Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is always an interesting day for me. There is a part of my that wants to spend it with my family. Especially now that Chelsie is at college and I don't get to see her nearly enough. But I hate doing Thanksgiving outside and I stopped going the first opportunity that I could. I keep thinking that one of these years we will go stop by since they travel too and we are only about 30 minutes apart.

But this year, we kept with tradition and joined Justin's extended family at his Grandma's Sister's house in Auburn. We do have a lot of fun and it is really cool to see so many generations under one roof. The kids play outside and I try to stay warm inside as much as possible. It is nice that Paige can just run around with the kids now and we don't have to keep as close of an eye on her. Don't get me wrong, she still needs to be watched, but I don't have to follow her around so much. The bigger kids help watch her.

We picked up Justin's' three nephews (From his oldest brother Stan), Keith, Joseph, and Tyler. From my previous posts you probably know that we pick them up whenever we can. We just love spending time and spoiling them. Overall everyone had a great time. I didn't really take any pictures, except one of Keith in the trees trimming them for Aunt Minga.

Paige turns two!!

Paige turned two on Nov 23rd. Daddy has a new job (Which is wonderful) so he had to leave really early in the morning. After Paige went to sleep the night before we set-up her birthday present in the living room. We found a great deal on a play kitchen at a garage sale a couple of months ago. The kitchen was in excellent condition and came with over two buckets worth of food. It is awesome. Before I even turned on the living room light that morning, Paige noticed her new toy and went right to it to play.

After playing for a while, we got ready for the day. My moms neighbor Chenoa and her children Audrey & Zane took us to the Oakland Zoo. The weather was beautiful and we had so much fun. Paige loved all of the animals. And the train ride had a beautiful view of the city. It was so clear. After that, we headed to my moms for a few minutes to say hello. Then we headed home and Paige took a nice nap.

We had a normal dinner and I baked blueberry muffins since there was going to be lots of pie and cake later that week. She loves candles, although she can't really blow them out by herself. And she loves when people sing happy birthday to her. It was a nice relaxing day.

She was really upset when I took the candle away.

Halloween 2009

Paige loves the TinkerBell Movie so it was only natural that we decided to have her dress up as TinkerBell for Halloween. I was going to try to make the tutu myself, but found a tutu with wings on Ebay or something like that for $10. This costume is also inspiring the theme for Paige's 2nd birthday party as well.

We had been preparing Paige for Trick or Treating all day. We had her practice ringing our doorbell and saying trick or treat. I gave her Raisins which she was excited about. We had dinner a little earlier and while we were eating Pizza we received our first trick or treator and realized that we needed to get ready. We got her in her costume and off we went around our block.

Paige did very well. Sometimes she got a little shy. Mostly she just tried to walk into their houses to look for the candy she was going to get. At a neighbor a few houses down, she just marched right in before we could stop her. They were encouraging her because they wanted to show her costume to the few people they had over. The next thing I knew they told me to come in and take her picture. She had climbed up on the couch and was looking at her candy. We probably could have stopped right there!

But off we went. She was so cute that everyone kept giving her more candy (Good for us since she really can't eat most of this junk- Or bad for us if depending on how you look at it). By the end of the block she was dragging her bag on the ground because it was so heavy. And she would not let us hold it. In fact it was difficult to wrestle the bag out of her hands when we got home. Surprisingly she went to bed fairly easily. But maybe that is because she didn't get to actually eat the candy.

OK- She had a lick of the tootsie pop before I stopped her. But it was Halloween.

My Mom's 50th Birthday.

Let me start this blog off saying that I can't believe that I am 30 years old and that my mom is now 50 years old. She is so young at heart and in my eyes I don't think she is a day over 40 years old. Regardless, she turned 50 years old on Saturday. And she embraced it with wide open arms. When Chelsie and I heard she wanted to go sky diving (We were on the phone when we got her email "Suggestion") neither of us thought she was serious. But after we both talked to her and found out how excited she was we new this was not a joke. Apparently she has always wanted to do this! Oh the things parents hide from their children.

So on Saturday my parents headed out to Davis in the morning to take their class. Justin, Paige & I picked up Mikaila and Chelsie about an hour or so later and headed up to join them. We had no idea when they would be jumping. When we got there, we hung out in the parking lot and watched some other people land. The Kaufers showed up with some snacks and we all had a lot of fun while we were anticipating their turn.

Finally, they called their name. Both my parents had a shirt my mom had made that said- Look out- Pidgeons Dropping on it. They looked so cute. They got their gear on and we waited to see if we could find them in the sky. As they got closer we were able to tell it was my mom because she flapped her arms like wings. My dad was right behind her. They had a blast.

We all headed back to my parents house and then went to PF Changs for dinner. Then we went back to their house for cake and presents. It was a fun day. Below are some of my pictures and a video that we took. I tried to shorten the video so it may be a little choppy.

3 Sisters- We are getting so big.
Paige found the ice while waiting.

Mom & Dad

Mom- Coming in for a landing.

