So Much Fall Fun!!!

 It has been too long since I have posted a new blog...but, without my camera, the process just takes so much longer...ugh!! However, we have been having too much California Fall fun! And it just needed to be documented.  Fall in California has been crazy!! The weather has stayed in the 90s all the way until just this week!!  This was not inspiring me to get into the Fall spirit and pull out the fall decorations, make pumpkin deserts, and pull out the Fall scents for the Scentsy warmer...:( However, for the kids' sake I tried to do all that anyway.  And luckily, Fall has kicked in here and we are having beautiful 70 degree weather here!! It is just lovely!!

We had Fall celebrations to attend for each of the kids' schools!!  This was the very first year that Jane wanted to be anything other than some sort of Disney princess for Halloween...I feel like that is kind of a big milestone :)!!!  She is growing up!!  She chose to be a darling witch instead.  Beckham was so excited to be a "Daddy" and wear his cool ABUs we found that are exactly like the ones Ryan wears!! He just looks so cute in them!!

 

 Initially, Jane wanted to have a green witch face.  Aaaaand I gave it my best shot...but the cream make-up I found was very uncooperative-hehe.  Here was the sorry result of my efforts. Jane was not pleased!!! After many attempts, we opted to forgo the green face :)

 Little miss Elsie zonks out by 6:30 these days so she has not been attending the Fall festivals.  She will get to wear her DARLING Halloween costume on Halloween, however.  She is going to be a little old lady!!  Elsie is 6 months old already!! Time is zooming by way too fast :( She is so funny- and has to be the most wiggly baby in the entire world.  She does not want to sit still anymore.  She is already starting to crawl and scootch all over the house.  I am not ready for that phase- boo hoo!!  Here she is trying to wiggle out of the Bumbo during dinner by bending over backwards!! 

 She tried the swing for the very first time the other day and thought it was just the greatest thing in the world!! We just love this sweet little lady!!

 Ryan took the kids to Jane's school "Hoot and Howl". Sooooo, the result is we have very few pictures of that :) But from what I hear, the kids had a blast!!

  The next weekend, it was my turn to take the kids to Beckham's school "Fall Festival". We sure had a lot of fun!!  Here are Jane and Beckham participating in the "cake walk"- a sort of musical chairs game where the prizes were whole cakes, trays of cooking or pastries of many kinds!! We played twice.  The kids were determined to will a treat!!

 I was in charge of running Beckham's class booth at the fair for a half an hour that night. The kids helped me do it :) We had fun running the "pin the spider on the web" game!! This is Beckham's first time having his very own school and school activities to attend and be proud of, and I love that is was just beaming with school pride the whole night!!  I am so happy he loves his wonderful school and class :)

 One of the things I miss the most about Delaware is the wonderful neighborhood we lived in!!  Every year around Halloween we would get "Boo-ed"!  This means, we would get Halloween surprises left on our doorstep from some mystery person who was usually a sweet neighbor or friend.  We in turn, would "Boo" several other neighbors or friends. And eventually everyone in the neighborhood would have some Halloween surprises left on their doorstep :) I was missing that tradition here until we got a sweet package in the mail from our dear, dear Delaware friends, the Woodlands!! They "Boo-ed" us even from all the way across the country!! We love and miss them sooooo much!!!  Here we are enjoying some of our Halloween prizes :)

 Days after moving here, we were informed that we live on this city's "Halloween Street"!!!  Apparently, we should plan on 2,000-3,000 trick or treaters.  And everyone in our neighborhood goes crazy with Halloween decor and the police block off our street due to the insane number of people who come from all over to our street on Halloween!!! We didn't want to be the only ones on the street to not participate, so we have been preparing for weeks!!  Here are the AMAZING tomb stones that Ryan made!!  We have big plans for our house and it is going to look fabulous!! Halloween is going to be so much fun, we can't wait!!  Watch for pictures to come of that amazing night, and of our house all done up for Halloween :)

 We heard that we needed to try to make it to "Apple Hill" while we were here.  So, one weekend we made the trip.  Even though it was packed and we hit crazy traffic, we had some fun!! Due to how busy it was, we only made it to one of the apple orchards even though there are many!!

 This was the favorite activity at the apple orchard!!  The kids just thought this was the coolest thing ever.  If they would have allowed adults to try this...I totally would have tried it!!

 Here is Beckham inside the ball as it was getting blown up!!  Apparently, it's pretty loud in there!!

 And Jane...

Our ward here in Vacaville has been truly wonderful and so welcoming!!  One weekend we were invited by some ward friends to their traditional "Apple Fest"!! Tons of ward and non ward friends were there.  It was such a neat tradition that I may need to steal.  There were 20 different types of apples to try with and without caramel.  Then we all rated the apples and an overall winner was chosen.  I had no idea there were so many types of apples!! It was neat to try so many of them.  There were also many apple games  and challenges!!  I won the "minute to win it" apple stacking game :) It was so much fun!!! Beckham was so happy I won.  My prize was a golden apple!

 

Though Fall in California has been different, we have had to much fun!!  Fall is truly the BEST time of the year!!!

A Special visitor for Jane's 7th Birthay!!

 We have had several very fun weeks celebrating our first baby girl turning 7!!! SEVEN... I cannot believe how old she is getting.  It has been so much fun to watch Jane grow up.  She is a ray of sunshine- so happy and goofy all the time :) We are so proud of Jane and we are super proud to be her parents!!

I managed to convince my dad to come over the weekend to help us celebrate Jane's birthday.  I was so excited and surprised when he agreed to come. Bless his heart, he drove almost all night to get here.  He arrived in Vacaville, at our house, at 9:30 in the morning.  Ryan had to work all weekend, so the kids and I were super happy to see grandpa was here to hang out with us!!

