the city to the airport. It was a very busy weekend and definitely not long enough. Thank you so much Mom & Dad for coming to see us! We had a great time and can't wait to do it again sometime! Love you!

Halloween & lizards

The kids sure did get a ton of use out of their costumes this year. It seemed like every week in October they were dressing up. It was fun to send them to school on Friday all costumed up. The entire school paraded through the playground area for all the parents to see. After the parade they performed a choreographed dance to Thriller. It was pretty awesome. All of the teachers were in costume right along with the kids and even got into the dancing.

After the parade and dance I went to Grace and Neil's classrooms to help with their parties. They both got to do some fun games and cookie decorating. Here is Grace's class.

Saturday was pretty low key. It was a beautiful sunny day and we stayed home for the most part. We played outside and got some things done around the house. The kids were so eager to get out for trick or treating that I didn't end up with many pictures. Thankfully, they had been dressed up so many times that I didn't care too much.

We walked around the neighborhoods and the kids each made off with full buckets of candy. The weather was perfect. Warm and dry. We didn't really even need long sleeves. We came home and the kids made graphs of their loot. 

It was such a nice weekend that our "pet" lizards spent lots of time sunning themselves on the rocks. We have tons of these little guys in our front yard. Even though I know they are there, they still scare me to death every time I walk through. I kinda like them though. They are pretty cute. That is until they come in the house. I may have had to relocate one with a dust pan not too long ago. 

Gracer is 8

Grace turned 8 today, and we had such a fun time celebrating her. It's pretty fun to have a birthday around Halloween because there are so many ways to celebrate. This year we had a Halloween themed costume party at our house. We had about 6 girls over and we had a blast. There was a pumpkin piñata, Halloween charades, musical chairs, spider making crafts, freeze dance, and cake with ice cream. The kids even turned all of the balloons in Baymax. Grace was really happy with it overall.

On her birthday I bought surprise donuts for breakfast and she took cupcakes to school for the class. We opened family gifts that evening. She got a pretty neat zebra rolling backpack that she's really wanted. She also got a new pair of purple fluffy boots and a giraffe poster for her room.

It's hard to believe that 8 years have passed since she came into our lives. I can't imagine life without my Gracie Pants. Her spunky personality is so fun to be around. She has a contagious laugh and is very kind hearted to those around her. Playing soccer has been keeping her busy although she wants to try softball in the spring. Her favorite show is Descendants. She still loves to play outside and ride bikes in her free time. She is a happy kid. Happy birthday Grace!!

October Fun

We have been busy this month and I haven't had a lot of time to keep up with the posting. Between all of the softball and soccer games as well as practices we have been running around a bunch. Thankfully, we've managed to do some fun things too.

Just down the road from us was a for real corn maze that we decided to check out. It was a 6 acre field of corn in a design that included the word "Livermore". It was pretty huge. I was amazed at how tall the stalks of corn were. When you see it from a distance it looks maybe 6ft high, but nope. This corn was at least 9 or 10 ft. We had a fun time navigating the turns. The only downside was that there were  clue posts all over. They had trivia questions on them. That would have been fine, but they always included a super easy question for smaller kids to figure out. So, it took a lot of the mystery out of it. Towards the end we talked the kids into not reading the signs. Trial and error was more fun.

On another night, the kids's school had a Halloween carnival. Everyone got dressed up and we went to the school for fun carnival style games and prizes. They had middle schoolers there to run all of the booths and everything was free. It was so nice not to have to go buy a billion tickets for silly games. The principal was even in on the fun as she did the "fortune telling" booth. The library was turned into a big haunted house. It was fun to see the area transformed. Our kids did the cake walk and came away with a whole case of cupcakes! 

This last weekend we tackled the task of pumpkin carving. Honestly, it's not my favorite thing to do. The kids always need help scooping out the guts and I usually spend a couple of hours combing through everything for seeds because eating the seeds is the best part. The girls are getting much better about doing it on their own. They required very little help this year. Neil surprisingly didn't want to get dirty and therefore didn't do much until it was time to draw the face on. It was such a nice day that we had been hanging out in the backyard. We had a fire going and we worked on the pumpkins on the patio. It was pretty fun. Yes, they are all in their jammies. I'm not sure why...

Ready for Halloween 2015