Welcome to Forks...

For all of you that haven't seen "Twilight" I am referring to Forks, Washington where the movie takes place. That was Kelsey's inspiration for her room remodel. It is kind of hard to get the real feel of the room from the picture but this is the mural Matt painted on her wall for her birthday. It is adorned by a wall plaque with her favorite quote (You don't know how long I have waited for you).One wall is dedicated to the new Men in her life...I am sure this wall will be filled with many more pictures of Edward and Jacob.

She is in love with her new room, she has quite the collection of Twilight things. I guess there are worse things to be in love with than a vampire and werewolf .....right???

Father's Day

Matt had to work on Father's Day, as he does every year but we did try to make it a fun day for him anyway. The kids got up early and made him breakfast...nothing to fancy just some heat and serve biscuit sandwiches and let him get a quick bite before he was out the door.Matt said there wasn't anything he wanted but I had to let the kids give him something. So I asked them to think of something that they liked to do with their Dad and I went from there. Matt thought their gifts were kind of funny. Sadi loves to steal his water as soon as he gets home from work so she gave him some flavored waters. Chase loves to get a squirt of cologne with Daddy before he leaves for work so he gave him a new cologne. Kelsey loves to play cards with him so she bought him a snack to have while they play cards (we have too many decks of cards so I didn't let her buy another one). And Kyle spends most of his one on one time with Matt driving to and from his Mom's house so he gave him some air fresheners for his truck (they needed it).

And for one final little surprise we made him a HUGE cookie (like the extremely overpriced ones in the mall). He thought he could eat the whole thing himself...ha ha. We all had some and we still have half a cookie in the kitchen. It will be a long while before I want a chocolate chip cookie again.

Six Years!

Today we celebrated our six year anniversary..well more like observed it since we both kind of forgot it was coming up so fast neither of us planned anything. We did sneak off for a quick lunch at a Chinese joint down the street from our house and left Kelsey in charge for a whole 30 minutes. It was kind of fun to talk about all we have done together in just 6 years. We came home and watched out wedding video Karreen and Roy made for us (as is tradition every year) and looked through our wedding album.It's always fun to go back to that time in our life and remember that day, but equally as fun to think about what is still to come!

Pinocchio said it.....

Yesterday Kesley was playing around with Chase and he blurted out "Do I look like a jackass?!" Kelsey immediately told on him that he had repeated a bad word. To which he pleaded his case to me so innocently "Mom, it's not a bad word right, Pinocchio said it". How do you not laugh at that, and I couldn't argue, he does say it in the movie!

I am only now aware of all those little things they slip in as we just finished watching Sleeping Beauty where Malificent (the bad witch) says she is going to "unleash the forces of Hell". Great! Apparently they can pick it up some new words from Disney!

Finally a Teen...

Well, it's official, Kelsey is now a teen. The day after we arrived home from our unplanned vacation was Kelsey's 13th birthday. Her main present that we have been working on for a few weeks is her room. She wanted a mural painted on her wall with new bedding. She now has a forest theme (just like in the movie Twilight). More pictures to come as we didn't have time to finish it yet. She had already invited a friend over for a dinner party prior to leaving so I was rushed to get everything ready after we got home. I had to change a few things (like I had not ordered a cake that she wanted and it was to late to order one). I think it turned out pretty well considering. My table centerpiece was simple...And the menu was changed due to I had not been grocery shopping and had to rush. Entree was Forks famous Chicken Alfredo with Bella's buttery bread, Salad was the Voltori venomous salad, refreshment was Alice's Appletini, and for dessert Carlisle's charming chocolate cake with Alaskan ice cream. Kelsey and her best friend Casey enjoying their meal.

After dinner I had a few games planned. We played who said it with quotes from the books, Twilight Trivia, and then I had planned a Twilight treasure hunt and made up clues from the books that sent them all over searching for their treasure.

I made goody bags with things related to the Twilight series they found at the end of the clues.
I made bookmarks, a bottle of blood, a bag of chocolate lambs I labeled "Stupid lamb", a box of band aids from the office of Dr. Cullen that read.."For your safety please be sure all cuts and open sores are covered with a band aid", eclipse gum, bracelets, pins, key chain, and Twilight sweethearts. They also got a t-shirt they later designed themselves. They turned out really cute. Kelsey did get a few surprises she didn't know about...

You can never have to much Twilight when you are a true fan.

Thank you everyone who called and sent cards.

After presents was time for cake! Which I have to say for having no planning turned out okay.

Kelsey liked it which was what was most important. Of course now she is in love with the werewolf!

Unplanned Vacation......

It has been a crazy summer so far. The Saturday after school let out we got a call from Matt's Mom that Nana had passed away. We frantically scrambled to get time off work, pack and get things ready to go to the funeral. Since we had to give up a week of vacation to go we decided to squeeze in something fun for the kids as well. We were able to get a hotel and go to Disneyland for a few days before the funeral. Matt's brother and his family were able to come for a day as well. It worked out that it was on my birthday, so that was fun (and free!!). Here is some pictures from Disney.... Kelsey took the best picture of the castle so I stole one from her, she is a good photographer.Our first day in the park. Sadi hated almost every ride, this is her on every ride, ears covered and saying "I get out"Kelsey and Chase on the teacups...Matt's favorite ride still is Mr. Toads wild ride.Spinning with cousins, Brooke, Alissa, and Little Todd.This is about the only picture I have of Sadi smiling while we were there. What ride was she on? NONE!Daddy and Chase flying Dumbo...Chase was big enough to ride, Space Mt. (loved it), Big Thunder Mt. (loved it), Matterhorn (Not so much), but his all time favorite ride? Buzz Lightyear's astro blasters. He loved riding with Kelsey, it made him feel like a big boy.
Friday was the funeral, a beautiful service. Matt and all of his brother's were Paul bearers. I think they said it was the first time in 9 years all of his siblings have been together. Can you believe I did not get one picture of everyone together. I don't think anyone did, but if you did I would love a copy. We were able to spend a few more days with his family, one day we went down to the pier to see the ocean. We came upon a Pelican perched on the dock. We didn't let the kids get to close..he looked hungry.It was a little cold but fun watching the water.Grandma Denning with a only a handful of her grand kids. The girls on the beach.Chase was dying to swim in it but was content getting his feet wet. Check out that goofy face.It was a sad and happy vacation. It was nice to be with family, we miss you guys already!

Hair today, gone tomorrow..

Today was the day Kelsey had been looking forward to for a long time. She has been asking me to get her haircut like one of the characters from the movie "Twilight". She is the ULTIMATE fan!! So I made her wait and beg for weeks and finally let her do it. Here is the before.... And the after.....It turned out sooooo cute, look at that smile, she loves it!! For all you non twilighters this is Alice Cullen the character who she got the look from.

They did a great job, and she has a huge "lock" of hair she will once again be able to send to Lock's of Love. It was so thick they had to use heavy duty clippers to cut through because the scissors wouldn't cut through it.