In keeping with a long time tradition, my dad took us to lunch!!  We went to my favorite Mexican restaurant, Villa Corona!!

 Then we hung out at Nut Tree in a fun play area they have there!!

 My dad was so sweet with the kids and Elsie really loved him!!

 We had the most fun just hanging out at home, however!! Grandpa was so sweet and played with the kids a ton.  They loved that special attention he gave them! They played legos...

 and jumped on the trampoline!! haha :)

My dad was able to watch the BYU football game with Ryan and I on Saturday evening, too!!  It was truly a super wonderful day with my sweet dad :)!!

I decided to throw a little birthday party on this Sunday because it was a good time for my brother, Matthew, and his cute family to come and hang out with us.  Jane was super excited to have her cousins here for her "My Little Pony" party!! Also, my dad was excited to see them as well while he was here.  Unfortunately, two of Matthew's kids got sick and they were unable to come!!  This was as super tragic...First, because Matthew's poor kids were sick and throwing up:( Second, because my dad wasn't going to be able to see them and last, because I had already decorated and made dinner for Jane's party.  She would have been so sad if we would have had to cancel. So, while I was at church I rounded up a few of Jane's little church friends to join us for Jane's party!! They all seemed happy to help save the day and come to Jane's party :)!!

Here is the beautiful dinner table all ready for the party to begin.

 Dinner was Jane's favorite, French dip sandwiches, as well as some special "My little Pony" goodies. There was Rainbow Dash's fruit platter...

 Flutter Shy's bunny food :)

 and Apple Jack's apple orchard juice!!

 She had a cake with some My Little Pony friends on it :)

 Here are Jane's birthday guests enjoying the feast!

 I made a "Pin the tail on Pinkie Pie" game for the kids to play!  It was a hit!

 We also played a game where the kids popped balloons which had a challenge to complete or question about Jane that they had to answer in order to receive a prize!! This was  super fun :)

 Here are the ladies of the party helping Jane open up her presents.

 Beckham found a little "Frozen" treasure box with a lock and he was dying to buy for Jane for her birthday.  He is always thinking about others and is super sweet.  I told him we could get it for her but he would have to do chores at home to pay for it.  He was so excited to give his treasure box to Jane!!  He kept it a secret for nearly a full week before he gave it to her. He also folded laundry, emptied the dishwasher, and vacuumed in order to pay for it!!  Jane gave him a HUGE hug when she opened it!!

 Jane blew out her candles before we even started singing...she was super excited for cake :)

On Jane's actual birthday she got to spend time with just her family! Ryan was able to be there this time. We let Jane pick where we went to lunch and she chose Fentons!! Everyone in the restaurant sang happy birthday to Jane and we got a HUGE ice cream sundae :) She also got to open a few more presents from grandparents.  And she even got to hang out with her cousins!! My brother and his family were all healthy and came to spend the evening with us!! It was so fun to see them and the kids had so much fun :)

We are so proud of our sweet Janey and love her so much!! I cannot believe my baby is 7!!

Curse My Broken Camera!!

So, I finally found my long lost camera at the Jelly Belly factory of all places!!! Even though I called them and asked if they had any cameras fitting the description of mine and they said no, I felt the need to go in a check anyway.  I was absolutely jumping for joy when I discovered that they actually did have my camera.  However, it was broken.  I can still get all the pictures off of the camera, which was the most important thing, however, I cannot take any more pictures with it :( I have been using my phone which is proving to be super inconvenient for blogging...hence the long bout of silence on my blog.

We have been fitting in a lot of fun outings in between the craziness of everyday life.  Some good friends suggested we check out the railroad train museum in Sacramento.  It was so neat and the kids just thought it was the coolest place.        

 We were able to explore the inside and outside of many cool old trains.  And we were able to learn a lot about how trains functioned years ago. 

 We were able to see the many ways in which the trains were used- mail trains, passenger trains, cargo trains...etc. One of the trains even moved like a real train would have.  That was the kids' favorite one!!

 There was a room on the upper level of the museum that was filled with train tables and train sets for the kids to play with.  We all have so much fun.  We were also able explore the area of Old Sacramento around the museum.  It was such a neat area with "old timey" streets and shops.  We tried some delicious goodies there and even found the kids their Halloween costumes!! It was a great day!!

Another day, we went to the Children's Discovery museum in San Fransisco which was located near the San Fransisco bridge!! It was so picturesque.  Here is Jane playing on one of the outdoor structures with a beautiful view :)

 Here is Beckham inside a huge log!

 Elsie, as usual was super patient and sweet the whole time.  And how cute is she in her sun hat?!

 I wish we had gotten more pictures of all the darling parts of that museum but we were just having too much fun!!

Here is just picture of a cool old building we walked along on another adventure in Sonoma!! While we were there we had a cheese tasting and bought some delicious cheese!! I tell you what...I don't know why anyone would want to go to a wine tasting when there is cheese to be tasted!! It was so yummy!! :)

 Earlier in the summer, the kids and Ryan got the opportunity to go to an Oakland A's game!!  The kids had a blast on their special date with daddy!! 

 They got to stay up late and watch fireworks on the field after the game was over.  They didn't get home until 1am...and they loved every minute of it!!

 I know I already blogged about the time we visited the Winchester Mansion, but I didn't get many good pictures of that fun day.  I found this little gem hiding on Ryan's phone!!  It is a much better picture of the neat mansion :)

Our time here is moving so fast and I can tell we will not be able to do all the amazing things that California has to offer!!  We are loving our stay in California so far.