Landing

And we have touchdown

Talking with her instructor and camera man

Mom & Dad after they landed

Champagne to celebrate

A Day At The Farm

We went with my parents to Ardenwood Historical Farm. It is a real working farm that has been around since the early 1900's I believe. We had a picnic lunch, and then went to enjoy all this farm has to offer. One of those things was the corn fields. One side was popping corn and the other was Indian corn. You pick as much as you want, and just have to give 1/2 of it to the farm. The rest you keep for free. We actually got to keep all of the popping corn because the container was full.

We all had a good time picking the corn, even Paige. But it was really hard to get some of the corn off of the plants. And Kayla did not use a glove because she wasn't going to pick any corn, and she ended up getting some paper like cuts on three of her fingers. We had to pay a visit to the first aid center.

After we got our corn we explored the farm and saw the animals. They have people dressed up like they did back in the day (Kind of looked Amish). It was a big festival so there was lots of music and cider and other fun stuff. When Paige was getting close to nap time, we headed over to the pumpkin patch. Paige has been talking about pumpkins ever since we turned to the October page on the Calendar. She sees her picture in the pumpkin patch from last year and wants to keep going back. She fell a lot in the corn fields and the pumpkin patch, but she is such a trooper. It was so cute seeing her go from pumpkin to pumpkin trying to pick them up. Of course they were all two big.

Getting ready for our picnic.

After picking the corn

Shucking corn

We got quite a bit of corn

Looking at the animals

At the pumpkin patch.

Baking Day

I was looking for something to do yesterday afternoon. Someone had thoughtfully suggested baking cookies to me. I thought that sounded fun and Paige had been asking for cookies (A treat that she only gets every once in a while). So I found an easy sugar cookie recipe that I had all of the ingredients for. I cleared off the table and Paige and I put on our aprons.

Then it became a little harder than I thought it would be. I envisioned Paige helping me put in the different ingredients and letting me do most of it while patiently standing by. But of course, the vision was shattered. She was about to dump the dry ingredients bowl so I took it away from her. With the spoon in her hand she threw a fit and followed me into the kitchen, proceeding to put whatever was on the spoon on the ground.

After a few minutes of quiet time in her room (Which I used to finish making the dough in peace), she returned to help me ball out the dough. Sometimes she just put piles of the crumbly dough on the baking sheet. And sometimes she took my ball and turned it into crumbles. But we did it! We managed to make some good cookies. I may attempt this again, but will probably do some of it myself before letting her help me for a while. Below are some pictures.

The result of her temper tantrum.
After she helped me with the dough.

Playing with the flour

Our cookies before baking, you can see the crumbs I couldn't pick-up

Baking in the oven.

San Diego Trip

Paige, mom & I headed down to San Diego Last Friday to spend a night with Chelsie. It was parents weekend and the trip I was planning the weekend before did not work out. So I joined my mom for some fun. We took an early (7am) flight and Chelsie picked us up at the airport. Paige did pretty good on the plane. We managed to keep her entertained most of the flight.

We went and saw Chelsie's school and visited her dorm. We were able to attend a chapel service why we were there. Her school is beautiful and when it is not foggy, the view from her dorm is amazing. She is starting to find a place there and I think she is going to make it through graduation.
We found this funny little blowup toilet in her dorm hall. So we could not resist asking Paige to sit on it. She had a good time. We headed to lunch at The Pita Pit which is something I have been trying to go to for a while. We have something called Extreme Pita, but I don't like it as much.

After leaving lunch, Paige insisted pulling her own suitcase (Our diaper bag for the weekend). This was a trend that continued throughout the weekend. It got a lot of attention from people passing by. We headed to Balboa Park. Unfortunately the Train and Carousel were both closed. So we walked around and saw some cool trees and a fun squirrel who was eating the sunflower seeds someone had put out for him. Paige kept telling him to "Drink" the water that was there. But I think he had a mind of his own.

We had dinner at a nice pizza place, and then ice cream. We spent the night in a hotel. Paige did not sleep that well, but we made it through the night.

The next day we went to the aquarium in the morning.

Paige loved all of the fishes. I think she could have stayed there all day. There was also the tide pools and a display that shows how tides work. We played with that for at least 20 minutes alone- Pictures below

After the aquarium, we Drove around while Paige took a nap. Then we met up with Chelsie's friend, Candace and her dad at a Mexican restaurant in Old Town. When we finally found the place, Chelsie was surprised by her friend Kelly and another guy friend/his mom who were in town looking at colleges. After lunch, we took a scenic drive looking at the ocean and ended up at Ocean Beach. Of course Paige ended up playing in the water some (She is such a beach girl).

After the beach, we went back to Chelsie's dorm and gave Paige a bath with a wash cloth, and changed her into her PJ's. We stopped at a yogurt place for some frozen yogurt (I had red velvet which was amazing!) and then headed to the airport. Our plane was delayed, but we knew that ahead of time so we did not show up too early. Paige got to sit between us since there were extra seats and she fell asleep right after take off. She slept all of the way home and through the night for me! It was a great time.