Costume Party!

The witch invited the skunk and bumble bee to a costume party at one of her schools. The girls loved dressing up in their Halloween costumes or "cost-cooms" as Kennedy calls them. MacKenzie is such a ham even when she's not dressed up, but with her little bee on she was running around everywhere and it was soo cute. At one point of the evening I looked over and she was getting nachos from a total stranger! We're gonna have to watch that girl. She has no fear and loves to entertain others.

Victoria Beckham

... not a chance, but a friend at church asked me if I knew who she was upon seeing my new do a few weeks ago. Talk about feeling super good about myself! Since the baby has yet to come, and he's not due for another week but that's beside the point, I decided I could at least have my hair colored more fall-winter than summer. So my sister-in-law Laura came over to watch the kids this morning while I got my hair done.

AND... I have a great story about my new sunglasses you see here. I bought a pair of Smith sunglasses about 7 years ago mainly because I just liked them. I had them all through my mission and married life so far and finally decided the frames were fading in color and was going to throw them away and get a cheap new pair. UNTIL... Justin told me all Smith sunglasses have a lifetime waranty. I e-mailed them and asked what to do and here I have a fancy new pair of sunglasses for free!!! Moral of the story, by a good pair of sunglasses with a waranty and then don't lose them :)

Here's a side hair shot. For those of you who don't know my hair type it's THICK! I'm not kidding. It took a good 15-20 just to blow dry it in the mornings. Now I can fix it all in about 10 minutes or less!!! I love the spikey back and long front. Thanks to my sister Rebecca for guiding me into the world short dos :)

Cinderella

I read recently, "Cinderella is proof that a new pair of shoes can change your life." Now with our shoe story... MacKenzie has WIDE feet. I have been everywhere looking for shoes that fit her now that she's walking. I've been to Target, Wal Mart, Ross, Marshalls, Kmart and Payless Shoes and no shoes that are wide enough for her for everyday use. So I realized after all the looking I would need to go to Stride Rite. Well today was our big shoe buying day. I took MacKenzie into the store with only socks on because we were going to leave the store with a new pair of shoes that fit, and here they are...


Almost $50 later we found the cutest pair of leather shoes ever! I love them, but can't believe how expensive it is going to be to keep this girl in decent shoes... but what do you do? I guess I can pray summer comes soon and she'll love flip flops :)



Meanwhile, non related, but yesterday we carved our big pumpkin. Yes it will be gross by the time the 31st comes around, but Justin has to stay in Sacramento next weekend to get gassed... Don't know the specifics, but I'm sure we will find out later. This past Friday he experienced the feelings of pepper spray and for those of you wondering, he doesn't recommend it. Apparently you either laugh or cry... he laughed. Some of the other cadets in the academy didn't appreciate his laughter. Ask him about it sometime and you'll get a very entertaining story! :) All I know is when I picked him up in Bakersfield Friday night his eyes were VERY puffy!

Ahh, the spa...

Now that the pool is WAY too cold to get in, not to mention leafy from all the wind, we "need" to get the spa up and running. The girls and I feel very spoiled having the pool AND spa right at hand, but hey... we don't want either to feel unused :)


Here's Lucas and Kathy scrubbing out the inside making sure it's all clean. Lucas is from Germany and didn't quite understand when Kathy and Bruce told him it was time to go out and clean the spa. Kathy used other words like jacuzzi and hot tub and then he said, "whirlpool?" It's funny to hear the words he comes up with that help him understand English.


Kennedy was helping too which means she was walking around looking at everything. At one point she found some cleaning whipes and started cleaning the outside of the spa. Very cute.


We just tried to keep MacKenzie occupied so she wouldn't get into the cleaning supplies. She wants so badly to do exactly what everyone else is doing. The little car did hold her attention for a little while though.


"Hey Lucas, gimme some candy if you're gonna steal my toy!"

Baby Shower

I forgot to have pictures taken, but our foreign exchange student Lucas was there and happened to take a few pictures, so here's one. Anyway we had a baby shower out here in Derby Acres and I was going to be happy if a hand full of people showed up, but there were almost 30 people there! It was a fantastic turn out and all the gifts were totally appreciated and welcomed! One of the reasons I wasn't sure if anyone would come had to do with the invitations. We didn't get them mailed out on time and then last Monday was Columbus Day, so no mail was going out then either... I ended up hand delivering a bunch of invitations in Taft and mailed late ones to Bakersfield. My Fresno family may be sad they didn't get invitations, but it was largely due to the fact it would've been a 5 hour round trip drive? I wouldn't do it unless it was siblings. So there you have it. My big wish for the day was to get clothes for this little boy in my tummy.... turns out he now has his own dresser FULL of clothes! Thanks to all my friends and family. Oh, I didn't even mention the food... SO GOOD! Pennie, step mom, is a party food queen and come up with the perfect luncheon menu. It was all gone by the end of the shower. I feel so blessed to be surrounded by people who care and are just as excited as we are that this little boy in coming into the world! Thanks everyone!

Pumpkins

We went to the "pumpkin patch" and the girls loved it! Last year, you can look it up in the older posts, we got a pumpkin that was never carved :( We have higher hopes this year of actually making jack-o-lanterns.


Kennedy spots all pumpkins as we drive around town. She and MacKenzie were so cute the guy at the stand gave up 2 small pumpkins after we bought a big one.

Spiders and more

Yesterday I found a black widow in my bathroom. Scary, I do not like black widows. I don't mind other spiders, but I always think the black widows will bite me. I killed it just fine by spraying it with good old hairspray and then smashing it with the hairspray bottle. THEN... last night Kennedy told me she saw a bug in the bath tub as I was filling up the water. I knew she was telling the truth, but couldn't see anything so I ignored her. I put both kids in the tub and then I saw it..... a scorpion! Just swimming around in the water right next to MacKenzie! I calmy got MacKenzie out as Kennedy screamed at the top of her lungs. She likes bugs, just not in her bath. I called for Bruce and he came to the rescue with the Go Diego Go sippy cup. Very appropriate for the occasion. He scooped it right out and we went about our business. THEN... a dead bird was found at the neighbors house. Tested positive with West Nile virus! So if we don't get biten by black widows, poked by a scorpion we might get West Nile. So sweet dreams :)

Quick visit from Utah

My sister and her family came to California for the weekend and we met up with them as they passed through Bakersfield. We love seeing them even if it's only for a short time. Here are Sierra and Jordan.


And Camden. Justin loves that everytime he sees Camden he is informed of how old he is.


It was Roger's birthday and we even got him a present for the first time... ever. He especially liked the pink bag it came in :)


Here's Kennedy with her partner in action Hayden. She was so excited to see him, but didn't understand why we weren't going to his house after lunch.


Justin, Brenden and Hayden. AKA: our skin heads


It seems like I fix my hair, look in the mirror and then when I leave the house this is what I look like? Totally chubby and pregnant? Hmmm... Rebecca was totally fine with that :)


MacKenzie just wanted to drink everyones soda. You can't see it, but there were 4 sodas at her reach and she tested all of them for quality. They were good. I don't know why, but that reminds me of the time Kennedy was 4 months old or so and we went to Arizona with Roger. As I got in the car during one of our rest stops I found Roger feeding Kennedy french fries and a frosty I think. She loved it! First time moms don't think to do fun things like that.