COOKIES FOR SALE

Sunday morning at 9:00 am marked the official start of Girl Scout Cookie season! Right after church Rena loaded up the wagon and we headed out around the neighborhood. She did pretty good for the short time that we were out -- 29 boxes sold.....not including the 3 that we bought.....

This is Rena's Daisy group at their first meeting last week.....

WE HAVE A DAISY

Rena has joined the Girls Scouts and is now a Daisy! We got her vest on Friday so that she would be all ready for her first meeting on Monday afternoon. She has already learned The Girl Scout Promise to earn the center of her Daisy and can't wait to start earning the Daisy Petals for her vest. The first project is making and delivering Valentines Day Cards to the Carlsbad Police Station -- she'll earn a petal for "respect authority" and for being "considerate and caring".

So, the vest, of course, came blank and we had to buy and iron the patches on. Even though they are easy iron-on patches I was a little concerned about getting them on correctly.....and without ruining the vest. After Rena asked about 100 times, I finally pulled out the iron. I started with the flag and worked my way down to the troop number. I thought I did pretty darn good until I showed it to Rena and she said, "OH, it looks good mommy. No one will notice that the flag isn't on straight".

And then.....Jeff walks into the kitchen and about has a heart attack while saying....."What is that? The iron? You're ironing?" I guess he hasn't seen it lately -- I seem to be better at running to the dry cleaners than getting out my own iron! :) This is a rare sight in our house.....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEFF

On Sunday Jeff celebrated his 38th birthday! It was a beautiful day and we made the most of it. First, we went to church. Here's Jeff and the kids being silly on the lawn after the service.....

Then, we came home and Jeff opened presents (actually we came home and first wrapped the presents so that Jeff could open the presents -- I wasn't exactly prepared!)......

Maleah made an ice cream cone on her card so Jeff's trying to smell it and lick it -- Maleah thought it was funny.....

After presents we went out to lunch -- yummy In-N-Out Burger -- and then we headed to the beach for awhile.....

After the beach we went back home and later that evening our neighbors came over to celebrate. The courtyard around the fire is where we do most of our "hanging-out" these days.....

Cake time! Marisa brought this over for Jeff and we all enjoyed it!.....

HAPPY 38TH BIRTHDAY JEFF!

MALEAH'S STYLE

Here's what Maleah picked out to wear today................

.....and this is what she picked out after I told her that it was going to be a warm, sunny day. It just kills me (not only that she doesn't match) but that each of these pieces that she put together came with a matching piece to make a cute little outfit. Like the shirt -- The McCullough's gave it to her for Christmas along with some really cute little capri stretch pants -- that match!!! The socks actually did come as a package of mismatched socks -- 8 socks all different colors and patterns.....mix and match.....perfect for Maleah!

She was so proud of herself when she came downstairs. I made one comment about being too hot and she insisted that she wouldn't be and said "don't I look cute?". I just laughed and drove to her school.....

PEGGY AND GIMI VISIT

Peggy and Gimi came to visit!!! Peggy flew in to Los Angeles and stayed at The Herren's for a few days and then we got both of them here with us for a couple of days.

Rena kept Gimi busy.....here they are coloring together. Rena was teaching Gimi how to make a girl with a skirt and Gimi was teaching Rena how to make a tulip. They made matching pictures saying "Rena + Gimi = Friends" and then they switched pictures to take home.

Gimi and Rena also had a little competition going on with UNO Attack. Here is one time where Rena made Gimi "push" and she got LOTS of cards while Rena had only a few. Rena thought that was soooooo funny! (We actually all thought it was pretty funny!)

Peggy arrived at our house on Sunday with a broken arm. She fell on the ice on Gimi & Paul's drive way on Saturday and was all bandaged up. She didn't have the cast on it yet because they had to wait for the swelling to go down. Of course a silly broken arm wasn't slowing her down too much -- here she is getting the kids some breakfast before school......

Gimi and Peggy left this morning and were headed to LAX for Peggy's afternoon flight back home. We sure did have a good time and I miss them already!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We got home from Indio in the afternoon on the 31st and then headed over to our neighbors, The Martinez, to celebrate the New Year. We started out with some great appetizers and an ice-cream sundae bar.....

The kids were hanging out playing and watching movies.....

.....until they decided it looked like more fun to play poker with the adults! First, they organized the chips.....

.....after that just Cameron & Jacinda actually played.....

Jeff was the dealer trying to teach them (and the rest of us) how to play.....and cheat.....

Gabby, Jacinda and Cameron made it until midnight.....

.....and surprisingly so did Jeff.....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

VACATION IN INDIO

After doing our Christmas celebrating we packed up the van and headed to Indio, CA for a little vacation. It's about a 3 hour drive to get there and the kids loaded themselves up with all sorts of things to keep them happy -- including their new pillow pets, leap frog games, dolls and, of course, some new movies to watch.....

The weather wasn't very warm, but it was nice and sunny so we ate breakfast outside (only one morning, though, after that it was indoors!).....

The resort has a fun play area for the kids.....

It also has a few ponds with ducks.....

Time to swim, play and relax.....

The next day we decided to visit the ducks again, but take them some food this time.....

They were eating right out of the kids fingers.....

Too cold to eat breakfast outside, but we are on vacation so we are going to eat in the living room in front of the t.v. with fancy cups and glasses!.....

We went to The Living Desert in Palm Desert one day. It rained on and off the whole time we were there, but it was still fun.....

The resort had a fun game room. Cameron got pretty good at ping pong.....

We went to a street fair one night in downtown Palm Springs. This is Rena and Maleah wrapped up in about 4 different layers because they were so cold and then there's Jeff walking around in his shorts and flip-flops. Everyone kept asking him where he was from that he was dressed liked that.....he had to admit that he was cold and wished he had worn warmer clothes.....

We cut the trip a little bit short because we wanted to head home and spend New Year's Eve with our neighbors and friends. So, it was time to clean up and load up. This is how Jeff makes cleaning out the fridge fun for the kids -- they all stand on the counter and throw the left-over things that we can't take home with us in the sink. They each threw in eggs and then mixed it up with some milk and juice. Kids thought it was great.....

The drive back home.....

Jeff was still determined to bring a rock or two home for our yard (you might remember a few previous posts where we were searching for a rock on a mountain). We made a couple of stops and then sure enough he found a few that he loaded in the van that are now nice landscaping rocks in our front yard. I laughed at him and called him a dork at each stop that we made, but he didn't care -- he loves his rocks! :)